In the past I have noticed that PS3Grid workunits take about 140% CPU (as seen from the TOP command.) Occasionally this drops down to 100% or less but never reaches the typical 140% mark again unless I completely uninstall the entire BOINC program and then reinstall BOINC all over again.

There is one commonality in all of this (and the same occurred in the past when I used the pen drive) yoyo@home. For some reason YoYo@home workunits are very unstable on my PS3. To me it seems that BOINC does not release all of the CPU back to PS3Grid when it restarts. YoYo@home is my backup project when PS3Grid goes down. But nearly always, BOINC Manager or PS3Grid is corrupt after a yoyo@home WU starts (and eventually fails).

So my question is this, does anyone else see this particular problem happen to them? and, is this a BOINC Manager problem or a PS3GRID/YOYO problem?

Tim

Also, I\'m going to try and let the current PS3Grid WU finish but it is already at 28 hours and running between 90-100% CPU, if it appears that it will not make it I\'ll probably abort and then reinstall *again*.

Hi,
Maybe the CPU usage is tied to the new Wu\'s??? Or you have another problem.

I was thinking the same thing, but this has happened numerous times in the past as well. At some point the CPU usage drops to below 100 and never goes back up again. It usually takes a very drastic move such as a complete reinstall of BOINC. It became so bad with the pen drive that I actually had to reinstall YDL from scratch. Thanks for the reply. Anyone else have any info?

Here is an update: my current PS3GRID WU has been crunching at ~100% CPU for 42 hours now. I have no idea if any work is actually being done or if the CPU is simply spinning in circles. There is something going on here. Does anyone from the project (ie. someone who *should* take this project seriously) know why this has happened?

This is clearly a problem but nothing has changed over the last few months. This project is seriously lacking a leader and that\'s really too bad because there is so much potential here to do some good. Try not to give me the standby response of \"sorry for the problems, this is a BETA project you know!\" That\'s BS, if this were a BETA project then perhaps our fearless leader would be interested in the problems that this project has. Instead, problems with WU\'s occur often without a fix in sight or as often is the case, work is lacking in the first place (see the server, again!)

The bottom line is this: the contributors to this project deserve a voice in this but too often there is no one around to listen and if there is I get the feeling that that certain someone wouldn\'t give a second thought to it in the first place. Sir, there is something wrong with either the BOINC build or your program, it\'s time to figure out what that is.

Timothy

Another update:

At the 48 hour mark I rebooted my PS3. Upon restart a couple of things occurred, first; PS3Grid \"lost\" 30 hours of work, meaning it fell back to its last checkpoint (obviously this was a bad WU and probably a bad app and even probably a bad BOINC build)

Second, even when the PS3Grid WU was running it was taking no CPU resources, meaning it is now dead. I suspended this WU and the second PS3Grid WU started. This too said it was running but again, it was taking zero CPU resources. I then tried a YoYo WU, this one has begun and is taking 100% CPU currently and I should know in a couple of hours if it completes.

FWIW, in the past, once a PS3Grid WU failed for any reason the entire BOINC Manager and all of the applications become corrupt and the only way to fix this is to completely reinstall BOINC and attach to each application again.

Major Problem here...I can\'t wait for the day GDF (aka. the head guy) actually fixes his app or at the very least offers some sign of encouragement. I\'m truly saddened by the serious lack of leadership around here...Perhaps its time to move on.

Timothy

I\'m currently in this state too, I have one WU that is at 1 day 16:12:41 work done and now it won\'t process any further. I tried suspending it, it kicked into the second WU, but that one won\'t process at all either. Not sure what I should do at this point, maybe a reinstall of Boinc? But then I\'ll lose the over 1.5 days of work that\'s been done already... Anyone? In case it matters, I\'m running with an installed version of YDL, not off a USB drive.

-Dave

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Sorry to hear that your problem sounds terminal Timothy. But, it seems like it can be solved in the short term by re-installing the client. But with no new WU\'s, that is not much of a solution. Unfortunately, not every project admin checks their server before going home for the weekend....

A long term solution may prove to be a bit elusive.

Hopefully, \"The Head Guy\" (Heh heh) will address your problem, to everyone\'s benefit.

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Consciousness: That annoying time between naps......

Experience is a wonderful thing: it enables you to recognize a mistake every time you repeat it.

I\'m currently in this state too, I have one WU that is at 1 day 16:12:41 work done and now it won\'t process any further. I tried suspending it, it kicked into the second WU, but that one won\'t process at all either. Not sure what I should do at this point, maybe a reinstall of Boinc? But then I\'ll lose the over 1.5 days of work that\'s been done already... Anyone? In case it matters, I\'m running with an installed version of YDL, not off a USB drive.

-Dave

Unfortunately, I do believe the only answer in this case is to completely reinstall BOINC and then reattach. I have done this 3 times in the past (maybe more?) and will most likely do it again soon. I have had this exact problem with both the USB drive and YDL so I think we are a bit out of luck. We\'re out of work right now anyhow so don\'t do anything until work is flowing again. Instead might I suggest attaching to YoYo@home to see if there WU will work on this build. Best of luck and thank you for posting.

Timothy

Sorry to hear that your problem sounds terminal Timothy. But, it seems like it can be solved in the short term by re-installing the client. But with no new WU\'s, that is not much of a solution. Unfortunately, not every project admin checks their server before going home for the weekend....

A long term solution may prove to be a bit elusive.

Hopefully, \"The Head Guy\" (Heh heh) will address your problem, to everyone\'s benefit.

Thanks for the words of encouragement :) I did process one YoYo@home WU that validated just minutes ago. I can\'t decide if it is this BOINC build or the PS3Grid app that is causing such problems but either way the frustration is mounting. Thanks for the reply, hopefully someone will be listening in soon.

Timothy

Unfortunately, I do believe the only answer in this case is to completely reinstall BOINC and then reattach. I have done this 3 times in the past (maybe more?) and will most likely do it again soon. I have had this exact problem with both the USB drive and YDL so I think we are a bit out of luck. We\'re out of work right now anyhow so don\'t do anything until work is flowing again. Instead might I suggest attaching to YoYo@home to see if there WU will work on this build. Best of luck and thank you for posting.

Timothy

I\'ve attached to Yoyo, I have a WU that seems to be processing right now.

-Dave

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Hey Timothy!

I have three PS3s all with YDL installed, and I never had to reinstall BOINC since they are running...
For me it looks like the PS3GRID app, or maybe only certain workunits are faulty, but not the BOINC client.
I too had some workunits that got stuck after 15+ hours and then were sitting idle for hours until I noticed it, or had workunits claiming the normal 3000+ credits but got only 50 credits granted (and never got an explanation or only a simple \"sorry I don´t know why that happened\"), but after a reset and a fresh download of the app. and a new workunit (if there was one) everything worked again... I never had to reinstall BOINC, and actually I don´t really understand it why you have to - BOINC is only the framework and doesn´t do any computations.

I also have Yoyo as a backup project running, and there are no problems if PS3GRID has work again, with switching back to it... Are you sure you have your PS3 in another venue (like work) than your normal computers? And are you really sure that you have unchecked the \"leave apps in memory\" for that location? Is your YDL install up to date? This are the only things I can think of...

As for GDF and the no work issue - I have sent him an email once again yesterday, but got no reply... So it seems like we have to wait until monday to get new work...

Well... it seems that´s the downside of crunching with the PS3... There are not enough projects which support it...
But Einstein@home is working on a app for the PS3 (until now they have only one that uses only the PPE), and Seti is looking for a someone who ports their app to the Cell BE, so we might be more lucky with choosing our projects for the PS3 in the future!

Cheers,
Stefan

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Hey Timothy!

I have three PS3s all with YDL installed, and I never had to reinstall BOINC since they are running...
For me it looks like the PS3GRID app, or maybe only certain workunits are faulty, but not the BOINC client.
I too had some workunits that got stuck after 15+ hours and then were sitting idle for hours until I noticed it, or had workunits claiming the normal 3000+ credits but got only 50 credits granted (and never got an explanation or only a simple \"sorry I don´t know why that happened\"), but after a reset and a fresh download of the app. and a new workunit (if there was one) everything worked again... I never had to reinstall BOINC, and actually I don´t really understand it why you have to - BOINC is only the framework and doesn´t do any computations.

I also have Yoyo as a backup project running, and there are no problems if PS3GRID has work again, with switching back to it... Are you sure you have your PS3 in another venue (like work) than your normal computers? And are you really sure that you have unchecked the \"leave apps in memory\" for that location? Is your YDL install up to date? This are the only things I can think of...


Cheers,
Stefan

Hi Stefan,

I\'ve checked my venue for the PS3 and all seems ok and the app does not stay in memory when switched to a YoYo WU. I did grab one WU last night that just started about 10 minutes ago and has CPU around 120% (this is pretty normal) the kicker though, I reinstalled BOINC last night too. I am nearly certain that had I not done so the WU would not be running over 100% CPU right now.

I can\'t say whether this is an app issue or a BOINC issue and I agree that BOINC itself does not do the crunching but I do believe BOINC allocates the resources in the first place. If I were a betting man I would simply state that there is an issue with the allocation of CPU cycles after another app (yoyo) has finished a WU. At this point it could be a PS3 Grid problem, a BOINC problem and possibly a YoYo problem as well. I don\'t know but also its not my job to figure it out.

At times my PS3 works perfectly but the instant PS3Grid switches to YoYo all hell breaks loose. There is definitely a bug here and it must be fixed. Don\'t get me wrong, I appreciate your advice and take it very seriously but the man who should be looking into this is simply not (and it seems never has nor will he ever). I hope you can understand my frustration. Look at the boards recently, this is happening to many people not just me. This is not simply a local issue, this is system wide, therefore a very serious problem.

Timothy

I\'ve attached to Yoyo, I have a WU that seems to be processing right now.

-Dave

An update on my system. I let it run all night with PS3Grid suspended, it did about 1175 credits of Yoyo, I then un-suspended PS3Grid, it started the over-1 day unit again, but made no process on it for several hours, so I aborted that WU. It then started on the other PS3Grid unit I have in my cache, but it\'s now made no progress on that one for some time, so in a little while, if it\'s still showing no progress, I\'ll be aborting that one, too.

-Dave

[edit] the second PS3Grid unit is currently showing some progress, so maybe the other unit was just bad?

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Timothy,

Maybe I shouldn´t say that as a moderator, but I agree with you about the lack of comunication on this project... I´m not sure if our work and the money we put into the hardware and electricity bills, is really appreciated by the project staff...
Also it is a little bit frustrating to get no answers to our questions. Bug reports are beeing ignored, or you get a \"I don´t know what´s going wrong\" as an answer... That´s probably not the best way to lead a BOINC project!

The server is going crazy again - there were a few workunits available today, but now it is out of work again, but it seems nobody feels that we users should also know what´s going on.

Well... to come back to your issue with switching projects on the PS3 - if you would like to do a test if the PS3GRID BOINC client causes these problems, you could try another one! On this site you can download BOINC Clients for many Operating Systems and architectures. There is also a 5.10.17 BOINC Client for Linux on the PS3 available, maybe that helps to track down where the problem lies...

I haven´t tried this Client myself yet, therefore I would recomend to not try it with a PS3GRID WU that already ran for several hours!

Stefan

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Timothy,

Maybe I shouldn´t say that as a moderator, but I agree with you about the lack of comunication on this project... I´m not sure if our work and the money we put into the hardware and electricity bills, is really appreciated by the project staff...
Also it is a little bit frustrating to get no answers to our questions. Bug reports are beeing ignored, or you get a \"I don´t know what´s going wrong\" as an answer... That´s probably not the best way to lead a BOINC project!

The server is going crazy again - there were a few workunits available today, but now it is out of work again, but it seems nobody feels that we users should also know what´s going on.

Well... to come back to your issue with switching projects on the PS3 - if you would like to do a test if the PS3GRID BOINC client causes these problems, you could try another one! On this site you can download BOINC Clients for many Operating Systems and architectures. There is also a 5.10.17 BOINC Client for Linux on the PS3 available, maybe that helps to track down where the problem lies...

I haven´t tried this Client myself yet, therefore I would recomend to not try it with a PS3GRID WU that already ran for several hours!

Stefan

Thanks for the response Stefan, I appreciate it (and just because you moderate these forums does not mean you cannot voice an opinion, especially an opinion we all pay attention to!).

I\'m not too Linux savvy, how does one install the 5.10.17 BOINC Client? I tried last night but was stuck pretty much after downloading it (its not an .exe like windows :) How do I unpack it and where do I install it at? Will I need to uninstall the current BOINC client and if so, how do I do that? Thanks for the help!

Timothy

[
I\'m not too Linux savvy, how does one install the 5.10.17 BOINC Client? I tried last night but was stuck pretty much after downloading it (its not an .exe like windows :) How do I unpack it and where do I install it at? Will I need to uninstall the current BOINC client and if so, how do I do that? Thanks for the help!

Timothy

Timothy,
First do:
gunzip boinc51017_11.linux-ppc.tar.gz
That should leave you with
boinc51017_11.linux-ppc.tar
in the directory you downloaded to, then do:
tar -xvf boinc51017_11.linux-ppc.tar
That should extract all the files, in verbose, so you can see
what\'s being extracted.

HTH,
-Dave

[edit]
Oh, and if the files that get unpacked aren\'t put where you run Boinc from, you\'ll have to move them there, that\'s why the \"v\" arg, so you can see if
they\'re going to the same place...

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[
I\'m not too Linux savvy, how does one install the 5.10.17 BOINC Client? I tried last night but was stuck pretty much after downloading it (its not an .exe like windows :) How do I unpack it and where do I install it at? Will I need to uninstall the current BOINC client and if so, how do I do that? Thanks for the help!

Timothy

Timothy,
First do:
gunzip boinc51017_11.linux-ppc.tar.gz
That should leave you with
boinc51017_11.linux-ppc.tar
in the directory you downloaded to, then do:
tar -xvf boinc51017_11.linux-ppc.tar
That should extract all the files, in verbose, so you can see
what\'s being extracted.

HTH,
-Dave

[edit]
Oh, and if the files that get unpacked aren\'t put where you run Boinc from, you\'ll have to move them there, that\'s why the \"v\" arg, so you can see if
they\'re going to the same place...

Thanks Dave. And this is all from the console right?

Hi Tim and Dave!

Does it really work with your instructions Dave?
Unfortunately I don´t have the time now to try it for myself, I only downloaded the .tar.gz on my Windows computer and found this readme in it...

boinc binary for Linux PPC

This is binary was compiled from the orignial sources from boinc.berkeley.edu.

The original sources from Berkely where not been modified.

Compiled on OS : Debian 4.0 (GLIBC 2.3)
Compiled from : Lars Bausch (lars at dotsch dot de)
Compiled on : 29.12.2007
Boinc Version : 5.10.17
Required patches : Have a look at /opt/boinc/doc/install
Required libs : The required libs are included in this package.
Please set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH before you start the BOINC
client : \"LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/boinc/lib ; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH\"

Should run on : Linux PPC with GLIBC >= 2.3
Last change : 29.12.07
Release : 1.1
Source Code Changes : None
Changes : V.1.1 : Fixed some library related problems
Special thanks to : David Anderson, Eric Korpela, Stefan Urbat, Ursmed

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Hi Tim and Dave!

Does it really work with your instructions Dave?

Sorry, I don\'t know if the install works, I just know how to unpack the archive, I haven\'t tried the install myself. Once you do the gunzip and tar commands, you should be able to look at what\'s in the archive and maybe tell what to do based on that? If you do install it, and get it working, maybe post so others know...

-Dave

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the second PS3Grid unit is currently showing some progress, so maybe the other unit was just bad?

Well, an update on the above unit, it\'s now over deadline, and 40 hours in, so between that and the last one, I\'m now at over 80 hours of wasted electrons... and it\'s still going. I guess I should just abort it at this point.

-Dave

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