Yes, as I indicated, e@h was crunching ok under admin at the time of the
previous snapshot.
I changed the preference to "yes" for do work while the machine is busy,
and ran "update project" from the boinc project screen. No change.
It seems to me that boinc is having process management trouble.
When I login as admin right after a machine restart, boinc sets up ok
and goes ahead with its e@h crunching.
However, if I log off from the admin account, boinc will not terminate.
If I force the termination and log on to the user's account,
the boinc startup screen doesn't appear, there is no boinc icon on
the right side of the taskbar, and boinc mgr won't start from
the start menu. When I check the Windows process queue, and boinc.exe
is listed as running under the admin account, but using no cpu cycles.
So, I log out and then log back in as admin, and boinc sits on the
taskbar, dead. Right clicking produces nothing. The machine is idle.
If I restart the machine and log in as admin, it starts crunching again.
I can't spend too much more time on this project. If we can't
get it fixed within a little more effort, I'm going to have to
quit e@h.
- Bill
Quote:
Quote:
Hi Michael,
At the time of this snapshot, the e@h job is running under admin.
11/30/2005 11:44:46 AM||General prefs: from Einstein@Home (last modified 2005-04-15 10:50:05)
11/30/2005 11:44:46 AM||General prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
11/30/2005 11:44:48 AM||Remote control not allowed; using loopback address
11/30/2005 11:44:48 AM|Einstein@Home|Resuming computation for result w1_1308.5__1308.9_0.1_T07_S4hC_3 using einstein version 479
E@H GENERAL PREFERENCES ---------------------------------
Processor usage
Do work while computer is running on batteries?
(matters only for portable computers) no
Do work while computer is in use? no
Do work only after computer is idle for 10 minutes
Do work only between the hours of (no restriction)
Leave applications in memory while preempted?
(suspended applications will consume swap space if 'yes') no
Switch between applications every
(recommended: 60 minutes) 60 minutes
On multiprocessors, use at most 2 processors
Disk and memory usage Use no more than 1 GB disk space
Leave at least 1 GB disk space free
Use no more than 10% of total disk space
Write to disk at most every 120 seconds
Use no more than 75% of total virtual memory
Network usage
Connect to network about every
(determines size of work cache; maximum 10 days) 0.1 days
Confirm before connecting to Internet?
(matters only if you use a modem) no
Disconnect when done?
(matters only if you use a modem) yes
Maximum download rate: 500 KB/s
Maximum upload rate: 100 KB/s
Use network only between the hours of
Enforced by versions 4.46 and greater (no restriction)
Skip image file verification?
Check this ONLY if your Internet provider modifies image files (UMTS does this, for example).
Skipping verification reduces the security of BOINC. no
Thanks,
- Bill
Bill,
The line I've italicized appears to indicate that your Einstein workunit is presently crunching. Is that the case?
Secondly, where I've emboldened part of your preference listing (and it appears that this is not a problem for you yet, because there are no error messages about disk space), the way that BOINC looks at disk memory requirements has changed with the move from the 4.xx to the 5.x.x client. I've just today run across a thread explaining the change, and I'll try to run it down and link it a little later, maybe even soon enough to add it to this post as an "edit".
The problem you're experiencing is almost certainly unique to the "Shared" type installation, of which I unfortuately have no experience. It's too bad that the "Single user" install failed, as that would have negated the admin/user switching problem. The good news is that there are many other volunteers like me on these boards that do have experience with the shared variety of installation, and would be happy to help. If you'd like to "hang in there" for a while, you'll get more targeted assistance. Also unfortunate is the fact that Boinc is unresponsive when you log back in as admin, because if the Manager window was openable, you could *easily* get additional lines from the Messages tab, which would pertain to the error. I said "easily" because those lines are recorded as a file within the Boinc folder, in ".txt" files beginning with "std"... those files are too large to post on the forum page, but you may be asked to email them to a member of the development group for analysis, in the event there is not a solution that is immediately recognizable from your well-detailed description.
Michael
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
I've just read through this thread and I think your problems are probably due to the fact that you are trying to run BOINC as a user without the necessary priviledges to read and write in the BOINC folder which was probably created when you were an administrator. Can you login as an administrator and make sure that the BOINC folder has the necessary permissions for you as an ordinary user to access that folder.
Maybe you might like to make youself a member of the sdministrators group which would also probably fix your problems. Don't give up just yet. Hang in there and you'll find the solution :).
Your suggestion that the problem was security settings proved at least
partially correct. I never would have guessed this, because it seems
to ignore three aspects of the observed behavior. [BTW: We do not allow
admin priviledges on the user account; this is one part of our
site's security policy to protect against invasions from the Internet.]
Setting the security permissions on the Boinc directory and its
contents to "Full Control" for users improved the situation.
It surely would have been helpful (and within reasonable expectations)
to have the installer set the required permissions when the installation
is performed in shared mode. If not done automatically, at least
a word of user advice would save a lot of (collective) user time.
However, this is not the end of the sad story. The work unit that
was in progress was reported with the status "Computation error".
So I aborted that one (though I strongly suspect that the "error"
was caused by the version change, not my system). I then tried a
project update, and the work unit assigned remains in "Downloading"
status for many minutes (30 so far). Normally, a work unit on our
cable connection (which is up and running) takes only a few seconds
to download.
I regret that I must suspend my participation in e@h, unless somebody
wants to pay for my time in debugging the Boinc software. Perhaps
I'll check back in a month or two to see if Boinc is under control.
- Bill
Quote:
Bill,
I've just read through this thread and I think your problems are probably due to the fact that you are trying to run BOINC as a user without the necessary priviledges to read and write in the BOINC folder which was probably created when you were an administrator. Can you login as an administrator and make sure that the BOINC folder has the necessary permissions for you as an ordinary user to access that folder.
Maybe you might like to make youself a member of the sdministrators group which would also probably fix your problems. Don't give up just yet. Hang in there and you'll find the solution :).
I'm glad you had at least partial success. Please realise that I'm a volunteer and a participant just like you. I have no affiliation with the developers of BOINC (paid staff of two) or the developers and administrators of the EAH project. I just try to help out.
Personally, i've installed BOINC (many versions) on a large number of machines and I've not had the sort of experiences that have troubled you. If you were willing to persevere just a bit more, we should be able to get this sorted.
Quote:
The work unit that was in progress was reported with the status "Computation error".
By checking your computer's results list on the website, I can see the actual error message as:-
Quote:
5.2.13
One or more missing files
You should be able to see a more complete set of error messages in the text files (stderr*.txt) that are kept in your BOINC folder. This should give you a lot more information about exactly what BOINC was trying to do at the time and exactly what might have been missing. The message suggests to me that maybe you as a user are still being plagued by permissions problems. Maybe something like writing out results at the end of computation. There may be partial files owned by administrator that you as a user can't add to?? Maybe, somewhere along the line, a file got deleted so it really was missing when BOINC needed it?? I really don't know.
Quote:
So I aborted that one (though I strongly suspect that the "error"
was caused by the version change, not my system).
Once the error was reported, the result was aborted anyway. You shouldn't have had to do anything. The results list shows that 2 seconds after the error occurred, the new result was received by your machine. Processing should have started on this new result straight away. Also, there are no problems or computation errors caused by version changes. You simply stop BOINC, install the new version "over the top" (as long as the previous version was 4.25 or later) and then restart BOINC. It's prudent to uninstall the previous version first but many just install "over the top". I've done this many times without problem. You may have problems if things are deleted manually, depending on what is deleted.
Quote:
I then tried a project update, and the work unit assigned remains in "Downloading" status for many minutes (30 so far). Normally, a work unit on our
cable connection (which is up and running) takes only a few seconds to download.
The EAH project sends large (~6MB) data files occasionally when needed. A new unit of work (result) is actually just a very small set of instructions on how to "slice off" a section of the large data file for processing. Your second result was just another slice off your existing large data file. I've got no idea what was actually "downloading". Did you go to the transfers tab of BOINC Manager and look at what transfer was in progress? There is a status column and controls to "retry" or "abort" stuck transfers.
Quote:
I regret that I must suspend my participation in e@h, unless somebody
wants to pay for my time in debugging the Boinc software. Perhaps
I'll check back in a month or two to see if Boinc is under control.
I'm very sorry you are having these problems. I know BOINC is not perfect but it is quite an amazing achievement for just two paid developers. For 95% of participants, BOINC simply works, pretty much as advertised. You would be doing a great service to the whole BOINC community (300,000+ participants and growing every day) if you just bear with it a little longer. When you ultimately find and sort out your problem, it may just be an important link that helps improve the whole project for a whole bunch of other people.
Yes, as I indicated, e@h was
)
Yes, as I indicated, e@h was crunching ok under admin at the time of the
previous snapshot.
I changed the preference to "yes" for do work while the machine is busy,
and ran "update project" from the boinc project screen. No change.
It seems to me that boinc is having process management trouble.
When I login as admin right after a machine restart, boinc sets up ok
and goes ahead with its e@h crunching.
However, if I log off from the admin account, boinc will not terminate.
If I force the termination and log on to the user's account,
the boinc startup screen doesn't appear, there is no boinc icon on
the right side of the taskbar, and boinc mgr won't start from
the start menu. When I check the Windows process queue, and boinc.exe
is listed as running under the admin account, but using no cpu cycles.
So, I log out and then log back in as admin, and boinc sits on the
taskbar, dead. Right clicking produces nothing. The machine is idle.
If I restart the machine and log in as admin, it starts crunching again.
I can't spend too much more time on this project. If we can't
get it fixed within a little more effort, I'm going to have to
quit e@h.
- Bill
Bill, The problem you're
)
Bill,
The problem you're experiencing is almost certainly unique to the "Shared" type installation, of which I unfortuately have no experience. It's too bad that the "Single user" install failed, as that would have negated the admin/user switching problem. The good news is that there are many other volunteers like me on these boards that do have experience with the shared variety of installation, and would be happy to help. If you'd like to "hang in there" for a while, you'll get more targeted assistance. Also unfortunate is the fact that Boinc is unresponsive when you log back in as admin, because if the Manager window was openable, you could *easily* get additional lines from the Messages tab, which would pertain to the error. I said "easily" because those lines are recorded as a file within the Boinc folder, in ".txt" files beginning with "std"... those files are too large to post on the forum page, but you may be asked to email them to a member of the development group for analysis, in the event there is not a solution that is immediately recognizable from your well-detailed description.
Michael
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
Bill, I've just read
)
Bill,
I've just read through this thread and I think your problems are probably due to the fact that you are trying to run BOINC as a user without the necessary priviledges to read and write in the BOINC folder which was probably created when you were an administrator. Can you login as an administrator and make sure that the BOINC folder has the necessary permissions for you as an ordinary user to access that folder.
Maybe you might like to make youself a member of the sdministrators group which would also probably fix your problems. Don't give up just yet. Hang in there and you'll find the solution :).
Cheers,
Gary.
Hi Gary, Your suggestion
)
Hi Gary,
Your suggestion that the problem was security settings proved at least
partially correct. I never would have guessed this, because it seems
to ignore three aspects of the observed behavior. [BTW: We do not allow
admin priviledges on the user account; this is one part of our
site's security policy to protect against invasions from the Internet.]
Setting the security permissions on the Boinc directory and its
contents to "Full Control" for users improved the situation.
It surely would have been helpful (and within reasonable expectations)
to have the installer set the required permissions when the installation
is performed in shared mode. If not done automatically, at least
a word of user advice would save a lot of (collective) user time.
However, this is not the end of the sad story. The work unit that
was in progress was reported with the status "Computation error".
So I aborted that one (though I strongly suspect that the "error"
was caused by the version change, not my system). I then tried a
project update, and the work unit assigned remains in "Downloading"
status for many minutes (30 so far). Normally, a work unit on our
cable connection (which is up and running) takes only a few seconds
to download.
I regret that I must suspend my participation in e@h, unless somebody
wants to pay for my time in debugging the Boinc software. Perhaps
I'll check back in a month or two to see if Boinc is under control.
- Bill
Hi Bill, I'm glad you had
)
Hi Bill,
I'm glad you had at least partial success. Please realise that I'm a volunteer and a participant just like you. I have no affiliation with the developers of BOINC (paid staff of two) or the developers and administrators of the EAH project. I just try to help out.
Personally, i've installed BOINC (many versions) on a large number of machines and I've not had the sort of experiences that have troubled you. If you were willing to persevere just a bit more, we should be able to get this sorted.
By checking your computer's results list on the website, I can see the actual error message as:-
You should be able to see a more complete set of error messages in the text files (stderr*.txt) that are kept in your BOINC folder. This should give you a lot more information about exactly what BOINC was trying to do at the time and exactly what might have been missing. The message suggests to me that maybe you as a user are still being plagued by permissions problems. Maybe something like writing out results at the end of computation. There may be partial files owned by administrator that you as a user can't add to?? Maybe, somewhere along the line, a file got deleted so it really was missing when BOINC needed it?? I really don't know.
Once the error was reported, the result was aborted anyway. You shouldn't have had to do anything. The results list shows that 2 seconds after the error occurred, the new result was received by your machine. Processing should have started on this new result straight away. Also, there are no problems or computation errors caused by version changes. You simply stop BOINC, install the new version "over the top" (as long as the previous version was 4.25 or later) and then restart BOINC. It's prudent to uninstall the previous version first but many just install "over the top". I've done this many times without problem. You may have problems if things are deleted manually, depending on what is deleted.
The EAH project sends large (~6MB) data files occasionally when needed. A new unit of work (result) is actually just a very small set of instructions on how to "slice off" a section of the large data file for processing. Your second result was just another slice off your existing large data file. I've got no idea what was actually "downloading". Did you go to the transfers tab of BOINC Manager and look at what transfer was in progress? There is a status column and controls to "retry" or "abort" stuck transfers.
I'm very sorry you are having these problems. I know BOINC is not perfect but it is quite an amazing achievement for just two paid developers. For 95% of participants, BOINC simply works, pretty much as advertised. You would be doing a great service to the whole BOINC community (300,000+ participants and growing every day) if you just bear with it a little longer. When you ultimately find and sort out your problem, it may just be an important link that helps improve the whole project for a whole bunch of other people.
Cheers,
Gary.