Formula BOINC 2024

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

Formula BOINC 2023 will finish on 31st December 2023 and I'm just wondering, how many of the team are interested in taking part in 2024, assuming Sebastien thinks it is a good idea to continue.

So, please vote on this and if not enough members want to participate, then I'll remove UBT from the teams list for 2024.

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

If we are running I'll continue to support UBT's FB challenge, however in your shoes I would be leaning over to pull the plug, the sprint stats have already spoken.

We are in a reasonable position at the end of this year, there's hardly any doubt that we are going significantly downwards next year.

The support for recent sprints has been all but absent. Marathon wise looks good but some of the big hitters have left during the year. It is what it is, times have changed.

I doubt I'll be fully supporting BG but never say never.

[UBT - Timbo]

Hiya

Thanks for your kind reply.

I think if the "team" cannot muster enough support, then it will be frankly quite embarrassing for UBT to continue in the Sprints...although it would be quite good, given the numbers of UBT members who support multiple BOINC projects, that we might be able to generate some FB points during the Marathon, esp if we focus on maybe a small number of projects, as ChelseaOilman suggested previously.

But, without any big hitters within UBT, who are willing to switch between the various Sprint projects every couple of weeks, then it might be better to focus on non-Sprint projects, as other teams will use their crunching power on the Sprint projects and hence will not be racking up BOINC credits on any of the alternative Marathon projects.

And with there being 24 Sprints during the year, that's 72 days of crunching that UBT could spend beefing up our Marathon efforts?

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

I'd be reluctant to dedicate to specific projects long term unless they coincided with my priorities (Denis, Rosetta and WCG - when they are available and working properly).

At the current time, to be in the top ten overall but using marathon only we would have to be 7th in the marathon. Roughly double the marathon points we currently have.

The projects we scored in this year are (best first)

Private GFN
Milkway
Ramunjam
Denis
TN-Grid
Gerasim
Ithena Comp
NFS
Rosetta
Loda
Cosmology
LHC
Wanless Mersenne +2

We do best mostly in awkward projects - awkward being low scoring or highly intermittent etc

That is 13 projects, to get in the overall top ten we would have to come first in seven projects of the marathon (7 X 25 = 175 points) or other combinations of more than seven projects. A surprising conclusion but unfortunately that doesn't appear to be feasible, I guess this is why TSBT concentrate on sprints so much, the sprints double your points in 72 days (20% of the year).

The sprints should only contribute towards 20% of the overall points otherwise it makes it heavily spint-centric like it currently is. (very slightly inaccurate because sprint credits also add to marathon credits)

EDIT: Conversely, our marathon only score this year would have got us 15th overall without sprints which I suppose isn't too bad.

[wbiz]

Formula Boinc 2024 is cancelled

[UBT - Timbo]

Formula Boinc 2024 is cancelled

Hiya

Errr...not quite - Sebastien (the FB admin) has been in contact with me and has offered to re-code the back office functions so that it can carry on, and even for it to be moved to a new server.

It might take a while, and if he had actually got in touch some time ago with his plan to shut it down, it could have been resolved and migrated with time to spare. But for now, I need to see if his offer turns into reality so that FB can carry on.

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

Formula Boinc 2024 is cancelled

Hiya

Errr...not quite - Sebastien (the FB admin) has been in contact with me and has offered to re-code the back office functions so that it can carry on, and even for it to be moved to a new server.

It might take a while, and if he had actually got in touch some time ago with his plan to shut it down, it could have been resolved and migrated with time to spare. But for now, I need to see if his offer turns into reality so that FB can carry on.

regards
Tim

Interesting!

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

If anyone is interested, I've just posted some news about the 2024 FB Season here:

https://formula-boinc.org/forum/viewtop ... 3487#p3487

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

Sebastien has been working hard and there is now an updated FB website, in advance of the 2024 Season starting:

https://formula-boinc.org/

I've now posted some news about the forthcoming Sprints and you can check out the various new postings I've uploaded today here:

https://formula-boinc.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=26

and here:

https://formula-boinc.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=25

And click below if you have not registered as a Member (which is voluntary and you can still take part, due to your BOINC credits being counted as part of the team totals, (although you will not be listed individually, UNLESS you register).

https://formula-boinc.org/howtoregister.py

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

If you visit any of the BOINC project messageboards, you may notice some publicity I've created to try and generate more interest in Formula BOINC for 2024.

And example is here:

https://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=10466

And even before I started posting (on various project websites), new members have already started to sign up and get involved !

https://formula-boinc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=403

Maybe some UBT team members might want to join in?

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

Has the FB 2024 marathon started or is it going to be reset and started at some future date?

Is the marathon going to chunked into quarters or only an annual total?

[UBT - Timbo]

Has the FB 2024 marathon started or is it going to be reset and started at some future date?

Is the marathon going to chunked into quarters or only an annual total?

Hiya

The Marathon has not started yet, as Sebastien is still testing how it all the new coding is working. And once this ends (on/about 26th February) then I am assuming that the current stats will all be reset.

And I have a strong feeling that the Marathon will actually be re-branded as the "Season 2024 Race".

As for breaking up the Marathon into quarters? It hasn't happened in previous years although I know that BOINC Games have done this last year and this year.

So, the FB Marathon will be straight forward race, using credits/stats from multiple projects. However, if the code is fixed, then it is very possible that promotions and relegations between various Leagues will take place, at one (or more) times during the year.

And don't forget that the Sprint "Test Event" takes place 23rd-25th February, a few days before the first official Sprint (28th Feb-2nd March).

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

Thanks, yes, I'm getting confused between the two competitions now. TBH it would be nice if it was chunked monthly but I suppose the leagues a similar effect just from a different perspective. I didn't realise leagues changed throughout the year.

I'll put in some effort throughout the test sprint but I might not be melting solder depending on the project

One thing that would be nice to be fixed on FB, the selected league stays the same on user stats for different user related pages (which is good), but reverts to L1 when you select different pages on team related pages (which is a pain).

[UBT - Timbo]

Thanks, yes, I'm getting confused between the two competitions now. TBH it would be nice if it was chunked monthly but I suppose the leagues a similar effect just from a different perspective. I didn't realise leagues changed throughout the year.

Hiya

Until now, the FB league composition has NOT changed during the season - but it was due to happen last year, but the coding mechanism didn't work and Sebastien was AWOL so it wasn't fixed.

For 2024, there are now 3 Leagues of Teams and 3 Leagues of Members and if Sebastien has fixed the coding, then promotions and relegations will happen this year !

I'll put in some effort throughout the test sprint but I might not be melting solder depending on the project

One thing that would be nice to be fixed on FB, the selected league stays the same on user stats for different user related pages (which is good), but reverts to L1 when you select different pages on team related pages (which is a pain).

OK - sounds good - just be aware that any Test Sprint FB points earned will be reset after the Test Sprint ends (but of course, BOINC credits will be earned from the project).

re: the L1 issue you mention

I cannot replicate this. If I look at the Team League 3 for instance and then click on various team names to see their stats, when I go back from the specific teams info to the earlier page, I am still showing League 3.

But I would just bookmark the page you want to return to, so for Team League 2, it is this:

Code: Select all

https://formula-boinc.org/index.py?standing=team&division=2&race=1

regards
Tim

[ChelseaOilman]

I signed up as a user since the team I'm on now doesn't want to participate as a team. Can't say I blame them due to the over the top antics of some of the other teams. It will be interesting to see how it goes. Hopefully better than it has in the past.

[wbiz]

re: the L1 issue you mention

I cannot replicate this. If I look at the Team League 3 for instance and then click on various team names to see their stats, when I go back from the specific teams info to the earlier page, I am still showing League 3.

But I would just bookmark the page you want to return to, so for Team League 2, it is this:

Code: Select all

https://formula-boinc.org/index.py?standing=team&division=2&race=1

regards
Tim

Strange, I can't get it to go wrong now, as you say, it is done by url/get not post/cookie so it should be idiot-proof (no comments please). The other day I was calling it impolite names because it went back to L1 every time which was very tedious, I only tried it with users today and that was fine, I should have rechecked teams.

[UBT - Timbo]

Strange, I can't get it to go wrong now, as you say, it is done by url/get not post/cookie so it should be idiot-proof (no comments please). The other day I was calling it impolite names because it went back to L1 every time which was very tedious, I only tried it with users today and that was fine, I should have rechecked teams.

Hiya

I do not doubt what you have seen, BUT the website is being updated/tweaked constantly, as Sebastien continues to sort out any glitches.

So, it is a work in progress rather than the finished article.

And this may continue to be the case for a few days/weeks, as Sebastien hasn't signed off the re-coding efforts yet !

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

Strange, I can't get it to go wrong now, as you say, it is done by url/get not post/cookie so it should be idiot-proof (no comments please). The other day I was calling it impolite names because it went back to L1 every time which was very tedious, I only tried it with users today and that was fine, I should have rechecked teams.

Hiya

I do not doubt what you have seen, BUT the website is being updated/tweaked constantly, as Sebastien continues to sort out any glitches.

So, it is a work in progress rather than the finished article.

And this may continue to be the case for a few days/weeks, as Sebastien hasn't signed off the re-coding efforts yet !

regards
Tim

Found it again, as soon as tried to do comparisons.

From this page (which has division 2 in its url) https://formula-boinc.org/index.py?race ... m&team=225 and you click on any project and it loses the division.

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

The Formula BOINC Test Sprint project name will be announced in 24 hours time here:

https://formula-boinc.org/sprints.py?st ... sprintid=2

And the actual Test Sprint will run from 00:01 UTC on 23rd Feb until 23:59 UTC on 25th Feb.

Once the Test Sprint is over and assuming no issues are found then the RESULTS and FB POINTS will be zeroed. Of course any BOINC credits you earn will be valid and retained.

So, if you fancy helping out for 48 hours over the coming few days, it'll be greatly appreciated.

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

The Project chosen for the Test Sprint is PrimeGrid.

So, as from tonight at midnight, any BOINC credits you are awarded by PrimeGrid (from then on and for the following 48 hours), will be collated and displayed on the FB website here:

https://formula-boinc.org/sprints.py?ra ... sprintid=2

Please feel free to stress test the FB stats collection function !!

regards and good luck
Tim

[wbiz]

Second Formula Boinc Sprint of 2024 tonight (Wednesday) at 1700 UTC

[wbiz]

Second sprint is Asteroids, we are currently in 5th place so off to a good start.

https://formula-boinc.org/sprints.py?ra ... sprintid=4

[UBT - Timbo]

Second sprint is Asteroids, we are currently in 5th place so off to a good start.

https://formula-boinc.org/sprints.py?ra ... sprintid=4

Hiya

Thanks for posting this - I've been a bit busy at work, plus due to the Asteroids project website having some BIG issues, I've been fielding FB members queries about the Sprint !

And as we speak the Asteroids website is now having SSL certificate issues as well as it being slow and unresponsive previously.

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

The letsencrypt certificate for asteroids expired March 8th so partly coincidental, presumably the autorenew has failed due to the server being so slow.

https://crt.sh/?q=asteroidsathome.net

[wbiz]

Asteroids is all fine now, latest stats show we are 4th in the current sprint, sprint ends Saturday 9th March at 1900 UTC

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

There's been an interesting post on the Asteroids message board here:

https://asteroidsathome.net/boinc/forum ... ostid=8295

which states:

Posted: 9 Mar 2024, 16:14:28 UTC
I have some news from admins, there was a DOS attack from China's network on the website 1000 to 8000 connections at a time. They took some preventive measures. It's hard to say if there's any connection with the Challenge though, it could be just a coincidence.

So, this seems to be a sad coincidence...but at least it gives some insight into the perverse way in which hackers and others want to cause damage and distress to genuine internet users.

This seems to be more prevalent in recent times, with hackers from various countries doing their best to unsettle and disrupt the internet just because they want to.

Hopefully, these "bad actors" can be found and efforts are made to block any future problems.

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

We ended at 4th in the second sprint with at least twenty UBT members contributing to our result

Our current position in the 2nd division ....

3rd in the Overall Sprints
3rd in the Marathon
3rd in the Overall Standings.

Next sprint in nearly two weeks time starting on Thursday 21st March 0600 UTC.

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

(repost from FB forum):

So, I've been in contact with one of the admins at Asteroids project and he has advised me the following:

1) There *was* a DDOS attack that was launched from a single IP address that is (supposedly) in China - most likely a VPN assigned to carry this data from another IP.

2) The attack started at 19:30 UTC - just *30 minutes* after the start of the Sprint.

There is probably no way of ascertaining who was responsible...so, I will not point any fingers at anyone...but if they are reading this, please do not do this again. It is unfair to ALL of the volunteers donating their resources to any project, so you are not just screwing anyone involved in the Sprint but you are also affecting thousands of other people, as well as disrupting the project itself.

And I am lead to believe that can be construed as an illegal act that can lead to imprisonment...

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

The project selected for Sprint #3 is SRBase

I am grateful to Rebirther, the SRBaase admin, for stepping in at very short notice to replace the originally selected project, who to give them credit, did actually contact me but with less than 12 hours to go before the start, and by then it was too late to go with them.

So, good luck everyone.

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

The 4th FB Sprint starts on 4th April at 08:00 UTC and runs until 7th April at the same time.

It'll be interesting to see how well all the FB teams fare on this Challenge as BOINC Games has chosen the exact same weekend to hold their 2nd Sprint from 02:00 UTC on 5th April until the same time on 9th April.

I wonder if they will choose the same project...

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

The 5th FB Sprint starts tomorrow (18th April) at 10:00 UTC and runs until 21st April at the same time.

No issues are expected (according to the project admins)

regards
Tim

[UBT - Timbo]

Hi all

The project selected for Sprint #5 is Gerasim

Good luck to anyone taking part.

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

You're off to a quick start Tim.

I can't do much on this one, I've retired two linux boxes and Gerasim refuses to talk to my three windows computers.

18/04/2024 11:29:18 | Gerasim@home | Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
18/04/2024 11:29:18 | Gerasim@home | Requesting new tasks for CPU and AMD/ATI GPU
18/04/2024 11:29:19 | | Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
18/04/2024 11:29:19 | Gerasim@home | Scheduler request to https://gerasim.boinc.ru/sched/gsm.sched failed: Failure when receiving data from the peer
18/04/2024 11:29:21 | | Internet access OK - project servers may be temporarily down.

It downloads the Gerasim masterfile ok on a fresh install of Windows and Boinc but will not give me any work. All other projects work ok.

[UBT - Timbo]

You're off to a quick start Tim.

I can't do much on this one, I've retired two linux boxes and Gerasim refuses to talk to my three windows computers.

18/04/2024 11:29:18 | Gerasim@home | Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
18/04/2024 11:29:18 | Gerasim@home | Requesting new tasks for CPU and AMD/ATI GPU
18/04/2024 11:29:19 | | Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
18/04/2024 11:29:19 | Gerasim@home | Scheduler request to https://gerasim.boinc.ru/sched/gsm.sched failed: Failure when receiving data from the peer
18/04/2024 11:29:21 | | Internet access OK - project servers may be temporarily down.

It downloads the Gerasim masterfile ok on a fresh install of Windows and Boinc but will not give me any work. All other projects work ok.

Hiya

Coincidentally, another FB member (or two it now seems, and you make it 3) has a similar issue.

See here: https://formula-boinc.org/forum/viewtop ... 3676#p3676 and follow the thread.

I would suggest you contact Eric Driver by email. His contact details are here:

https://gerasim.boinc.ru/users/Contacts.aspx

And give him some info from the Gerasim error logs from BOINC Manager and any other useful background info (such as which other projects work fine?).

I am running Windows BOINC Manager 7.24.1 (x64) so, I doubt it is BOINC Manager at fault, as this host is crunching nicely and earning both CPU and GPU credits...but your issue might be due to some local dependencies that the project needs (at a guess?).

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

Thanks Tim, I've been looking around to see if anybody else had the problem and thought it was just me, there's nothing like a sprint to expose problems.

[UBT - Timbo]

Thanks Tim, I've been looking around to see if anybody else had the problem and thought it was just me, there's nothing like a sprint to expose problems.

Hi

I had a PM from Eric Driver about the issue you might be facing but it looks like his only admin role is to upload new tasks onto the Gerasim server.

So, I doubt he can offer much help about your issues with Gerasim tasks.

But Eric did mention that he has had some connectivity issues of late, uploading work, so it could well be that your issue is simply down to some bottle neck on the internet connections to the Gerasim server (which is in Russia) or maybe the demand for Sprint tasks is just over-stressing their bandwidth or server processing capability?

https://gerasim.boinc.ru/users/server_status.aspx

regards
Tim

[wbiz]

Thanks Tim, I've been looking around to see if anybody else had the problem and thought it was just me, there's nothing like a sprint to expose problems.

Hi

I had a PM from Eric Driver about the issue you might be facing but it looks like his only admin role is to upload new tasks onto the Gerasim server.

So, I doubt he can offer much help about your issues with Gerasim tasks.

But Eric did mention that he has had some connectivity issues of late, uploading work, so it could well be that your issue is simply down to some bottle neck on the internet connections to the Gerasim server (which is in Russia) or maybe the demand for Sprint tasks is just over-stressing their bandwidth or server processing capability?

https://gerasim.boinc.ru/users/server_status.aspx

regards
Tim

Thanks, I got a similar email from Eric, he has passed the problem on to someone more relevant.

My Gerasim problem has been going on for some weeks, I left one computer doing requests just in case someone waived a magic wand.

I've unearthed my old Linux boxes for the sprint, undoing my tidy up, my office looks like a computer scrapyard again as I'm out of space in the server room.

I believe the latest version of Boinc has problems with other projects. Its more than a bit naughty/silly that they don't appear to be testing releases even on projects that always have work, especially as they are supposed to be concerned at the drop off in boinceteers.

[ChelseaOilman]

I believe the latest version of Boinc has problems with other projects. Its more than a bit naughty/silly that they don't appear to be testing releases even on projects that always have work, especially as they are supposed to be concerned at the drop off in boinceteers.

I wish I knew this FB sprint was going on. I was busy doing the latest PG challenge and it was on CPU. I could have done both sprints at the same time. I just attached Gerasim to my 4 computers with Nvidia GPUs and had no issues getting GPU tasks. Maybe only CPU tasks are having issues. These 4 computers are running Win11 with the latest BOINC 7.24.1 client.

[wbiz]

Still fails for me, detached Gerasim and re-attached, so frustrating.

No other project is doing this, I attached odlk1/latin squares the other day and it worked swimmingly.

[ChelseaOilman]

Still fails for me, detached Gerasim and re-attached, so frustrating.

No other project is doing this, I attached odlk1/latin squares the other day and it worked swimmingly.

Seems like your blocked from accessing the site the tasks are coming from. Did you do a tracert to see where your being stopped?
Is it possible your ISP is blocking downloads from Russia on that particular site? The tasks are very short for GPU. Maybe that triggered a problem with your ISP for all that data being transfered.

[wbiz]

Still fails for me, detached Gerasim and re-attached, so frustrating.

No other project is doing this, I attached odlk1/latin squares the other day and it worked swimmingly.

Seems like your blocked from accessing the site the tasks are coming from. Did you do a tracert to see where your being stopped?
Is it possible your ISP is blocking downloads from Russia on that particular site? The tasks are very short for GPU. Maybe that triggered a problem with your ISP for all that data being transfered.

The masterfile downloads fine and I can access the website ok.

tracert from the actual boinc-client machine works fine

Code: Select all

 tracert gerasim.boinc.ru

Tracing route to gerasim.boinc.ru [79.164.218.120]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

  1     8 ms     9 ms    28 ms  192.168.0.1
  2    20 ms    17 ms    17 ms  xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
  3    15 ms    16 ms    14 ms  bagu-core-2b-ae54-650.network.virginmedia.net [80.0.235.249]
  4     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  5     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  6     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  7     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  8    30 ms    23 ms    25 ms  aor.uk-lon03a-ri1.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.42.174]
  9     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 10    25 ms     *        *     ldn-bb2-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.120.238]
 11    40 ms     *        *     hbg-bb2-link.ip.twelve99.net [62.115.122.160]
 12    46 ms    51 ms    56 ms  62.115.127.23
 13    51 ms     *        *     62.115.139.187
 14    52 ms    56 ms    57 ms  rostelecom-ic-370663.ip.twelve99-cust.net [213.155.129.47]
 15    72 ms    69 ms    66 ms  87.226.181.85
 16    66 ms    67 ms    78 ms  188.254.54.238
 17    72 ms    72 ms    82 ms  213.85.210.62
 18     *        *        *     Request timed out.
 19    78 ms    65 ms    69 ms  host-79-164-218-120.qwerty.ru [79.164.218.120]

Trace complete.

It appears to be a protocol problem when accessing the gsm.sched file

Code: Select all

801 https://gerasim.boinc.ru/ 60.000000 Incomplete request received. Gerasim@home

Its not a htttp/https issue, the gerasim end forces https

There is no rate limiting by most UK ISPs, luckily, as a I transfer huge amounts of files sometimes.

[ChelseaOilman]

If I try to go to https://gerasim.boinc.ru/sched/gsm.sched in my browser this is the responce I get:
801 https://gerasim.boinc.ru/ 60.000000 Incomplete request received. Gerasim@home

That looks like the same responce your seeing only I'm getting tasks.

Your not running a 32 bit OS are you?

I think there are only 64 bit tasks available.

[wbiz]

If I try to go to https://gerasim.boinc.ru/sched/gsm.sched in my browser this is the responce I get:
801 https://gerasim.boinc.ru/ 60.000000 Incomplete request received. Gerasim@home

That looks like the same responce your seeing only I'm getting tasks.

Your not running a 32 bit OS are you?

I think there are only 64 bit tasks available.

Windows 11 Pro, 64-bit.

I assumed it was a quirk with my computers but then on the FB forum other people popped up with the same problem once the sprint started.

Its genuine Microsoft Windows install not the OEM and I've added genuine AMD drivers, I guess there is a chance I have something switched off that should be on but it is only Gerasim that has a problem.