The connection has timed out

The server at www.gpugrid.net is taking too long to respond.

I am getting this more and more often, usually every couple of minutes. And trying to set up machines is getting to be impossible. It is hard to even post this.

I suggest that GPUGrid look into it while they still have some users left.

Not an official response, but from another volunteer: I haven't had any issues. Maybe it's locally, with your ISP or a larger routing issue?

Not an official response, but from another volunteer: I haven't had any issues. Maybe it's locally, with your ISP or a larger routing issue?

Thanks. I was wondering why there were not more complaints. I don't have problems with other projects, but there must be something about this route. It has been bad for a long time, and getting worse.

(Possibly a change in DNS servers will help.)

I've been getting this problem for a while now myself. 1st or 2nd attempt for connection to GPUGrid.net time out. Then the next attempt gets through. If I make a task download request on one system, then invariably the next system to make a request gets a very long request cycle or times out.

That is it. But my own ISP's DNS servers have been known to be unreliable in the past, so I have now set the OpenDNS servers in my router:

OpenDNS
Primary: 208.67.222.222
Secondary: 208.67.220.220

Thus far, they are connecting without a problem, which is an improvement.

My experience is like Keith's. I have up to five computers attached to GPUGrid, all on the same home LAN and connected via a single router - so all sharing the same public IP address.

Any one computer can contact the project at full speed. But if two computers try to connect in quick succession, the second can't establish communications. This occurs at the operating system/web server level, not at the BOINC level. Allowing a few minutes pause with no activity allows the next attempt to go through at normal speed.

That is it. But my own ISP's DNS servers have been known to be unreliable in the past, so I have now set the OpenDNS servers in my router:

OpenDNS
Primary: 208.67.222.222
Secondary: 208.67.220.220

Thus far, they are connecting without a problem, which is an improvement.

You can try google's public DNS servers too:

Primary:   8.8.8.8
Secondary: 8.8.4.4

Or Cloudflare's:

Primary:   1.1.1.1
Secondary: 1.0.0.1

- OR -
Windows users can put GPUGrid's IP address to the the hosts file of the OS, in this way the OS don't have to ask the DNS servers for GPUGrid's IP address. (however you have to change it manually if the IP address changes)
Press Windows key + R
Type, or copy and paste the following:

notepad c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

insert the following line at the end of the file:

84.89.134.145 www.gpugrid.net

save and exit from notepad

Probably there's a similar workaround for Linux.

BTW from the description of the error I suspect that this is not a DNS issue, rather session limit / bandwidth problem.

I get this too in the US. Using a proxy server located in the EU immediately solves the timeouts. Turn off the VPN and timeouts again. It's absolutely location based. Watching upload speeds go down and down then spike back up then drop and drop in a continuous loop says there are network issues somewhere crossing the pond.

If it was a DNS problem, you would see entries like

27-May-2018 02:10:07 [Einstein@Home] Scheduler request failed: Couldn't resolve host name

in the BOINC Event log. That's the only failure I've had since April, and it wasn't concerning GPUGrid.

If it was a DNS problem, you would see entries like
27-May-2018 02:10:07 [Einstein@Home] Scheduler request failed: Couldn't resolve host name in the BOINC Event log.

I haven't seen that, but I wasn't looking for it when I had the failures, and have rebooted since, so that log is gone (maybe saved?). But since switching to OpenDNS, website access has been much faster and more reliable. But I still got one failure, so I created a hosts file entry as Zoltan suggested. It seems to have eliminated the problem entirely. Previously, I could not connect twice in succession, but had to wait a couple of minutes between attempts.

EDIT: The problems that I have noticed are only on my Windows7 64-bit machine where I access the website with Firefox. I do the crunching (both CPU and GPU) on dedicated Ubuntu machines that I access over the LAN, and haven't noticed any hung transfers there in BoincTasks. Maybe any problems there are just hidden, I don't know. But it could be a Windows issue?

EDIT2: The BoincTask logs for my Ubuntu machines are still available after several days, since I don't reboot them often, and I don't see any DNS or other problems there, for whatever that is worth. In fact, it may just be a Firefox timing issue of some sort.

Next time it happens, I'll do some digging in the event logs. That probably won't be until we get a Windows GPU workflow running again - I've set 'no new work' except for one test probe for the time being.

I use one machine to view the website, but five to contact the BOINC scheduler for the project. I most commonly have problems contacting the scheduler, but it can affect the website and upload/download servers too.

If it was a DNS problem, you would see entries like
27-May-2018 02:10:07 [Einstein@Home] Scheduler request failed: Couldn't resolve host name in the BOINC Event log.

I haven't seen that, but I wasn't looking for it when I had the failures, and have rebooted since, so that log is gone (maybe saved?). But since switching to OpenDNS, website access has been much faster and more reliable. But I still got one failure, so I created a hosts file entry as Zoltan suggested. It seems to have eliminated the problem entirely. Previously, I could not connect twice in succession, but had to wait a couple of minutes between attempts.

EDIT: The problems that I have noticed are only on my Windows7 64-bit machine where I access the website with Firefox. I do the crunching (both CPU and GPU) on dedicated Ubuntu machines that I access over the LAN, and haven't noticed any hung transfers there in BoincTasks. Maybe any problems there are just hidden, I don't know. But it could be a Windows issue?

EDIT2: The BoincTask logs for my Ubuntu machines are still available after several days, since I don't reboot them often, and I don't see any DNS or other problems there, for whatever that is worth. In fact, it may just be a Firefox timing issue of some sort.

Its not FF as the website hangs for me too with Chrome. And the variable upload speeds I see are from Ubuntu.

My symptoms are exactly as Richard described. I have mostly Linux machines with one Windows 10 machine. I have the problem on all machines so not OS specific.

I have never seen any BOINC network issues logged even with http_debug set. BOINC never indicates a problem. Just the website is inaccessible to any machine if any other machine has contacted it within a minute recently. The first machine has a normal connection with fast response and downloads. For any subsequent connection on another machine I need to wait for five minutes before attempting connection to get a good connection.

I have multiple DNS resources available to any machine on any connection. Think it is a bandwidth issue from California to GPUGrid.net. Can't even open up another tab to GPUGrid.net and connect on this same computer tab that I am typing this reply and have the other tab connect.

Frustrating.

It could be one of the negative side effects of discarding net neutrality.

It could be one of the negative side effects of discarding net neutrality.

Some ISP would have to be monitoring you pretty carefully to distinguish between the first and second attempt. And I am not sure what they would gain. I have 50 Mbps down/10 Mbps up for a flat rate. I don't think they care what it is. At least they haven't tried to charge me more for the second attempt to GPUGrid. Chances are, the problem is more at the project end, but I don't know if you are seeing it in Europe?

... but I don't know if you are seeing it in Europe?

I now have tried to open various GPUGRID pages one after the other, in a sequence of a few seconds - no problem here (in Austria) ...

no problem here (in Austria) ...

I wonder if there is more than one problem? Since fixing the DNS issue, I can open multiple web pages here without a problem that I see. There may be something slow in getting across the Atlantic though that does not appear in Europe.

It could be one of the negative side effects of discarding net neutrality.

Some ISP would have to be monitoring you pretty carefully to distinguish between the first and second attempt. And I am not sure what they would gain. I have 50 Mbps down/10 Mbps up for a flat rate.

I suggest you to use http://speedtest.net and choose a server in Barcelona to test your connection speed (at different times of a day).

I don't think they care what it is. At least they haven't tried to charge me more for the second attempt to GPUGrid.

That's what a flat rate is about. But if they prioritize traffic from Netflix, or Amazon or whatever content provider which pays for them, traffic of other parties will suffer. International / Intercontinental data traffic costs a lot (for your ISP), because to build the data lines on the bottom of the ocean have cost a lot, also they have limited transfer speed (compared to the number of computers connected through these lines); so your ISP do care about to where their customers connect in the world (called traffic shaping and QoS Quality of Service).

Chances are, the problem is more at the project end, but I don't know if you are seeing it in Europe?

Rarely, but it's because we're closer (geographically; also IT wise: there are less IT equipment connecting GPUGrid's server and my computers than computers on other continents).

Speedtest from Barcelona is no problem, about the same as the U.S.
https://postimg.cc/gallery/1jo3afioi/

I usually have no problem with Europe, since I am not that far (probably less than 200 km) from where the cable lands. I download routinely from CERN at over 1 Mbps for example.

Net neutrality really is not it. That is for the large video services, and I have never seen it even there yet. It is more a theoretical possibility. They would have to charge me more to make any money from it, and they have never tried to do that yet. There is plenty of bandwidth in the U.S. Cutting down on something like GPUGrid would cost them more to monitor than it is worth. About the only exception I can think of is wireless, which is monitored more anyway.

But my problem is solved. It appears that is not the case for everyone, which is why it might be more than just DNS, but I am not enough of a network expert to suggest beyond that. (I am resisting the temptation to say that it is a GDPR check, but probably won't be able to for long.)

Speedtest from Barcelona is no problem, about the same as the U.S.

That is good news, while it makes the original issue really strange.
However it could be a misconfigured router, which we can't figure out.

Net neutrality really is not it.

Ok, that was only one of many possibilities. It could be any large traffic (on any router in between) which hinders others (for example torrent traffic drastically increases when a new episode of a popular series is released on torrent sites).

I am not enough of a network expert to suggest beyond that.

Neither am I, and even if one of us would be, it couldn't be figured out without analyzing router traffic logs which is available only for the ISP staff.

(I am resisting the temptation to say that it is a GDPR check, but probably won't be able to for long.)

GDPR (beside being a pain in the arse for European companies too) is about handling personal data, not about handling (shaping) data traffic. If the issue would be based on GDPR, it would cause problems with your connection with CERN too.