Message from Howard regarding the autoupdate failure

[pointwood]

Howard just posted this:
From: "howardjfeldman" <trades@mshri.on.ca>
Date: Mon Mar 25, 2002 3:08 am
Subject: Please read if auto-update failed

Hi,

For anyone where auto-update failed, can you e-mail me with
your 'error.log' file, and can you also send me the 'distribfold-
update.exe' file that was downloaded by the auto-update. I suspect
then problem may not be a bug at all. If you didn't already know,
the updates are hosted on Intel's site, since they have larger
bandwidth, etc. than we do. It seems the Windows update may have
been posted incorrectly. I am not sure what they did but sometimes
I can download it if I type the direct URL into my browser and
sometimes I get a 404 Not Found type page, seemingly at random.
This would explain why the auto-update failed but I will have to
speak with them as well. If thats all it is, Ill get them to fix it
on Monday and if you havent already manually updated, the auto-
update should work.

Howard

[Paratima]

OK, my machines at work had "can't connect to anteater2.distributedfolding.org" or some such. I'll get it when I go in.

Home systems had: ERROR: [001.001] {foldtrajlite.c, line 1053} No signature found

The REAL problem here Howard, is your expecting 5,500 volunteers, with umpty-eleven machines running, to ALPHA-TEST YOUR SYSTEM! :mad: You gotta get some quality control and test this stuff thoroughly BEFORE you release it in the wild.

I've got a only handful of systems, but the big hitters are sheperding hundreds of boxen to help YOUR project, and it's unreasonable and extremely impolite to foist on them untested code thru an untested delivery system. Get it together soon, please.

[pointwood]

I agree, however it doesn't help much by posting it here - you should either post on the Yahoo messageboard or mail Howard directly.

[Paratima]

Done, at the speed of light. ;)

[Angus]

The 'anteater2.distributed.folding' is *one* of the work sites for uploading results. Howard changes the name with each new protein, so the old results don't find an upload home. That address may be embedded in the foldtrajlite.exe file which is why we need to update the client each time a protein changes...

Not the best solution...

[pointwood]

Paratima - good!

I'm sure Howard takes this problem pretty serious and he has so far been great at working together with the community.

He is new to all this, so he is certainly learning a great many thing about what to do and what not to.

I believe your comment is another one of those :)

[FoBoT]

Originally posted by Paratima
The REAL problem here Howard, is your expecting 5,500 volunteers, with umpty-eleven machines running, to ALPHA-TEST YOUR SYSTEM! :mad: You gotta get some quality control and test this stuff thoroughly BEFORE you release it in the wild.


if you were here from the beginning, i think howard made it clear that THIS was essentially a work in progress/alpha testing on the fly

he said from the beginning that the autoupdate wasn't tested

i don't think he expected to have to deal with it so soon, DF went from a couple hundred users to 5000+ within a couple weeks, one person can only do so much :rolleyes:

[Paratima]

Nope, wasn't here from the beginning, like most of the other ...checking... 5,727 other folders. I'm not questioning Howard's worth as a human being, just his methodology as a programmer. Testing on your users just isn't polite.

Hell, if my rant is the worst bawling-out he ever gets, he's really lucky. In 30+ years of system programming, I've got a lot worse than that. From better people than me, with less justification! :p

I'm still folding. Looking to put more boxen into it, as a matter of fact. Just making a point, nothing more.

[ColinT]

Paratima:

You really don;t have to add more boxes

[Paratima]

Hehehehehe! :D

[ColinT]

Drat!

Come into the IRC channel and I will give you a tongue-lashing!

[Paratima]

Sorry, meeting night. Another time, mon ami. :cool:

[jkeating]

From the DF News section:

03/25/2002

- A small bug still managed to creep into the auto-update procedure which manifests only on Windows 98/ME for the text client. A small patch (1 K) has been posted on the Download page which should fix future auto-updates on this platform. Just download it and unzip to the same folder as everything else, overwriting existing files. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

- If you received a message to the effect that "no digital signature found" on the update, this is due to human error, not a bug, as the update file for Windows was absent from the Intel web site where it is hosted, for several hours. It is online now and will download fine now.

[pointwood]

Originally posted by ColinT
Paratima:

You really don;t have to add more boxes I would say that generally, you guys have already put far too many boxes on this project :p :D ;)

[dnar]

From: "howardjfeldman" <trades@m...>
Date: Wed Mar 27, 2002 4:32 am
Subject: Auto-update update

Hello,

We tried to post this yesterday but the message seems to have gotten
lost in cyberspace so we'll try again.

First off congratulations on everyone's hard work - we've already got
several structures under 6A for BPTI, our third protein (previous
best was 7.3A). You will notice this protein is "harder" than the
first two to predict due to its more complex structure.

Regarding auto-updates, we apologize profusely for the trouble that
we have been having with it on some systems. We are working to
ensure the next auto-update will work for everyone. The next auto-
update will likely only contain a new protein (and not a new
executable) so it will be simpler for everyone. There are two
separate issues that occurred, both on Windows. As far as we know,
the UNIX versions all updated successfully.

One is if you received an "Authentication failed" type message on
Windows, and was due to human error. The update file mysteriously
vanished from the site overnight, and was put back late Sunday
night. If you check, the download "patch" was actually a 404 HTML
error message page, hence the lack of digital signature. The file
now downloads properly as of Sunday night.

The second issue was on Windows 98 where the client did not
successfully update. This was due to both the limited environment
space and the differences in file locking and spawning new processes
between 98 and NT. We apologize for the inconvenience but Win98
users will have to manually update this time, and if you have already
done so, be sure to grab the 1K patch which updates some of the files
affecting auto-update. It is in the Download section of
www.distributedfolding.org for the Windows Text Client. We are now
extensively testing the auto-update with various flavors of Windows,
in both screensaver, client, and NT service modes, and will make sure
all of these auto-update successfully in time for the next release.

Thank you again for your patience and for sticking with us while we
have ironed out the bugs in our software. Your reward will be a
fast, extremely stable client that you can install on your machines
and basically forget about, leaving them to 'do their thing'.

Howard


Source: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/distributedfolding/message/494

[Paratima]

We are now extensively testing the auto-update
I like the sound of that! :D

...and by the way...

I would say that generally, you guys have already put far too many boxes on this project
Thanks, Pointwood! :p