Hi everybody, I'm currently running Ubuntu 20.04 LTS, BOINC client and manager version 7.16.6.

Immediately after updating Ubuntu in 2018, my Manager started showing a "disconnected" message.
Tasks would still complete, but only the System Monitor 'CPU resources used' showed any evidence that I was running tasks at all.
They don't appear in any folder I see or in the "Running Processes" list.

I've tried just about everything I could think of to get it running again, and nothing's worked.
Worse still, whenever I try to manually make any changes in the Terminal, I get "Authorization failure: -155" instead.

At this point I really, REALLY want to change my BOINC settings.
I'm having problems that could easily be solved with a working Manager, and the longer they continue, the more irritating it gets.
In particular I can't play as much as Youtube video because GPU tasks can't be paused (or run at a lower priority), and I can't throttle my GPU tasks to stay within my electrical budget. My electrical utility has tiers and has very harsh punishments users for surpassing them (~$150 USD fine).

Here's what I've tried so far:
Waiting for each Ubuntu release in hopes it reverts back to normal.
Keeping the computer offline long enough for all tasks to be late, then deleting every file I could find affiliated with BOINC.
(That didn't stop late tasks from crunching.)
Uninstalling client/manager from the command line. Then reinstalling them from the command line.
Then when that didn't work I uninstalled it and reinstalled from the GUI package manager.
Opening all ports and turning off the firewall.
Leaving the firewall on and opening just the BOINC ports to all network traffic.
Telling the manager to connect to a computer, and then putting my computer's name and password into the prompt.

If it helps, when type "boinc" into the terminal, the text ends with the following error,
[---] GUI RPC bind to port 31416 failed: 98
gstate.init() failed
Error Code: -180

Any help you can provide is highly appreciated.
I am a novice with Ubuntu and only run it because some BOINC tasks run faster on it.
So step by step instructions would be highly appreciated.

Are you using the correct password?

 $ sudo cat /etc/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

If you've been uninstalling/reinstalling you've likely messed up any configuration you had already set.

They don't appear in any folder I see or in the "Running Processes" list.

Show all processes

Try htop.

Have you blocked BOINC's port 31416 in your firewall? Check to be sure that port is allowed through. This is the explanation for your error from the BOINC errors explained site.

https://boinc.mundayweb.com/wiki/index.php?title=GUI_RPC_bind_to_port_31416_failed:_98

Check what other programs are using that port.

sudo lsof -i:31416

Try using a different port like 31417 by attaching with boinc.

boinc --gui_rpc_port 31417

Start boinc in a terminal session from the boinc directory so you can observe its logging output. Does is continue to run or does it exit. The Manager can't connect to a client that isn't running. Are all dependencies met for the client?

Start the Manager in another terminal session from the boinc directory if the client continues to run. Observe any error message.
Make sure the password in the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file is correct. Or just delete the file entirely and restart the client and Manager to connect without the password file. Or delete the initial random password by deleting the key. Don't add any next line, carriage return or EOF character. Just delete the key and Save.

Start boinc with the allow_remote_gui_rpc to allow any program to connect to the client.

Thanks to everybody for their help so far.

Here's what I get for Sudo lsof -i:

sudo lsof -i:31416
[sudo] password for ******:
COMMAND PID USER FD TYPE DEVICE SIZE/OFF NODE NAME
boinc 1912 boinc 7u IPv4 73991 0t0 TCP *:31416 (LISTEN)

Removing the password and replacing it with a blank document crated a freakout in the Terminal, with the following message posted about one a second for fifteen seconds:
gui_rpc_auth.cfg is empty - no GUI RPC password protection.
I'll see if that helps after a restart.

I have no idea how to start BOINC in another terminal session from the boinc directory, or what it means. I appreciate the step by step instructions earlier but I got totally lost here.
My BOINC folder is only displaying two items, both text files. As I said before, deleting every file named BOINC wasn't enough to stop the old process or properly let me start anew.

When I run the BOINC manager from my desktop, and everything is disconnected, the "show log" button is greyed out entirely.

The password in the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file is simply for preventing someone from accessing the client if they had access to the port it uses. If you don't export that port outside your domain, you don't have any worries. Any attacker would have to have physical access to the host and if that was the case, they already have access to the application.

Don't worry about the error messages. Not important.

Your Event Log will always be greyed out if the Manager can't connect to the client. The client is the only application that matters for controlling BOINC. The Manager is simply a gui interface for controlling the client as an alternative to the command line.

Assuming you are using the default BOINC distro from the website, your BOINC is installed in the /BOINC directory in your Home folder. So should be in /home/{username}/BOINC.
Use the File Manager to navigate there and right-click on the boinc file and make sure it is set for execution. If it is then use the startup script in the BOINC folder called run_client by opening a Terminal and running the script.

You can open a Terminal in any directory shown in File Manager by right-clicking in white-space in the folder and selecting the Open in Terminal entry in the menu.

./run_client

You should see the client startup in the terminal window and print out the event log.
Next open another terminal in the directory and execute the run_manager script.

./run_manager

You should see the Manager open the normal Manager GUI window and it should be connected to the client. If not, look back at the terminal that has the running client in it. Is it still running? Or has the program stopped and exited?

If it has you need to figure out why the client has stopped. The Manager can't connect to a client that is not running.

You might want to read over these threads first to get an overview.
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Installing_on_Linux
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=13562

Thank you Keith.

There are only two files in my HOME---> BOINC folder, and they're both text files.

stderrgui.txt and stdoutgui.txt

One of which is appears to be an error log mostly full of this message:
Gtk-CRITICAL **: 09:30:07.968: gtk_box_gadget_distribute: assertion 'size >= 0' failed in GtkScrollbar

Just in case there was a hidden file or something, I tried running the client from the terminal by opening the terminal from that directory.
bash: ./run_client: No such file or directory

I assume the package installer put my copy of BOINC somewhere else? Like I posted, I'm using default package installers or installing from the Terminal, and have not manually installed the program somewhere weird.

Thank you for the link; unfortunately one is eleven years out of date (for Ubuntu '09) and the other is for Mac. But yes, I've been to the BOINC wiki.
This is not a problem with installing on Linux, in that the program was successfully installed and contributing 32 threads to World Community Grid.
Then I updated the machine. BOINC should not self destruct just by updating the machine.

At this time I would just bail on the repo BOINC or the project provided BOINC. Just too many roadblocks to push through. I would suggest you purge all your BOINC installations and install the TBar All-in-One client and Manager package. This was what we in the GPUUG team ran for years. It is much simpler to use. It just works. It is simply the entire BOINC installation zipped up into one file that you unpack in your /home folder. You can unpack it to the Desktop like I do or make a BOINC folder in /home and unpack it there. It then is easy to find all files since they are in one directory and being in /home you have full permission to do anything you want with any file. It comes with the Seti project already installed with all the applications installed for Nvidia cards. Now that Seti is no more you can simply delete the Seti project folder and join whatever projects you want through the Manager like usual. All you do to run it is double-click the .boincmgr file and it starts the client and the Manager with the usual join projects dialog presented to you. The version in the package is BOINC 7.16.5. You can download from the Crunchers Anonymous website.
http://www.arkayn.us/lunatics/BOINC.7z

The standard Debian and Ubuntu install folders are:
/etc/boinc-client
/var/lib/boinc-client

The gui_rpc_auth.cfg file is in the /etc folder with a symlink in the /var/lib folder so you can edit it from either.

I see you have another thread going in the BOINC Manager forum so let’s use that instead of having two message threads for the same thing.

---

MarkJ