Hi!
I have sometimes the problem, that a project is requesting a download of a .PNG-File or so and this download is not finishing. In most cases the file to download is 0 bytes large.
It happens at several projects on several PCs.
until this download is not finished, other downloads are not started. So the PCs run out of work.

Is this bug known?
Could it be fixed easy?
I think the best solution would be to allow other downloads independent from this stalled download in the boinc manager.

There is an option in the computing preferences on project web sites and in BOINC Manager's own preferences stating Skip data verification for image files. Check this when you have trouble downloading the image files. It's then very possible that your ISP modifies image files (UMTS does this, for example).

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Thank you, i'll try this.

What are this image files used for? The Option in the settings tell me, that skipping verification reduces security.

And i dont use UMTS or so, its a plain old DSL via telefone line.

What are this image files used for?

The image files are used by BOINC Manager simple view to show the project images. See http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Simple_view#Tasks_Window for some examples of what Seti shows.

And i dont use UMTS or so, its a plain old DSL via telefone line.

UMTS is an example. There are plenty of ISP's who recompress image files to make their send size smaller.

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It didnt help.
Today the message came again.
The image was not compressed, it was a 0 byte file.
Also in Boinc-Manager it was shown as 0 byte to download.

If the images are not necessary for calculation, than the boincmanager should not stop working, it should only show a message.

This issue has been playing up at WCG since about an outage end of Oct-2015. What the manager/client 'should' do is one thing. The client does though not know if the file is critical to the science process, so the download hangs which then causes the blocking of further downloading from that project. Seems to me the project has to resolve this or the workaround procedure is used in the BOINC agent support forum [if pertaining to WCG] to still get the .png files from source, when cloud delivery is failing.

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Coelum Non Animum Mutant, Qui Trans Mare Currunt

I have sent this off to the BOINC Development email list, with some possible solutions. Do know it's Christmas, even for the developers, so things could go slower than normal.

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No hurry, it was just a suggestion for maybe the next version.

The project is pogs at the moment, but i also had the problem with wgc some weeks ago.

I only have the problem with image files, never with programs/apps oder WUs.

No hurry, it was just a suggestion for maybe the next version.

The project is pogs at the moment, but i also had the problem with wgc some weeks ago.

I only have the problem with image files, never with programs/apps oder WUs.

This is an OLD problem at POGS and I don't think they ever did remove the reference to that file that no longer exist on their server.
See: http://pogs.theskynet.org/pogs/forum_thread.php?id=507


This could happen at any other project that deletes any file on their server but do not update the download file listing.

David Anderson wrote:

I checked in a change so that limits on the number of active
per-project and total file transfers don't include user files (like background images for SETI@home graphics) or project files (like images for the simple GUI)

Commit.

client: don't count user or project files in transfer limit

We don't want stalled downloads of project image files to block the downloading of job input files.

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