You're welcome -- good luck in your crunching!

Really good job on the site, Keep up the good work!

Charlie,

I have been running the 7.4.42 version on Yosemite (10.10.3) without issue until the past two weeks.

With Apple's latest update of 10.10.4, I have seen my boot ups hang once again on a percentage of the Late-2013 iMacs. (12 computers out of 38 in the lab).

On the older Late-2011 iMac Models running this version of BOINC, I get kernel panics which force a reboot and then once again hang before getting to the login screen. This is on 100% of the 10 iMacs in this particular lab.

I have sent these kernel crash reports, which clearly list BOINC as the offending process, to Apple and will be opening a formal bug report with them also.

If there are any logs that you would like to see, let me know and I will forward them to you.

Cheryl

I'll forward this to Charlie, in case he isn't subscribed.

But in the mean time, what you can try is this: Open BOINC Manager in one of the affected computers and in the Advanced Preferences dialog change the CPU usage limit from 0 to 100. You can also do this by manually editing global_prefs.xml, if there is no global_prefs_override.xml file and you don't want to create one, and editing <cpu_usage_limit>

---

Hi Cheryl,

This sounds similar to the issue you had in March and we discussed in this same thread. You might try running without BOINC for a while on those machines and see if they still have the same problem, which would exonerate BOINC. You can also try our latest release candidate version 7.6.6 available here to see if that helps.

Unfortunately, I don't have a 2013 iMac to test this with.

Cheers,
--Charlie

---

Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

Charlie,

I have removed BOINC from the computers in question and all are booting fine. I will try this new release. Thanks!

Cheryl

One thing I have failed to mention is that I run BOINC as a service/daemon using this script:

#!/bin/sh

# This file is part of BOINC.
# http://boinc.berkeley.edu
# Copyright (C) 2008 University of California
#
# BOINC is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
# under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# as published by the Free Software Foundation,
# either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
#
# BOINC is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
# but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
# MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
# See the GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
#
# You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
# along with BOINC. If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
# 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
#
#
##
# Script to set up Macintosh to run BOINC client as a daemon / service
# by Charlie Fenton 7/26/06
# revised 1/6/08 to use launchd
##
## Note: this version of this script requires BOINC 5.10.34 or later
## and OS 10.4 or later.
##

## Usage:
##
## source Make_BOINC_Service.sh [path_to_client_dir] [path_to_data_dir]
##
## path_to_client_dir is needed only for stand-alone client or if Manager
## is at non-standard location.
##
## path_to_data_dir is needed only for stand-alone client when data is in
## a different directory than the client.
##
## Directions for use:
##
## (1) Install BOINC Manager using the BOINC.pkg Installer Package, or
## install stand-alone client.
## (2) Make sure you are logged in as a user with administrator
## privileges.
## (3) Run the Terminal application.
## (4) In the Terminal window, type "source" and a space.
## (5) Drag this script file from the Finder into the Terminal window.
## (6) If using the stand-alone client, or if the Manager is in a non-
## standard location, drag the folder containing the client from
## the Finder into the Terminal window (or type the path excluding
## the trailing slash).
## (7) If using the stand-alone client, but the client is not in the data
## directory, drag the BOINC data folder from the Finder into the
## Terminal window (or type the path excluding the trailing slash).
## (8) Press the return key.
## (9) When prompted, enter your administrator password.
## (10) Restart the computer.
##
## The system will now start BOINC client as a daemon / service at
## system startup. You will still be able to control and monitor BOINC
## using the BOINC Manager, but BOINC client will remain running after
## you quit BOINC Manager, when the ScreenSaver quits, and even when
## no user is logged in.
##
## Note: the BOINC ScreenSaver may not display graphics for some users
## when BOINC Client is running as a daemon / service. Thus will be
## fixed with the release of BOINC 6.0 and project applications updated
## to use the BOINC 6 graphics API.
##

##
## When the system has launched BOINC Client as a daemon, you can stop the
## BOINC Client from the Terminal by typing:
## sudo launchctl stop edu.berkeley.boinc
## and you can restart the BOINC Client from the Terminal by typing:
## sudo launchctl start edu.berkeley.boinc
##
## Note: The BOINC Client will quit immediately after launch if it detects
## another instance of BOINC Client already running. So these launchctl
## commands will fail if the BOINC Client was started by the BOINC Manager
## or ScreenSaver.
##
## If BOINC Client is not already running when the BOINC Manager is launched,
## the Manager will start BOINC Client. This will happen automatically at
## login if you have BOINC Manager set as a login item for that user. If
## it was started by the Manager, then BOINC Client will quit when the BOINC
## Manager quits.
##
## If BOINC Client is not already running when the BOINC ScreenSaver starts,
## the ScreenSaver will start BOINC Client and will quit BOINC Client when
## the ScreenSaver is dismissed.
##

## REMOVAL:
## To undo the effects of this script (i.e., to permanently stop running BOINC
## as a daemon / service):
## (1) In the Finder, browse to the /Library/LaunchDaemons folder.
## (2) Drag the file edu.berkeley.boinc.plist to the trash. (Finder will ask
## for your administrator user name and password).
## (3) Restart the computer.
##
## The system will no longer start BOINC client as a daemon / service
## at system startup.
##
## If you wish to completely remove BOINC from your computer, first
## complete the above steps, then follow the directions in the web
## page http://boinc.berkeley.edu/mac_advanced.php or in the README.rtf
## file supplied with the BOINC installer.
##

if [ $# -eq 0 ] ; then
PATH_TO_CLIENT="/Applications/BOINCManager.app/Contents/Resources"
PATH_TO_DATA="/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data"
# Check for BOINC Manager with embedded BOINC Client
if [ ! -f "${PATH_TO_CLIENT}/boinc" ]; then
echo " ***************************** ERROR ***************************"
echo " * *"
echo " * Could not find BOINC Manager with embedded BOINC client *"
echo " * in Applications Directory. *"
echo " * *"
echo " * Please install BOINC Manager before running this script. *"
echo " * *"
echo " ***************************************************************"
return 1
fi
else
PATH_TO_CLIENT="$1"
PATH_TO_DATA="$1"
# Check for stand-alone BOINC Client
if [ ! -f "${PATH_TO_CLIENT}/boinc" ]; then
echo " ***************************** ERROR ***************************"
echo " * *"
echo " * Could not find BOINC client at specified directory *"
echo " * *"
echo " * Please install BOINC client before running this script. *"
echo " * *"
echo " ***************************************************************"
return 1
fi
fi

if [ $# -gt 1 ] ; then
PATH_TO_DATA="$2"
fi

# Check for BOINC Data directory
if [ ! -d "${PATH_TO_DATA}" ]; then
echo " ****************** ERROR ******************"
echo " * *"
echo " * Could not find BOINC data directory *"
echo " * *"
echo " *******************************************"
return 1
fi

# Delete the old-style boinc daemon StartupItem if present
sudo rm -fR /Library/StartupItems/boinc

# Delete old temporary working directory and files if present
rm -fR ~/boincStartupTemp
# Create new temporary working directory
mkdir -p ~/boincStartupTemp/

# Create file edu.berkeley.boinc.plist in temporary directory.
# (For some reason, we can't create the file directly in the final
# destination directory, so we create it here and then move it.)
cat >> ~/boincStartupTemp/edu.berkeley.boinc.plist << ENDOFFILE
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
<key>GroupName</key>
<string>boinc_master</string>
<key>Label</key>
<string>edu.berkeley.boinc</string>
<key>Program</key>
<string>${PATH_TO_CLIENT}/boinc</string>
<key>ProgramArguments</key>
<array>
<string>${PATH_TO_CLIENT}/boinc</string>
<string>-redirectio</string>
<string>-daemon</string>
</array>
<key>RunAtLoad</key>
<true/>
<key>UserName</key>
<string>boinc_master</string>
<key>WorkingDirectory</key>
<string>${PATH_TO_DATA}/</string>
</dict>
</plist>
ENDOFFILE

sudo mv -f ~/boincStartupTemp/edu.berkeley.boinc.plist /Library/LaunchDaemons/

# Delete temporary working directory
rm -fR ~/boincStartupTemp

# Set ownership and permissions for our plist
sudo chown root:wheel /Library/LaunchDaemons/edu.berkeley.boinc.plist
sudo chmod 0444 /Library/LaunchDaemons/edu.berkeley.boinc.plist

return 0

One thing I have failed to mention is that I run BOINC as a service/daemon using this script:

Thank you. That was the critical piece of information I needed to reproduce this. I believe I have fixed this. Please download and try
this private test build and let me know if it solves your problem.

---

Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

I just saw your response. I am currently in the process of testing this build. Will let you know my results.

Thanks!
Cheryl

Very happy to report that this build resolved the issue of hanging on boot for all of my 10.10.x (Yosemite) lab images. Is it OK for me to use this build in a production setting or should I wait for an official release?

Thanks for looking at this and finding a fix. I have been using BOINC for 8 years in conjunction with the World Community Grid projects and just cringed at the thought of having to pull it from all of my lab computers.

Cheryl

Hi Cheryl,

I'm very glad we were able to resolve this issue. Go ahead and use this build until the next official release, but you should update to the next public release 7.6.x when it is released.

Cheers,
--Charlie

---

Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

Once, again, THANK YOU, for finding a resolution. Will update to the official 7.6 when it's released.

Cheryl