For about 2 months now, every time I reboot my machine, all tasks that BOINC has been working on totally disappear. This is extremely frustrating since many of the tasks take 30-40-50 hours to process and are close to being done when this happens, losing all of the CPU time I have expended.
One of the projects I process is Climate Prediction. These projects require from over 260 hours to over 340 hours of CPU time to complete. The other day when I had to reboot my machine I had expended over 67 hours on this project and after reboot it had just vanished. I even tried running an add on called BOINCLogX V1.51 hoping that this logging routine would log where i was at in each project i was working on but that was a waste of time since it doesn't seem to really log what projects are being worked on. it gives me an error message saying that 'connection to client lost!' has occurred so it is unable to log the status of any running projects.

I am going to install the newest version of BOINC hoping that this bug has been fixed. in all the years I have been using BOINC, it has never just lost all projects when rebooting. It almost seems that BOINC has decided to store all tasks to be processed in temporary storage which is cleaned out when a reboot occurs yet I never told BOINC to store its files Temporary Storage.
Very strange behavior.

ChiTownDale

Let me respond in normal print [bold and excess font sizes read as shouting]. Just copy the first 35 lines of the event/message log and paste those in a reply. Then we'll collectively can ogle the setup of your BOINC install and see what sandbox/vm/temp/blackhole is gobbling up your data dir.

--//--

I have the suspicion that your projects/tasks don't have disappeared but are only invisible because of connection problems between BOINC client and manager.

So, if your BOINC event log seems to be empty/inaccessible, look for the file stdoutdae.txt in your BOINc data directory to get the information requested by SekeRob2.

Gruß,
Gundolf

---

Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)

First, sorry about the large colored font but with my bad eyes it is hard to read what I am typing and the blue is more soothing to my eyes. Unfortunately VISTA makes it so hard to Zoom in on the page, which I used to do before Vista. That little arrow that enables the drop down menu for choice is too hard to see for me. So I will respond using Wordpad and then reduce it back to "normal" font size.

Anyway, to my problem. I installed the new 7.0.25 version of BOINC and discovered something interesting. When I checked the BOINC display, it still read 6.10.58, So I ended the session and executed it again from my Desktop and what executed was the new 7.0.25 version and MOST of my tasks had reappeared.

So my guess is that despite the startup list indicating that the BOINC Manager from my x64 folder would be executed, Windows was executing the old x86 version of BOINC Manager instead. I rechecked it with utility software (IOBIT) and this also indicated that the version was supposed to be the one to be executed at startup but it doesn't. So I went in and deleted several of the program extensions in the x86 folder and then rebooted. BOINC Manager did not start up after reboot so I used IOBIT to delete the startup for BOINC Manager and then added it back again to the startup program list via IOBIT.
After I post this response I will boot my system again and see if BOINC Manager starts up now.
If so, the problem is solved except for a number of the lost tasks. They are probably either lost due to repeated startups flushing them from the task list or they are floating around somewhere in the system. I will check around to see where they may be floating and get rid of them for good so there are no ghost tasks to rise again sometime in the future.

The 1st 35 lines of stdoutdae.txt file will probably not be productive since there are dozens of messages like this:
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [SETI@home] [error] State file error: missing file 30ja10ab.29561.4736.7.10.254

for the different project tasks which were generated after I made the x86 version of BOINC inoperable. But it later has a series of messages of this type:
26-May-2012 12:22:53 [World Community Grid] File cfsw_image09_6.05.tga exists already, skipping download

which indicates to me that the x64 version of BOINC finally found most of the lost tasks so there was no need to re-download them again.
There are also a number of this type of message:
26-May-2012 12:23:06 [SETI@home] Resent lost task 31mr10ac.29759.3124.5.10.152_1

that tell me not all of my lost tasks were found so had to be resent to me for processing.

The same seems true for the stdoutdae.old file as well.
The problem is that BOINC doesn't seem to identify WHAT version of the program the tasks are uploading from or downloading to so tracking where they end up would seem to be either difficult or impossible. Since tasks can be up/down loaded to multiple computers, it would seem that this basic information should be a part of the audit trail since each computer or CPU of a multi processor machine is unique and what machine/CPU processed the task would really help in tracking any problems with that task. Or am I wrong in my assumptions on this?

The bottom line is that for some reason VISTA is not executing the correct BOINC program and that seems to be what is causing the tasks to disappear. Why one version should lose tasks assigned to it is beyond me at this point since if I was just leaving VISTA to start up the wrong version, it should not cause tasks to be lost from one boot up to the next since VISTA is executing the same wrong version each time. If I exit the program while it is running and then re-execute using the version pointed to by the Desktop then I could understand why tasks disappear but I rarely do this. Most of the time it just fires up and runs for days on end until I have to reboot because of a system failure, power failure, I install a new program or driver that requires a reboot to activate the program or driver or VISTA sends system updates that require a reboot to complete the update.

I'll post the lines from stdoldae.txt that represent the beginning messages after a reboot or manual startup of BOINC instead of the 1st 35 messages in the file since they should give the info that needs to be examined.
The stdoutdae.old also has the info you are probably interested in since it has the startup info for repeated startups of BOINC over a long period of time.

These are not the first lines of stdoldae but the 1st25 or so lines of a startup:

26-May-2012 11:24:29 [---] Starting BOINC client version 6.10.58 for windows_x86_64
26-May-2012 11:24:29 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
26-May-2012 11:24:29 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.19.7 OpenSSL/0.9.8l zlib/1.2.3
26-May-2012 11:24:29 [---] Data directory: C:\ProgramData\BOINC
26-May-2012 11:24:29 [---] Running under account Dale J
26-May-2012 11:24:30 [---] Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz [Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13]
26-May-2012 11:24:30 [---] Processor: 1.00 MB cache
26-May-2012 11:24:30 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pni ssse3 cx16 nx lm tm2 pbe
26-May-2012 11:24:30 [---] OS: Microsoft Windows Vista: Ultimate x64 Edition, Service Pack 2, (06.00.6002.00)
26-May-2012 11:24:30 [---] Memory: 4.00 GB physical, 8.17 GB virtual
26-May-2012 11:24:30 [---] Disk: 111.61 GB total, 54.63 GB free
26-May-2012 11:24:30 [---] Local time is UTC -5 hours
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [---] NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GT 520 (driver version 29610, CUDA version 4020, compute capability 2.1, 2048MB, 106 GFLOPS peak)
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [rosetta@home] [error] State file error: missing application file minirosetta_3.31_windows_x86_64.exe
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [rosetta@home] [error] State file error: missing file ab_T6681_sam_t000___robetta_04_10.zip
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [rosetta@home] [error] State file error: missing input file ab_T6681_sam_t000___robetta_04_10.zip
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [rosetta@home] [error] Can't handle workunit in state file
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [rosetta@home] [error] State file error: missing task ab_T6681_sam_t000___robetta_IGNORE_THE_REST_04_10_50477_88
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [rosetta@home] [error] Can't link task ab_T6681_sam_t000___robetta_IGNORE_THE_REST_04_10_50477_88_0 in state file
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [superlinkattechnion] [error] project file refers to non-existent superlink_logo_minimized.gif
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [Einstein@Home] [error] State file error: missing application file einsteinbinary_BRP4_1.22_windows_intelx86__BRP4SSE.exe
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [Einstein@Home] [error] State file error: missing file p2030.20110408.G42.98-00.22.S.b1s0g0.00000_2400.bin4
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [Einstein@Home] [error] State file error: missing input file p2030.20110408.G42.98-00.22.S.b1s0g0.00000_2400.bin4
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [Einstein@Home] [error] Can't handle workunit in state file
26-May-2012 11:24:31 [Einstein@Home] [error] State file error: missing task p2030.20110408.G42.98-00.22.S.b1s0g0.00000_2400

Now here are about 45 entries after I started it up again using the Desktop entry - you can see that it is starting up 7.0.25 version:

26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Starting BOINC client version 7.0.25 for windows_x86_64
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.21.6 OpenSSL/1.0.0d zlib/1.2.5
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Data directory: C:\ProgramData\BOINC
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Running under account Dale J
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) Dual CPU E2180 @ 2.00GHz [Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 13]
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Processor: 1.00 MB cache
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss htt tm pni ssse3 cx16 syscall nx lm tm2 pbe
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] OS: Microsoft Windows Vista: Ultimate x64 Edition, Service Pack 2, (06.00.6002.00)
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Memory: 4.00 GB physical, 8.21 GB virtual
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Disk: 111.61 GB total, 54.94 GB free
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Local time is UTC -5 hours
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GT 520 (driver version 296.10, CUDA version 4.20, compute capability 2.1, 2048MB, 1965MB available, 159 GFLOPS peak)
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce GT 520 (driver version 296.10, device version OpenCL 1.1 CUDA, 2048MB, 1965MB available)
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Version change (6.10.58 -> 7.0.25)
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [rosetta@home] URL http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/; Computer ID 1331328; resource share 85
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [Poem@Home] URL http://boinc.fzk.de/poem/; Computer ID 122380; resource share 60
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [The Lattice Project] URL http://boinc.umiacs.umd.edu/; Computer ID 76873; resource share 100
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [superlinkattechnion] URL http://cbl-boinc-server2.cs.technion.ac.il/superlinkattechnion/; Computer ID 40536; resource share 95
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [climateprediction.net] URL http://climateprediction.net/; Computer ID 1214452; resource share 95
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [Einstein@Home] URL http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/; Computer ID 5218740; resource share 85
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [LHC@home 1.0] URL http://lhcathomeclassic.cern.ch/sixtrack/; Computer ID 9689296; resource share 110
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [Milkyway@Home] URL http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/; Computer ID 134735; resource share 80
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [SETI@home] URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 6628466; resource share 100
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [Cosmology@Home] URL http://www.cosmologyathome.org/; Computer ID 59482; resource share 100
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [World Community Grid] URL http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/; Computer ID 1991214; resource share 100
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [climateprediction.net] General prefs: from climateprediction.net (last modified 09-May-2012 05:28:04)
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [climateprediction.net] Computer location: home
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] General prefs: using separate prefs for home
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Reading preferences override file
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Preferences:
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] max memory usage when active: 2046.79MB
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] max memory usage when idle: 3888.90MB
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] max disk usage: 10.00GB
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] (to change preferences, visit the web site of an attached project, or select Preferences in the Manager)
26-May-2012 12:20:46 [---] Not using a proxy
Initialization completed
26-May-2012 12:20:47 [---] Running CPU benchmarks
26-May-2012 12:20:47 [---] Suspending computation - CPU benchmarks in progress
26-May-2012 12:21:18 [---] Benchmark results:
26-May-2012 12:21:18 [---] Number of CPUs: 2
26-May-2012 12:21:18 [---] 1641 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
26-May-2012 12:21:18 [---] 4696 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
26-May-2012 12:22:48 [World Community Grid] Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
26-May-2012 12:22:48 [World Community Grid] Requesting new tasks for CPU and NVIDIA
26-May-2012 12:22:51 [World Community Grid] Scheduler request completed: got 4 new tasks
26-May-2012 12:22:51 [World Community Grid] Resent lost task E207780_422_C.28.C21H11N3S3Si.01506908.2.set1d06_1
26-May-2012 12:22:51 [World Community Grid] Resent lost task HFCC_target-9_00483074_target-9_0001_1


ChiTownDale

OK, I just rebooted and my system now starts up the new 7.0.25 version of BOINC and I haven't lost any more tasks so the last things to do are to try to delete the rest of the programs and files from the x86 version of version 6.10.58 and then to hunt down where the lost tasks went. I don't know if those tasks can be worked on or have to be just deleted and the wasted CPU time just written off or not. I particularly would like to recover the climateprediction task since it already has 67 hours of CPU time applied to it and I would hate to lose that. There may be another climateprediction task with over 100 hours of work done on it as well. I will post whatever I find out about recovering or not recovering the tasks.

ChiTownDale

Hi Dale

Did you back up the contents of your BOINC Data folder before updating your BOINC? It's a good idea for anyone with part-completed CPDN model(s) always to do this. If you did it should be easy to get your apparently lost climate models back; it will just be a question of deciding when to do it and explaining a method.