Hi there,
After a week of working alright, (I was running malariacontrol.net, SETI@Home, ROSETTA@home, climateprediction.net on Ubuntu 15.10, can't tell which BOINC version as it can't be launched any more) BOINC failed to start up again. Here's what I get when launching it with a command shell :

anonymous@anonymous-W54-55-94-95-97AU-AUQ:~$ boinc
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] cc_config.xml not found - using defaults
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Starting BOINC client version 7.6.6 for i686-pc-linux-gnu
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.43.0 OpenSSL/1.0.2d zlib/1.2.8 libidn/1.28 librtmp/2.3
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Data directory: /home/anonymous
execv: No such file or directory
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] GPU detection failed. error code 512
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] No usable GPUs found
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Host name: anonymous-W54-55-94-95-97AU-AUQ
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Processor: 4 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-5005U CPU @ 2.00GHz [Family 6 Model 61 Stepping 4]
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch arat epb pln pts dtherm intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid rdseed adx smap xsaveopt
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] OS: Linux: 4.2.0-42-generic
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Memory: 7.83 GB physical, 7.92 GB virtual
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Disk: 28.96 GB total, 384.57 MB free
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Local time is UTC +2 hours
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] No general preferences found - using defaults
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Preferences:
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] max memory usage when active: 4010.31MB
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] max memory usage when idle: 7218.55MB
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] max disk usage: 0.28GB
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] don't use GPU while active
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 25%
03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
dir_open: Could not open directory 'slots' from '/home/anonymous'.
03-Oct-2016 15:25:08 [---] GUI RPC bind to port 31416 failed: 98
03-Oct-2016 15:25:09 gstate.init() failed
Error Code: -180
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Any idea what's wrong ?
S.

Have you started BOINC from a terminal window from the boinc directory? Doing so will start a second copy of the client which is likely to be confused about where the boinc data directory lives and fail GPU detection.

---

I launched the boinc command through a shell but not in the boinc directory. When I open a terminal window in the the .BOINC terminal, it says :

anonymous@anonymous-W54-55-94-95-97AU-AUQ:/etc/boinc-client$ boinc
03-Oct-2016 18:13:54 Another instance of BOINC is running.

S.

Well... that tells you that BOINC is already running. Which is probably why you won't perceive it as starting anymore when you try to start it (it can in normal circumstances only run once). Have you tried stopping and restarting it in your normal way? (Which I don't know what it is, as I am not a Linux guru, so in such case best wait for Agentb or Juha to pass by).


Another option would be to update BOINC, as 7.6.6 was a beta version of BOINC, at best. Have you checked for a newer version of BOINC through your package manager? And although it'll install to a different set of directories, it should be more up to date than 7.6.6.

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/boinc shows 7.6.33 to be the latest. To see the difference between the repository installation and the Berkeley installer, read the user manual.

---

You have most likely installed BOINC through Ubuntu's package manager. If that is the case then BOINC client is automatically set up to start when to computer starts. Since there is already a running client you can't start another one.

Are you having problems starting BOINC Manager? If you have check I haven't been able to start boincmgr for the last hour or so. It was fine before that. thread.

Cheers guys, and special thanks to Juha for sorting this out, there was indeed a BOINC Manager-anonymous in my personal folder. Once I deleted it, I could access the BOINC manager.

Didn't know that BOINC was set to start with the computer, I was actually looking in the Manager preferences to find this option.

For my knowledge : what is (are) the names of the processes I should see ruinning in the TAsks manager when BOINC is up and running ? Didn't see any one named like 'boinc'-something, which led me to think boinc was not started at all...

S.

boinc - BOINC client, the part does downloads and reports tasks and runs science apps
boincmgr - BOINC Manager, GUI showing what the client does
boincscr - screensaver "manager"
boinccmd - command line program to manage the client

boincscr and boinccmd run only as long as they are needed.

Science apps come with various names. Typically they have something that resembles the project name in them.

You may need to set your task manager to show processes from all users to see BOINC.

On Linux you can't set or unset BOINC to run on system startup using Manager. That can be done with systemctl or update-rc.d .

Got it, thanks again Juha, very helpul !
S.

You have most likely installed BOINC through Ubuntu's package manager.

This is gonna get confusing. Since when does BOINC through repository get installed in the home folder?

03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Data directory: /home/anonymous

Shouldn't that version use Data directory: /var/lib/boinc-client?

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Ageless wrote:

This is gonna get confusing. Since when does BOINC through repository get installed in the home folder?

03-Oct-2016 15:24:39 [---] Data directory: /home/anonymous

Shouldn't that version use Data directory: /var/lib/boinc-client?

That is symptomatic od the user anonymous starting boinc client in their home directory, you will notice boinc exits stage left with a

execv: No such file or directory

I think that is correct behavior and the OP deleted a lockfile and that removed the duplicate boinc manager error.

Just to clear up the version being wrong, the Ubuntu 15.10 repo is 7.6.6

There are some reasons not to upgrade to 16.04 LTS (mainly GCN 1.0 AMD GPU cards) but upgrading to Xenial 16.04 LTS should be considered - 15.10 is now end of life (since July 28)