boinc stalls after update

[Shirish Agarwal]

Hi all,
 boinc doesn't crunch. It tries to do benchmarking and then disconnects. This happened after update/upgrade from 6.2.12 to 6.2.14

~$ boinc --run_cpu_benchmarks
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Starting BOINC client version 6.2.14 for i686-pc-linux-gnu
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] log flags: task, file_xfer, sched_ops, checkpoint_debug
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.18.2 OpenSSL/0.9.8g zlib/1.2.3.3 libidn/1.10
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Data directory: /home/shirish
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Processor: 1 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz [Family 15 Model 1 Stepping 2]
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] 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 ht tm up pebs bts
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] OS: Linux: 2.6.27-7-generic
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Memory: 1001.37 MB physical, 1.39 GB virtual
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Disk: 52.20 GB total, 31.34 GB free
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Local time is UTC +5 hours
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] No coprocessors
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Version change (6.2.12 -> 6.2.14)
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] No general preferences found - using BOINC defaults
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Preferences limit memory usage when active to 500.68MB
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Preferences limit memory usage when idle to 901.23MB
14-Nov-2008 21:07:23 [---] Preferences limit disk usage to 9.31GB
14-Nov-2008 21:07:52 [---] [error] GUI RPC bind failed: 98
gstate.init() failed: -180

~$ boinccmd --get_messages
Authorization failure: -155

$ sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client restart
[sudo] password for shirish:
 * Stopping BOINC core client: boinc [ OK ]
 * Starting BOINC core client: boinc [ OK ]
 * Setting up scheduling for BOINC core client and children: [ OK ]

~$ boinccmd --get_messages
Authorization failure: -155

Also tried to see if there were two instances of boinc

~$ ps -ax|grep boinc
Warning: bad ps syntax, perhaps a bogus '-'? See http://procps.sf.net/faq.html
 8562 pts/2 S+ 0:00 grep boinc
18192 ? S 1:58 /usr/bin/boinc --check_all_logins --redirectio --dir /var/lib/boinc-client

The only issue I see here it should give the project it is crunching for, it is not showing that as well :(

can somebody guide me to what's wrong?

I also did all the stuff given at boinc homepage in order to get it to work (just in case) :-

1. Open /etc/group in a text editor.
2. Look for the line starting with boinc:x:<group ID number>:.
3. Edit the line to look like boinc:x:<group ID number>:username
4. Save the file and close the editor.
5. In a terminal, enter sudo chmod g+rw /var/lib/boinc-client
6. Enter sudo chmod g+rw /var/lib/boinc-client/*.*
7. Enter sudo ln -s /var/lib/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg /home/username/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
8. Enter sudo chown boinc:boinc /home/username/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

All of them work without a hitch apart from 7

ln: creating symbolic link `/home/shirish/gui_rpc_auth.cfg': File exists .

Also found something more interesting

~$ ll /var/lib/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 34 2008-11-12 07:24 /var/lib/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg -> /etc/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

So apparently /var/lib/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg is already symlinked to /etc/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
Package: boinc-client 6.2.14-2
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=/home/username/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_IN
SourcePackage: boinc
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-7-generic i686

[usr (usrlp-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Confirmed. The same bug at fresh installation.

[Nicolás Alvarez (nicolas-alvarez)]

You aren't supposed to run boinc --run_cpu_benchmarks; that will start a new instance of the client. The client was already started by the init script right after the installation.

The error you get is *because* you're running multiple clients.

[Nicolás Alvarez (nicolas-alvarez)]

I mean the [error] GUI RPC bind failed: 98 error.

[usr (usrlp-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

Invalid? Why?

[Nicolás Alvarez (nicolas-alvarez)]

For the first part of the report, as I said: you aren't supposed to run 'boinc', it's already running (starts on boot), and you can't have multiple instances running at the same time. And you'd cause big problems if you stop the current instance and run it as ~$ boinc, since that will fill your home directory with files related to BOINC operations, and form a BOINC environment separate from the one in /var/lib/boinc-client. So, never run 'boinc' by hand.

However I didn't read the whole report carefully. The authentication problems really do exist. I opened #347651 giving a suggestion that, I think, will finally get rid of the problem.

[usr (usrlp-deactivatedaccount-deactivatedaccount)]

O.K.