Due to the memory requirements of the project ATLAS@Home, I wish to limit the number of CPU tasks that run concurrently.

I am running BOINC 7.2.42 on a MacBook, 64-bit, with 8GB RAM. The CPU reports as an 8-core CPU.

I have created the following app_config.xml file and stored it in the project folder:

<app_config>
<app>
<name>ATLAS</name>
<max_concurrent>2</max_concurrent>
</app>
</app_config>

{please note there is a new line after the last tag}

When BOINC starts it sees the app_config file and yet more than 2 tasks run at the same time. I have tried other numbers (from 0.25 to 4), with and without the extra line at the end, to no avail. I have exited BOINC and restarted. I have not re-fetched a fresh batch of WUs at any time.

Here is the log:

Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | cc_config.xml not found - using defaults
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Starting BOINC client version 7.2.42 for x86_64-apple-darwin
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Libraries: libcurl/7.26.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1e zlib/1.2.5 c-ares/1.9.1
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Data directory: /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | OpenCL: AMD/ATI GPU 0: ATI Radeon HD 6750M (driver version 1.2 (Jun 10 2014 22:41:22), device version OpenCL 1.2, 1024MB, 1024MB available, 288 GFLOPS peak)
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | OpenCL CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz (OpenCL driver vendor: Apple, driver version 1.1, device version OpenCL 1.2)
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Host name: colonial-one.att.net
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Processor: 8 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-2720QM CPU @ 2.20GHz [x86 Family 6 Model 42 Stepping 7]
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clfsh ds acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pbe pni pclmulqdq dtes64 mon dscpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 tpr pdcm sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt aes pcid xsave osxsave tsctmr avx
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | OS: Mac OS X 10.9.4 (Darwin 13.3.0)
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Memory: 8.00 GB physical, 575.89 GB virtual
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Disk: 697.84 GB total, 575.65 GB free
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Local time is UTC -7 hours
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | VirtualBox version: 4.3.12
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | ATLAS@home | Found app_config.xml
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | ATLAS@home | URL http://atlasathome.cern.ch/; Computer ID 3068; resource share 100
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | rosetta@home | URL http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/; Computer ID 1573977; resource share 100
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | Einstein@Home | URL http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/; Computer ID 11470275; resource share 100
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | VirtualLHC@home | URL http://lhcathome2.cern.ch/vLHCathome/; Computer ID 74650; resource share 100
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | LHC@home 1.0 | URL http://lhcathomeclassic.cern.ch/sixtrack/; Computer ID 10010461; resource share 100
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | NumberFields@home | URL http://numberfields.asu.edu/NumberFields/; Computer ID 19646; resource share 100
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network EMSC / CSEM | URL http://qcn.emsc-csem.org/sensor/; Computer ID 156; resource share 0
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network | URL http://qcn.stanford.edu/sensor/; Computer ID 21124; resource share 0
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | ralph@home | URL http://ralph.bakerlab.org/; Computer ID 32886; resource share 100
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | WUProp@Home | URL http://wuprop.boinc-af.org/; Computer ID 71907; resource share 100
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | Enigma@Home | URL http://www.enigmaathome.net/; Computer ID 132812; resource share 0
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | La Red Atrapa Sismos | URL http://www.ras.unam.mx/sensor/; Computer ID 1237; resource share 0
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | General prefs: from http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ (last modified 23-Jun-2014 19:55:15)
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Host location: none
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | General prefs: using your defaults
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Reading preferences override file
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Preferences:
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | max memory usage when active: 6553.60MB
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | max memory usage when idle: 7372.80MB
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | max disk usage: 100.00GB
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
Thu Jul 31 16:16:24 2014 | | Not using a proxy
Thu Jul 31 16:16:26 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network EMSC / CSEM | Fetching scheduler list
Thu Jul 31 16:16:30 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network EMSC / CSEM | [error] No scheduler URLs found in master file
Thu Jul 31 16:16:43 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network | update requested by user
Thu Jul 31 16:16:45 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network | Sending scheduler request: Requested by user.
Thu Jul 31 16:16:45 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network | Reporting 1 completed tasks
Thu Jul 31 16:16:45 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network | Not requesting tasks: non CPU intensive
Thu Jul 31 16:16:48 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network | Scheduler request completed
Thu Jul 31 16:16:48 2014 | Quake-Catcher Network | Project has no tasks available


Do you need more information to help me fix this?

For anyone else wanting to help, this topic has come over from this thread at :

Proposal to limit tasks in parallel

Double Check that the name is actually ATLAS by looking in your client_state.xml (Don't modify it!!!), according to the applications page it should be 'ATLAS_Simulation'

and according to your list of tasks, it is 'ATLAS_Simulation' too:

http://atlasathome.cern.ch/results.php?hostid=3068

Claggy

Try this
Atlas eats up my memory causing lag and crashes, works for me.
Set N accordingly ie 1=1 task 2=2 etc
However, if no other work is available from other projects, it seems to get ignored and run on all cores!

<app_config>
<app>
<name>ATLAS</name>
<max_concurrent>N</max_concurrent>
</app>
</app_config>

save as app_config.xml and add to the Atlas project folder, but you know that already

However, if no other work is available from other projects, it seems to get ignored and run on all cores!

Strange that, If you put the wrong application name in, it then doesn't work:

Double Check that the name is actually ATLAS by looking in your client_state.xml (Don't modify it!!!), according to the applications page it should be 'ATLAS_Simulation'

Then try ATLAS_Simulation instead.

Claggy

Hi Guys,

I meet similar situation.
My Machine is on AWS cloud. m3.x2large 30M RAM and 8 cores.

I tried reset the project, restart Boinc client. But nothing works!

Anybody can help?