I really enjoyed using Seti At Home and felt part of something good. Now because BOINC is impossible to use and because I can't afford my own radio telescope there will be no more SETI for me. Unless someone really brainy can tell me why the connection ALWAYS fails and when I try to attach to a project it ALWAYS asks for Proxy server info, none of which I understand.
PLEASE HELP.

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There are some teething problems at the moment, caused by a mass migration of users from SETI classic to other projects, using BOINC.
This is stretching the servers to maximum capacity.

One of the problems is that the latest version gives you about 3 seconds to get a reply from a server, and then assumes you are using a proxy server that it hasn't been told about. If you get this, just try again. Patience is the only cure.

When you are asked user name / password in a two line window, just click Enter. (Or is it OK? it's been six hours since I went through this myself. :) )
This is just the 2 parts of BOINC, not another computer somewhere.

It should then connect you to Localhost. You will see: "Connected to localhost" on the right hand side of the bottom bar of the BOINC window.

If you need more help, just ask.

Thanks, I'll be patient. It's just that it all went so well on my office computer (latest pentium 4 etc..) and here at home it's just not happening. Anyway if there's nothing to do but wait and try again, I'll do it, thanks.

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Anyway if there's nothing to do but wait and try again, I'll do it, thanks.

There is already an attempted fix to the problem, in a new BOINC version for Windows, V5.2.9. There isn't verification yet that it _solves_ the problem, but the developers really do seem to be trying to fix the major issues as they pop up.

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aside from the problem of proxy server, every time I open BOINC manager the connection fails. Do you think this is also caused by congestion due to the mass migration, or do you think I may have problems on my own computer. My internet connection is clearly working with other sites.

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This was mentioned before. Bill Michael explained it in a recent post, and I saw it somewhere else.
There, the poster said to go to the File menu and click on Select computer.
Then you get a two window popup asking for a computer and a password. (I forget the exact words.) Just click OK on the blank fields, and it will connect to localhost.
I had this happen about 8 hours ago, and tried it, and it worked.
(And 4 hours later, 5.2.9 was made available!)
I haven't had a need to re-boot yet, so I don't know what's going to happen then.

Try the latest BOINC version 5.2.10:

# Changes since 5.2.9

* Win: Fixes a BOINC Manager connection issue when the manager is waiting on a firewall for the all clear. This generally happens after a reboot.

# Changes since 5.2.8

* Win: Fixes the 'connection failed' message when another program is using the BOINC communication port.

And thank you for your patience so far.

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5.2.11 is out, with an additional fix to the "not connected to localhost" problem.

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