the "script suckers" are in the same exact situation. I only have 5 hosts. in the current situation more hosts would actually be more beneficial to snagging more tasks than using a single command line to fix BOINC's broken request behavior if you want to maximize the amount of requests you can do per unit time, you need more hosts. so be angry with people with lots of hosts.

I only get 1-10 tasks whenever a work request is filled. it's not like anyone is getting much more than that I can almost guarantee it.
I only get a successful request every 1-2hrs or so on each system, even with them asking every 2mins, which is the project defined minimum request cooldown period.

there are far fewer tasks available than you are imagining, and far more people making requests than you are imagining. I get work every 1-2 hours, spend a few mins on them, then back to Einstein until more show up.

There is no need for your GPU to run cold! Just run a different gpu project in between. Personally, I run folding@home on my gpu(you can select COVID-19 as the cause) as I have for a long time now. I plan on switching it off if OPNG ever has enough work to fully utilize it. In the mean time OPNG runs 1 unit at a time(when I am lucky enough to get one) and shares the GPU with folding@home. It takes about 3 minutes to complete that way.

I would put a a cat emoji, but we only have a pig, cow, monkey, and chicken.

Well, a couple of hours ago the kitties did manage to claw in one batch of 20 OPNG tasks and happily crunched them up. Probably be a day or more until they can snag some more. But it did give the GPU something to do for about an hour.

Meowmeowmeow!

The two minute timer is not something I have an issue with. This is something that is configurable from the project side. Some projects run 5 mins. Some run 10 seconds. But again that’s not my concern.

And I’ve been a part of BOINC for a long time and know better than most how the BOINC software works and “thinks” through exhaustive observation and testing.

My issue with with how BOINC handles repeated schedule requests that end in no tasks being sent. After a few requests that don’t get tasks, BOINC starts artificially extending the schedule request delay. This has nothing to do with the project servers. This is handled on the HOST and independent of the project. If the project has decided they don’t want a host to request quicker than 2 minutes, no problem. Nothing I have done or could do, changes that. Because if I try to make a request sooner, the project already detects this and ignores the request. You actually will end up never getting work if you try to circumvent this 2 minute timer as every request will be classified as “too soon” and you’ll never get work sent to you.

So I simply issue a “retry” command every 5 minutes. Longer than the 2 minute default timer. This has the effect of keeping BOINC on its toes and never lets it get into artificial extended backoffs.

Literally the only people whining are the ones upset that I’ve worked around the problem. And I’m using tools provided by BOINC themselves to do it. I have absolutely no problem with whatever timer the project decides . I’m just forcing BOINC to stick to that and not extend that for me.

The project decides their own back off. Not BOINC. They’ve decided that 2 mins is the limit for whatever reasons. And I’m in no way breaking that. Literally zero harm. It’s no extra load for the servers than if the server was actually giving me work every request, because if there was enough work to fulfill a request every time it tried, it would naturally stick to the 2min schedule.

Obviously nothing bad is happening because I’m still sticking to the limits that the PROJECT has set. This fantasy that doing this has ANY quantifiable negative effect is entirely without merit. Anyone who thinks so still doesn’t understand what’s actually being done. That’s the facts.