I followed the instructions here: http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Tools_for_Mac_OS_X to set up a daemon to run BOINC in the background on my MacBook Air running Lion. However, it seems to be silently failing. When I restart the computer, the Activity Monitor doesn't show any processes for BOINC, and usage is under 5% at idle. If I run BOINC Manager, I see BOINC in the Activity Monitor and usage goes up to about 65% (per my BOINC preferences) at idle.

I tried exiting BOINC Manager and running the commands
sudo launchctl start edu.berkeley.boinc
sudo launchctl stop edu.berkeley.boinc
These also have no visible effect and don't start the BOINC process.

Suggestions welcome.

I asked the developer about this, here's what he answered me:

Hi Jord,

It works fine for me on my Mac Pro and OS 10.7.2. When you first start up the computer, it may take a couple more minutes than the idle time set in BOINC before its applications start, but after that the idle time is as set in my preferences.

Cheers,
--Charlie

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Thanks for the suggestion. I tried waiting, as long as an hour or three, and nothing seems to happen. I tried starting the daemon on login, and also manually from the terminal.

What, specifically, should appear in the Activity Monitor? I set my BOINC preferences to use 60% of the processor continuously, and when I run the daemon nothing happens. The processor is idle in the Activity Monitor and BOINC doesn't appear in the list of running processes. As soon as I start the BOINC Manager, the BOINC process appears in the Activity Monitor and CPU usage shoots over 60%.

p.s. my idle time is set to "0 (Run Always)"

Did you add any projects? It sounds like you only run BOINC. But BOINC itself doesn't do any science, that's done by the science applications from the projects that you have to add to BOINC.

If you did add projects, which ones? They may not have default OS X applications.

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Yes, I've been running World Community Grid for years.

I have a MacBook Pro running OS 10.6.8 and I have a similar problem. I cannot find any settings that will increase the CPU usage over 1%. I altered all the settings that should let BOINC run like mad (let it use computer when it is in use, and making the restriction 0), yet it never uses much of the CPU.

Can anyone suggest what might help? thanks

Can anyone suggest what might help? thanks

Does any project application start running?

And if yes, what type (CPU or GPU)?

Gruß,
Gundolf

Does any project application start running?

And if yes, what type (CPU or GPU)?

I don't understand your question. The activity monitor doesn't show anything running at all when I try to start the daemon. If I start BOINC Manager manually, everything runs fine and my World Community Grid projects run fine.

I did respond to michael w's message (as you can see in the message header :-).

As to your problem, it sounds as if the daemon doesn't run at all but only the client process started by the manager.

Gruß,
Gundolf

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Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)

Any suggestions for how to make the daemon run?

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Tools_for_Mac_OS_X#Running_BOINC_as_a_daemon_or_system_service

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