For a computer that is normally off-line, when a connection is made BOINC apparently looks at the queue of ready-to-run work units, and calculates how many seconds of new work to request from a project. So far so good.

Then, after an interval (e.g., 4 minutes), BOINC __again__ performs the same kind of calculation. IF, when it now looks at the ready-to-run queue, the previously requested work units *have* been downloaded, all is well. BUT in my case (I have a *slow* dial-up line) the download of the previously requested work has usually NOT COMPLETED. I see BOINC again requesting work, WITHOUT CONSIDERING how much work it had already scheduled to be downloaded.

The result for me (using BOINC 5.2.13 on Linux) is a series of ever-diminishing requests for work (at 4 minute intervals) while the download continues; the cumulative effect of these multiple requests is to fetch FAR MORE WORK than appropriate.

In fact, since I might not dial in for days, I had set my project's website preferences to give me a "cache size" (of queued-up work) of 6 days. When the project recently switched to work units with a time-to-expire of 7 days, the EXTRA work units caused to be downloaded by this BOINC problem ended up being wasted (so did all those hours my connection spent downloading them).


BOINC should issue a __single__ request for work, and should *NOT* re-request any more as long as there are ANY downloads not yet completed.
.