This setup works very well on my all computers:

- Set the project weight in Rosetta to 100
- Set the project weight in World Community Grid to 0

How does it work?
All computers try to get Rosetta tasks. If the tasks are available, the computers will download them and they do not ask for WCG tasks in this case. Anytime when Rosetta runs out of tasks and the local buffer goes empty, the computers will ask WCG tasks instead - until Rosetta provides new task. Thanks to the 0 weight in WCG, the computers will not build buffer for this project. They try to get Rosetta tasks first (and build buffer). If no available, they download another WCG task.

With this configuration my computers never stay idle. You can add one more backup project, because it can happen that due to the higher number of volunteers in WCG could cause temporary download/upload server outage.

Thanks for the very clear explanation, that is precisely my goal. Although, what is the likelihood of the WCG ever running out of tasks? It seems to be a broker for so many different projects.

I am replying to my post below since I have read the proper way to weight projects if running more than one. Apparently, having 2 projects with a large buffer and one project with a high priority may cause the secondary project's tasks' deadline to pass with no work done. So I will reduce my buffer to default (.2) days and set Rosetta priority to be 999999. I gleaned this info from post 92976. thanks all.

I think you can just use 100% and 0% for the two projects in BOINC these days.

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I think you can just use 100% and 0% for the two projects in BOINC these days.

100 and 0.
They are not percentages (if people think of them as percentages, then things won't work the way they expect them too). The numbers are a ratio.

Most projects support 0 Resource share for a standby project (one that only gets work if the main project has none), but not all.

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Grant
Darwin NT

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/result.php?resultid=1286622554

                          Nom	rb_10_31_42723_41745__t000__0_C1_SAVE_ALL_OUT_IGNORE_THE_REST_1019705_34_0 
     Unité de travail (WU)	1152454394
                          Créé	31 Oct 2020, 9:14:26 UTC
                      Envoyé	31 Oct 2020, 9:14:33 UTC
    Date limite de rapport	3 Nov 2020, 9:14:33 UTC
                         Reçu	31 Oct 2020, 9:49:36 UTC
              État du serveur	Sur
                     Résultats	Erreur de calcul
                État du client	Téléchargement (download)
              État à la sortie	-186 (0xFFFFFF46) ERR_RESULT_DOWNLOAD
             ID de l'ordinateur	3984635
Temps de fonctionnement	
Temps de CPU	
               Valider l'état	Invalide
                        Crédit	0.00
                      FLOPS max	2.31 GFLOPS
Version de l'application	Rosetta v4.21 windows_intelx86
Stderr output
<core_client_version>7.14.2</core_client_version>
<![CDATA[
<message>
WU download error: couldn't get input files:
<file_xfer_error>
  <file_name>flags_rb_10_31_42723_41745__t000__0_C1_robetta</file_name>
  <error_code>-224 (permanent HTTP error)</error_code>
  <error_message>permanent HTTP error</error_message>
</file_xfer_error>
<file_xfer_error>
  <file_name>input_rb_10_31_42723_41745__t000__0_C1_robetta.zip</file_name>
  <error_code>-224 (permanent HTTP error)</error_code>
  <error_message>permanent HTTP error</error_message>
</file_xfer_error>
</message>
]]>

Error downloading WU ^^

[snip]

Thanks for the very clear explanation, that is precisely my goal. Although, what is the likelihood of the WCG ever running out of tasks? It seems to be a broker for so many different projects.

A few days ago, tasks from WCG became unavailable for long enough that my computer downloaded many tasks from a third project. No explanation why.

Note that both Rosetta and WCG are controlled by campuses on the west coast of the US, and it's currently wildfire season there. However, WCG uses servers in Canada, not on the west coast, so any programs on the server for generating new tasks would continue running.

Many areas around the world currently have COVID-19 restrictions..

WCG did some maintenance this past week. Nothing major so there was no announcement on the website other than on the forums.

There is more maintenance scheduled for Monday - https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread_thread,42932_offset,45#646200

---

It would be nice if the Project were to actually post something- such as they are shutting down for an extended period & why.
Or they are having issues, and are working on them.

Not much good them finally coming back with some work to process, and everyone has left for other projects.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

It would be nice if the Project were to actually post something- such as they are shutting down for an extended period & why.
Or they are having issues, and are working on them.

Not much good them finally coming back with some work to process, and everyone has left for other projects.

No real surprise that the number of participants keeps falling. The end of Seto brought a pile of new people but most seem to have bailed because of lack of work and lack of response or explanation.

---

It would be nice if the Project were to actually post something- such as they are shutting down for an extended period & why.
Or they are having issues, and are working on them.

Not much good them finally coming back with some work to process, and everyone has left for other projects.

No real surprise that the number of participants keeps falling. The end of Seto brought a pile of new people but most seem to have bailed because of lack of work and lack of response or explanation.

The batch of tasks you last ran are being used to develop the next batch of tasks, that means there is always a slight delay between batches of tasks. Then if you add in that everyone wants to help solve the Covid problem what tasks we do get are gone very quickly. BUT that ALSO means that the Developers are able to stay busy solving Covid, in this case, because of the fast turn around in the batches of tasks.

The batch of tasks you last ran are being used to develop the next batch of tasks, that means there is always a slight delay between batches of tasks. Then if you add in that everyone wants to help solve the Covid problem what tasks we do get are gone very quickly. BUT that ALSO means that the Developers are able to stay busy solving Covid, in this case, because of the fast turn around in the batches of tasks.

All the other illnesses that existed before COIVD 19 came along are still there, yet there is still no work available to process.

Hence why it would be nice for the project to actually make an announcement on what is actually happening instead of just random speculation here on the message boards by us crunchers about what is (or isn't) happening.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

My cable broadband went down yesterday. I did a status-check and it was an issue with my provider. Messages: none.
Then a default message said 4pm after another status check. Then it was changed to 7:45pm today. It actually got fixed at 11am.
The only information provided was wrong. And that's a supplier I pay, and for whom it's an existential issue.

If i was you, i would change provider :-P

You'd think, but the only alternative is lower quality, more expensive and more frequent downtime.
If they told me exactly the amount of downtime there was going to be with perfect accuracy, the benefit of that would be zero. It would still be fixed when it was fixed.

Same issue as here.

And the more time a backup project runs, the more debt builds up to Rosetta, the more my preferred project will run when tasks become available again. So the ultimate loss is again zero.
I struggle to see any problem at all with a lack of tasks here

---

It would be nice if the Project were to actually post something- such as they are shutting down for an extended period & why.
Or they are having issues, and are working on them.

Not much good them finally coming back with some work to process, and everyone has left for other projects.

Why would anyone assume the project is shutting down for any period? Why would anyone 'leave' for other projects, let alone everyone? Boinc manages everything according to everyone's individually-decided preferences.

This thread is getting more bizarre by the minute. Every speculative comment seems to be the worst take possible.

Worry less over things that don't make any difference to anything.

---

It would be nice if the Project were to actually post something- such as they are shutting down for an extended period & why.
Or they are having issues, and are working on them.

Not much good them finally coming back with some work to process, and everyone has left for other projects.

No real surprise that the number of participants keeps falling. The end of Seti brought a pile of new people but most seem to have bailed because of lack of work and lack of response or explanation.

The number of Users continues to rise every day.
The number of active users goes down as each user completes all their tasks, because a lack of tasks means less users who <can> be active

Is it possible to be more wrong? Perhaps, but I'm not sure how

---

Why would anyone assume the project is shutting down for any period?

Because there has been no work for several days, sporadic work for a week prior, and no announcements from the project as to why.
Given the number of illnesses that it is involved in researching, the most likely issue is a system one.
But as nothing official has been posted, speculation is all there is.

Why would anyone 'leave' for other projects, let alone everyone?

Because people join projects to do work for them. If there is no work, then why bother remaining attached to the project? Might as well do work for one that has work to do.

This thread is getting more bizarre by the minute. Every speculative comment seems to be the worst take possible.

Of course.
That's why communication from a project is so important. As i pointed out before- in the absence of an official word, speculation is all that there is.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

The number of Users continues to rise every day.

And is of no relevance if the number of those that stop crunching each day is greater. And of no use if there is no work to process.

The number of active users goes down as each user completes all their tasks, because a lack of tasks means less users who <can> be active

At times like these when there is no work, it would be more useful if an Active host was one that requested work in the last 24hrs (or whatever value is used), not one that returned work.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

Why would anyone 'leave' for other projects, let alone everyone?

Because people join projects to do work for them. If there is no work, then why bother remaining attached to the project? Might as well do work for one that has work to do.
.

Why would anyone actively detach from a project just because it’s temporarily out of work?

You just leave it and wait until more work arrives, all of the initial reasons for joining are still there, just a blip in the flow - that’s why you have alternative projects.

Boinc downloaded few rosetta units somes times for me ...
https://munin.kiska.pw/munin/rosetta-week.html

Why would anyone actively detach from a project just because it’s temporarily out of work?

Some do it if it's a few days, others weeks, still others months.
Of course in situations where the project announces what is going on, people are less likely to detach from it.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

Boinc downloaded few rosetta units somes times for me ...
https://munin.kiska.pw/munin/rosetta-week.html

Two were resends, the one new Task was the download error- the file wasn't there to download.
Which would indicate the problem isn't a lack of work as such, just system issues. But as the project hasn't made any announcements, that's just speculation based on what little we do know.

---

Grant
Darwin NT

Why would anyone actively detach from a project just because it’s temporarily out of work?

Some do it if it's a few days, others weeks, still others months.
Of course in situations where the project announces what is going on, people are less likely to detach from it.

Anyone who does so after a few days has no interest in the project