I have had two instances now in which Boinc has apparently crashed during the night. Problem is, how do I find some sort of log to see what was happening? Running mgr 7.6.9 on OS X 10.10.5 with 16 GB memory.

---

Thanks,
Jim

Hi Jim,

Can you be a bit more specific? Was it the BOINC Manager or the BOINC Client that crashed? What did you see to indicate that it crashed? Which projects are you running?

BOINC crash logs can be found in different places. If the client crashed, then it would be in:

/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/stdoutdae.txt

or

/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/stderrdae.txt

If the Manager crashed, then in either

/Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/BOINC/stdoutgui.txt

or

/Users/[username]/Library/Application Support/BOINC/stderrgui.txt

You can also look in

/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

and

/Users/[username]/Library/Logs/DiagnosticReports

---

Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

Hi Charlie,

It was BOINC MGR that crashed. I know that because when I went to bed, Mgr was running and when I checked the next morning, it was not running.

I run Primegrid, Einstein@home, ATLAS@home and VirtualLHC@home.

Full disclosure: I have some evidence that we had storm activity last night. However, the other system I run on with the current BOINC version but a much older Mac OS did not disappear.

I will look for the crash logs and get back to you.

---

Thanks,
Jim

Charlie,

Here is an error log:

mv: rename client_state_next.xml to client_state.xml: No such file or directory
24-Jul-2015 23:11:03 gstate.init() failed
Error Code: -180
mv: rename client_state_next.xml to client_state.xml: No such file or directory
30-Jul-2015 12:34:04 gstate.init() failed
Error Code: -180
11-Aug-2015 16:44:43 Another instance of BOINC is running.
14-Aug-2015 00:55:01 Another instance of BOINC is running.
17-Aug-2015 12:01:31 Another instance of BOINC is running.
mv: rename client_state_next.xml to client_state.xml: No such file or directory
29-Aug-2015 12:09:09 gstate.init() failed
Error Code: -180


I guess it was the client that crashed.

---

Thanks,
Jim

Hi Jim,

I get those same messages, but I haven't had any crashes. So there is nothing crash-related in that sequence.

If in one of the BOINC output files, the crash log will start with:

Crashed executable name: 

or if in one of the DiagnosticReports directories, it will include the line:

Crashed Thread: 

Cheers,
--Charlie

---

Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

Hey Charlie,

I had another overnight BOINC crash last night. In looking at my task history, I see that these crashes look like the occur just before 11:30 pm EDT or just after 1:00am EDT. It turns out that my have a Daily Schedule that starts at 01:00 and ends at 23:30. Could there be a potential issue in that scheduling logic that could make BOINC crash?

I can pinpoint it to some extent by running small GPU jobs and looking at their reporting times.

I have not been able to find any crash log.

Thanks,
Jim

---

Thanks,
Jim

Hi Jim,

You have not yet shown me any evidence that BOINC has actually crashed. When this happens, do you still see the BOINC icon in the menu bar and / or in the Dock? If so, which "badge" is it displaying: running (no badge), paused (black badge with two white vertical bars), or the red disconnected badge? The badge is in the lower right corner of the BOINC icon.

If the BOINC icon is no longer present, please copy and paste into your reply the dozen lines preceding the crash and the dozen lines following your relaunch of BOINC from the file

/Library/Application Support/BOINC Data/stdoutdae.txt

Cheers,
--Charlie

---

Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

Hi Charlie,

I agree. I have nothing but hand waves. In these crash instances, the menu bar icon is missing. I have the BOINC icon in my Dock and there is no badge. When I click the Dock icon, a new BOINC Mgr. starts up. At least these are my impressions and this is all I have except some very empirical findings.

I will send the stdoutdae.txt data when/if I have an event ( I don't even want to say crash).

I don't have much of a theory, just a guess. What I observe is that whenever BOINC has to suspend running for any reason, my chance for an event goes way up. So what I have done now is eliminate all planned suspensions of BOINC. I had a suspension established once when my daily backup app was running. I had a few events then. I also had a daily schedule setup in which BOINC was to be suspended for an hour. Events have happened in those times also.

This is why I gave up S/W development many years (can you spell FORTRAN?) ago? My total lack of patience was not a virtue!

---

Thanks,
Jim

Hi Jim,

In these crash instances, the menu bar icon is missing. I have the BOINC icon in my Dock and there is no badge.

Have you set the BOINC icon to be in the Dock permanently (i.e., even when BOINC is not running)? You can determine this by control-clicking on the icon, and moving the cursor over the "Options" item in the contextual menu that appears. If you see "Remove from Dock" that means it is in the Dock permanently, but "Keep in Dock"means it is not. Or you can quit BOINC Manager and see if the icon disappears from the Dock.

If you have set BOINC to be in the Dock permanently, you can determine whether the Manager has crashed as follows: if BOINC Manager is running, a control-click on its Dock icon will show menu items such as Open BOINC Manager... and Snooze but these will be absent if BOINC Manager is not running.

Cheers,
--Charlie

---

Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

I have a different problem or crash with 7.6.9. I have downloaded four seperate times and tried to install it, each time after a few seconds, I get...

The installation package could not be opened. Verify that the package exists and that you can access it, or contact the application vendor to verify this is a valid Windows Installer package.

...so, it says contact, so I am.

---

Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

I will continue to monitor.

---

Thanks,
Jim

The problem I mentioned above still exists. I cannot reinstall earlier version either. I am, as a result, not BOINCing at the moment.

---

Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

The installation package could not be opened. Verify that the package exists and that you can access it, or contact the application vendor to verify this is a valid Windows Installer package.

This is a Windows error that occurs when there is a problem with the Windows User profile or the TEMP/TMP directories.

Option # 1: Creating a New User Account

Windows Vista/7/8/8.1/10/2008:

1. Navigate to "User Accounts" inside the Control Panel
   
2. Select "Manage Another Account" followed by "Create a New Account"
   
3. Name the new account and ensure it's an Administrator
   
4. Log Out of the current Account and log back in using the newly created account
   
5. Attempt a BOINC installation

Windows XP/2003:

1. Navigate to "User Accounts" inside the Control Panel
   
2. Select "Create a New Account"
   
3. Name the new account and ensure it's an Administrator
   
4. Log Out of the current Account and log back in using the newly created account
   
5. Attempt a BOINC Installation

Option # 2: Changing Environment Variables

1. Navigate to "System" inside of the Control Panel
   
2. Select Advanced System Settings at the left-hand side
   
3. Navigate to the "Advanced" tab and select Environmental Variables
   
4. Under User Variables, highlight "TEMP" and select Edit
   
5. Change "Variable Value to the desired location (Ex: C:\Temp\)
   
6. Perform the same change to the "TMP" User Variable
   

---

Option 1 gives the same message/error box, so has not worked. Option 2, I am unsure what you mean there. Both TEMP and TMP are set to %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp, which is what I believe they should be set too?

---

Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

There could be a problem with those default directories. So change the path to the TEMP and TMP directories, to example given C:\Temp and C:\TMP

---

Okay, now I get an error box...

Error 1305. Error reading from file
F:\WINDOWS\Downloaded Installations\BOINC.msi.
Verify that the file exists and that you can access it.

The file certainly appears to exist, and I am administrator, so should not be a problem?

---

Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

Error 1305 is a Windows Permission error. It indicates you do not have permission with your present account to access (read/write) the directory you're having the problem with.

Which Windows do you have?
Why is it on the F: drive? Or is this a (network) mapped drive on another system?
Or is it on a CD/DVD (ROM/RAM) drive?

---

This machine is Windows XP. It is on the F: drive because that is what I call that disk, it is not a network drive, simply an older mechanical rotating hard drive. In fact, it is now, the only drive in the machine. That is not the issue though, that drive has been F: for many years. I have just created a new file in the directory, edited it, well, added some content to it, saved it, reopened it and it is as it should be. I do not appear to have an access problem there.

---

Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.

I have just created a new file in the directory, edited it, well, added some content to it, saved it, reopened it and it is as it should be. I do not appear to have an access problem there.

An .MSI file is a MicroSoft Installer file, a small database containing whatever is going to be installed with it. It has to be executed, which requires higher access permission than just making and editing a text file.

According to my searches, error 1305 and Windows XP means commonly that the MSI file you're trying to execute is corrupted. Your XP does have at least SP3 installed?

Try to download BOINC anew, make sure to save it to disk before starting the installer. Make sure to save the installer file to a different place than you did before.

What you can also try is to delete all TEMP and TMP directories and all contents therein, for as far as you're allowed to by Windows.

---

I just copied an .exe into there and tried to run it, no problem. When the problem started, I tried to redownload the pack, I actually have 4 copies of the download on disk now, the results are the same from each. I can move them and try. The OS on there is fully updated, although, of course, it is no longer supported. I doubt that is the issue, there must be tens of thousands of XP machines out there. TMP is emptied, TEMP has a shed load of stuff in it.

---

Wave upon wave of demented avengers march cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.