Won't connect to localhost

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murrellr

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Joined: 20 Dec 05
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Message 2109 - Posted: 20 Dec 2005, 13:38:51 UTC

BOINC will not connect to localhost. It tries to connect for a minute or so, and then I get a pop-up stating "BOINC Manager is not able to connect to a BOINC client." This was working. I have version 5.2.13 installed.

When it was working, I had several lockups while BOINC was running that required powering down to recover. This seems to be very unstable software. And from the posts on these forums, it appears I'm not the only one who thinks so. I'm very disappointed that SETI@Home decided to convert to this program.

My machine is an HP Pavilion, 1.8GHz AMD Athlon XP 2200+, 512 MB RAM, running Windows XP Home Edition with SP2.

Are these forums the only support for this product?

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Profile Andrew Hingston

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Joined: 25 Nov 05
Posts: 55
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Message 2134 - Posted: 20 Dec 2005, 17:59:43 UTC - in response to Message 2109.  

Are these forums the only support for this product?


No, the normal support forums are the ones on the project boards. Help can be given there on all aspects, and it is possible to view your account to see not only what processor and OS you have but whether the server has been recording any errors. In general, you should start there, and post to this board only if the problem has been identified as relating to the BOINC parts of the software, and people on the project board cannot solve your problems. That will be rare.

It is difficult to give you much help at the moment without more information. The lockups might be caused by the SETI program, though the inability to connect to localhost suggests that boinc.exe has crashed. What you describe is not common. Out of the many thousands of people running BOINC, some have experienced problems with different things and so it is easy to get the impression that the software is 'unstable', but that would be misleading.

When BOINC is running, you should be able to see boincmger.exe, boinc.exe, and one or more tasks relating to the application(s), in your case SETI. When you get the message 'cannot connect to localhost', which of these can you find?

When you say it locks up, are there any messages? Have you checked task manager at these times? Does it happen when you are doing particular things, or, say, when the screensaver starts?

Look in the stderrae.txt file in your BOINC directory. Is there anything there relating to the times you were having trouble?
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Bernd

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Joined: 10 Jan 06
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Message 2483 - Posted: 10 Jan 2006, 7:03:59 UTC - in response to Message 2134.  

Message 2109 BOINC will not connect to localhost.


I have got the same problem. All projects disappeared from my BOINC Manager. When I try to connect to localhost or to the host of one of my previous projects I end up in a catch22: "BOINC Manager is not able to connect to a client".
I don't know exactly when this problem started. I have changed my Internet provider and my ADSL router recently. However, the error text does not show changes in the (error) messages related to the chnage of provider:
- could not connect to hostname (climatepredicition,lcathome)
- could not resolve hostname (einstein)
- no schedulers responded
- no work from project
- fetching master file
...


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Jim K
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Posts: 168
Message 2486 - Posted: 10 Jan 2006, 10:11:40 UTC

Do you have BOINC starting at boot? If so delete it from windows startup and reboot, that works for some people...

OK, the disconnected issue means that the BOINC manager is not able to talk to the BOINC daemon. Whether or not you are uploading/downloading/crunching at this point must be determined with the task list (I do not remember how to bring this up for 95/98/me).
The usual reason for this problem is that the BOINC manager is starting and trying to talk before the BOINC daemon is ready to listen. The usual fix is to wait a minute or two and see if connecting to "" or "localhost" or "127.0.0.1" works.
If the above fails, then there is a possibility that the BOINC daemon is not starting. If that is the case, then staring it manually may help. If it is installed as a service, run "net start BOINC" from a command line. If it is installed as single or multi user, cd to the install directory, and run BOINC.exe. If it is now running, you are the victim of a bug that has hopefully been fixed in 5.1.
If it is still not working, you have a problem with one of the XML files, and you will probably have to delete the directory and start over. (I have seen this problem much less with 5.1).
You might also go to the BOINC folder and look for this file "gui rpc auth.cfg" open with word pad and change the password to one you like make sure you enter a return at the end and then save and reboot computer then try the local host entry in select computer popup..... Check your firewall.
BOINC Wiki
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Bernd

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Message 2507 - Posted: 10 Jan 2006, 20:30:12 UTC - in response to Message 2486.  

Do you have BOINC starting at boot? If so ...


thanks for your kind help. I checked all suggested options but none of them worked. Then I thought before it can't get worse. Before I delete the directory I should see what happens when I click on one of the other executable files. The first one was boinc.exe. A cmd like window popped up and some code was executed. A sort of status check starting with "Starting BOINC cleint version 5.2.13" and ending with "Primary listen port was in use ...". What does that mean? Just for fun I then clicked on boincmgr.exe.

I am back in business!

However, I would like to understand why.

Bernd


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Paul D. Buck

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Message 2514 - Posted: 11 Jan 2006, 10:52:52 UTC

It sure sounds to me like your BOINC Daemon was not started. Not running, there is nothing for the BOINC Manager to connect to. I am pretty sure this was one of the suggestions below.

In most versions of windows you can CTL-ALT-DEL and pull up a process list and check. There are cases where, for whatever reason the Daemon will not start but the BOINC Manager will.

When you clicked on the file, you started BOINC Daemon and as you said, back in business.
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JN

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Message 2580 - Posted: 14 Jan 2006, 1:23:20 UTC

I have been having this problem with 2 machines running XP. Why I don't have it with other, no idea. Boinc doesn't start when the system boots (sometimes it starts if it beats the other process to the punch) because port is in use. Port is being used by ALG.exe which is supposedly part of the windows operating system..

alg.exe
Application Layer Gateway service is a component of of Windows OS. It is required if you use a 3rd party firewall or Internet Connection Sharing (ICS) to connect to the internet. Do not end this program in task manager - you will lose all internet connectivity until next restart or login.

Now I am not running ICS or a third party firewall but alg.exe is running and grabs the port.

Any work around here ?
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Paul D. Buck

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Message 2584 - Posted: 14 Jan 2006, 10:37:10 UTC

The first one I would try is to suspend the process and see if it does kill internet access. If it does, then you do need it. If it doesn't, go into control panel, services and set it to manual and reboot. Make sure you can connect to the internet and test to see if BOINC starts ...
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JN

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Message 2591 - Posted: 14 Jan 2006, 15:18:26 UTC

I have manually done the work around. Hopefully this will be addressed in a future release considering there is a port conflict with a Windows component.
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Paul D. Buck

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Message 2592 - Posted: 14 Jan 2006, 15:34:48 UTC

The problem is the 800-pound gorilla, as usual, does not follow procedure. The ports they grab have been reserved and they should not be touching them.

But, because it will be nearly impossible for UCB to get Microsoft to follow the rules, they have asked for a new port reservation that should be sufficiently out of the way that it should not get pre-empted ...

So, yes, a fix is in the works ...
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Message boards : BOINC client : Won't connect to localhost

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