Dual 2.5 PMac G5 running Tiger (10.4.3). Most of the time I have BOINC set to "Run Always" because it doesn't usually noticeably slow down my other work (even though it uses both processors).

Each day I shut down BOINC in the evening while I clone my working volume to an external HD. I use "Quit BOINC" from the menu bar.

Last evening I did so and when I started back up I saw that both projects that had been active at shutdown (E@H and R@H) were flagged "computational error." I had not seen this in the previous week I've been running BOINC.

I don't believe in the word "fluke" so my shutdown must have caught BOINC at an inopportune time and I have not tried to recreate the issue because I don't like wasting work. My intended workaround is to suspend BOINC before shutting down.

Is this something that bears looking into?? Because of the issue I checked out my system as thoroughly as I could (DU and DW) and found no file system or permissions problems. Neither do I notice anything in the Console logs that I recognize as being applicable.

I'm also running BOINC projects under the same account on an XP PC on my LAN which was just gathering dust otherwise. I always suspend then shutdown BOINC on the windoze platform (for obvious reasons).

Lee C

I'm running BOINC Manager (5.2.8) on a Mac Mini and an iBook G3, multiple projects, always just "quit" (or sometimes forget and the shutdown does it for me...) and never had a problem. Running the Menubar install on an iBook G4 of my daughter's, she crashes it frequently (iTunes, AIM, whoknowswhat) and once in a while it will lose a result to an error as you describe. Sorry that doesn't help...

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Thanks for the reply Bill,

Helpful in one important way - having just installed BOINC a week ago I had not looked for a newer version yet. My version seems to be 5.2.5 and the latest download is noted as 5.2.13.

So I suppose I should upgrade. Do the BOINC packages handle upgrades without destroying wip??

Lee C

Helpful in one important way - having just installed BOINC a week ago I had not looked for a newer version yet. My version seems to be 5.2.5 and the latest download is noted as 5.2.13.

So I suppose I should upgrade. Do the BOINC packages handle upgrades without destroying wip??

I'll have to throw out a warning - 5.2.13 for Mac was released this afternoon. I have no experience with it, although I'll install it here in just a bit on one machine to check it out. (It came out for Windows early this morning, have been running one AMD box on it since then, no problems.) As far as I know, all the changes between 5.2.5 and 5.2.13 are in networking fixes, language translation, etc., nothing that would affect shutdown issues.

I have not had any lost work due to an upgrade in the past. Anything "pre-4.4" should be carefully uninstalled first, but 4.45->4.72->5.2.1->5.2.x->5.2.8 has worked fine. (Including some that were 'development only' and were never released as the recommended version.) You CAN lose work if you change TYPES of install; Menubar to Full GUI, that sort of thing.

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Additional info on 5.2.13:

Changes since 5.2.12
Localization updates.
Network communication failure page added which describes basic ways to resolve common networking issues.
Fixed a timing issue where the manager would look for the password file before the client actually created one.
Changes since 5.2.11
Prompt to retry the connection if a connection failed event occurs.
Treat various forms of the local computer name as a local machine instead of a remote machine.
Changes since 5.2.10
Wizards cannot be run without a connection to the core client.
Changes since 5.2.7
Localization updates.
Resolve many connection issues regarding passwords.
Mac: Fix a screensaver stutter while scrolling text.
Changes since 5.2.6
Localization updates.
Usability enhancements.
Fix a crash condition when connecting to a remote machine.
Fix for file handle usage on Linux/Mac which caused BOINC to run out of file handles.

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Thanks again Bill,

Right after my evening clone was a good time, so I downloaded and installed the new version and all seems to be running well on my Mac. As long as a CP unit is not active I'll continue just shutting down to see if the "computation error" shows up again.

Now I'll put the new version up on the clunky ol windoze PC also :-)

Lee C

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Right after my evening clone was a good time, so I downloaded and installed the new version and all seems to be running well on my Mac.

I just installed it also, no problems so far... :-)

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not sure about macs, but on windows i run boinc as a service, and use a shutdown script
"

net stop boinc

" (using gpedit.msc)

and never have any problems, this basically tells windows, when windows is told to shutdown/restart, to stop the boinc service before actually shutting down, only when the script completes (and the service is stopped, along with all science apps) does windows shutdown

no idea how to do this for non-service installs, or how to do either on a mac

not sure about macs, but on windows i run boinc as a service, and use a shutdown script
"

net stop boinc

" (using gpedit.msc)

and never have any problems, this basically tells windows, when windows is told to shutdown/restart, to stop the boinc service before actually shutting down, only when the script completes (and the service is stopped, along with all science apps) does windows shutdown

no idea how to do this for non-service installs, or how to do either on a mac

Thanks for the reply Lee Carre,

I know how to set things up either as a GUI or Unix CLI. I chose the GUI so I could see what's going on easier when I get bored :-) Whether the issue I noted would have occurred with a CLI setup I don't know. It did occur with the GUI and I thought it might bear looking into. However, as I noted, there was an upgrade so I installed it and am watching to see if the issue shows up again.

Lee C
(Unix is user friendly - it's just picky about it's friends.)

Thanks for the reply Lee Carre,

you're welcome, i was a bit confused when i saw someone else posting as "Lee C", guess i'm not quite awake yet lol

I know how to set things up either as a GUI or Unix CLI. I chose the GUI so I could see what's going on easier when I get bored :-) Whether the issue I noted would have occurred with a CLI setup I don't know. It did occur with the GUI and I thought it might bear looking into. However, as I noted, there was an upgrade so I installed it and am watching to see if the issue shows up again.

I know in windows at least that the actual core client is the boinc.exe app, and the GUI is boincmgr.exe, they both talk to each other using RPC messages over TCP.
So in windows, the type of install doesn't matter, it does the same thing, it only affects how it runs (i use service install so that boinc is unaffected by users logging on/off etc. and so that i can manage the client remotely with nobody logged on to that computer, and a few other reasons) I'll admit that i know nothing about unix, but i remember reading somewhere (relating to an older version fo the core client) that there is a GUI manager for the unix CLI which would achieve the same kind of thing i thing, but allow you to run the CLI as a "service" (not sure of the name for unix), but that might have changed with recent versions, a manager might come with the package.

If it works great :) another problem solved, i'm just suggesting things you can do/try to achieve the result yourself, i've been running boinc since the v3 series, and using this method, have never had a problem with shutdowns