Alpha testing BOINC

Disclaimer
On development versions of BOINC:
- Expect parts of it to be broken, or in the least to work in a different way than you are used to.
- Expect work failures, deadline misses and losing all your accumulated work in progress, or not getting credit for your work due to unknown and unforeseen circumstances.
- Only use it when you are willing to participate in the Alpha test program and do not mind sending (bug) reports in to the developers on the email list specially assigned for this purpose.


REMINDER TO ALL ALPHA TESTERS:
It's far easier for the developers to fix problems when you send message logs with the appropriate flags set. The main flags are:

<cpu_sched_debug>: problems involving the choice of applications to run.
<work_fetch_debug>: problems involving work fetch (which projects are asked for work, and how much).
<rr_simulation>: problems involving jobs being run in high-priority mode.
<sched_op_debug>: problems involving scheduler operations and other low level information.

Use these flags from the cc_config.xml file.

Report any problems you get with it to the Alpha email list. This list needs registration.

Reporting bugs on this forum or any project's forum isn't very productive as the developers simply do not have time to scour through all forums looking for posts with your bug reports in them. While it may happen that we - other volunteers - forward your problem to them, history has shown it is quite difficult being the middle man in this when more information is needed from you. Hence why it's better for all concerned that you report the problem directly to the developers, who will come back directly to you when they need more information or better logs or to tell you that they've checked in a fix for the specific problem.

The actual change log was taken from the Alpha email list and the Trac Timeline repository changes check-ins. This disclaimer was written by the volunteer moderators of this forum and approved of by the BOINC development team.

KSMarksPsych wrote:

We always welcome new testers.

But if you're running an alpha client, the best place to report bugs is to the alpha email list. You will need to subscribe. Note that at times, the volume of email you receive may be high, especially as a new version enters testing.

Jord and I (along with numerous others on these forums) are subscribed to the list and we can report bugs, but only you know the details of your set up.

Also, please read over the testing instructions and the test matrix.

You will also want to get an account at BOINC Trac to be able to write bug-tickets. Registering accounts goes through David Anderson, to cut back on spam accounts on there.

David Anderson, 9 November 2009 wrote:

I re-enabled users to add and modify tickets on the BOINC trac system.

I removed the ability to create new accounts (to prevent spam).
If anyone wants an account, email me.

-- David

No GPUs Found

When you are running Windows Vista, Windows 7 or some of the Server versions, you cannot install BOINC as a service ("protected application execution") and use your GPUs.

It is not something for BOINC to fix. This is a Microsoft security feature, where it stops your user account from running in the same session as your drivers and services are run from.

If it has to be fixed, it will have to come from Microsoft, or the GPU driver manufacturers have to find a way to run their drivers without using them as a service installation.

There's a document on this at Session 0 isolation (Word document, can be loaded in Open Office Writer, not in Wordpad).

An excerpt:
In Microsoft® Windows® XP, Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, and earlier versions of the Windows operating system, all services run in the same session as the first user who logs on to the console. This session is called Session 0. Running services and user applications together in Session 0 poses a security risk because services run at elevated privilege and therefore are targets for malicious agents who are looking for a way to elevate their own privilege level.

The Microsoft Windows Vista™ operating system mitigates this security risk by isolating services in Session 0 and making Session 0 noninteractive. In Windows Vista, only system processes and services run in Session 0. The first user logs on to Session 1, and subsequent users log on to subsequent sessions. This means that services never run in the same session as users’ applications and are therefore protected from attacks that originate in application code.

What Is Affected
Any applications or drivers that are installed as a service are affected by the following implications. Some drivers are loaded within operating system services or processes that are running in Session 0, and those drivers are also affected by the implications of the Session 0 changes.

For more information about GPUs, why they may not be found, why they slow your every day use down and much, much more, please read the CUDA/CAL BOINC FAQ on this subject.

6.10 required drivers
The new Nvidia API that BOINC 6.10 uses has a minimum driver set of CUDA 2.2, 185.85.

If your present drivers are below this version, update first.
If your present drivers are below this and they're the last available for your hardware, you cannot update to 6.10; stay at the last 6.6.x version for your OS.

Complete uninstall of BOINC

Since the BOINC uninstaller does not clean up after itself, you're stuck with a lot of directories, registry entries, user rights assignments, and user accounts that you may or may not know about.

A year ago I asked if the uninstaller couldn't clean up after itself. Since then that Trac ticket has moved through a couple of milestones and is now waiting for 6.12 ... not really nice.

I have adapted the WinSix clean up logic page in the BOINC Wiki to show what steps need to be done manually. I also put those in my BOINC FAQs. Still not very satisfying and a problem for new users, or those not too computer savvy.

So, today I added an automated option for that in my BOINC FAQs, the BOINC Cleaner V1.zip. With thanks to Gundolf Jahn and Richard Haselgrove for testing it.

It will assume you uninstalled BOINC through Add/Remove programs, then downloaded this utility and started it. What it does is:
1. Uninstall the BOINC user accounts and groups.
2. Use the Windows 2003 Server Tool NTRights.exe to delete the User Rights Assignments.
3. Kills boinctray.exe if it is still running.
4. Read the BOINC Install directory and Data directory paths from the registry and subsequently delete both directories and all files and sub-directories included.
5. Finds and deletes the BOINC_Master directory or directories in the Documents and Settings directory (works on foreign language Windows as well, where the "Documents and Settings" directory is set in that language)
6. Deletes all BOINC related keys from the registry.

Since I am using the Microsoft NTRights.exe tool, I am not sure if BOINC can distribute it. So I will keep it available from the BOINC FAQs pages for now.

Do read the Readme.txt file for instructions on how to use it.
Don't forget to reboot your computer after you ran the utility, to finalize the Windows process of getting rid of the user accounts.

It is made for cleaning up after BOINC 6, but Gundolf tested it on BOINC 5, where it works as well, although it will then throw some errors on things it cannot find. It works on Windows 2000, XP (Home and Pro), all Vista and all Windows 7.

A future version will do everything automatically, from uninstalling BOINC through cleaning all the stuff to giving you the option to reboot or not.[/b]