Hi,

I'm new to this forum so please forgive me if I'm doing something wrong in posting this message.

I'm running Boinc 7.6.22 in multiple machines. They are all Windows machines running Windows 7, 8.1 or 10. They all work on seti@home + some other projects, but I don't think that it is relevant here. In all the machines it happens that every now and then random other applications (than Boinc) just suddenly disappear, e.g. crash. The disappearing occurs in "bulks" i.e. multiple other applications disappear at the same time when it occurs. That behavior stops in all of the computers as soon as I uninstall Boinc so the behavior is clearly caused by Boinc.

I don't know how I should debug or try to solve the issue or whether there is some data somewhere I could provide you in order to help you in solving this. So please provide me with next step in solving this. Thank you.

I'm running Boinc 7.6.22 in multiple machines. They are all Windows machines running Windows 7, 8.1 or 10.

We'll need a lot more information right here, if we're to figure this one out.
So could you please tell us a bit about the hardware? CPU make and model, amount of memory, brand and model of GPU, version of drivers, what kind of cooling you have for yiur CPUs and GPUs, how heavy the power supply units are, etc.

They all work on seti@home + some other projects, but I don't think that it is relevant here. In all the machines it happens that every now and then random other applications (than Boinc) just suddenly disappear, e.g. crash. The disappearing occurs in "bulks" i.e. multiple other applications disappear at the same time when it occurs. That behavior stops in all of the computers as soon as I uninstall Boinc so the behavior is clearly caused by Boinc.

BOINC by itself is just a managing program, it doesn't do anything by itself that puts pressure on things like the CPU, the GPU or the memory.

The heavy duty is done by the science applications of the various projects you run, so it is of enormous relevance here to know which projects you run, and on which hardware resource. E.g. Seti on CPU and Einstein on GPU, or vice versa. How many CPU cores you have left free in order to run GPU work. How the cooling is set for CPU and GPU, and are you measuring on the systems how hot they get? Have you ever cleaned these systems out, undone the dust-bunnies from their insides?

What does Windows Event Viewer say about the crashes of the programs? Which programs are you talking about, are they parts of Windows, or programs you installed? Games? Word processing? Video players? Backuup programs? How much memory do they use, how much CPU and GPU do they use?

And why not use the exclusive_app and exclusive_gpu_app options in cc_config.xml - options to stop crunching while you use such a program?

It's easy to point at BOINC and claim that it causes your problems, but the science programs running under BOINC use the hardware in different ways and in a more sustained way than other programs do, they'll add more heat, and find problems on unstable systems by crashing them or the programs that run on them. In other words, there's most probably something wrong with your systems already that makes that they cannot run at full blast for longer periods of time without having problems.

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Thank you for the reply. Here's some information you asked. I have Boinc running on a lot of computers, but let's concentrate on the following three for now:

1. https://www.walmart.com/ip/ZT-Black-Affinity-870-Desktop-PC-with-Intel-Core-i7-3770-Processor-16GB-Memory-23-Widescreen-Monitor-2TB-Hard-Drive-and-Windows-7-Home-Premium/21009309?findingMethod=rr in its original composition (16 GB memory) except that the operating system has been updated to Windows 10 Home edition. Boinc in this PC is working on SETI@home and LHC@home. I'm not exactly sure how to check the CPU/GPU usage but at least SETI uses CPU for most of the packets and CPU + GPU for some of them.
2. Dell Precision M3800 laptop with 16 GB memory. It's crunching SETI and Cosmology. Again, at least SETI uses both CPU and GPU.
3. Dell Latitude E6420 laptop with 8 GB memory. Boinc working on SETI and LHC. At least SETI uses both CPU and GPU.

I also had Boinc installed on Asus G550JK with 8 GB memory but in it Boinc made applications crash so often that I had to uninstall it. It worked on SETI at least.

The applications that crash are various, not parts of Windows. For example, Skype, Visual Studio, Outlook, Firefox, Chrome, Notepad++, Command prompt, Wireshark, Jing, basically it can be anything that just happens to be running when it occurs. I haven't been observing their memory or CPU usage but they are very commonly used programs and I use them in just a normal way. If I defined any of them as an application that would stop Boinc from doing its work, then Boinc would not be working at all in practice.

I will try to remember to take a look in Event viewer when it occurs the next time and then update this.

Please let me know if I missed some information or if there is something else I could provide. Thanks.

Windows-7-Home ... updated to Windows 10 Home edition.

A lot of people have found that doing the update from Windows 7/8.1 to 10 made their system unstable. They fixed this by downloading the Windows 10 ISO/DVD and installing Windows 10 clean on their system. This will mean you'll have to reinstall all your programs, though.

2. ... laptop
3. ... laptop

The first one can be up to an i7 according to the Dell website. The second one is an i3. Laptops have a tendency to get hot, since everything is in an enclosed small flat surface case without adequate cooling options. And then you're using the CPU and the GPU. I'd look into good cooling first, like through a cooling pad. Or run only work on the GPU, or only on the CPU, see if that increases stability.

If these have also been upgraded to Windows 10, you're in a world of hurt.

uses both CPU and GPU.

When working with a GPU on Seti, doesn't matter if it's Nvidia, Intel or AMD GPU, make sure to leave one CPU core free (in BOINC set Use at most N% of the CPUs in your computing preferences, to one less than the total. Can easiest be set to 99%, since the value is an integer, 100% means use all, 99% means all minus one.

Freeing one CPU core will have it cater for the GPU and the system. This will increase stability. Free one core per GPU, so if you have two GPUs, free two cores.

Asus G550JK

Another laptop, the same advice as above.

I will try to remember to take a look in Event viewer when it occurs the next time and then update this.

Windows remembers all, you don't have to wait, but instead look now. Search->Event viewer->click on Event Viewer, wait for it to load, Windows Logs->Application, look for any errors and warnings of around those times. Post their fault and event ID(s) (all info from the general tab would be nice, you can select all with SHIFT+cursor keys, then CTRL+C to copy and paste in an answer window with CTRL+V).

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A lot of people have found that doing the update from Windows 7/8.1 to 10 made their system unstable.

I have not found such. This is the only instability issue there is and it existed already prior to the update.

I'd look into good cooling first, like through a cooling pad.

These are my work laptops. Even if they were my own, I'd not be very interested in buying new parts for them only because of Boinc.

Or run only work on the GPU, or only on the CPU

Where is the setting to set that?

If these have also been upgraded to Windows 10, you're in a world of hurt.

No they haven't and as stated above I don't believe in that being related anyway.

Can easiest be set to 99%, since the value is an integer, 100% means use all, 99% means all minus one.

I did that. However, at least Windows Task Manager still reports my CPU usage is 100%.

Windows remembers all, you don't have to wait, but instead look now. Search->Event viewer->click on Event Viewer, wait for it to load, Windows Logs->Application, look for any errors and warnings of around those times. Post their fault and event ID(s) (all info from the general tab would be nice, you can select all with SHIFT+cursor keys, then CTRL+C to copy and paste in an answer window with CTRL+V).

I no longer remember the exact time it reproduced yesterday (actually I mean the time I noticed the disappearance of the applications, the time of their termination is probably even more unknown) but I can say for sure that there are no warnings or errors in event viewer at that time, not even such information events from the applications that got killed that would seem to be relevant here. I guess that is expected as the applications were just suddenly killed without any prior warning. I don't want to share publicly any detailed events from my work laptops but as soon as it occurs in this home workstation (the one with Windows 10) I can paste an excerpt of the events here if you still think it might be useful (?)

I had Boinc disabled in this computer for a couple of days as I did some other demanding computing with this but now I have enabled Boinc again. It was not long after that when the sudden disappearing of applications occurred and I instantly checked Event Viewer. The latest event there was about an hour old, so clearly this incidence does not generate anything there. This time only one application disappeared (Mozilla Thunderbird), so just in case someone wants to claim this was not related to Boinc I can still wait for the next one and report also it here.

If there's nothing in the event viewer, the applications don't crash.
What's the antivirus package on these machines? Other anti-malware programs?

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Ok. Please note that I checked only Windows Logs->Application as I was told above.

The Windows 10 computer has Windows Defender as a firewall/virus scanner. Earlier I used the free version of AVG. Nowadays it is uninstalled but just mentioning in case it left some remnants.

Windows 7 and 8.1 computers have Webroot SecureAnywhere.

This time only one application disappeared (Mozilla Thunderbird)

Let's first see if it actually crashed, or did something else.
Please check Mozilla's View Crash Reports on how to check for Thunderbird crashes.

Now, I repeat that BOINC in itself doesn't do much. This is very easily tested, by running BOINC but suspending all projects (thus suspending all work). Are other programs now still mysteriously disappearing?

BOINC can be used to burn in hardware though. Running work on CPU and/or GPU puts stress on the hardware, on the CPU, on the GPU, on the RAM, on the motherboard, on the fans.

Any instability - in whatever form, be it wrong drivers, a small break in the hardware, corrupt memory, heat due to dry thermal paste/use of wrong thermal paste/complete lack of thermal paste/inadequate cooling, corrupt (disk)drives, corrupt Windows - in these will show up in the form of blue screens of death, crashing applications, applications refusing to start up, slow starting applications, etc. etc.

As for Event Viewer, perhaps check Custom Views->Administrative Events.
When the window has populated, click the Source header and scroll all the way up. You'll probably start with some .NET errors, but after that are the Application errors. All that the Windows on that machine ever had.

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Let's first see if it actually crashed, or did something else.
Please check Mozilla's View Crash Reports on how to check for Thunderbird crashes.

I did that and the Crash Reports section was empty. I have never seen that Mozilla Crash Reporter window either.

Now, I repeat that BOINC in itself doesn't do much. This is very easily tested, by running BOINC but suspending all projects (thus suspending all work). Are other programs now still mysteriously disappearing?

In my earlier post I told how I had Boinc disabled for a while, and then the disappearing did not occur. To be exact, I had selected the third option from the top in the Action menu (I did not find a quick way to check how that item is actually translated into English).

Any instability - in whatever form, be it wrong drivers, a small break in the hardware, corrupt memory, heat due to dry thermal paste/use of wrong thermal paste/complete lack of thermal paste/inadequate cooling, corrupt (disk)drives, corrupt Windows - in these will show up in the form of blue screens of death, crashing applications, applications refusing to start up, slow starting applications, etc. etc.

I do believe you, I just wonder how useful this whole thing is when it causes sudden disappearing of applications in all machines I install it on. I have not seen another application do that. Also, if I remember correctly, I sometimes tried lowering the CPU load allowed for Boinc in the settings, but that did not help with the issue.

I do believe you, I just wonder how useful this whole thing is when it causes sudden disappearing of applications in all machines I install it on.

All those machines have something in common other than BOINC. And since many people can run BOINC without programs crashing then that something is something not everyone has. What that something is only you can tell, we don't know what you have installed on those machines.

Windows is different from other operating systems in that it's pretty common to have foreign code running in your process. For example, if a program has standard open/save dialog then the program very likely has all the shell extensions code loaded. Such foreign code is not always of the highest quality.

If you have a spare machine and a ton of time available you could try re-installing Windows (and only Windows, no manufacturer shovelware) and BOINC. Then install other programs one at a time monitoring the machine between installs to see if programs start crashing. Once some program crashes you'll know the culprit is whatever you installed last.

If you are comfortable with more hard core methods you could tell Windows to monitor silent process exits. See Monitoring Silent Process Exit. You'd want to see if a program is terminated by some other process in which case you'll know what to uninstall. If a process self-terminates then you'd need to have a debugger attach to the process and get a stack trace. I'd expect the culprit to be somewhere in the stack trace.

In my earlier post I told how I had Boinc disabled for a while, and then the disappearing did not occur. To be exact, I had selected the third option from the top in the Action menu (I did not find a quick way to check how that item is actually translated into English).

Action menu in BOINC Manager? Third option is "Suspend". That sounds like you hadn't actually disabled BOINC. It was running. You had suspended the tasks, so the scientific applications of the projects were not running.

If you have a spare machine and a ton of time available

Unfortunately I do not have that. Also, I do not have full control over what is installed in my work laptops.

That sounds like you hadn't actually disabled BOINC. It was running. You had suspended the tasks, so the scientific applications of the projects were not running.

Yes, definitely the Boinc manager application was still running. From my point of view it is just the same thing if the behavior is caused by the manager itself or any of the "sub-applications" it starts. If there is another forum to report issues with the projects, please provide me with a link. Common to all these computers is that all of them work on seti@home while any additional projects may vary.