This thread will have all the change logs on BOINC 6. Because it is a new milestone, we'll be using a fresh thread.
We will not give download links. If you don't know where to download it from, you shouldn't be testing it.

BOINC 6.1.0 - 6.1.4 were tested internally.

-----------------

When you're downloading a BOINC 6 version and you have problems with it, post about it here on the BOINC Dev forums. Don't post about it in a project's forums as the people there most probably won't be able to help you!

By posting about your problems here, we will be able to contact the developers on it and either they themselves will ask you for further information or we will.

6.1.5, Windows

Rom Walton wrote:

Howdy Folks,

Could you do us a favor and run through the 6.1.5 installer on your machines before we release to alpha?

The v6 installer is documented here:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ClientSetupLogicWinSix

This build doesn’t have the code enabled for running applications as boinc_project, I wanted to get over the migration hump before introducing more permission issues into the mix.

Please respond back via this email thread, no reason to take this to boinc_alpha until we are ready for more people to take the plunge.

TIA.

---- Rom

6.1.6, Windows

Rom Walton wrote:

Howdy Folks,

I have a newer version of the 6.x series of client to bang on for awhile.
I haven’t posted it on the download page because too many people will be tempted to install it without knowing what they would be getting themselves into. However, I have added 6.1.6 to the list of versions under test in BOINC alpha’s test matrix. Please report results there.

Oh, please keep in mind that the installer will not attempt to migrate any of your current data, if it detects that there are already BOINC data files present in the data directory. So when you attempt to test the migration functionality again please be sure to delete all files in the data directory before installing.

The procedure for cleaning up after a 6.x install to revert the system back into a 5.x state can be found here:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ClientSetupLogicWinSixCleanup

Please be sure to check-out the updated installer specification here:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ClientSetupWinSix

If you run into problems during installation run through the cleanup procedure before attempting to reproduce the bug and then execute the boinc setup program from the command line with the following parameter:

boinc_6.1.6_windows_intelx86.exe /v"/l*vx c:boincsetup.log"

Then mail me back the boincsetup.log file compressed, if you have a file compressing tool.

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

6.1.7, Windows and Windows x64

Rom Walton wrote:

Okay, I’ve posted a new build which has some more in-depth logging with regards to migration failures.

If you have had problems in the past with migrations, please use the new build with the logging flags described below and send me the log file. Thanks in advance.

----Rom

6.1.8, Windows and Windows x64

Rom Walton wrote:

Howdy Folks,

We have a new build to test out.

We have updated the test matrix to include tests for the new 6.x installer, please look it over at:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/TestMatrix

At present the science applications are not run under the ‘boinc_project’ account, I haven’t checked in that code yet. I wanted to get the migration functionality working before adding an additional layer of complexity.

Please report test results to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/alpha and bug reports to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac.

TIA.

----- Rom

6.1.10, Macintosh

Charlie Fenton wrote:

I have posted BOINC 6.1.10 for the Macintosh to the alpha download page.

Here you go, folks: the long-awaited first full alpha release of version 6 on the Macintosh for your testing pleasure! This one is for the Mac; Rom is still working on a Windows problem, but expects to release version 6.1.10 for Windows and Linux very soon.

Changes from 5.10.x are too numerous to list, but include full multiple selection support on the Grid Views.

There is a lot of new stuff here, so please test thoroughly. Thanks!

Please note: as of version 6, BOINC for the Mac now requires at least OS 10.3.9.

Cheers,
--Charlie

When you're downloading a BOINC 6 version and you have problems with it, post about it here on the BOINC Dev forums. Don't post about it in a project's forums as the people there most probably won't be able to help you!

By posting about your problems here, we will be able to contact the developers on it and either they themselves will ask you for further information or we will.

6.1.12, Windows and Windows x64

Rom Walton wrote:

Howdy Folks,

I have released a new version of the 6.x client. This release should resolve all known issues for migrating/moving 5.10 data to its new location. This release will now reset permissions on the data directory during install in case they have become messed up.

Please note that the data directory for BOINC's data files has moved from:
(2000/XP/2003/Vista/2008) C:\Program Files\BOINC

To:
(2000/XP/2003) C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Applicaton Data\BOINC
(Vista/2008) C:\ProgramData\BOINC

Please do test the migration functionality for both install and uninstall on each of your machines, if migration fails uninstall the BOINC client and reinstall using the logging instructions below. Basically this involves making sure that the new data directory is empty before installing the new 6.x client over the top of the 5.10 client. After installing 6.x you should be attached to all the same projects and be processing the same results as before installing 6.x. Uninstalling 6.x should move the files back to C:\Program Files\BOINC.

NOTE: If after installing 6.x BOINC Manager fails to connect to the core client, please logoff the machine and log back in. If you cannot logoff then reboot the machine. Basically Windows doesn't update your security token, showing that you are now part of the 'boinc_admins' group until you log back into the system. We'll have a fix for that in a future version of the installer, which will reboot after install the machine if the installer creates any of the BOINC user groups.

The procedure for cleaning up after a 6.x install to revert the system back into a 5.x state can be found here:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ClientSetupLogicWinSixCleanup

NOTE: This release will attempt to fix the user right assignments and permissions during install if they are broken, I have provided the link to the clean-up document just in case something goes really wrong.

Please be sure to check-out the updated installer specification here:
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ClientSetupWinSix

If you run into problems during installation run through the cleanup procedure before attempting to reproduce the bug and then execute the boinc setup program from the command line with the following parameter:
boinc_6.1.12_windows_intelx86.exe /v"/l*vx c:boincsetup.log"

Then mail me back the boincsetup.log file compressed, if you have a file compressing tool.

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

6.1.12, Windows and Windows x64 addendum

Rom Walton wrote:

Another note: When installing with the 'protected application execution' option, applications built to work with the v5 client will not display graphics no matter if you set up the CC to run as 'SYSTEM' and enable 'Interact with Desktop'.

This is a known issue, and will not be fixed.

----- Rom

(This does seem to work from the Simple View though - Ageless)

6.1.12, Windows and Windows x64 addendum 2

Answer on the 'feature' of having BOINC 5 compliant graphics in BOINC Simple View, while using the System account and interaction with the desktop.

Rom Walton wrote:

Well that is a surprise. Each of the v5 applications should be running under the ‘boinc_project’ user account and not the SYSTEM account. According to MS’s documentation only processes running as SYSTEM and with ‘Interact with desktop’ checked can do that.

I do not believe this will work on Vista.

At this point I would say it depends on what version of Windows you are running.

----- Rom

It may well work on Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Anyone care to test it on Windows NT?

6.1.14, Windows and Windows x64

Rom Walton wrote:

This release adds co-processor support and fixes several setup bugs.

Please re-run all the setup tests you ran on the previous build and
continue to send me the logs of any install or migration failures.

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

Changelog for 6.1.14:
- client: add coprocessor support: i.e., parse the list of coprocs in <app_version>s from the server, keep track of the number free of each type of coproc, and don't run an app that needs more than are available. (not quite working yet)

- client: Per Carl's recommendation add CURLOPT_POST301 to the list of curl options used so that the followups to redirects still post instead of get.

- client: finish and debug coprocessor support

- manager and GUI RPC: show plan class in app version string

- client (Unix): don't follow symbolic links when computing directory size. This will avoid counting the size of executables and input files in slot directories.

- Build fixes for non-Win32, non-Linux, non-MacOS systems.

- configure script:
* Added checks for functions strdup(), strdupa(), daemon(), stat64(), strcasestr()
* Fixed problems with kc_mysql.m4 and wxWidgets.m4 returning invalid CFLAGS and LIBS flags.

- Fixed incorrect order of pthread flag checking on solaris.

- New files: lib/unix_util.[Ch]. Currently contains implementation of daemon() for systems that lack it.

- Access to binary files in /proc was failing on some systems when compiled with 64 bit file access. Rearranged headers and defines to force 32bit file access in hostinfo_unix.C

- all_tty_idle() didn't work as advertised on any system as far as I can tell. I rewrote it to check ttys that are not named /dev/tty[1-9]. The old implementation was modifying a statically allocated read-only string, anyway.

- added implementation of non-standard function strcasestr() to str_util.C

- added #define of MAP_FILE to shmem.C, because it is missing from most unix systems, (and is unnecessary on linux anyway).

- other minor bug fixes.

- Graphics API: Add boinc_close_window_and_quit() API to UNIX / Mac lib.

- Mac: Fix compiler warning.

- Mac: Remove -fvisibility* compiler flags from BOINC library builds and boinc_cmd build.

- Client/server protocol: send <client_cap_plan_class/> if client understands app version plan class. The server checks for this instead of version > 6.11. (suggested by Nicolas Alvarez)

- clean up unix_util: .h files declare only (extern) interfaces; no reason for daemon() to be C

- compile fixes for gcc 4.x; fixes [trac]#592[/trac]

- scheduler: bug fix for case when app version XML is > 64KB

- server: when creating log dir, we were using wrong bit for sticky flag

- WINSETUP: Make sure the executable permissions are setup correctly after the binaries are installed.

- WINSETUP: Inform MSI that a reboot is suggested after creation of 'boinc_master', 'boinc_project', 'boinc_admins', 'boinc_users', 'boinc_projects'.

- WINSETUP: Reread the INSTALLDIR property from the registry to determine if their is data to migrate. INSTALLDIR is changed to where ever the user wants to install BOINC now, which may be different then where it was in 5.10.

- WINSETUP: If the user is running on Win2k but hasn't upgraded to SP4, inform them of the new requirement.

- API: change boinc_resolve_filename() so that it detects symbolic links and treats them as a special case. Also, if the virtual file doesn't exist (as in the standalone case) just return zero; otherwise if the app is running standalone and checks the return value, it will error out.

NOTE: apps that check the return value of boinc_resolve_filename() won't work on 6.12+ under Unix; recompiling with this change will fix the problem.

- Mac: Update build documentation, move building project applications build instructions to a separate document (wiki page)

- Mac: Fix bugs in new backtrace code.

- Added init.d script (boinc-client.in) and Makefile.am to install it.

- I got this from the Fedora package. I have modified it to create the run directory if it does not exist, and to not run boinc as root. Checking for running processes needs to be improved.

- boinc-client.in is still very linux centric and probably won't work on non-linux systems or under Bourne shell without significant changes.

- WINSETUP: Fix the bug during uninstall where the data files were not being migrated back to the executable directory.

- fixes for gcc 4.3

- GUI: Disable Show Graphics button if any selected task is suspended for any reason.

- Mac: Fix new backtrace code for x86_64 Client and project applications.

- client: send client_cap_plan_class as <x>1</x> rather than <x/> in scheduler request; the latter breaks older schedulers.

- old parse code: make skip_unexpected() work with <x/>

6.1.14, Macintosh

Charlie Fenton wrote:

I have posted BOINC 6.1.14 for the Macintosh to the alpha download page.

Very important: the Mac, UNIX and Linux versions have some low-level changes which may cause some project applications to fail. We are very anxious to know which projects are incompatible with this release of BOINC.

The known incompatibilities fall into two categories:

(1) Aborting a task because the disk limit is exceeded. This reports as a computation error. Projects must fix this by updating their server code.

(2) Problems caused by the use of symbolic links instead of soft-links. These are particularly tricky to detect, as they may or may not be reported as computation errors.

We already know that Einstein@home currently fails on the Mac because of (2). They are working on a fix.

In the case of Einstein@home, the only indication of a problem is the "Output file absent" message in the Manager's Messages tab and in the stdoutdae.txt file. A typical such message is:
[Einstein@Home] Output file h1_1050.65_S5R3__683_S5R3b_1_0 for task
h1_1050.65_S5R3__683_S5R3b_1 absent

This appears in the message window in black text, not red, making it hard to spot. Also, no result file is ever uploaded, although the task completion is successfully reported.

Other project application problems may have different symptoms / indications. Please check carefully that each task completes successfully, is reported successfully, and actually uploads a result.

Remember: as of version 6, BOINC for the Mac now requires at least OS 10.3.9.

6.1.14, Linux

Rom Walton wrote:

I have released the Linux clients, we need to know what compatibility issues there might be with projects.

----- Rom

6.1.15, Macintosh

Charlie Fenton wrote:

I have posted BOINC 6.1.15 for the Macintosh to the alpha download page. Rom will post the Linux release very soon.

Due to the problems with version 6.1.14 on Mac and Linux, we have backed out the changes to always use symbolic links. BOINC will now use symbolic links for a project only if specifically requested by that project.

Warning: If you have been running 6.1.14 and want to use the same BOINC Data directory with 6.1.15, you will probably need to reset all your projects after installing 6.1.15 to get rid of the symbolic links created by 6.1.14. This is not necessary if you have not run 6.1.14 on your current BOINC Data, or if you are running on Windows.

Remember: as of version 6, BOINC for the Mac now requires at least OS 10.3.9.

Cheers,
--Charlie

Changelog for 6.1.15:
- DIAG: Make sure that if the symstore isn't defined at all, don't construct the symstore search path.

- WINSETUP: Don't check for SP4 against Win9X.

- LIB: Fix build break on Linux compat VM.

- BLD: Update confgiure.ac to require libcurl 7.17.1.

- client: use symlinks only if project has <use_symlinks/> element.

- API: fixed boinc_resolve_filename() bug: didn't work right for symlinks

- Fix is_symlink() to use S_ISLNK() macro instead of incorrect (sbuf.st_mode & S_IFLNK), which made it return true for regular files and caused boinc_resolve_filename() to work incorrectly.

- manager: fix menu appearance

- Unix init script: modified to make less linux specific.

- Does not presume the existence of "pidof" or "runuser".

- If started with an old style Bourne shell, will try to restart in bash, zsh or ksh.

- Starts with no parameters by default.

- Logs stdout and stderr to /var/log/boinc_client.log and var/log/boinc_client_err.log by default.

- With appropriate "boinc-client.conf", the script can be run by a non-root user.

- More changes are likely to be required.

- client: improved user idle checking on Linux (from Frank Thomas)

6.1.15, Linux and Linux64

Rom Walton wrote:

Here are the Linux clients.

Charlie's advice is also valid for people who ran the 6.1.14 Linux clients.

----- Rom

6.1.16, Macintosh

Charlie Fenton wrote:

I have posted BOINC 6.1.16 for the Macintosh to the alpha download page.

Remember: as of version 6, BOINC for the Mac now requires at least OS 10.3.9.

Cheers,
--Charlie

Changelog for 6.1.16:
- API: fix boinc_resolve_filename_s() to handle symlinks the same as boinc_resolve_filename().

- client: do the /proc/interrupts stuff (see above) only on Linux-like systems; use device_idle() only on non-Linux Unix systems

- Fix is_file() to use S_ISREG() macro instead of incorrect (sbuf.st_mode & S_IFREG); fix is_dir() to use S_ISDIR() macro instead of incorrect (sbuf.st_mode & S_IFDIR).

- Fix is_file() and is_dir() to compile properly on Windows by using the actual expressions instead of the macros which aren't defined.

- scheduler: fix FCGI compile problem. FCGI can't use libboinc.a; is needs its own specially-compiled versions of everything in lib/

- MGR: Make help system work again.

- MGR: Add pre-release to the BOINC Manager title bar and about dialog if it is a pre-release version of BOINC.

- CLI: Add some pre-release text to the CC startup routine and suggest they revert back to a released build if they don't plan on testing the client.

- client: fix array size in Linux test for running on batteries

6.1.16, Windows and Windows x64

Rome Walton wrote:

Howdy Folks,

Here is a new release for testing, you'll notice some warnings on
startup about this version of BOINC being a pre-released version. We'll
turn it off when we are closer to shipping the final release. Probably
after the first few builds of 6.2.x

I'm looking into the Win9x and Linux startup bug.

Changelog for 6.1.15 (unreleased):
- DIAG: Make sure that if the symstore isn't defined at all, don't construct the symstore search path.

- WINSETUP: Don't check for SP4 against Win9X.

- LIB: Fix build break on Linux compat VM.

- BLD: Update confgiure.ac to require libcurl 7.17.1.

- client: use symlinks only if project has <use_symlinks/> element.

- API: fixed boinc_resolve_filename() bug: didn't work right for symlinks

- Fix is_symlink() to use S_ISLNK() macro instead of incorrect (sbuf.st_mode & S_IFLNK), which made it return true for regular files and caused boinc_resolve_filename() to work incorrectly.

- manager: fix menu appearance

- Unix init script: modified to make less linux specific.

- Does not presume the existence of "pidof" or "runuser".

- If started with an old style Bourne shell, will try to restart in bash, zsh or ksh.

- Starts with no parameters by default.

- Logs stdout and stderr to /var/log/boinc_client.log and /var/log/boinc_client_err.log by default.

- With appropriate "boinc-client.conf", the script can be run by a non-root user.

- More changes are likely to be required.

Changelog for 6.1.16:
- API: fix boinc_resolve_filename_s() to handle symlinks the same as boinc_resolve_filename().

- client: do the /proc/interrupts stuff (see above) only on Linux-like systems; use device_idle() only on non-Linux Unix systems

- Fix is_file() to use S_ISREG() macro instead of incorrect (sbuf.st_mode & S_IFREG); fix is_dir() to use S_ISDIR() macro instead of incorrect (sbuf.st_mode & S_IFDIR).

- Fix is_file() and is_dir() to compile properly on Windows by using the actual expressions instead of the macros which aren't defined.

- scheduler: fix FCGI compile problem. FCGI can't use libboinc.a; is needs its own specially-compiled versions of everything in lib/

- MGR: Make help system work again.

- MGR: Add pre-release to the BOINC Manager title bar and about dialog if it is a pre-release version of BOINC.

- CLI: Add some pre-release text to the CC startup routine and suggest they revert back to a released build if they don't plan on testing the client.

- client: fix array size in Linux test for running on batteries

6.1.15, Linux and Linux64

Rom Walton wrote:

Folks, we could really use some test results.

Aside from the manager not automatically starting the CC, is there
anything else going on?

Please log some results to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/alpha.

----- Rom

6.2.1, Windows 32bit
6.2.1, Macintosh

Rom Walton wrote:

Howdy Folks,

We are feature complete for 6.2, from here on out 6.2 will just be bug fixes. Any of the remaining new features that didn’t make it are going to be punted to the next release. Windows 9x should work again.

Please review: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/TestMatrix

We have added some test cases for the help system and data migration.

This is a good time to bring up any issues that you might have raised in the past, but was tabled for one reason or another, if you think there are major bugs that haven’t been addressed. I’m not promising any radical changes or anything like that, but I would like to make sure that anything that hasn’t been fixed is at least logged as a bug in Trac .

As always please log bugs to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac and log test results to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/alpha.

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

Change Log:

- DIAG: Add an easy way for projects to initialize the diagnostics framework for graphics applications.

- DIAG: Make SetDllDirectory work for Win2k3, Vista, and Win2k8

- API: If the diagnostics framework hasn't been initialized for the graphics application, initialize it.

- client: Win: fix CUDA detection:
-- look in the registry to find the CUDA install directory, and look for cudart.dll in that dir.

- client: for CUDA, don't confuse coproc.name ("CUDA") from coproc.prop.name (e.g., "Device Emulation (CPU)" on my PC, which doesn't have a recent-enough GPU)

- client: if no coprocessors present, say so in startup messages

- API: Fix build break from my last check-in.

- client (Unix) Add /usr/local/cuda/lib/ to LD_LIBRARY_PATH before looking for CUDA library

- boinc_cmd: changed help strings to say "boinccmd". I'd like to change the filename too but can't figure out Makefile stuff

- API: fix Mac compile errors.

- client: implement Mac CUDA detection, fix compiler warning.

- boinc_cmd: change name to "boinccmd".

- client (unix): avoid crash if LD_LIBRARY_PATH not set

- MGR/CLI: remove direct references to CreateEnvironmentBlock and DestroyEnvironmentBlock since Win98 doesn't support them. This functionality is only required for the Windows sandbox implementation anyway.

- LIB: Remove direct reference to OpenThread in win_util.C since it isn't supported on Win98.

- MGR: Another fix for CC execution on a Linux machine.

- client (Unix) fix to CUDA detection if LD_LIBRARY_PATH is ""

6.2.1, Linux (32bit)

Rom Walton wrote:

Building the Linux x64 client is in progress.

----- Rom

For change log see Windows/Mac 6.2.1.