Howdy Folks,

Here is a new version to test. This release contains the following fixes:
* Improvements to the CPU and GPU scheduler
* Improvements to work fetch
* Improvements to AMD GPU identification
* Limit the number of messages in the event log to 2000, which avoids continuous memory usage by the UI
* Images should now be able to be displayed with notices

Please report test results to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/alpha. Please
report bugs to this email list ([email protected]).

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

<cpu_sched_debug>: problems involving the choice of applications to run.
<work_fetch_debug>: problems involving work fetch (which projects are asked for work, and how much).
<rr_simulation>: problems involving jobs being run in high-priority mode.
<sched_op_debug>: problems involving scheduler operations and other low level information.

• client: major overhaul of work-fetch logic based on suggestions by Jacob Klein. The new policy is roughly as follows:
  -> Find the highest-priority project P that is allowed to fetch work for a resource below buf_min
  -> Ask P for work for all resources R below buf_max for which it's allowed to fetch work, unless there's a higher-priority project allowed to request work for R.
  
  If we're going to do an RPC to P for reasons other than work fetch, the policy is:
  -> For each resource R for which P is the highest-priority project allowed to fetch work, and R is below buf_max, request work for R.
  
  
• client: work fetch message tweaks: show state before actions.
  
• client: fix bug in work fetch that prevented resource backoff.
  
• client: fix bug in work fetch that caused infinite RPCs if all projects backed off.
  
• GUI RPC: add "project_dir" field to PROJECT struct. GUIs can look for image files (stat_icon etc.) in this directory.
  
• client: more fixes to GUI RPC addition. Also, replace get_project_dir() with a memoized member function of PROJECT.
  
• client: final fix to GUI RPC addition.
  
• client: fix fatal bug introduced in 64d7fa34.
  
• AMD GPU naming tweaks. From [P3D] Crashtest.
  
• client: Avoid showing too-old stats in GUI. Trim old credit statistics on each GUI RPC as well as each scheduler reply.
  
• client: minor code cleanup.
  
• MGR: bug fix - save settings when Windows is shut down. Work around a bug in wxWidgets 2.8.x which fails to call OnExit() when Windows is shut down, causing any changes to Manager settings to be lost.
  
• Fix file permissions.
  
• VBOX: Disable USB support in virtual machines by default.
  
  On Linux the currently signed-in user has to be added to the vboxusers group in order to handle bridging USB devices. If the user has not taken that step virtual box throws a warning that looks like an error. This caused vboxwrapper to believe that the VM had failed to start. Since we do not know of any VM enabled problem that needs to communicate with an external USB device, just disable the feature entirely.
  
  
• VBOX: Start keeping track on incompatible versions of VirtualBox.
  
  Set the temporary exit delay to one day if an incompatible version is detected. This gives the volunteer a chance to take corrective action before the task errors out after it exceeds its deadline.
  
  
• VBOX: Add some text to atderr about the incompatible version of VirtualBox.
  
• VBOX: Disable virtualized COM ports, LPT ports, and audio cards. Also disable bi-directional clipboard and drag and drop services.
  
  This probably isn't needed, but VirtualBox templates may change in the future and disabling them reduces our exposure to various types of errors.
  
  
• client: don't use FLOPS info for completion estimates of NCI jobs.
  
• client: fix compile warnings. From Gianfranco Costamagna.
  
• MGR: Update GridRepublic, CharityEngine, ProgressThruProcessors to new V7 skins.
  
• client: message tweak (show "don't need" in work request msg).
  
• WCG: Fix issue with not uninstalling previous version of World Community Grid. Use WCG icon for add/remove programs.
  
• MGR: Flush Manager settings to Windows Registry or user prefs when practical to do so.
  
• MGR: fix build break.
  
• MGR: clear instance pointer after delete.
  
• WCG: Set files to 'always overwrite' so that in the future, version downgrades will not encounter issues with some files not installling properly.
  
• VBOX: Fix version check so that it can work with RPM based distros of Linux.
  
• VBOX: Adjust the set_cpu_usage() and set_network_usage() function prototypes to use ints and handle the preference conversion in the calling function.
  
• VBOX: Set the minimum CPU usage value to 5%, if for some reason somebody chooses 0% (on purpose or bug) VirtualBox goes nuts. This should give the VM at least enough time to render a few frames and eventually boot.
  
• VBOX: Update project files.
  
• VBOX: Adjust the failsafe minimum CPU Usage value to 1. The VM should eventually boot.
  
• boinccmd: check RPC replies for errors; show them.
  
• VBOX: a value of 0 in <cpu_usage_limit> means "no limit", so set it to 100 if it is 0.
  
• Unix install: copy .po files as non-executable.
  
• VBOX: Break the modify VM phase into smaller chunks. Some platforms do not support turning off LPT ports for instance.
  
• client: task schedule tweak to avoid starvation case. In enforce_run_list(), don't count the RAM usage of NCI tasks. NCI tasks run sporadically, so it doesn't make to count it; doing so can starve regular jobs in some cases.
  
• Unix install: use $(INSTALL) for directories.
  
• WIN: Reintroduce the application manifest for the core client. If BOINC was launched from an unprivileged (non-admin/not part of boinc_users/boinc_admin) attempts to write state files were re-directed to the VirtualStore instead of failing. Once things were fixed other random issues would occur.
  
• client: apply app_config.xml settings after each scheduler RPC.
  
• Mac: update build instructions for GIT instead of SVN.
  
• MGR: Immediately update Simple View default project icon, window icon and window title when switching skin.
  
• Fix issue with not uninstalling previous version of World Community Grid. Use WCG icon for add/remove programs.
  
• WCG: Minor change in application name.
  
• MGR: Modify the behavior of the blinking box around the notices button in the simple view. The color of the blinking box will be Red by default but can be overriden by a tag <notices_alert_color> in a skin.xml file.
  
• MGR: Modify how the event log is displayed on the screen for Windows. Make sure that the event log window will fit on the screen and will be shown entirely on screen.
  
• MGR: Change text for suspend button in simple view to say suspend client.
  
• MGR: Modify the way we place an oversized or off screen message dialogue onto the screen. This simply moves it fully onto the screen rather than centering it.
  
• Change text on suspend button in simple view back to simply "Suspend" or "Resume".
  

Available installers:

Windows 7.1.1
- boinc_7.1.1_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.1.1_windows_x86_64.exe

Macintosh 7.1.1
- boinc_7.1.1_macOSX_i686.zip
- boinc_7.1.1_macOSX_SymbolTables.zip
- boinc_7.1.1_i686-apple-darwin.zip

Linux 7.1.1
- boinc_7.1.1_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.1.1_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

More details about 7.1.1:

1) The work fetch and scheduler changes mostly involve situations where GPU exclusions are being used, and GPUs end up idle. If you use GPU exclusions (i.e. <exclude_gpu> elements in your cc_config.xml) please try different combinations and see if there are problems.

2) The event log now shows only the last 2000 messages. In 7.1.2 you'll be able to change or remove this limit. In the meantime, all messages are in stdoutdae.txt.

3) Checking images in Notices: AFAIK no projects currently have notices containing images. To test this, you can temporarily add the following as an account manager: http://isaac.ssl.berkeley.edu/cplan/
Use anything as an email/password; these aren't used, and no projects will be added. However, you'll get a bunch of notices containing images, namely the Google RSS feed of sports-related news.

• MGR: use "task" rather than "result" in text.
  
• MGR: another text tweak.
  
• Mac Installer: Fix a bug which could prevent creating Login Item if MacPorts is installed.
  
• MGR: show project name in account-info page.
  
• client: fix work-fetch bug that could starve a GPU if exclusions used.
  
• client: trigger work fetch if user clears "no new tasks" for a project.
  
• client: make "missing app" messages more consistent.
  
• client: change "result suspended by user" to "task suspended by user" in Event Log.
  
• client: change another "result" to "task" in Event Log.
  
• client: fix bug that could cause client to never contact project.
  
  If a project sends us <no_rsc_apps> flags for all processor types, then by default the client will never do a scheduler RPC to that project again. This could happen because of a transient condition in the project, e.g. it deprecates all its app versions for a while.
  
  To avoid this situation, the client now checks whether the no_rsc_apps flags are set for all processor types. If they are, it clears them all. This will cause work fetch to use backoff, and the client will occasionally contact the project.
  
  
• WCG: Replace ico files with png so that alt-tab will display WCG logo properly on Windows XP.
  
• WCG: Modify WCG installer to include new image file.
  
• client & MGR: add support for <max_event_log_lines>N</max_event_log_lines> in cc_config.xml
  Default is 2000. 0 means unlimited.
  
  
• client: show app_config warnings only on startup and reread config.
  
• client: add <client_new_version_text> config option. Lets you customize the notice that's generated when a new client version is available.
  
• client: fix build break.
  
• client: restore --detach and --detach_console cmdline args. These were mistakenly removed.
  
• client: update notice feeds when detach from account manager.
  
• client: don't piggyback work request if project is NNT or suspended.
  
• client: don't piggyback work request in several situations
  namely:
  -> some download stalled.
  -> some task suspended.
  -> too many uploading tasks.
  
  
• client: Remove Display Power Management query for idle detection until a new variant can be found.
  
• client: don't ask an NCI project for work if current job still uploading.
  Note: we currently assume NCI projects have only 1 app. Removing this assumption would be a little work.
  
  
• Fix event log not being displayed on the same display as the manager.
  
• Additional customization of WCG branding.
  
• Manager and GUI RPC interface: fix possible buffer overruns.
  If the user typed an extremely long URL into the Attach to Account Manager wizard, a buffer overrun could result.
  There were several places in the code that assumed user-entered URLs are small (e.g. 256 chars):
  
  -> canonicalize_master_url.cpp()
  -> several GUI RPC interfaces, when generating XML request message
  -> URL-escaping (not relevant here, but fix anyway)
  
  Change all these to stay within buffers regardless of URL size.
  Note: do this by truncation.
  This will cause error messages like "can't connect to project" rather than saying the URL is too long. That's OK.
  
  
• boinccmd compile fixes.
  

Available installers:

Windows 7.1.2
- boinc_7.1.2_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.1.2_windows_x86_64.exe

Howdy Folks,

Here is a new version to test. This release contains the following fixes:
* Screensaver should no longer crash on Mac Book Pros (Mac).
Just setting the screensaver to BOINC on Mac Book Pros is enough to reproduce this issue. On older versions of BOINC it would crash during normal operation.

* Improvements to the CPU and GPU scheduler.
* Improvements to work fetch.
The work fetch and scheduler changes mostly involve situations where GPU exclusions are being used, and GPUs end up idle. If you use GPU exclusions (i.e. <exclude_gpu> elements in your cc_config.xml) please try different combinations and see if there are problems.

If the "no new tasks" option is turned off for a project and the client needs work, it should properly request work.

The client should no longer piggyback work requests for the following situations:

  * No New Work
  * Suspended
  * Stalled downloads
  * Stalled uploads

The client should no longer request work from a Non-Compute Intensive project when a task is in the middle of uploading its result files.

* New cc_config.xml option for limiting the number of messages kept in memory for the event log.
Add <max_event_log_lines>N</max_event_log_lines> in the cc_config.xml options section where N is the number of messages to keep in memory. Default is 2000. 0 means unlimited.

* Buffer overflow situation has been fixed in the manager and client and should no longer crash.
If a volunteer was tricked into using an excessively long URL for attaching to a project or account manager the manager would crash. The URL would have to be longer than 1024 bytes.

Please report test results to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/alpha. Please report bugs to the [email protected] email list.

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

• MGR: use "task" rather than "result" in text.
  
• MGR: another text tweak.
  
• Mac Installer: Fix a bug which could prevent creating Login Item if MacPorts is installed.
  
• MGR: show project name in account-info page.
  
• client: fix work-fetch bug that could starve a GPU if exclusions used.
  
• client: trigger work fetch if user clears "no new tasks" for a project.
  
• client: make "missing app" messages more consistent.
  
• client: change "result suspended by user" to "task suspended by user" in Event Log.
  
• client: change another "result" to "task" in Event Log.
  
• client: fix bug that could cause client to never contact project.
  
  If a project sends us <no_rsc_apps> flags for all processor types, then by default the client will never do a scheduler RPC to that project again. This could happen because of a transient condition in the project, e.g. it deprecates all its app versions for a while.
  
  To avoid this situation, the client now checks whether the no_rsc_apps flags are set for all processor types. If they are, it clears them all. This will cause work fetch to use backoff, and the client will occasionally contact the project.
  
  
• WCG: Replace ico files with png so that alt-tab will display WCG logo properly on Windows XP.
  
• WCG: Modify WCG installer to include new image file.
  
• client & MGR: add support for <max_event_log_lines>N</max_event_log_lines> in cc_config.xml
  Default is 2000. 0 means unlimited.
  
  
• client: show app_config warnings only on startup and reread config.
  
• client: add <client_new_version_text> config option. Lets you customize the notice that's generated when a new client version is available.
  
• client: fix build break.
  
• client: restore --detach and --detach_console cmdline args. These were mistakenly removed.
  
• client: update notice feeds when detach from account manager.
  
• client: don't piggyback work request if project is NNT or suspended.
  
• client: don't piggyback work request in several situations
  namely:
  -> some download stalled.
  -> some task suspended.
  -> too many uploading tasks.
  
  
• client: Remove Display Power Management query for idle detection until a new variant can be found.
  
• client: don't ask an NCI project for work if current job still uploading.
  Note: we currently assume NCI projects have only 1 app. Removing this assumption would be a little work.
  
  
• Fix event log not being displayed on the same display as the manager.
  
• Additional customization of WCG branding.
  
• Manager and GUI RPC interface: fix possible buffer overruns.
  If the user typed an extremely long URL into the Attach to Account Manager wizard, a buffer overrun could result.
  There were several places in the code that assumed user-entered URLs are small (e.g. 256 chars):
  
  -> canonicalize_master_url.cpp()
  -> several GUI RPC interfaces, when generating XML request message
  -> URL-escaping (not relevant here, but fix anyway)
  
  Change all these to stay within buffers regardless of URL size.
  Note: do this by truncation.
  This will cause error messages like "can't connect to project" rather than saying the URL is too long. That's OK.
  
  
• boinccmd compile fixes.
  

Preliminary Change Log 7.1.2 --> 7.1.3:

• client & MGR: when writing cc_config.xml, put <max_event_log_lines> in correct alphabetical order.
  
• SS: Fixes for dual-GPU Macbook Pros.
  -> Fix a crash bug.
  -> Don't run boincscr or project screensavers when on battery power because OpenGL apps trigger the use of the power-hungry discrete GPU.
  
  
• client: reintroduce xidletime code to detect idle time on Linux. Include reference to source site and authors.
  

Available installers:

Macintosh 7.1.3
- boinc_7.1.3_macOSX_i686.zip
- boinc_7.1.3_macOSX_SymbolTables.zip
- boinc_7.1.3_i686-apple-darwin.zip

Windows 7.1.3
- boinc_7.1.3_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.1.3_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.1.3
- boinc_7.1.3_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.1.3_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

Dear alpha testers:

We have released a new version of BOINC (7.1.10) for testing.

This release includes, for the first time, a version for Android devices (phones, tables, ultrabooks). If you have such a device, please help us test BOINC on it.

We are distributing the Android version through the Google Play Store instead of the BOINC web site. To get the test version, you must first join a Google Group called "BOINC Android Testing". Instructions for doing this are here: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/AlphaInstructions#Installingtestsoftware

Currently only two listed projects (OProject and Asteroids@home) offer Android apps. You can also manually attach to the Einstein@home test project, ​http://albert.phys.uwm.edu/
This project provides images and icons that are shown in the Android GUI; the others do not.

In addition to Android support, 7.1.10 has the following changes:
* Fixed the translation issue where a project's total credit was not properly displayed in French. Please verify that you can see a project's total credit while the manager's language is configured for French, or any other language supported.
* When changing any of the activity options in the 'activity menu, sometimes the menu would display incorrect settings. After making a change, quickly bring up the activity menu and verify that the settings are correct.

Versions for the other platforms will be out in a day or two.

Please report test results to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/alpha and any bugs to [email protected].

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

• SS: Fix some minor potential bugs.
  
• MGR: Fix translation problem.
  
• MGR: Fix bug which changed Network Activity Selection when user set GPU Activity mode.
  
• GridRepublic: Skin: Remove space between Grid and Republic (Grid Republic -> GridRepublic) per Matt Blumberg.
  
• Mac installer: Prepare strings in mac installer and uninstaller for localization.
  
• Mac installer: Specify utf-8 encoding for localization files.
  
• client & MGR: change strcpy() to strlcpy() when possible.
  
• Mac installer: Fix build breaks due to recent changes for strcpy -> strlcpy.
  
• client: add <client_new_version_text> config option.
  Lets you customize the notice that's generated when a new client version is available.
  
• SS: Fixes for dual-GPU Macbook Pros.
  
  -> Fix a crash bug.
  -> Don't run boincscr or project screensavers when on battery power because OpenGL apps trigger the use of the power-hungry discrete GPU.
  -> Fix some minor potential bugs.
  
  
• MGR: Fix compilation issue on VS 2010 reported by Chanda Sarkar,
  
• LOC: Update BOINC Manager localization template.
  
• LOC: Remove references to SVN from update script.
  
• LOC: Update various templates.
  
• LOC: Add BOINC-Setup.po to the list of files that need to go through the pocompile process.
  
• LOC: Update localization files based on the latest from BTS.
  
• API: fix bug involving suspend and critical sections.
  
  Old: if the timer thread gets a <suspend> message while we're in a critical section, it sets a "suspend_request" flag.
  The timer then periodically (10X/sec) checks whether suspend_request is set and we're no longer in a critical section; if so it suspends the worker thread.
  
  Problem (pointed out by Oliver Bock): this doesn't work if the worker thread is almost always in a critical section (as is the case for GPU apps, which treat GPU kernels as critical sections). The app never gets suspended.
  
  New:
  1) boinc_end_critical_section() checks suspend_request; if set, it calls suspend_activities()
  2) On Unix, if suspend_activities() is called from the worker thread, it calls sleep() in a loop until the suspension is over. (Note: pthreads has no suspend/resume).
  3) Add a mutex to protect the data structures shared between the timer and worker threads.
  
  
• API: tweaks to last commit.
  
• client: if <client_new_version_text> present, don't link to BOINC web site.
  

(7.1.4, 7.1.5, 7.1.6, 7.1.7, 7.1.8 and 7.1.9 were unreleased or Android versions that went directly to the Google Play Store)

Available installers:

Macintosh 7.1.10
- boinc_7.1.10_macOSX_i686.zip
- boinc_7.1.10_macOSX_SymbolTables.zip
- boinc_7.1.10_i686-apple-darwin.zip

Windows 7.1.10
- boinc_7.1.10_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.1.10_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.1.10
- boinc_7.1.10_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.1.10_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

Howdy Folks,

We have a new version to test. It includes the following changes since 7.1.10:
* Work fetch and scheduler changes

The work fetch and scheduler changes mostly involve situations where GPU exclusions are being used, and GPUs end up idle.
If you use GPU exclusions (i.e. <exclude_gpu> elements in your cc_config.xml) please try different combinations and see if there are
problems.

The client should no longer make empty work-request RPCs. So if you see any empty work-requests (0 seconds requested) let us know.

Please report test results to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/alpha. Please report bugs to this email list ([email protected]).

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

• WinDOWS: build fixes.
  
• Mac: add str_replace.h to fix build breaks.
  
• client: AMD GPU identification updates from [P3D] Crashtest.
  
• client: don't make empty work-request RPCs.
  It's reported that the client can repeatedly make work request RPCs that don't request work for any resource. (David) I'm not sure why this happens, but prevent it.
  
  
• client: show event log line limit in event log at startup.
  
• client: fix work-fetch bug that can cause idle GPUs when using exclusions.
  
  Round-robin simulation, among other things, creates a bitmap "sim_excluded_instances" of instances that are idle because of CPU exclusions.
  There was a problem in how this was computed; in the situation where there are fewer jobs than GPU instances it could fail to set any bits, so no work fetch would happen.
  
  My solution is a bit of a kludge, but should work in most cases. The long-term solution is to treat GPU instances separately, eliminating the need for GPU exclusions. (David)
  
  
• client: fix work fetch bugs that caused incorrect GPU fetches.
  
• Mac installer: To avoid invalidating our code signing: use a metapackage instead of modifying the property list file to trigger a system restart when needed.
  
• lib: Simplified string localization code adapted from wxWidgets.
  
  Allows translation using BOINC's locale files without the need to link code with wxWidgets. See comments in files (translate.cpp and translate.h) for details.
  

(7.1.11 to 7.1.14 were unreleased or Android versions that went directly to the Google Play Store)


Available installers:

Windows 7.1.15
- boinc_7.1.15_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.1.15_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.1.15
- boinc_7.1.15_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.1.15_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

Howdy Folks,

We have a new version to test. It includes the following changes since 7.1.15:
* Work fetch and scheduler changes

There was a bug which prevented work-fetch for a project if the CPU throttling preference was not 100%. Try various values and make sure
they will still fetch work when it is running low.

Please report test results to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/alpha. Please
report bugs to this email list ([email protected]).

Thanks in advance.

----- Rom

• client: if event log line limit is set to 0 (unlimited) in cc_config.xml, display "Config: event log limit disabled" in event log at startup
  
• Add missing build.
  
• lib: Fix bugs and license in simplified string localization code adapted from wxWidgets.
  
• MGR: Fix wording of alert when user changes language / locale. (From Jacob Klein)
  
• client: fix bug that sometimes prevented work fetch when CPU throttling in use.
  
• MGR: Use the skin's application short name instead of 'BOINC' for notices from the client.
  
• MGR: Remove potential buffer overrun.
  
• Mac installer: localize the dialog strings in the Postinstall app.
  
• MGR: Fix build break.
  
• client: Add missing check for the no_project_notices flag.
  

(7.1.16 was unreleased or an Android version that went directly to the Google Play Store)


Available installers:

Windows 7.1.17
- boinc_7.1.17_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.1.17_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.1.17
- boinc_7.1.17_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.1.17_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

(Mac to follow)

In addition to the work fetch and scheduler changes, the Mac build has changes to the installer which will localize its two custom dialogs. These are the dialogs asking:
* Do you want noon-administrative users to be able to want non-administrative users to be able to run and control BOINC?
* Do you want to set BOINC as the screensaver?

Note that, depending on your system configuration and how you previously answered these questions, you may or may not see these dialogs. You should see both dialogs if your system has non-admin users and you have run the Uninstall BOINC utility before running the installer.

Cheers,
--Charlie

To clarify:
The Mac installer which will localize its two custom dialogs once our volunteer translators have submitted the translation file and they have been added to our translation database. Until then, the dialogs will continue to display in English.

Cheers,
--Charlie

• Mac installer:Add BOINC Installer icon to dialogs in the Postinstall app.
  
• client: fix bug that allowed work fetch request while file uploads active
  
  A while back we added a mechanism intended to defer work-request RPCs while file uploads are happening, with the goal of reporting completed tasks sooner and reducing the number of RPCs. There were 2 bugs in this mechanism.
  - First, the decision of whether an upload is active was flawed; if several uploads were active and 1 finished, it would act like all had finished.
  - Second, when WORK_FETCH::choose_project.cpp() picks a project, it sets p->sched_rpc_pending to RPC_REASON_NEED_WORK. If we then decide not to request work because an upload is active, we need to clear this field. Otherwise scheduler_rpc_poll() will do an RPC to it,
  piggybacking a work request and bypassing the upload check.
  
  
• client: fill in HOST_INFO producet_name field for Macintosh.
  
  This returns an Apple hardware model designation such as "MacPro3,1". One source for converting this to a common model name is:
  http://?http://www.everymac.com/systems/by_capability/mac-specs-by-machine-model-machine-id.html
  
  
• client: fix bug that delayed work fetch from non-CPU-intensive projects.
  
  We were waiting until there was no task for the project before asking for another task. We should have been waiting until there was no in-progress task.
  
  
• client: fix bug that sometimes prevented work fetch when GPU exclusions used.
  
• MGR: update progress display in simple view more frequently. Update progress display if progress has changed by at least 0.001% (was 0.1%).
  
• MGR: if max_ncpus_pct is 0, show 100% in Advanced Preferences dialog.
  
• client: remove code that avoids overcommitting CPUs if MT jobs present.
  
  This can lead to starving the CPUs if there are both GPU and MT jobs. The basic problem is that a host with GPUs will never have all its CPUs available for MT jobs. It should probably advertise fewer CPUs, or something.
  
  
• MGR: if max_ncpus_pct is 0, show 100% in Advanced Preferences dialog.
  
• client: Win version name tweaks, from [P3D} Crashtest.
  
• client: clear max_concurrent if app_config.xml no longer exists. If you had an app_config.xml that limited the # of concurrent tasks for an app, and you delete it and do "reread config", then remove the limit.
  
• MGR: test if (max_ncpus_pct == 0) instead of (max_ncpus_pct < 0.1) in Advanced Preferences dialog (requested by David Anderson).
  
• client: if project sends dont_use_dcf, set its DCF to 1.
  
• Mac uninstaller: localize the dialog strings in the Uninstall BOINC app.
  
• Mac uninstaller: fix comments.
  
• Mac installer and uninstaller: eliminate minor memory leaks.
  
• Mac installer: eliminate minor memory leaks.
  
• LOC: Update template for latest changes.
  
• LOC: Update translation files.
  
• LOC: Fix bug reported when using Italian on Debian.
  
• boinccmd: show result states as strings instead of numbers.
  

Available installers:

Windows 7.1.18
- boinc_7.1.18_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.1.18_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.1.18
- boinc_7.1.18_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.1.18_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

Macintosh 7.1.18
- boinc_7.1.18_macOSX_i686.zip
- boinc_7.1.18_macOSX_SymbolTables.zip
- boinc_7.1.18_i686-apple-darwin.zip

• MGR: revert my changes 3ea6711 and 429c699: a value of 0 for max_ncpus_pct means "ignore", not "100%; added "(0 means ignore this setting)" to the Advanced Computing Preferences dialog.
  
• LOC: Attempt to discard fuzzy matched strings. It isn't clear to me right now if Pootle will attempt to read the newer po file before applying the template.
  
• Mac uninstaller: use OS X API to localize directory paths instead of having volunteer translators to do it.
  
• client: AMD GPU ID tweaks, from [P3D] Crashtest.
  
• client, Android: always use mmap instead of shmget for client/app comm.
  
• client: if idle instance, fetch work even if uploading.
  
• LOC: Update Translations.
  
• client: optionally detect GPUs via a child process, for dual_GPU laptops.
  
  Some dual-GPU laptops (e.g., Macbook Pro) don't power down the more powerful GPU until all applications which used them exit. To save battery life, the client launches a second instance of the client as a child process to detect and get info about the GPUs. The child process writes the info to a temp file which our main client then reads. This option is enabled at compile time by defining USE_CHILD_PROCESS_TO_DETECT_GPUS as non-zero in gpu_detect.cpp
  
  
• client: fix compile break on Windows.
  
• client: bug fix for detecting GPUs via a child process.
  
• client: fix bug in commit c8e1b51: matching of ATI/AMD CAL and OpenCL GPU enumeration for (most) cases where CAL supports some older GPUs but OpenCL does not.
  
• client: tweaks to code for detecting GPUs via a child process and change sprintf calls to safer snprintf.
  
• client: tweaks to code for detecting GPUs via a child process.
  
• client: don't request work from NCI project if "no new work" set.
  
• WINBUILD: Remove stale project files (Charity Engine).
  
• WINBUILD: Remove stale project files (Progress Thru Processors).
  
• WINBUILD: New project files (Charity Engine).
  
• WINBUILD: New project files (GridRepublic).
  
• WINBUILD: New project files (Progress Thru Processors).
  
• client: tweaks to code for detecting GPUs via a child process.
  
  Added safety features requested by Rom Walton:
  -> Change COPROC_ATI::get_available_ram and COPROC_NVIDIA::get_available_ram to static routines to prevent calling them without first loading CAL or CUDA libraries.
  - > Add tests for NULL library calls in these routines.
  -> Add comments warning about need to call from a separate child process on dual-GPU laptops, proper library initialization, etc.
  
  
• WINBUILD: Remove stale installer files (packages were never used anyway).
  
• client: apparently CUDA does not always report GPUs in order of ascending PCI slot number, but Apple's OpenCL does. We must take this into account win correlating NVIDIA OpenCL GPUs with CUDA GPUs.
  
  Since NVIDIA provides drivers for both OpenCL and CUDA on Windows and Linux, I am assuming (until shown otherwise) that they will report GPUs in the same order.
  
  
• WINBUILD: Remove outdated installer files.
  
• client: use a child process for detecting GPUs on all platforms, not just on Macs.
  
• client: minor housekeeping cleanup when correlating CUDA GPU reporting order with Apple's OpenCL.
  
• WINBUILD: Update Charity Engine Installer.
  
• WINBUILD: Fix the shortcut to launch Charity Engine.
  
• WINBUILD: Fix out of place reference to boincmgr.exe in Charity Engine installer.
  
• WINBUILD: Update Progress Thru Processor's installer files.
  
• WINBUILD: Updates for PTP's default screensaver.
  
• WINBUILD: Set the default skin to Charity Engine on installation.
  
• WINBUILD: Set the default skin to Progress Thru Processors on installation.
  
• client: Add the various OS compatibility shreds to the assembly manifest so we can properly detect Windows 8.1 or better.
  
• Mac installer: fix crash bug, improve translations.
  
• client: fix display of CUDA version.
  
• client: mostly revert dddf586, which could lead to way overcommitted CPU.
  
• client: fix compiler warning.
  
• API: fix synchronization problem that could make apps nonresponsive.
  
• API: add test harness for the runtime system
  
  -> If you run the client with --run_test_app, runs "test_app" in the current directory and interacts with it (and does nothing else). It can suspend/resume it with arbitrary timing; this is controlled in run_test_app() (app_start.cpp).
  -> example app: add --critical_section option. This lets you test the runtime system for apps that do most of their work in a critical section (like GPU apps).
  -> Add some logging messages (conditioned by DEBUG_BOINC_API) to the runtime system.
  -> boinc_finish() waits for the timer thread to write final messages; make sure it doesn't do anything else (like suspend the worker thread) during this period.
  
  
• client: compile fix for Windows.
  
• client: don't apply CPU throttling to apps that use < .5 CPUs (like GPU, NCI).
  
• client: don't request work from a project w/ > 1000 runnable jobs.
  
  Because of O(N2) algorithms, the client becomes CPU-intensive when there are lots of jobs.
  This limit could be somewhat lower.
  
  
• API: compile fix for newer gcc on Unix.
  

Available installers:

Windows 7.2.1
- boinc_7.2.1_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.2.1_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.2.1
- boinc_7.2.1_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.2.1_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

• VBOX: Add an additional error check to determine if a stale VM needs to be unregistered.
  
• MGR: bug fix: last item in arg list for run_program() should be NULL, not empty string.
  
• client: Fixes for launching a child process for detecting GPUs.
  
  Allow relative path to the client executable.
  Bug fix: last item in arg list for run_program() should be NULL, not empty string.
  
  
• client: Fixes for launching a child process for detecting GPUs.
  We must call parse_cmdline() to set the working directory before read_config_file().
  
  
• Various: Fix some compile warnings; from Gianfranco.
  
• client: don't fetch work if project has > max(2000, ncpus*100) runnable jobs.
  
• Manager and GUI RPC: fix bugs that caused bad Intel GPU backoff display.
  
• Update all_projects_list.xml for stock installers as well as Android.
  
• client: change per-project runnable job limit to a flat 1000.
  

Preliminary Change Log 7.2.2 --> 7.2.3:

• API: use OpenProcess(), not EnumProcesses(), to see if client is still alive.
  
• API: fix last commit; need a DesiredAccess arg to OpenProcess()
  
• client: tweaks for API test harness - parse cc_config.xml
  
• API: remove logic that makes new app graphics work with version 5 clients.
  
• client: compile fix.
  
• API: Win bug fix: need to create mutex initially free.
  
• client: API test harness tweak.
  
• client: compile fix for non-Windows builds.
  
• Ignore the PTP installer temp directory.
  
• WINBUILD: Fix the PTP splash screen in the installer.
  
• client: Clearing the devnums_pci_slot_sort vector after the first Nvidia OpenCL device is detected causes a SIGSEGV for any subsequent Nvidia OpenCL device detections.
  

Preliminary Change Log 7.2.3 --> 7.2.4:

• CERT: Update all the root CAs to the latest and greatest from Mozilla. Current version works with WCG.
  

Available installers:

Windows 7.2.4
- boinc_7.2.4_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.2.4_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.2.4
- boinc_7.2.4_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.2.4_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

Macintosh 7.2.4
- boinc_7.2.4_macOSX_i686.zip
- boinc_7.2.4_macOSX_SymbolTables.zip
- boinc_7.2.4_i686-apple-darwin.zip

Howdy Folks,

I wanted to let you all know what our plans are for the next week or so.

Later today I'll be releasing a new client build for Windows, Linux, Mac, and Android. With all the great work you all have done it looks like we are on track for a general release across all platforms on the 22nd.

Unless something changes, I expect to do another build on Thursday that will have a few last minute bug fixes.

For the Android client software I will start a new thread specific to whatever version of the software we will have in the play store at that time where I would like each person to tell me how BOINC is currently working on your device. The kinds of bugs that would cause us to re-evaluate our release schedule would be crashes or things that might cause damage to the device.

Any other bugs will be fixed in future Beta builds which will be automatically downloaded to your device since you are part of the Beta Google group. How often we convert Beta builds to production releases will depend on the feedback you all give us.

For Windows, Mac, and Linux we will be looking for our normal test feedback via the BOINC Alpha test site. Please report your results as quickly as possible.

Thanks for all your help on BOINC 7.2 to date. I look forward to seeing us make it across the finish line on Monday.

----- Rom

• client: Fix a race condition on system reboot when using a child process for detecting GPUs, add debugging support to child process.
  
• client: parse <client_new_version_text> in cc_config.xml
  
• client: if system clock goes backward, show details in event log.
  
• client: fix bug that caused host CPID to change on each startup.
  
• client: add exit status and result name to job log entries.
  
• client: don't write name twice in job log.
  
• WINBUILD: Force git to reevaluate the ISM files, they are XML now. (Part 1)
  
• WINBUILD: Force git to reevaluate the ISM files, they are XML now. (Part 2)
  
• client: Disable use of spawned processes to detect GPUs on Windows for the 7.2 release.
  
• client: Use get_exit_status to wait until the GPU detection process completes and log any error code.
  
• client: when launching the GPU detection child process, use boinc_fopen(), more checks for error returns.
  
• Mac: fix for first-time builds.
  
• WINBUILD: Updates for 7.2.5
  

Available installers:

Windows 7.2.5
- boinc_7.2.5_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.2.5_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.2.5
- boinc_7.2.5_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.2.5_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

Macintosh 7.2.5
- boinc_7.2.5_macOSX_i686.zip
- boinc_7.2.5_macOSX_SymbolTables.zip
- boinc_7.2.5_i686-apple-darwin.zip

• MGR: Update GridRepublic, CharityEngine, ProgressThruProcessors to new V7 skins.
  
• MGR: rename "Progress Thru Processors" skin to "ProgressThruProcessors" as specified by Matt Blumberg.
  
• MGR: Fix permissions in new V7 skins for GridRepublic, CharityEngine, ProgressThruProcessors.
  
• WINBUILD: Set the default skin to Charity Engine on installation.
  
• WINBUILD: Set the default skin to Progress Thru Processors on installation.
  
• client: Add the various OS compatibility shreds to the assembly manifest so we can properly detect Windows 8.1 or better.
  
• client: fix bug where <no_project_notices> from account manager didn't work.
  
• WINBUILD: Fix the PTP splash screen in the installer.
  
• GridRepublic Skin: Remove space between Grid and Republic (Grid Republic -> GridRepublic) per Matt Blumberg.
  
• CERT: Update all the root CAs to the latest and greatest from Mozilla. Current version works with WCG.
  
• client: Fix a race condition on system reboot when using a child process for detecting GPUs, add debugging support to child process.
  
• client: parse <client_new_version_text> in cc_config.xml
  
• client: if system clock goes backward, show details in event log.
  
• client: fix bug that caused host CPID to change on each startup.
  
• client: add exit status and result name to job log entries.
  
• client: don't write name twice in job log.
  
• WINBUILD: Force git to reevaluate the ISM files, they are XML now. (Part 1)
  
• WINBUILD: Force git to reevaluate the ISM files, they are XML now. (Part 2)
  
• client: Disable use of spawned processes to detect GPUs on Windows for the 7.2 release.
  
• client: Use get_exit_status to wait until the GPU detection process completes and log any error code.
  
• client: when launching the GPU detection child process, use boinc_fopen(), more checks for error returns.
  
• Mac: fix for first-time builds.
  
• Update the all projects list distributed with the client software.
  
• Mac: updates for building branded installers (GridRepublic, Charity Engine, Progress Thru Processors).
  
• Mac: update installer ReadMe files.
  
• Convert WCG.ixm to XML format in branch by first deleting.
  
• Change WCG.ism from binary to xml and merge from master.
  
• WCG: Remove image compression which is not supported under vs2005.
  

Available installers:
World Community Grid 7.2.7
- wcg_boinc_7.2.7_windows_intelx86.exe

• Update the all projects list distributed with the client software.
  
• Mac: updates for building branded installers (GridRepublic, Charity Engine, Progress Thru Processors).
  
• client: add test harness for file copy (make sure we can handle > 2GB).
  
• Extend the project list cache timeout to 7 days and update the dev build to 7.2.5
  
• MGR: change https:// to http:// in notices; the WxWidgets HTML renderer doesn't handle https://
  

Preliminary Change Log 7.2.6 --> 7.2.7:

• MGR: Support following HTTP and HTTPS links. We just launch a browser anyway.
  
• MGR: remove the last call to https_to_https()
  

Preliminary Change Log 7.2.7 --> 7.2.8:

• Mac: update installer ReadMe files.
  
• client: Add detection of the AVX instruction set for newer processors.
  

Preliminary Change Log 7.2.8 --> 7.2.9:

• Mac: update build of client from openssl-1.0.1c to openssl-1.0.1e.
  
• client: improved CPU type and feature detection. From [P3D Crashtest]
  
• client (win): fix typo in last commit.
  
• Mac: documentation update.
  
• MGR: On Linux, initialize exclusive apps dialog to start from directory "/usr/bin/" instead of from "/" (from Toralf Förster).
  
• WINBUILD: Re-enable the custom actions which modify the VirtualBox.VirtualBox permissions so that boinc_project can launch VMs.
  
• client: initialize device_status_time (shouldn't make any difference).
  
• client: include project resource shares in account manager request message.
  
• MGR: fix permissions error string in stderrgui.txt
  

Preliminary Change Log 7.2.9 --> 7.2.10:

• Mac installer: update translations template.
  
• LOCALE: Update translations.
  

Available installers:

Windows 7.2.10
- boinc_7.2.10_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.2.10_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.2.10
- boinc_7.2.10_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.2.10_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

• client: message tweak.
  
• client, FreeBSD: report "pni" instead of "sse3.
  
• Manager: in Transfers tab, Size refers to total size.
  
• Manager: show "paused" icon if computing is suspended for any reason.
  
• LOCALE: Update translations.
  
• client: if we request work from a project and don't get any notices, clear that project's scheduler notices. I.e. if you got an "insufficient disk space" notices, and you fixed the problem, the notice should go away.
  

Available installers:

Windows 7.2.11
- boinc_7.2.11_windows_intelx86.exe
- boinc_7.2.11_windows_x86_64.exe

Linux 7.2.11
- boinc_7.2.11_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh
- boinc_7.2.11_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh

Macintosh 7.2.11
- boinc_7.2.11_macOSX_i686.zip
- boinc_7.2.11_macOSX_SymbolTables.zip
- boinc_7.2.11_i686-apple-darwin.zip

Howdy Folks,

As of right now the 7.2 release process is on hold until I can get my new computer setup and running. My old computer died a couple of weeks ago.

Installshield only allows you to forcefully (without using the uninstaller) reclaim a per node license once a year. I figure it is best to just wait for the new machine than risk that the uninstaller on my notebook properly frees up the license.

If I get lucky in setting up the new computer I can restore from a backup and I'll be back in business within a day or two. If I'm unlucky it'll take a week before I'm ready to go.

7.2.16 was an experiment which I'm going to delete off the BOINC server. If you already have it installed that is fine. The only bugs I'll be able to potentially address are going to be ones that occur after installation.

----- Rom

• Mac uninstaller: minor translation fixes.
  
• Mac installer: fix handling of translations for some languages.
  
• Mac installer: More robust handling of language codes with and without region codes for translations.
  
• Mac installer: Don't load more languages for a catalog if we've already loaded it for English.
  
• client and API, Unix: code cleanup, no functional change.
  
• client: more MAXPATHLEN fixes.
  
• LOCALE: Update translations.
  
• MGR: When a project uses usernames check the length of the string in the username control and not the password control. Same with the email address control.
  
• MGR: message tweaks.
  
• client: AMD GPU naming tweak. From Jord.
  
• locale: Update compiled localization files.
  
• Client: keep an in-memory list of reported tasks in the last 24 hours, and add a GUI RPC for fetching this list.
  
• client: fix compile errors.
  
  "or" is a reserved word on the Mac's LLVM GCC 4.2 compiler, a synonym for ""
  
  
• client and boinccmd: fixes for get_old_results GUI RPC:
  
  -> Add binding for get_old_results GUI RPC.
  -> Add --get_old_tasks option to boinccmd.
  -> Compile fixes for gcc (can't have a var named "or").
  
  
• client: change length of old-results log from 24 hours to 1 hour.
  
• client: Add missing code to properly detect AVX on Windows. It'll go into affect (effect) when we fully convert over to VS2010.
  
• client: misc bug fixes for CPU feature detection.
  
• locale: Update more compiled localization files.
  
• MGR: Fix display of CBOINCListCtrl progress bars when using wxGenericListCtrl (on Mac).
  
• MGR: Implement accessibility on Mac for Event Log and Projects, Tasks and Transfers tabs.
  -> CDlgEventLogListCtrl class.
  -> CBOINCListCtrl class.
  
  
• client: implement support for OpenCL detection of CPUs
  
  Notes:
  -> The same CPU can have a different cpu_opencl_prop for each of multiple OpenCL platforms. We send them all to the project server because:
  ---> Different OpenCL platforms report different values for the same CPU.
  ---> Some OpenCL CPU apps may work better with certain OpenCL platforms.
  -> OpenCL has only 64 bits for global_mem_size, so it can report a max of only 4GB; get the CPU RAM size from gstate.hostinfo.m_nbytes.
  
  
• lib: fix a comment.
  
• client: For compatibility with boinc_get_opencl_ids(), don't include CPU when enumerating opencl_dev_index.
  
• client: better error handling for OpenCL CPUs.
  
• Move OpenCL-related code to a separate file.
  
• Update Win project files for new .cpp file.
  
• Update Mac project files for new .cpp file.
  
• WINBUILD: Fix build break.