Shortage of WUs

[bruce]

FAH has been pretty much out of work to be done for quite a few days now. (The word "few" depends on a number of different factors, including which client you run, which OS you run, what hardware you have, etc.)

This is not the usual situation, but it does happen. By policy, FAH does not distribute work unless the completion of that work is scientifically important so they do not replenish the servers with WUs that have already been successfully processed by someone else.

New projects are on their way, but there is quite a bit of preliminary work to be done before a new project is ready to start distributing WUs. In the meantime, there are a few things that you can try, but there's a pretty good chance that nothing will work except to be patient.

If you get a message about an invalid address (0.0.0.0) and your client was working previously, that's your problem. Unless your OS is an old version which prohibits you from upgrading to the latest client, do that first.

If you're getting the messages
+ No appropriate work server was available; will try again in a bit.
+ Couldn't get work instructions.
you've got the same problem except it's a more recent client.

If you have the latest client and you're not using "advmethods" consider adding it. That gives you access to a wider selection of WUs, but they also might be less stable, so this may not be something that you want to try. In rare instances, removing that option helps. In either case, remember that you may enable it either as a specific option in the Advanced configuration ("Set -advmethods flag always?"), by adding it to the command line, itself, or by entering it in the Advanced Configuration under "Additional client parameters? " and to disable it, you must stop using all three of those options.

In the configuration settings, if you are configured to accept SMALL or NORMAL WUs, you can reconfigure for larger WUs.

In the configuration settings, the default setting for Max Ram is obtained from your actual hardware. If you have restricted it to a smaller value, consider increasing it.

Some new projects are being released but not enough to fill everybody's machine yet so the recovery will take time.

[bruce]

A number of new projects have been released for some clients so the shortage condition is improving but I wouldn't call the issue isn't solved yet. (It's certainly not solved if you happen to be running one of the client types that is still experiencing shortages.)

Last year, FAH had WU shortages because the servers couldn't handle all of the load. The servers were upgraded and that's no longer the issue. Today it's more a question of taxing the scientists.

FAH only issues WUs from projects that have scientific value. Stanford will not intentionally reissue work that has already been completed successfully, but they do start new projects from time to time. Before a new project can be started, there's a significant amount of research that needs to be done to make sure the project is likely to produce useful results. Then the project must be configured and evaluated so they know it's going to be a successful project. Only then will a project be released for processing.

(Of course once a project yields results, the scientist has to analyze the data and either devise a new project based on what has been learned or prepare a journal paper to publish the results.) In many cases, the same scientists who are doing this pre- and post- work are the same ones that are managing other aspects of FAH. (It's relatively recent that FAH hired a professional programming firm, and resources are still rather limited.)

I don't know how many new projects are being prepared or for which clients or when more will be on-line, but it's a never-ending process. All you can do is be patient if your type of client is not receiving new assignments.