I started a thread earlier in 2013 to report this.
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=8215

It looks like someone prematurely closed that thread, so I am starting a new thread to continue the dialog.

When I reported the problem, I was using Boinc 7.0.28.

I kept updated versions during 2013 and the problem is STILL occurring in Boinc 7.2.28 in Windows XP Pro, with an nvidia GeForce 8600GT graphics card.

I just updated to Boinc 7.2.33 and will test again for the "astropulse non-stop bug".

In the first thread, Claggy last asked me if boinctray.exe was in my processes list.
In version 7.2.33, yes, boinctray.exe is in my processes list.

Eric

Version 7.2.33 still has the non-stop bug.

I let the pc sit idle for a couple of hours and Boinc started SETI@home. When I returned and tried to use the pc, the machine was slow and chunky, as it has been when astropulse kept running, after it should have stopped.

When I opened up the Boinc manager, I could see one of the SETI@home tasks STILL counting up progress percentage.


I looked in the Process list in Windows Taks Manager and saw 3 SETI@home programs running. This time there were not identifying themselves as astropulse. The offending setiathome program had cuda32 in the name. I recall that name from the astropulse entries in the Boinc log. So, it appears that astropulse has been renamed to setiathome...cuda32.exe.


When I manually stopped the setiathome...cuda32.exe process, the machine ran at normal speed again and the Boinc manager showed that the process that had kept on running, now showed an error message.


Here's a log from this afternoon.

12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Starting BOINC client version 7.2.33 for windows_intelx86
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Libraries: libcurl/7.25.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1 zlib/1.2.6
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Data directory: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BOINC
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Running under account Eric
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce 8600 GT (driver version 301.42, CUDA version 4.2, compute capability 1.1, 512MB, 469MB available, 57 GFLOPS peak)
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce 8600 GT (driver version 301.42, device version OpenCL 1.0 CUDA, 512MB, 469MB available, 57 GFLOPS peak)
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Host name: amd-quad-xp
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Processor: 4 AuthenticAMD AMD Phenom(tm) 9950 Quad-Core Processor [Family 16 Model 2 Stepping 3]
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 htt pni cx16 popcnt syscall nx lm svm sse4a osvw ibs page1gb rdtscp 3dnowext 3dnow
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | OS: Microsoft Windows XP: Professional x86 Edition, Service Pack 3, (05.01.2600.00)
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Memory: 3.50 GB physical, 3.34 GB virtual
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Disk: 83.83 GB total, 43.30 GB free
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Local time is UTC -6 hours
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Config: don't compute while Audition.exe is running
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Config: don't compute while seamonkey.exe is running
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM | SETI@home | URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 4101861; resource share 100
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM | SETI@home | General prefs: from SETI@home (last modified 24-Feb-2013 13:27:54)
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM | SETI@home | Computer location: home
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM | SETI@home | General prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Reading preferences override file
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Preferences:
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | max memory usage when active: 716.48MB
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | max memory usage when idle: 3224.18MB
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | max disk usage: 1.00GB
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | max CPUs used: 2
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | don't compute while active
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | don't use GPU while active
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 25%
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | max download rate: 1024000 bytes/sec
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | max upload rate: 716800 bytes/sec
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
12/7/2013 5:54:20 PM |  | Not using a proxy
12/7/2013 5:54:21 PM |  | Suspending computation - computer is in use
12/7/2013 7:26:47 PM | SETI@home | Restarting task 12se08ad.13595.110715.12.12.135.vlar_0 using setiathome_v7 version 700 in slot 1
12/7/2013 7:26:47 PM | SETI@home | Restarting task 12se08ad.13595.134846.12.12.129_1 using setiathome_v7 version 700 in slot 2
12/7/2013 7:26:47 PM | SETI@home | Restarting task 20no08aa.28341.22567.7.12.6_0 using setiathome_v7 version 700 (cuda32) in slot 3
12/7/2013 7:54:06 PM | SETI@home | Computation for task 20no08aa.28341.22567.7.12.6_0 finished
12/7/2013 7:54:08 PM | SETI@home | Started upload of 20no08aa.28341.22567.7.12.6_0_0
12/7/2013 7:54:13 PM | SETI@home | Finished upload of 20no08aa.28341.22567.7.12.6_0_0
12/7/2013 8:28:06 PM |  | Resuming computation
12/7/2013 8:28:06 PM | SETI@home | Starting task 27jl08ab.31698.24612.11.12.7_1 using setiathome_v7 version 700 (cuda42) in slot 0
12/7/2013 8:35:50 PM |  | Suspending computation - computer is in use

Does anyone know if this has a chance of being fixed?
If not, the solution is to disable astropulse.

Thanks,
Eric

And - as has been pointed out to you at SETI - the task you have highlighted is NOT an astropulse task.

This is NOT a BOINC bug, but something specific to the way your computer handles (or fails to handle) one or more of the SETI applications. It'll be better for you to continue exploring the problem on the SETI message boards.

Is Boinc like a wrapper application that calls SETI@home and astropulse?

Be advised, more people than just me have reported the astropulse non-stop bug.

Eric

BOINC is a management application - I've described it as a 'command and control module' in the past.

BOINC allows you to choose between dozens of 'projects' you may want to volunteer for - you can choose as few, or as many, as you wish.

One of those projects is called 'SETI@Home', and - like many projects - it has more than one type of application. Both the original setiathome and Astropulse are applications supplied by the SETI@Home project.

Yes, like you, I've seen other reports that Astropulse runs non-stop (or, occasionally, doesn't run at all - which seems to be the other side of the same coin). But, given the number of other projects and applications out there which do behave as expected, I'm firmly of the opinion that the problem lies in the application (whether Astropulse, as in your thread title, or SETI@Home as in your screen-shot) not doing what it's told, rather than BOINC failing to give the appropriate management instructions.

Thanks for the explanation of how each part fits into the system.

I'll focus on the SETI@home angle.

Best wishes,
Eric