This quirky issue has happened before.

I am receiving notices on the BOINC Manager "Notices" tab for more than one project that

(Project name) needs YYY more disk space.You currently have (small number) available and it needs YYY.

I actually have much more available space on that disk.

Where is BOINC Manager getting these numbers from?

How can I stop this from happening?

It wouldn't matter except that I think it prevents some tasks from being downloaded and carried out.

I attach:

1. A screenshot of the "Disks" utility (gnome-disk-utility) showing that the disk has 154GB free;

2. A screenshot of the Nautilus "Properties" window showing that the disk has 143.3GB free;

3. A screenshot of the BOINC Manager "Notices" tab showing the mysterious notices stating that I have 0.00MB and 24.70MB available for two different projects, which isn't true.

I took all of these screenshots within a few minutes of each other.

Where is BOINC Manager getting these numbers from?

Boinc Manager (the GUI) gets these from the Boinc client, which in turn gets these figures from your computing preferences, or if you're using local preferences from those instead.

How can I stop this from happening?

What do your Boinc Computing preferences say for Disk and memory usage?,
Doesn't matter how much space is actually available on the disk,
If you're only allowing say 0.001 Gig, then Boinc will only use 0.001 Gig.

Increase the amount of usage allowed, and/or reduce the amount of disk that has to be keep free, and/or increase the Disk: use at most figure.

Claggy

What do your Boinc Computing preferences say for Disk and memory usage?

Here's how I have my Computing preferences... > disk and memory usage set.

All of my settings are the default settings, and my understanding is that "Disk usage" > "Use at most" of 0.00 means whatever the application thinks is best. It has been 0.00 since a year ago, and I have done many tasks since then.

If that setting actually means "Use at most 0.00 Gigabytes disk space", then it is not consistent with the message "You have 24.70MB available...".

As an aside, in the long run I want to find a way to mount the internal HDD at startup, to reduce the number of write cycles to the SSD.

What do your Boinc Computing preferences say for Disk and memory usage?

All of my settings are the default settings, and my understanding is that "Disk usage" > "Use at most" of 0.00 means whatever the application thinks is best. It has been 0.00 since a year ago, and I have done many tasks since then.

Setting Disk use at most to Zero Gigabytes means exactly that, and that setting isn't the default.

Claggy

You're stating that BOINC should use at most 25% of total disk space, which on a 256GB SSD is theoretically 64GB. BOINC states you've used 63.7GB which is dangerously close to the choke off point anyway (and way over if you use the actual GiB numbers).

So why not set a minimum amount with the first Use at most GB disk space value and increase the Use at most percentage of total disk space vale? With the first value set at 15GB, and the last at 50% you should have headroom enough.

Edit: it would seem that setting the first value to zero does not impose a complete 'no restriction' setting as BOINC is still restricted by what's set in the other two values. I've posted to BOINC Alpha about that.

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BOINC states you've used 63.7GB

That's mighty interesting. Where did you get that number from?

Yes I will indeed do that, but all this has prompted me yet again to get BOINC work units happening on my internal HDD instead of my SSD, which I strongly suspect (ie. I'm 95% sure) has not been possible because I have never been able to get the HDD to mount at startup.

In the meantime, I am receiving more of those messages (for more projects), but luckily I still have some tasks running, even though there are only 23 running instead of 32.

OK thanks. What I meant by 'default' was that I have never changed the settings. I installed the application and some projects, and have never changed anything other than that which is why I wanted to find out why the number of concurrently-running tasks has been decreasing recently.

BOINC states you've used 63.7GB

That's mighty interesting. Where did you get that number from?

Your own images at https://imgur.com/a/afVJY#1. This is the total disk space used by everything that's on that drive, including the operating system and it is the number that BOINC then follows for the "Use at most N% of total disk space".

In the meantime, I am receiving more of those messages (for more projects), but luckily I still have some tasks running, even though there are only 23 running instead of 32.

I have flagged this questionable behaviour with the developers. We're having a discussion about it on the BOINC Alpha email list. So perhaps that your problems, at least with the "0 means no restriction" gets a little change here in the future. We'll see.

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OK thanks. What I meant by 'default' was that I have never changed the settings. I installed the application and some projects, and have never changed anything other than that which is why I wanted to find out why the number of concurrently-running tasks has been decreasing recently.

You're right, I've logged onto a 2nd account of mine, and reset the computing preferences to default (not that I've used that account since seti classic),
the default preferences show 'Disk: use at most --- GB (0 means no restriction)' and not a figure.

I was also wrong about 0 Gig meaning 0 Gig.

Claggy

This is the total disk space used by everything that's on that drive, including the operating system and it is the number that BOINC then follows for the "Use at most N% of total disk space."

Right yes that makes sense. I misunderstood when I originally read your message to mean that BOINC had used 63.7GB, when in fact you meant that is the total I have used for everything.

I have flagged this questionable behaviour with the developers. We're having a discussion about it on the BOINC Alpha email list. So perhaps that your problems, at least with the "0 means no restriction" gets a little change here in the future. We'll see.

I am back in the process of getting BOINC to use my HDD instead of my SSD for work units. So far, I've managed to get the HDD to mount at startup, which is a big step forward.

The next trick will be getting the permissions etc correct when I try it again.