BOINC problems

[Jeff]

I received this email this morning from a fellow AMD Users. Let's see if we can help him out!

I am suffering a small problem! I have tried to reset all my projects, and have the system send new data to work, but for over a week I have not been able to get any data from any of the projects. I have been at each site and check the status and they all say they were up and running except for malariacontrol which was down for a a few days.
Can you give me any Ideas on what to do or what it might be the problem?

[AMDave]

Yikes!
That's not a small problem!
That's HUGE!

I'd really like to see a copy of the 1st 50 log messages from the client after a restart, but in the absence of that we can still have a go.

From the text of the message I see that our troubled fellow still has internet access and it is working

I have been at each site

so I deduce that it is not the internet connection that is at issue.

My hypothesis is that the BOINC client has stopped communicating with the outside world.

Let's address the basics...

1st we want to make sure that the client is set to access the network.
In "advanced mode" I would go to the {Activity} menu item and make sure that "Network activity always available" is checked, as opposed to "Network activity suspended" which will actually stop the client from sending and receiving data to and from the projects.

If that is not the issue then still in the client I would want to make sure that the proxy settings have not become fouled, so
2nd select the {Advanced} menu item and click on "Options". This displays the options dialog box and I would select the 3rd tab "HTTP proxy". If you are not operating through a proxy then the tick box at the top should be un-ticked "Connect via HTTP proxy server". If you are operating through a proxy, then ensure the box is ticked and the fields below are completed with the same details as your web browser.

Well. That covers the two main reasons why the client may stop communicating with the internet due to internal/local settings. There are other possibilities that could arise such as
general preferences - an accidental general preferences setting change may be so far in error that it causes wu's not to download (eg "Do work only between the hours of" might be such a narrow / nil gap that nothing can be done
hardware - a memory DIMM failure causing insufficient RAM to allow BOINC to allow a wu to be downloaded
etc. etc.
but these would all show up in the log messages.

I hope that scenarios 1 or 2 above should cover the issue for our fellow AMD User, but I'm quite prepared to get to the bottom of this. A copy of the log after a BOINC restart would really help.

Best of luck fellow AMD User!

Standing by.....

[PoorBoy]

I received this email this morning from a fellow AMD Users. Let's see if we can help him out!

Just too add to what AMDave said is make sure he even has Allow New Work for the projects turned on. And in his Preferences under the Activity Tab set to Run Always & Network Activity Always Available ...

If that don't work then the next thing I would do is to Un-Install BOINC, then go into the Registry and Delete everything related to BOINC, then Re-Install BOINC and Attach to whatever Projects he wants to run & see if he can get Wu's.

He's not going to lose any Wu's since he already said he's tried resetting the Projects, so he must be out already ... So it's best to try & start with a fresh install of BOINC if he's having problems & nothing else works.

[Jeff]

I have sent an email back asking for the log information. Hopefully we can figure this out for him


Jeff

[AMDave]

Allow New Work for the projects turned on

Thanks PoorBoy. I overlooked that.

Something else just occurred to me.
What is the client version? {Help} > About > Version: X.X.X ?
If the client is too old it may have stopped communicating with the newer versions on the project servers.

I have to admit that this is something I have not tested.
/ed - regression testing. what a good idea. doh! -ed/
If this were the case then an upgrade-install to the same folder would be in order.

Back to standing by...

[PoorBoy]

I was just thinking the same thing Dave, his BOINC Client may be to old, a lot of the Projects require a certain Version or they won't send work to you ...

[vaughan]

When that happens I've seen a message to the effect that you need such & such a version to run this project.

[AMDave]

When that happens I've seen a message to the effect that you need such & such a version to run this project.

a pop up dialog or do you see it in the log?

[vaughan]

Its in the messages tab.

[PoorBoy]

Its in the messages tab.

Yup, I've seen that myself at a few Projects, it's what got me to finally get off v5.4.11 & install v5.8.16 across my Pc's. May have to go even higher shortly ...