I have made various posts, at least since last June (2004) about the fact that the BOINC Client does not work right. There have been few replies, sometimes none, to these posts. Is this list supposed to be a means of informing the Client developers of problems, or just a way users can amuse themselves? I do not find it especially amusing, but if that is all it is, I propose to report no more problems.

The BOINC client, at least since 4.05, but also all others since them, up to and including 4.19, do not run all the processes it should, even when work units are available. Furthermore, sometimes it runs more processes than it should.

I.e., my configurations say to run 4 application programs (when work units are available; I have a dual hyperthreaded Xeon systems with two processors that look like four: Red Hat Linux 3 ES), but frequently it runs only two or three even when work units are available. And it often runs five, which is stupid, even though I set the limit at four.

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Yes.

However, the best thing is always when users can help other users - this gives the devs more time on their hands to actually fix the problems.

I can't help you much with the problem you describe except that I can confirm that it sometimes happens that an application is "left in the ON" position when switching between apps. Usually this happens more often when running multiple projects and having the "switch apps timer" set to a low number - like below 60 mins.

Is this the case?

> Yes.
>
> However, the best thing is always when users can help other users - this gives
> the devs more time on their hands to actually fix the problems.
>
> I can't help you much with the problem you describe except that I can confirm
> that it sometimes happens that an application is "left in the ON" position
> when switching between apps. Usually this happens more often when running
> multiple projects and having the "switch apps timer" set to a low number -
> like below 60 mins.
>
> Is this the case?
>
I run setiathome, climateprediction, and protein folding.

The switch apps timer is at the recommended 60 minutes, but I will change it to 120 minutes and see if that helps.

In addition to leaving a switch on, which I infer causes too many application processes to run (5 instead of 4), it frequently runs too few.

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> > Yes.
> >
> > However, the best thing is always when users can help other users - this
> gives
> > the devs more time on their hands to actually fix the problems.
> >
> > I can't help you much with the problem you describe except that I can
> confirm
> > that it sometimes happens that an application is "left in the ON"
> position
> > when switching between apps. Usually this happens more often when
> running
> > multiple projects and having the "switch apps timer" set to a low number
> -
> > like below 60 mins.
> >
> > Is this the case?
> >
> I run setiathome, climateprediction, and protein folding.
>
> The switch apps timer is at the recommended 60 minutes, but I will change it
> to 120 minutes and see if that helps.
>
> In addition to leaving a switch on, which I infer causes too many application
> processes to run (5 instead of 4), it frequently runs too few.
>
I have now been running with the switch apps timer at 120 minutes for about three weeks. I notice no change. It runs 2, 3, 4, or 5 applications at a time, even though I have the limit set to 4 (since I have two hyperthreaded XEON processors) when there are plenty of work units available.

Two separate strategies seem to be employed for putting a client application to sleep. ClimatePrediction seems to just stop the processes, and they appear in the Stopped count. ProteinFolding and Setiathome seem to do something else, since they never appear in stopped state, though they are still in memory -- just not running.

I thing the various client applications should all do this the same way.

At the moment, only two work units are being processed (climate prediction ones) since setiathome and proteinfolding choose not to accept my completed work unites and download me fresh ones. It seem pathetic that the various applications cannot keep up a steady supply of work.

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