Hi,

I've had SETI@home running for several years in a few computers at work (under Windows); some do little work so at least those CPU cycles have not been wasted doing NOPs :) . Last week I found that this project was moving to the new structure so I went ahead and changed as well.

On November 22nd I installed BOINC 5.2.7 and uninstalled SETI@home. It's been running well since today. But now no matter what it simply fails to connect. Since I had no experience with BOINC software I tried uninstalling, deleting the folder (I did a backup before), cleaning the registry (BTW, the uninstaller does a poor job here) and reinstalling. This didn't help so I went to this website and got 5.2.12. Same thing, it will not work. It seems that boinc.exe fails to start up, and I have not been able to find out how to launch this program out of a cmd shell. I tried with the undocumented "-daemon" switch and with this it exits after 10 seconds. If I don't use any parameters, it works but I get a nasty text window that cannot be closed. I tried with single and shared installation. Now I got it running as a service, but no screensaver.

So I'm looking for help to get it working either for a single user or shared. It doesn't matter as long as the screen saver is working.

[rant]BTW, I'm very disappointed on this new structure. Making the users switch to something as unreliable isn't a wise move. If the software needs further testing, just wait and launch it later. It takes a lot of effort and time to get a large user base, but very little to loose them.[/rant]

---

In defence of the Devs (I'm just a humble user) it should be said that the upgrade to v5 of BOINC had been under development and testing for some months, and was launched some weeks ago. A revised version fixed some minor flaws that had been uncovered, and it is unfortunate that it coincided with the classic SETI turnoff which meant many new users were exposed to fresh problems. The response was quick, which is why we are now in v 5.2.12, which seems much better.

Documentation has been a BOINC weakness, but the BOINC-Wiki has been a great step forward even though it is struggling to keep up with the changes in BOINC. Those of us running BOINC for a while would hate to go back to the old ways, and though it does seem complicated this is largely in response to user demand for it to be customisable.

As for your particular problem, I'm no techie, but I gather from what you say that the program does not fail only at boot/starting Windows. BOINC Manager starts, but you get a message 'cannot conect to localhost'? Can you confirm what is happening in your case? This one has proved elusive, I suspect because there can be several different reasons for it and they tend to be system specific. Every time one fix is found, somebody finds another cause.

---

[...]BOINC Manager starts, but you get a message 'cannot conect to localhost'? Can you confirm what is happening in your case? This one has proved elusive, I suspect because there can be several different reasons for it and they tend to be system specific. Every time one fix is found, somebody finds another cause.

Yes that's exactly the problem I'm seeing. Weird thing is that last Friday it was working; today nothing has changed, I just turned on the computer only to find this problem.

I've been trying to find out what's wrong by myself, so I'll post my findings in case this helps the developers (hoping that this is the correct forum for this purpose). I'm running Windows XP Pro SP2 with all critical updates.

It seems that there is the BOINC Manager (boincmgr.exe) on one side and BOINC Client (boinc.exe) on the other. Both seem to communicate across TCP/IP even if running on the same computer. The Manager does start up at log in, but it cannot connect. Looking at the processes I don't see the boinc.exe process, so I tried to make it work. Manually running boinc.exe works and then the Manager is able to communicate, as expected, but it does not launch itself in a new process, so it keeps running in the command line window. I tried with "-daemon" but that causes boinc.exe to stop running after a few seconds. That's all I could find out. Right now I installed BOINC as a Service, and it's working this way. But I'm looking at single or shared installation.

Thanks for your help.

---

BTW, BOINC was set up to suspend all operations until the computer was idle for x minutes, where x was the same for the screensaver to kick in.

---

The exact same thing has happened to me. Came home, switched on PC, upgraded to 5.2.12 and now cannot connect to localhost.

I tried going back to 5.2.7 and that has the same problem. I can start boinc.exe manually and then connect.

Boinc.exe claims that "Primary listening port was already in use; using alternate listening port". I have never seen this erro before.

---

I also have this message about the port in use. I've tried 5.2.7 and 5.2.11 with no luck.

---

exactly the same problem
Windows 2000 Workstation

Try 5.2.13 from http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php

Changes since 5.2.12

* Localization updates.
* Network communication failure page added which describes basic ways to resolve common networking issues.
* Fixed a timing issue where the manager would look for the password file before the client actually created one.

---

I downloaded the newest version from the web page last night. It is the version labelled "5.2.13" at the link posted by Ageless. However, I still have a problem:
I get an error from Boinc Manager that it "Cannot Connect to localhost" no matter what I enter. "localhost". IP address, etc. I figured out from another thread that BOINC.exe is never loading, only the manager.
Even after uninstall and re-install, boinc.exe never loads, even when I click on it in Windows Explorer.
I tried starting it from the command line box in Win XP, and I get this error message:
________________________________
To pause/resume tasks hit CTRL-C, to exit hit CTRL-BREAK
2005-11-29 07:38:08 [---] Starting BOINC client version 5.2.12 for windows_intel
x86
2005-11-29 07:38:08 [---] libcurl/7.14.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8 zlib/1.2.3
2005-11-29 07:38:08 [---] Data directory: C:\\Program Files\\BOINC

***UNHANDLED EXCEPTION****
Reason: Access Violation (0xc0000005) at address 0x7C901010 read attempt to addr
ess 0x00000034

1: 11/29/05 07:38:08
_________________________________
You notice that even though I downloaded the version labelled "5.2.13" from the web site, clean install, BOINC thinks it's loading version "5.2.12". Has someone mis-labelled the files on the BOINC site?
This error happens every single time. This is the same Windows box that I've had for years, everything else seems to be running fine.
I hope this helps someone come up with a solution.
-Chrys

---

I have uninstalled 5.2.12 which was installed as a System Service (only way it worked) and installed 5.2.13 over the same directory (guessing that configuration and work in progress would be kept) as shared installation. It seems to be working, but have yet to restart the computer to verify this.

---

It works only if I launch boinc.exe in a dos command prompt then I can launch boinc manager ant it connect successfully to the localhost.
It seems then that the problem is the launching of the boinc.exe in background.
Seb
Windows 2000

---

[quote]Hi. Ditto the problems mentioned here - been running Seti for years, installed Boinc 5.2.7, running until this AM - connection failure, installed v. 5.2.13, no joy....failure to connect. What to do?
Pete

---

For all with the connection problem, or boinc.exe not starting up, try this as it has helped some over on Seti: Shut down your computer. Not a reboot, but a complete system shutdown. Wait a couple of minutes before starting up again, then see what it does.

If you are running Windows 2000 or XP, you can also try to uninstall BOINC complete, then reinstall it as a service. You do need administrator powers for this though.

But by running it as a service you run it always, even before logging in. You can then start up Boinc Manager manually.

---

For all with the connection problem, or boinc.exe not starting up, try this as it has helped some over on Seti: Shut down your computer. Not a reboot, but a complete system shutdown. Wait a couple of minutes before starting up again, then see what it does.

If you are running Windows 2000 or XP, you can also try to uninstall BOINC complete, then reinstall it as a service. You do need administrator powers for this though.

But by running it as a service you run it always, even before logging in. You can then start up Boinc Manager manually.

Problem solved using this solution, thanks

---

Problem solved using this solution, thanks

Which of the two? The shutdown, or the service install?

---

No better I'm afraid. Installed 5.2.13 and the behaviour exhibited is exactly the same.

Installing as a service is not a solution I will be taking up.

---

Installing as a service is not a solution I will be taking up.

May I ask why you won't try that? What's wrong with it?

---

Update: by uninstalling, and then re-installing to a _different_ directory, the problem seems to have been fixed! This time I installed as a service as well.

---

Problem solved using this solution, thanks

Which of the two? The shutdown, or the service install?

... I've installed as a service and made a normal reboot.

As mentioned in the install screen, you should normally have no access tho the graphics and screen saver... but it's false, everything works well, I've just used the localsystem account and checked "allow the service to interact with the desktop"

Seb

---

There are three known issues for the "connection failure". And when I talk about "connection failure" this means the connection between BOINC Manager (boincmgr.exe) and BOINC client (boinc.exe) and is here related only to the Windows platform.

With the BOINC 5.2.13 client (must be the same with 5.2.12) you start BOINC Manager in single or share install mode and normaly BOINC Manager should start the BOINC Client, but this failed.

Issue 1:

Your firewall is blocking the program start or the ports BOINC manager needs to start the boinc.exe program. Test this by shutdown your firewall and then start BOINC Manager.

Issue 2:

Other programs, i.e. Windows alg.exe (Application layer gateway) use the port 1043, which is reserved for BOINC. Then BOINC Manager is not able to start the boinc.exe program too. Youi may test this by open a DOS window, change to the BOINC directory and start boinc.exe. This should be succesfully and possible BOINC report in a message line to use the alternate port. You can then start BOINC manager and it should connect to boinc.exe.

Issue 3:

Boinc Manager and BOINC client use a password to protect the communication between them. Both try to find the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file with the password in the work directory. If you move and start BOINC Manager from a other place in the filesystem they may find different passwords and get a connection failure with a wrong password message.

Solution:

For issue 1. try to configure your firewall in a way that boinc.exe and boincmgr.exe can start other programs and communicate on all tcp ports on localhost.

For issue 2. the only solution is to install and use BOINC in service mode or (if you have enough knowledge) stop the other program using the BOINC port. A new BOINC release may fix this issue, but I don't know when it will be published.

For issue 3. be sure to start BOINC Manager form the install folder or be sure to have the same password file in both working directory.

Greetings from Bremen/Germany
Jens Seidler
Webmaster http://www.boinc.de/

---