I am having an issue with my laptop locking up right after BOINC Manager completes the connection and starts computing. I have just re-attached to Einstein, and from a post on their Forums I'm not alone with this problem. My only solution so far is to use Windows Task Manager to stop BOINC Manager before it starts. If the BOINC Manager starts, my machine locks up before I can suspend Einstein from within the Manager. I am using TThrottle, and have had no problems since I bought this laptop about 2 years ago.

Is there a way to suspend Einstein without allowing BOINC Manager to start crunching? This would allow me to narrow down the issue.

---

Several ways, some of which you can usefully combine for troubleshooting.

1) Using the Windows registry (run 'regedit')
Find the key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Space Sciences Laboratory, U.C. Berkeley\BOINC Manager

and set the value DisableAutoStart to 1

2) Using BOINC's Client configuration
Edit the file 'cc_config.xml' in the BOINC data directory. Set the value

<start_delay>nseconds</start_delay>
Specify a number of seconds to delay running applications after client startup.

to a modest value, like 30 or 60.

Technique (1) will prevent BOINC starting at all, until you're ready to start it yourself from the start menu. But it will still lockup immediately, unless you also use technique (2) to delay Einstein starting up. You get whatever breathing space you've specified to dive in and suspend either the entire project, or any individual tasks (perhaps GPU tasks) that you suspect may be causing the lockup.

Uhm, I get from the message that you want to suspend the project, not do difficult things as Richard gives them? Then use the BOINC command tool, BOINCCMD.

Start->Search, type cmd and hit Enter.
A command line window opens. In it type boinccmd --project https://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/ suspend and hit enter.
This suspends the Einstein project.

To resume it, type boinccmd --project https://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/ resume and hit Enter.

---

I hit two snags with that approach:



1) The BOINC programs aren't in the environment 'PATH' variable, so you need to be in the program directory first. I keep mine in C:\BOINC, which makes the CD command easy:

CD /"C:\Program Files\BOINC"

(quotation marks required because of the space) is harder.

2) The https:// protocol isn't part of the project url, although the extra trailing / seems to be acceptable.

But as I said, there are several ways to achieve this, once you have control of the computer before or after the lockup. If you have the BOINC Manager GUI running, you can use the Option dialog "Run Manager at login?" to make the same registry change I suggested in my first post (I'm not sure if the client has to be running as well for that to work - I'll test that later). Edit: tested with BOINC v7.6.6 - yes, you can control the "Run Manager at login?" option directly from a bare manager, with no client running. Does that mean it doesn't work for a remote host?

If the client isn't running, you can manually insert the line

    <suspended_via_gui/>

into the Einstein project section of client_state.xml - that's what Jord's boinccmd does, except for that to work, the client does have to be running - which may be difficult if the machine locks up so quickly.

Richard's method of editing the xml file worked. I'm now back running BOINC Manager, including S@H GPU tasks, with no issues. Full details at http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/forum_thread.php?id=11377 .

I wonder if we need a more user friendly way to select out individual projects without fully running BOINC Manager. If issues with any BOINC project lead to people being locked out of their machines, BOINC could get a very bad name very quickly.

---

Too late to edit, but I've confirmed with BOINC v6.12.34 (Manager and Client): if you change the "Run Manager at login?" option - which also affects whether the client starts at login (unless you have a service installation) - it's the local machine which is modified, not the remote client you're connected to.

Apart from (at least some of) those general options, and I suspect the 'new in v7.6' Select columns option, most other Manager controls do operate on the connected remote client. So if Bill had a second machine on the same LAN, and could gain control of his laptop for long enough to enable Controlling BOINC remotely, he might be able to work out whether Einstein was locking up the entire machine, or just the user interface.

I'm finding that on my four-year-old Windows 7 laptop, the user interface has started becoming very sluggish after ~1 week of continuous running, needing a full restart, even though BOINC science apps are still running normally in the background. The laptop only has 4GB of RAM, which is low for 64-bit Windows: I suspect I may be suffering from "cumulative security update bloat" or "creeping anti-virus feature bloat".

Einstein, as a project, also has a peculiarity in that some of its applications shift an awful lot of data off the hard disk in the early stages of startup, and that can lock things up temporarily. Bill, it might be worth, if you have a spare moment when you can spare the machine, letting it start up and leaving it running for five or ten minutes before trying the user interface again - see if it recovers by itself.

Thanks for the suggestions Richard. I did try leaving the machine in the locked up stage for about 45 minutes on one occasion. No change in behaviour. For now, I'm steering clear of Einstein GPU tasks. I'll let the Big Brains sort out the details.

---