I've got an Apple dual G5 (PPC, pre-intel) from 2006 which sits around service mp3's.

OSX 10.5.8

For years I've run BOINC and the SETI project without a problem. Recently I installed the BOINC 6.12.35 update and now I can't get it to run. Whenever I launch boinc it tells me:

"you currently are not authorized to manage the client.

to run BOINC as this user please
- reinstall boinc answering "yes" to the question about non-administrative users
or
- contact your administrator to add you to the "boinc_master" user group."

The installer does not offer choices regarding users. The question does not come up and I can't find anything that would trigger it.

I dug around on your site and I found this page:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Tools_for_Mac_OS_X

which talks about a script called AddRemoveUser, and provides this link to download it: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/AddRemoveUser.zip

It expands out to a binary file, when I attempt to run it OSX says:

"sudo: unable to execute ./AddRemoveUser: Bad CPU type in executable"

...and I'm afraid that's it. Am I the last person still running BOINC and seti@home on a PPC machine?

any help is appreciated.

- Steve
- sbp@tikimojo.com

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I'm not familiar with MAC OS compatibility but looking at the download page, I think you may have the wrong version for your system. The one I highlighted seem to me to be a better fit.

Mac OS X (Power PC or 32-bit Intel)
Version 10.4.0+

6.12.35 Recommended version (standard GUI) Download (6.71 MB) 11 Aug 2011
6.12.35 Recommended version (Unix command-line version) Download (1.00 MB) 11 Aug 2011
6.6.36 Older version (standard GUI) (works on OS 10.3.9 - OS 10.5.8) Download (6.06 MB) 10 June 2009
6.6.36 Older version (Unix command-line version) (works on OS 10.3.9 - OS 10.5.8) Download (1.20 MB) 10 June 2009

I'm sure someone more knowledgeable will come along to advise.

Ok, sure enough, downgrading to 6.6.36 worked and SETI is running again.

Thanks for your help!

I wish it hadn't asked me to upgrade to 6.12.35. I imagine there aren't that many people running old PPC machines and our contribution to the overall effort must be pretty small. However, might as well have the computer doing something while it's serving up MP3's.

- S

tikimojo wrote:

Am I the last person still running BOINC and seti@home on a PPC machine?

My early-2005 G5 (Mac OS 10.5.8) has been happily running BOINC 6.12.35 for the past three and a half years and is still returning error-free results for Einstein@home, MilkyWay@home, and SETI@home. The only annoyance is that the Notices system keeps nagging me to download and install the latest version!

I've no idea why you should have problems with BOINC 6.12.35 on your G5. But if downgrading makes them go away and the machine's still returning valid results and has no other problems, there's probably no point in trying to force the issue.

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NG

Maybe this can be resolved by adding the appropriate tag <client_version_check_url>URL</client_version_check_url> to the cc_config.xml without a url to stop those upgrade nags. (Thought it was like once every 14 days, but maybe not)

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Coelum Non Animum Mutant, Qui Trans Mare Currunt

Hi SekeRob2.

Thanks for the suggestion. It hasn't stopped the update messages appearing in the Notices and Event Log after a relaunch of BOINC, but I'll leave the edit in place for a while to see how things go. It's not really that much of an annoyance anyway. :)

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NG