One of my 7 computers doesn't like universe at home. When I tried to get new tasks with three machines at once, two were fine, but I got the error "Temporarily failed download of universe_bh2_190723_388_3452226548_20000_1-999999_230100: transient HTTP error" on one of them while downloading the files. So I detached and tried to reattach but get the error "AddProject: Error -184" when trying to fetch the configuration file.

The "transient HTTP error" is usually due to the www connection failing.

Universe@home has been having some transient hiccups lately where the project Server appears to be overloaded and you can't even get the website to load without either timing out while partially loading or a complete 404 error message (site not found].

Why did you DETACH instead of just leaving things alone to work themselves out?

It seemed strange that all my other machines communicated with Universe easily, yet this one failed every time.

Has the failing machine been brought up to date with the necessary BOINC upgrade to non-expired SSL status?

One was out of date, another machine wasn't. I'm guessing a temporary Universe problem. TN-Grid is doing the same.

I updated the out of date one, then tried them both again, now they both work. Just my mobile I can't get onto universe. There isn't a newer boinc for that.

... Just my mobile I can't get onto universe. There isn't a newer boinc for that.

BOINC for Android version.18.1 is Recommended Version
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boinc_7.18.1.apk
If you are not using this version then...
Download using.your.Android device favorite web browser, save to same.device, open download file to install.

... Just my mobile I can't get onto universe. There isn't a newer boinc for that.

BOINC for Android version.18.1 is Recommended Version
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boinc_7.18.1.apk
If you are not using this version then...
Download using.your.Android device favorite web browser, save to same.device, open download file to install.

Will that communicate with Boinctasks on my Windows PC? If not I'm not interested. I use "Boinc for Boinctasks" on my mobile.

I don't see why not. Give it a try and test for yourself.

The earlier ones didn't, hence "Boinc for Boinctasks" was made.

I can't be bothered fixing something that's working. As long as it manages to connect to something, I'm happy. It's happily doing cancer research on world community grid just now.

I have been running BOINC v7.18.1 on Android pretty much since it was released in August. I can connect to it with a standard BOINC Manager, and also with BoincView (a forerunner of BoincTasks, from about 2007. The RPC protocols haven't changed much.)

If the Android client can't communicate with one particular project, that isn't the fault of one particular Manager.

I'll give it a try if I have to, I use quite a few projects, so as long as it's doing one of them I'm happy.

I disagree on your last sentence though, if the security protocols are out of date in one manager, then some projects can't connect. For example I had to update my Windows clients to communicate with Collatz, although everything else was working. It's that old problem of security thingies going out of date, and it seems every project uses a different one.

To be horribly picky, the problem with Windows clients recently was with the included data, rather than the protocol in use. Many of us edited or replaced the faulty file long before the full re-bundled package was assembled.

Many of us edited or replaced the faulty file long before the full re-bundled package was assembled.

For my Windows client running under WINE I created a soft link to the file my Linux distribution uses. Is there a way for Windows to have a file that updates automagically that can be linked to in the same way the Linux BOINC certificate file does?

Is there a way for Windows to have a file that updates automagically that can be linked to in the same way the Linux BOINC certificate file does?

We did have a conversation about that, while we were waiting for what eventually became v7.16.20 to emerge. Read from about https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/issues/4544#issuecomment-937558197

The general consensus seemed to be

1) Windows doesn't make it easy to locate a single 'bundle' file which would work with BOINC's implementation of curl.
2) If there is such a file, it might be in a different place on each release of Windows.
3) If Windows did have such a file, it would be the responsibility of Windows to keep it up-to-date. Many BOINC users run BOINC on old, retired, machines - perhaps with an earlier version of the OS (I'm typing this on a Windows 7 machine). Can we rely on Microsoft to keep the certificates updated on older systems?

I have had an up to date Windows 10 since its release. I still had the problem.

I updated the out of date one, then tried them both again, now they both work. Just my mobile I can't get onto universe. There isn't a newer boinc for that.

The newest version is only available directly from Berkeley/BOINC.

BOINC for Android version.18.1 is Recommended Version
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/boinc_7.18.1.apk
If you are not using this version then...
Download from above link using.your.Android device favorite web browser, save to same.device, open download file to install.

What you quoted seems to be a new user pasting half a post I made further up.

I've since put the latest Boinc on both Androids, and Universe (and everything else) connects fine. I can also see both phones using Boinctasks on my Windows PC, although I had to remove the firewall from the old dodgy malware ridden phone. The malware doesn't annoy me when it's just sat crunching, it just shoves an advert on the screen every 5 minutes when the screen is on, which it never is.