Just before few minutes I read that email from David Anderson, but thank you for reminder. I will try it and answer tomorrow in the work. I have some computer experience, so I will not use Notepad for creating xml file and don't worry about txt extension ;-)

Spok, can you please leave information for these questions?

1) OS and version
2) BOINC version
3) personal firewall?
4) separate firewall?
5) networking setup: router? NAT?
6) ISP

Also, I got this answer from David Anderson:

First, let's clarify whether the problems you describe are
1) between the Manager and the core client, or
2) between the core client and project servers.
These are completely different things.

(1) Doesn't use HTTP, so 400/403/500 errors are not relevant
(these are HTTP status codes).
We changed from port 1043 to 31416 in version 5.3.6.

(2) We switched to libcurl as of 5.1.2.
All communication between core client and outside servers
goes over HTTP, using libcurl.
So the problems you describe are probably libcurl-related.

Debugging info (including printing HTTP request and reply headers)
is enabled by <http_debug/>.
First step: have the user set this flag, and get the resulting output.

To set <http_debug/>, exit BOINC completely.
Navigate to your BOINC directory.
Make a file called cc_config.xml (with Notepad).
Add into it:

<cc_config>
    <log_flags>
        <http_debug/>
    </log_flags>
</cc_config>

(Yes, there is a / at the end of http_debug, it needs to be there!)
Save the file, make sure it doesn't get the *.txt extension.
Restart BOINC.

Now when you run into trouble, it will be written to stderrdae.txt in your BOINC directory. I am very interested in that file, so send it to me at elst93 at gmail dot com (if you want to compress it, use something different than ZIP, as gmail doesn't allow ZIPs to be sent. RARs are alright.)
I will send it what is needed through to the developers. (This does need a BOINC version 5.x.x to succeed!)

(If <http_debug/> doesn't work, for one reason or the other, use the following line: <http_debug>1</http_debug> ..)

Spok, can you please leave information for these questions?

1) OS and version
2) BOINC version
3) personal firewall?
4) separate firewall?
5) networking setup: router? NAT?
6) ISP

Also, I got this answer from David Anderson:

First, let's clarify whether the problems you describe are
1) between the Manager and the core client, or
2) between the core client and project servers.
These are completely different things.

(1) Doesn't use HTTP, so 400/403/500 errors are not relevant
(these are HTTP status codes).
We changed from port 1043 to 31416 in version 5.3.6.

(2) We switched to libcurl as of 5.1.2.
All communication between core client and outside servers
goes over HTTP, using libcurl.
So the problems you describe are probably libcurl-related.

Debugging info (including printing HTTP request and reply headers)
is enabled by <http_debug/>.
First step: have the user set this flag, and get the resulting output.

To set <http_debug/>, exit BOINC completely.
Navigate to your BOINC directory.
Make a file called cc_config.xml (with Notepad).
Add into it:

<cc_config>
    <log_flags>
        <http_debug/>
    </log_flags>
</cc_config>

(Yes, there is a / at the end of http_debug, it needs to be there!)
Save the file, make sure it doesn't get the *.txt extension.
Restart BOINC.

Now when you run into trouble, it will be written to stderrdae.txt in your BOINC directory. I am very interested in that file, so send it to me at elst93 at gmail dot com (if you want to compress it, use something different than ZIP, as gmail doesn't allow ZIPs to be sent. RARs are alright.)
I will send it what is needed through to the developers. (This does need a BOINC version 5.x.x to succeed!)

(If <http_debug/> doesn't work, for one reason or the other, use the following line: <http_debug>1</http_debug> ..)

you sure have persistence. The seti server status page is here. It states that as of 3 hours ago it had 64 results "ready to send" and was making new work at 14/second. maybe demand is higher than the supply creation rate.

I'd stick with what you have for a bit longer and see if you get work.

tony

Your mysterious error 500 should be over with with Boinc 5.4.6. If not, let us know and again on what.

We are in the same boat, I can fetch the master file but as far as work goes I cannot retrieve any. I get the error 500 here too, very frustrating. BTW where did you download 4.71 at?

You might try one of the sugestions in this post http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314825/en-ur