I upgraded from Boinc Version 7.25 to 7.27 on one of my machines because of a bug in 7.25 that caused some Milkyway work units to run in high priority mode as soon as they were downloaded. Version 7.27 corrected this problem, but always came up with the notice "Unrecognized tag in cc_config.xml: <zero_debts>" on startup.

I have since upgraded from Boinc Version 7.25 to 7.28 on my other machine, and the new version on this machine comes up with the same notice on startup. In neither machine did this notice appear on Boinc versions 7.25 and earlier.

AFAIK this is no more than a small annoyance, but I don't know if this has caused problems for anyone else.

The first machine is an AuthenticAMD
AMD Turion(tm) II Dual-Core Mobile M520 [Family 16 Model 6 Stepping 2]
(2 processors) laptop running 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, and the second is an AuthenticAMD
AMD Athlon(tm) II X3 450 Processor [Family 16 Model 5 Stepping 3]
(3 processors) desktop running 64 bit Windows 7 Professional SP1

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It's not a bug, it's a fix. BOINC 7.0 doesn't use debt anymore, so configuration options as showing messages for short term debt and zeroing the debt values are useless. Hence why their entries were removed.

From the 7.0.26 --> 7.0.27 change log:

client: remove <std_debug> log flag.
client: remove <zero_debts> config option.

Now, even if you never added any of these to your cc_config.xml file, you may have added them through the new "add exclusive application" option in Tools->Computing preferences->exclusive applications. When you add a program to exclude through here, BOINC will write a comprehensive cc_config.xml file with all the <log_flags/> and <options/> that there are, with their default setting.

You can fix the message by updating to BOINC 7.0.28 or later, and then either manually editing cc_config.xml with Notepad or any other clear text editor (no need for an actual XML editor) and removing the <std_debug></std_debug> and <zero_debts></zero_debts> lines, then saving the cc_config.xml file again (just save, not save as..).
Or you can add another program to be excluded through the exclusive programs menu (referenced earlier), as then the new cc_config.xml file with everything in it will be written to disk again, thereby overwriting the previous one and taking out the now defunct lines, while adding new ones since introduced.

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Yes, it I think that the notice may have started appearing after I added exclusive apps on version 7.25 , where before I wasn't using Computing Preferences.

In any case, the notice hasn't appeared again since I added another exclusive app using version 7.28, so thanks for the suggestion.

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I had the same issue after updating to version 7.0.28 (x64): the notice "Unrecognized tag in cc_config.xml: <zero_debts>"

I resolved it by removing the exclusive application and then adding it back. (Tools > Computing Preferences > exclusive applications)

Now it says "There are no notices at this time."

Thank you, Ageless, for the suggestion.