A important warning to everyone trying to run cosmology@home in cpus with more than 8 threads. by ivanviso

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gridcoin · @ivanviso · Apr 27 '18

$4.75

A important warning to everyone trying to run cosmology@home in cpus with more than 8 threads.

http://www.cosmologyathome.org/img/banner.jpg

It simply does not work. The application will crash and get frozen if you have more than 8 threads. Fortunately, we can fix it, well, sort of. 

First, we must go to the boinc folder. In windows systems it is C:\ProgramData\BOINC\ , in linux systems most users will have it installed in /var/lib/boinc . 

Once there we enter the projects folder, and then, the www.cosmologyathome.org folder. And we create a file named app_config.xml . In windows, make sure you are using the UTF-8 enconding, and not the ANSI one and copy and paste this : 




    <app_config>
     <app>
           <name>camb_boinc2docker</name>
           <max_concurrent>1</max_concurrent> 
     </app>
    <app_version>
          <app_name>camb_boinc2docker</app_name>
          <plan_class>vbox64_mt</plan_class>
          <avg_ncpus>8</avg_ncpus>
      </app_version>
    </app_config>


It will lock the project to a maximum of 8 cores, case we  want to lock it to less, we just have to change that number 8 for a smaller number.


I found this answer originally in the boinc forums, but i have not managed to find the original post again.

👍 vortac, cm-steem, parejan, hotbit, h202, ilikechocolate, lablockchain, steemgridcoin, sodom, hownixt, nexusprime, coltwlf, lumendan, wisecracka, alexmaksto, grider123, rufusfirefly, ivanviso, agentjuno, daniyarutyas, jrik13

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@lumendan · Apr 28 '18 (edited)

Thanks for the advice, I am only crunching Cosmology on a PC without VitrualBox so I haven't run into this problem  but I will bookmark this article for future reference.
I have used app_config.xml to restrict memory hungry projects on my low spec computers but this is a much more detailed fix than I would have created on my own.
>In windows, make sure you are using the UTF-8 enconding, and not the ANSI one

I have created ANSI encoded (default encoding for Notepad) app_config.xml files on Windows without any problems but it's also advice I will keep on file in case the encoding does ever cause issues for me.  

Fellow BOINC hackers can find general information about the use of app_info.xml at [https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration](https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration#Application_configuration)

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@jamezz · Apr 28 '18

thats not hacking its pretty well known you can create and edit app xml files , you can even run multiple threads on GPU's , that too is not hacking its called configuring your setup.

👍 sodom

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@ivanviso · May 2 '18

Hacking depends a lot on context . Manipulating images used to be called hacking too. Its one of the most peculiar examples of language evolution.

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@lumendan · Apr 28 '18 (edited)

$0.05

I meant hacker as in a computer operator using some ingenuity to overcome a problem. Since the use of app_config.xml requires knowledge of the BOINC system beyond its everyday use I consider it a basic hack.  
I was using the word hacker as way of  creating a distinction between users who are willing to take extra steps to optimize their systems and users who prefer automatically configured settings or GUI based configuration tools. 
Some definitions of Hacker:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker (definition 1)
http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/meaning-of-hack.html
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/hacker (definition 1.1)
I did not intend to imply malicious or unauthorized activity.

👍 barton26

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