Hi, I'm rather new to SETI. Joined up only a few days ago, just today downloaded and installed the new BOINC client, and, though it is fairly straightforward, I am confused on one issue.

Everytime I start BOINC (After restarting the computer, after I forget it's running in a console window and close it, etc), it says...

[SETI@home] Restarting computation for result xxxx using setiathome version 3.08

Well, it doesn't use xxxx, it uses a long alpha-numeric string which I assume is a label for a work unit.

I thought that it was supposed to 'pick up' the computation where it left off, as it were. As I read the message, it's restarting the entire computation, effectivly ignoring all previous calculations made on that work unit. Am I wrong? Or does the computer need to be left on and BOINC left running for the entire computation of a paticular work unit? That would be rather inefficiant, in my opinion.

It is restarting from the point of its last write to disk. In Windows, it will show the progress in the gui client, but on linux this has to be done with a stand-alone monitor like boinctop or boincgui.

If all else fails, you can navigate to the boinc/slots/0 subdirectory and find the file named state.sah. If you open that file with a text viewer, the 4th line down will read "prog" followed by a number. That number is the progress of the work unit, with 1 being 100%. NOTE: if you open this file, be absolutely certain that nothing gets changed before you close it.

You can also adjust how frequently you want the program to write to disk in your account on the boinc site under "preferences / general". I think the default is something like 60 seconds. The only work you lose when you shut it down is the tiny amount since the last disk write.


[url=http://www.boinc.dk/index.php?page=user_statistics&userid=24497]

> If all else fails, you can navigate to the boinc/slots/0 subdirectory and find
> the file named state.sah.

This is also recorded in the BOINC home directory in the client_state.xml file under the tag.

> NOTE: if you open this file, be
> absolutely certain that nothing gets changed before you close it.

Best way to do this is with cat.

cat client_state.xml | grep

Script it, set it and forget it :)

Also, if you want to make sure it starts at bootup, I would suggest checking out
http://www.dennett.org/boincctl
Works like a charm

Warped,

That message is saying that it is indeed continuing the processing the work unit. In the GUI client in the messsages window that is the message we get also. I should not be abandoning the calculated results but instead will continue from whence it left off.

Sorry about that, sometimes I just like to use an odd word ...

there are tools for you on this page:

http://setiboinc.ssl.berkeley.edu/sah/download_network.php