Hi there! I've just migrated my BOINC installation from a G4 Mac to an Intel Mac on OS X 10.6.1. I also updated BOINC Manager to 6.10.17.

All the projects seem to continue to process seamlessly, but the Screen Saver on the Mac is not useable! It appears like an old CRT TV where the 'Vertical Hold' needed serious adjustment! I hope that description makes some sense to you?

Is there any obvious way to fix this as I used to enjoy glancing at the screen saver from time to time to see what work was being done!

Kind regards
JB

From what I have read on other sites Apple changed something in how screen savers work on OSX from 10.5 to 10.6. Boinc had a post on the dev boards about it.

I'm having the same problem - the seti@home screensaver SORT OF works but is massively flickery and glitchy and totally unusable. This is since upgrading to Snow Leopard and to BOINC 6.10.17. It was of course a known issue that screensavers broke *entirely* with Snow Leopard, but this problem I see now where it works again but is horrible to look at is new, i think.

Any devs know?

Just to add more data, I'm having the same problem as Caden with Rosetta@home and RALPH@home. 6.10.17 is fine under Leopard (10.5.8). The screen saver project graphics, however, seem to restart every few seconds under Snow Leopard.

When the screen saver starts, I get the BOINC logo with the loading, then the graphics for the project. This is normal. Then, after about ten seconds, it goes blank. After a few more seconds, I get the BOINC logo again. Then, either the graphics show or the completion bars you get for projects with no graphics. After about ten seconds, it goes blank again, and it keeps looping like that indefinitely. (At least, it was still going on six hours later.)

It might also be important that inside the BOINC Manager, the graphics work flawlessly. This is a screen-saver specific issue.

It might also be important that inside the BOINC Manager, the graphics work flawlessly. This is a screen-saver specific issue.

I'll second that. Sorry I didn't mention it in my post. The "Show graphics" pops up a nice-running windowed graphic of seti@home. But the *screensaver* is unusable.

I'm having a problem with the 6.10.17 screensaver on OS X 10.6.2.

After an indefinate period (between 1-7 days) it causes some processes to hang;
i.e. the F-buttons stop working (dashboard overlay) and I cannot shutdown or reboot.
If I go to System Preferences -> Screensaver it hangs also.
It's a showstopper for me.

Did you check if the problem occurs when you don't use the BOINC screensaver?

Gruß,
Gundolf

I've only used the screensaver part, but I can try to see if it happens with the manager running.
I doubt it, though.
When the hang occurs, the boinc screensaver is still working.
But after that I can't open screensaver prefs, use F-keys or shutdown/reboot.
Come to think of it, I never tried to start the manager after it happens.
The problem occured on 10.6.1 also (and as far as I remember 10.6.0), and with all the 6.10.x beta versions.

John Buckingham, Caden and acarlisle:

Just to add more data, I'm having the same problem as Caden with Rosetta@home and RALPH@home. 6.10.17 is fine under Leopard (10.5.8). The screen saver project graphics, however, seem to restart every few seconds under Snow Leopard.

We have not been able to reproduce this. What model Mac are you using, and what graphics card or chipset? You can get this information from /Applications/Utilities/System Profiler. Also, which version of the OS are you running? Please reply in this thread.

Thank you.

---

Charlie Fenton
BOINC / SETI@home Macintosh & Windows Programmer

I have now been running the manager for 2 weeks straight without any lockups/hangs.
So I think I can safely say that the problem reported above (process hanging) only occurs with the screensaver part.