World Community Grid - View Thread - Beta Testing program information.

First, everyone gets them as long as:

The member is enrolled in the My Grid > Beta Testing program
The appropriate device profiles have been ticked in the Beta selection screen.
The "Connect to network about every X days" preference is set to equal or less the beta deadline (usually 4 days for non-repair)
The device, as with any other project, meets the minimum system requirements for that specific test. These are usually not specified beforehand. The beta test is used to determine these requirements for when the project goes into production.

When that is established and the WCG tech has opened up the supply channel, will each work unit fetch request start with a call to the Beta queue **, independent to any specific science research preferences, long as at least 1 active / active intermittent science research is selected. The request for beta work is invisible. If there's none in the feeders, no message is logged.

When Beta Test Announcements [Read Only] are made and started, work is mostly distributed with extra copies. Typically this will be an initial replication of 3 for quorum 2 sciences. This way, the minimum number required per result are more quickly returned [**]. When the minimum number is received, the server prepares a message for any client that has an non-started redundant copy which then will be canceled, so as not to waste time when it can be avoided.

[**]A device can have only 1 Beta work unit per device CPU core. If available more are allowed to download when the tests have finished on a 1 new for 1 completed/reported basis.

Beta test tasks have by default no full graphics, only a graphics frame with possibly a progress bar and the BOINC/WCG/Sponsor logos.

Those who enroll in the program should be prepared to do some task log, event log and client message log digging and do case reporting such as stop/resume to test proper checkpoint restarting, else nothing is learned, most certainly not by the other Beta testers who don't have access to the background information the technicians have. Sharing Beta test information helps to make the test progress swiftest.

Below is a copy of the enrollment page to allow learning on the program even when the My Grid section is not accessible [during e.g. the nightly statistics update]:

Watch the Beta Test Announcements forum and read current test discussion in the Beta Test Support forum.

In closing emphasis, beta work is send to all devices connected to the program, buffers small or not so small, even bigger than the usual short deadline. The client will automatically prioritize these tasks if it thinks the normal FIFO operating mode would not result in timely completion. The automation of forcing Beta test work units ahead in execution is by setting the "Switch Between Application Every xxx Minutes" to a higher value than the deadline... standard 4 days is then 5761 minutes. 5 days is 7201 minutes. This applies to repair work too! Notably, this feature does not work with clients above 6.10! For 6.12 and higher clients, the only way to force a prioritization is by increasing the "Connect Every xx Days" value.

Related Topics:
** knreed: Discussion on work fetch and feed order.
Stuck in Pending Validation but Quorum Complete!
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