Starting client with server up but not responding

[Welnic]

Right now if you start the client and it can see the server but the server is down for maintenance you get a message saying "SERVER DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE, TRY AGAIN LATER", and it asks you to hit enter. But if you are running it as a service it just grabs all the memory that it normally does and then just sits there waiting for the never arriving Enter key hit. You have to go to the process manager to kill it.

If it doesn't see the server at all or it gets this response after it is already running and it is trying to upload then it just starts folding and tries later. The best way around the problem is to start the client with the network cable unplugged, that way you don't have to configure it to not use the net and then reconfigure it later when the server is back up.

So why not just have start folding when it starts if the server is down for maintenance? I, for one, am now sure that it will be back, it has always come back in the past.

This last case is particularly painful for me as I think that most of my borged machines are shut off for the weekend and then left on all week. With the server being down at 8:00 PDT that is a whole week gone.

[Brian the Fist]

As for the not starting thing, yes, it is possible that one day the server will go down, and not come back up (when the project eventually ends). We don't want you all folding, thinking you're doing useful work after the project has ended, now do we?

As for the service thing, this is part of a bigger problem which I believe should be fixed in the next release.

If this has somehow affected your borged machines we apologize for any inconvenience. But then we do not recommend/endorse using machines you do not own or have permission to use for our project.

[Welnic]

They are actually machines that I both own and have permission to use. But there are people that are using them as their work computers. So I don't go around and interrupt what they are doing, kill df, unplug their ethernet cable, start df, and plug their ethernet cable back in.

I just don't see why starting the client when the server is down for maintenance is such a special case that folding isn't just started.

I am actually expecting to hear that the project is ending from another source than seeing the client say: "THIS PROJECT IS NO LONGER IN SERVICE, TRY SOMETHING ELSE". I think that you would find that most people who worry about computers sitting idle would actually notice the end of the project.

[Brian the Fist]

Originally posted by Welnic
I think that you would find that most people who worry about computers sitting idle would actually notice the end of the project.

And what about the thousands of other innocent souls?