I change the venue for collatz to one that allowed ATI tasks and then did a sync. There was no request for tasks so after a while I did an update. The new computer location was the LAST message as shown here.

jstateson2duo
1701 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:51:24 AM update requested by use
1702 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:51:29 AM Sending scheduler request: Requested by user.
1703 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:51:29 AM Not reporting or requesting tasks
1704 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:51:31 AM Scheduler request completed
1705 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:51:31 AM New computer location:

I did a second update and BOINC then asked for ATI tasks. It failed, of course, because the request was too recent. I believe that if the venue change had been done first, then it would have asked and received ATI tasks.

Second update shown below

jstateson2duo
1706 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:52:37 AM update requested by use
1707 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:52:42 AM Sending scheduler request: Requested by user.
1708 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:52:42 AM Requesting new tasks for ATI GPU
1709 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:52:43 AM Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
1710 Collatz Conjecture 2011-07-19 3:52:43 AM Not sending work - last request too recent: 73 sec

Seems to me that the first update should have received some tasks since the venue change was done during a sync and both the server and the client knew there was a change.

And how do you want the venue change to be recognized without a scheduler contact? By pigeon carrier, snail mail or thought-relay? ;-)

No, really, how do you want the BOINC on your system to know that you made changes to the venue on the website, without them having some form of contact to get that information from the website to the client? And if you don't mind the some form of contact, then what do you think the scheduler contact is?

So, on the first scheduler contact your BOINC did not ask for work but did have a contact with the database and got the new information about your venue changes in. Then on the second contact it used that information.

Now, unless all project preferences are going to be localized, there is no other way to get this information in. You will need to contact the database of the project first before you know the new information and you can only work with that new information after you got it.

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Ok, I see now that the sync request I made from jstateson2duo to BAM! at 3:44:18 did not obtain a new venue for my system and it took the project update at 3:51:24 to actually get the venue change. That is just batch processing at its worst: A bunch of punched cards get read in and processed by collatz and collatz inserts a "next time get an ATI job" card that sure enough, works the next time the cards are read again. The session should have just asked "give me what I am allowed to get for the jstateson2duo venue".

my 2c says this is a design change that goes thru a committee and will never happen.