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I've been running the Linux Folding SMP client on as many as a dozen VMware guests over WinXP for the bulk of 2008. Lately, I've been "underperforming" and I haven't been able to pinpoint why. I think the problem lately has related to using the -advmethods to get the A2 cores. Something is badly amiss here, and it's frustrating.

It seems to be more of an art than science to keep the Linux SMP client running: random crashes, hangs, 100% completion with hangs... etc. Reboots, Qfix'es, Ctrl+C, hop up and down while hitting yourself on the left side of the head with your keyboard.

As I mentioned, my PPD has taken a hit lately, and I've started paying attention to the Work Unit Run Clone and Generation. Does everyone do this?? Watch the Project RCG?

Now that I'm paying attention, I notice that several Ubuntu SMP guests are 100% completing a Work Unit, not uploading properly, and starting the same Work Unit again from scratch. Then completing it (AGAIN) to 100% and failing to upload it, and starting the same PRCG at the beginning.

I've noticed weird download timelines previously on Fahmon, where it says that a WU was downloaded 2-3 days ago, when it clearly was downloaded only hours ago. I always dismissed it to calculation issues in Fahmon. However, now that I look closely, the first instance of the project download was indeed done days before, but the guest has been repeatedly processing the same project Run Clone and Generation. Nice.

Now, most of the VMware Ubuntu guests that I have running have processed hundred of WU's, and been cloned numerous times, including being shutdown hard countless times. Perhaps I need to do a new "clean" SMP guest build.

Some of you guys must be running into similar issues. Monitoring and playing with a dozen VMWare Linux guests is a pain. I've learned a few things, which I'll post as I start watching more carefully.

- JP

A dozen guests? >24 cores, or multiple machines?

I took -advmethods off to see if that would stop the hangs after it completes the WU which for the most part worked. Still one here or there. But I still get projects using A2 (usually a mix between 1760 and 1920 ppd WUs). Last month I was reading on the folding forum and they also mentioned A2 projects not needing -advmethods any more.

I'm also experiencing the same issues with my VM setups. I'll remove the -advmethods flag to see if things improve.

Removing -advmethods, for me, at least give me a chance to get back the 260x WUs rather than all 266x. So I did it. But now it's like everytime one WU is finished I need to check if it gets a new 260x. If it is not, it will most certainly fail and I am now forced to trash the 266x until I get a 260x with only a few tries. It's bad for the science, but it is stillbetter than the thing running til about 25% and then errors out, I think.

It's ironic that having a "slow" S939 X2 3800+ is a benefit to me because I only need to do this dance every 3-4 days.

Not sure which overides which: -advmethods switch when calling fah6 or the client.cfg setting

I've got mine calling with -advmethods but I get almost all 2605 WU's, with the odd 266x.

I'm glad I'm not the only one with issues... misery loves company.

I had my -advmethods in the script or shortcut calling FAH.

Anyone else notice that the work directory stays full of crap. There are 10 "queues", 00-09 in SMP FAH that round robin. So, if a machine is working on queue 00, and does 1 WU/Day, in 10 days you will reuse Queue 00.

My work files from a week ago are still there, and I think that they are causing issues where the previous work unit 00, is impacting the current 00.

I've cleared out all my old work files, and so far, there seem to be a few less halts.

- JP

Yup, the failure to clean up is a well known issue. It also causes my diskless stuff to grow in memory usage (the work directory is on a ramdisk). I need to put some sort of clean up in there.

I've decided to leave -advmethods on, but I've been a bit more vigilant about cleaning out the work directory .

This seems to have yielded a little bit more stable production. The clients do pretty much have to be ended and restarted most of the time.

- JP

I've been running this script for the last month, and it's been stable for me. It uses qfix to correct work unit errors and I don't lose many work units, if any.

The only thing is that the hang at 100% completion still occurs, so I have to hit Ctrl-C to kill the stalled fah6. Other than that, the script runs well for me.

-JP



qfix can be downloaded from here: http://foldingforum.org/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=191

Latest trial script that clears the work folder if the work units are uploaded ok: