This morning after a reboot, I'd click on BOINC's manager application and it didn't open.
A few more clicks, a few restarts, no fix. It's still running CPU and GPU tasks in the background and is connecting with the network.

I search for the issue and the only post I see with similar symptoms is this guy:
https://www.reddit.com/r/BOINC/comments/5tmbu0/boinc_manager_wont_open_ubuntu_1604/

His system crashed, causing the problem. Whereas I'm manually clicking on the power controls in the upper right hand corner and selecting Power Off (presumably that's what we're all supposed to do).

Advise was either find "a lock file somewhere" or else wipe the machine and try again.

After purging BOINC and its config files, reinstalling, rebooting all failed to work, I wiped the machine. Reinstalled ONLY Graphics Drivers+Gnome tweaks, VLC Player, and BOINC. Nothing else custom.

Powered off the PC and moved it on a shelf to prepare for a headless setup.
And the problem comes right back.

Still can't open the manager.
I can't function for long in terminal-only mode - I've assembled this computer for my relatives, and they expect a GUI so they can see their contributions to science.

Thanks in advance,

Dayle


I'm running:
Ubuntu 17.10
Client Version 7.8.3
CPU: 1950x, GPU 1070 Ti.
World Community Grid & GPUGrid & Einstien@home.

Probably overkill wiping the machine...

To get the manager to talk to the core client I ended up adding a desktop shortcut (under Debian). After that I adjusted its properties to include “—password xxx” where xxx is whatever is in gui_rpc_auth.cfg (usually in /var/lib/boinc-client).

If the file is empty you may need to put a value in it and make sure the shortcut has the same password. Do a “sudo service boinc-client restart” after changing gui_rpc_auth for the core client to pick it up.

You could try running the manager with sudo if no password but I couldn’t get it to work with an empty gui_rpc_auth file.

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MarkJ

I think we may be honing in on the problem here. I'm not allowed to view gui_rpc_auth.cfg when I try to open it in Text Editor.

Could not open the file “/var/lib/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg”.
You do not have the permissions necessary to open the file.

When I try to change permissions, it says "You are not the owner, so you cannot change these permissions".

It does say it was last modified several months before my computer was assembled, and that the size is 1 byte. Not sure how to tell who the owner is, or if/how I lost its contents via restarting my system. As you wrote, it doesn't work with an empty file.

Should I delete this file and hope BOINC creates a new one?

Boinc runs under user BOINC, so change the contents using “sudo nano /var/lib/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg” in a terminal window, assuming you use nano as your text editor.

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MarkJ

Didn't work, the shortcut wouldn't open with or without a password attached to the command (needs two dashes, yes?), but out of curiosity I tried typing "boincmgr" into the Terminal instead of "boinccmd".
Up pops a NEW error message.

terreno@terreno:~$ boincmgr
/usr/share/themes/Ambiance/gtk-2.0/apps/mate-panel.rc:30: error: invalid string constant "murrine-scrollbar", expected valid string constant

It's a confirmed (sorta) bug affecting people running various apps in 17.10, and blocking them from opening various applications.
See this bug report, where the Murrine text appears alongside other errors and the same symptoms.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sane-backends/+bug/1724078

Am I on the right track? Because editing a non-BOINC, standard system file that I don't recognize (see reply #4 in the link) seems like it could have consequences down the road.

Thank you for your patience,

Dayle

The desktop shortcut you add should have been boincmgr. Boinccmd is a command-line interface, usually used in scripts or cron. The version of BOINC from the repo doesn’t include any desktop launcher, you add one as per below.

With the mate desktop if you click on applications (on the bar across the top of the screen) it then gives a list of categories and under System it has boincmgr. If you right-click on that it offers to add a desktop launcher. Once its added to your desktop you can then edit its properties to add the —password. Yes it is two hyphens before the word “password” and leave a space between it and the actual password.

You run boincmgr from the desktop. You tried to run it under a terminal session. There is a program boinctui that can run under a terminal or ssh session to show what the client is doing.

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MarkJ

Yes, desktop shortcut has been boincmgr all along.
The 'Ubuntu Software' store DOES come with a desktop launcher, which is why it was working fine prior to a reboot.

I can't speak for the 'mate' desktop, as I'm running the default desktop that comes with 17.10 (gnome).
I installed and ran BOINCTUI under a terminal. I clicked enter with the default settings it suggested, and it said BOINC wasn't connected to any projects.
This would be a surprise to World Community Grid. Despite the missing GUI, the computer is averaging eight hundred VINA tasks a day.

Is there any known resolution to this problem? I'm experiencing the same thing in 16.04 Ubuntu. The manager GUI worked fine for a few days, then last night the system locked up. This morning after restarting, no more GUI. The Boinc client is still running & doing work and I can see it's contacting project servers, but I have no idea how to get the GUI back, to actually control the machine. Much frustration.

Check your home directory if there is a file named "BOINC Manager-username" where username is your account name on that computer. If the file exists remove it.

I sometimes have this with one or other of my Linux boxes. The "solution" that works for me is to sudo the BOINC manager and keep it minimised, not closed.

I've been seeing the same thing, and it's been getting worse with later releases of Ubuntu. At this point I'm pretty sure that it's basically a memory problem, with not enough memory available for the BOINC Manager to run.

Not a fix, but on my most troubled Ubuntu machine, I do have a poor workaround. There is a point during the startup when I have a pretty good chance of getting the BOINC Manager to open. It's just after the second group of desktop icons have been displayed. The first group uses standard icons, and then there is a second group of thumbnail-image-based icons. If I click at that time (and ONLY at that time), then the BOINC Manager usually opens and runs normally.

When it fails, you can see the sidebar icon throbbing for about 20 seconds after the click. If that has happened and the throbbing has stopped and the BOINC Manager has not opened, then it will almost never open after that. The only "solutionW is to reboot and try to hit the magic window again.

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#1 Freedom = (Meaningful + Justified - Coerced) Choice{~5} ≠ (Beer^4 | Speech | Trade)

This was for getting the graphics to work, but the last couple of posts have info on setting up the permissions for your own account so you can edit things:

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=10704#66539

It's probably something the dev team should look into...