I downloaded and installed Boinc 5.10.30 last Friday on a Windows XP Pro machine that never had Boinc...after installing it, the "Use at most ____ % CPU Time" is missing. It's just not even in the Other Options area of CPU Usage inside the Preferences. Totally bizarre.

So, I downloaded and installed the same version last night onto my home machine (which has been running boinc 5.10.20 for months) upgraded it to .30, and the option is there.

Is there an install issue/bug with installing 5.10.30 on a NEW/CLEAN machine?

I need to use that option in Preferences.

Thanks.

-Eric

p.s. Not that it should matter, but these are IDENTICAL machines.

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Are you looking at the local machine's preferences? Or at your General Preferences for the venue of the machine?

Sounds like you are in the local machine preferences. Is the window the correct size? I mean can you see the bottom of the outline for the "other options" area? If you drag the bottom (or top) of the window so it is taller, do you see the option?

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Are you looking at the local machine's preferences? Or at your General Preferences for the venue of the machine?

Sounds like you are in the local machine preferences. Is the window the correct size? I mean can you see the bottom of the outline for the "other options" area? If you drag the bottom (or top) of the window so it is taller, do you see the option?

To all:

1)I have not re-installed on the broken machine...I can/will try that in a few days.

2)No...to be nice, I am not a bozo. :) The screen size is not too small or anything like that. This is not user error. :) And yes, we have made the window larger just-in-case (before you mentioned it).

3)It is the local preferences...what I am doing is: open BOINC, choose Advanced>Preferences, click on the Processor Usage tab, and at the bottom where there SHOULD BE 3 choices in the Other Options area, "Use at most ____ % of CPU Time" is not present. It's not there. I'm not talking about it being greyed out...it's just not even there! That's the bizarre thing!


If I can post a screenshot to this forum I will...but it doesn't look like this forum allows attachments (and no, I do not have a website or hosting area to store the screenshot for a few days/weeks/years).

Maybe there is an XML file that controls WHAT is displayed on these Preferences as far as choices...maybe I need (with the help from the Development Team at RAH or BOINC) to go into an XML file and add/edit an entry.


5.10.30 seems to be a very recent release...maybe others are missing the option too but just don't realize it. And again, it seems to be a bad install meaning that whatever is created (XML file settings) is not being done correctly...because again, I *UPGRADED* my 5.10.20 to .30 and I have the option...a machine with no prior install of BOINC does not have the option.

If a reinstall (or even uninstall first) of .30 does not fix it, I will uninstall it and install .20...if that works, then folks, we have a bug. :)

-Eric

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3)It is the local preferences...what I am doing is: open BOINC, choose Advanced>Preferences, click on the Processor Usage tab, and at the bottom where there SHOULD BE 3 choices in the Other Options area, "Use at most ____ % of CPU Time" is not present. It's not there. I'm not talking about it being greyed out...it's just not even there! That's the bizarre thing!




-Eric

I updated to 5.10.30 on four existing units and none are missing that option. I installed it on a machine that had not had BOINC on it before and that option is missing. Strange...

3)It is the local preferences...what I am doing is: open BOINC, choose Advanced>Preferences, click on the Processor Usage tab, and at the bottom where there SHOULD BE 3 choices in the Other Options area, "Use at most ____ % of CPU Time" is not present. It's not there. I'm not talking about it being greyed out...it's just not even there! That's the bizarre thing!




-Eric

I updated to 5.10.30 on four existing units and none are missing that option. I installed it on a machine that had not had BOINC on it before and that option is missing. Strange...

Ok then...sounds like a confirmed bug with installing .30 on a "clean" machine.

How do we get Boinc/RAH to see this post and address this problem so 1)future versions install correctly and 2)how to work around this problem now (if possible or should we just downgrade to .20?)

Thanks again.

-Eric

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I'm assuming that you could "downgrade" to .20, then reinstall .30 and it would behave as it does on a machine that is not new, i.e. it would display properly.

This issue pertains to BOINC, not to Rosetta@home. BOINC issues are discussed on the BOINC boards here, and created in the trac system, which requires an ID... and doesn't seem to be operational at the moment.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

3)It is the local preferences...what I am doing is: open BOINC, choose Advanced>Preferences, click on the Processor Usage tab, and at the bottom where there SHOULD BE 3 choices in the Other Options area, "Use at most ____ % of CPU Time" is not present. It's not there. I'm not talking about it being greyed out...it's just not even there! That's the bizarre thing!




-Eric

I updated to 5.10.30 on four existing units and none are missing that option. I installed it on a machine that had not had BOINC on it before and that option is missing. Strange...

Ed, can you check your global_prefs.xml file to see if you have an entry like this (my cpu is set to 70%):

<cpu_usage_limit>70</cpu_usage_limit>

and...

in your global_prefs_override.xml file you should see (again mine is 70%):

<cpu_usage_limit>70.000000</cpu_usage_limit>


I'm guessing the problem is 1 of those 2 files or both files...or, some internal mapping inside the binary code of BOINC itself. *BUT* since an UPGRADE works, that would tell me that the binary is fine (and hence reading the XML files just fine) but that when a new fresh install is done, the XML file is not created correctly and hence, the binary doesn't see the XML entry and hence doesn't show it on the user interface.

Let us know if this line exists (or is missing) in the computer that has the problem.

I won't be able to check my "problem" computer until tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks.

-Eric

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update...I tried (on my .30 upgraded machine which works just fine) removing both of those 2 lines from the XML files (after shutting down Boinc) and when I start Boinc back up, the user interface is fine.

So, since I am not on the Boinc development team, something else is amist. Maybe corrupt XML files in some manner (weird character somewhere) or some Registry setting or whatever.

-Eric

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3)It is the local preferences...what I am doing is: open BOINC, choose Advanced>Preferences, click on the Processor Usage tab, and at the bottom where there SHOULD BE 3 choices in the Other Options area, "Use at most ____ % of CPU Time" is not present. It's not there. I'm not talking about it being greyed out...it's just not even there! That's the bizarre thing!




-Eric

I updated to 5.10.30 on four existing units and none are missing that option. I installed it on a machine that had not had BOINC on it before and that option is missing. Strange...

Ed, can you check your global_prefs.xml file to see if you have an entry like this (my cpu is set to 70%):

<cpu_usage_limit>70</cpu_usage_limit>

and...

in your global_prefs_override.xml file you should see (again mine is 70%):

<cpu_usage_limit>70.000000</cpu_usage_limit>


I'm guessing the problem is 1 of those 2 files or both files...or, some internal mapping inside the binary code of BOINC itself. *BUT* since an UPGRADE works, that would tell me that the binary is fine (and hence reading the XML files just fine) but that when a new fresh install is done, the XML file is not created correctly and hence, the binary doesn't see the XML entry and hence doesn't show it on the user interface.

Let us know if this line exists (or is missing) in the computer that has the problem.

I won't be able to check my "problem" computer until tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks.

-Eric

Can't help you there, that computer has already gone down the road with BOINC removed. Sorry...

Wow. Now this is bizarre. I looked at the machine today and magically the option is there! WTF?!

I had noticed this morning that the machine had reported its first WU...I wonder if "phoning home" somehow solved it.

But, as others have stated, the problem is reproduceable on a machine that has never had Boinc installed.

This problem really should be researched...it's not hard to reproduce...and I would think that the dev team would have a few pcs around for testing...some Ghost images would make this a very quick and repeatable test.

-Eric

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Wow. Now this is bizarre. I looked at the machine today and magically the option is there! WTF?!

I had noticed this morning that the machine had reported its first WU...I wonder if "phoning home" somehow solved it.

But, as others have stated, the problem is reproduceable on a machine that has never had Boinc installed.

This problem really should be researched...it's not hard to reproduce...and I would think that the dev team would have a few pcs around for testing...some Ghost images would make this a very quick and repeatable test.

-Eric

the boinc developer team, is not the same as the rosetta@home team, you should visit the boinc site/forums!

Wow. Now this is bizarre. I looked at the machine today and magically the option is there! WTF?!

I had noticed this morning that the machine had reported its first WU...I wonder if "phoning home" somehow solved it.

But, as others have stated, the problem is reproduceable on a machine that has never had Boinc installed.

This problem really should be researched...it's not hard to reproduce...and I would think that the dev team would have a few pcs around for testing...some Ghost images would make this a very quick and repeatable test.

-Eric

the boinc developer team, is not the same as the rosetta@home team, you should visit the boinc site/forums!

Luuklag:

1)I know that RAH does not equal BOINC. :) I have posted this issue on the BOINC forum as well. But just because the "ownership" ultimately falls on the shoulders of the Boinc dev team does NOT mean that an email/post from a high ranking member of the RAH team (not a participant, but a staff member) would be ignored by Boinc. Maybe RAH should have someone on their team that pays attention to Boinc bugs on the RAH forum and at least alerts the Boinc staff.

2)Let's be tolerable...although I (and I assume many on this forum) are very computer savvy, a high percentage of the overall RAH project participants are probably NOT...so when they run into this problem (or similar ones) they (and I) are going to start at RAH and look for some help and see if others have seen the issue...so let's be a little tolerable before pointing the "go here and don't bother us" finger. :) People are donating their time, electricity, money (to pay for the electricity and pc in the first place), air conditioning, and computer cycles for this great project...shouting at them certainly doesn't help.


-Eric

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Wow. Now this is bizarre. I looked at the machine today and magically the option is there! WTF?!

I had noticed this morning that the machine had reported its first WU...I wonder if "phoning home" somehow solved it.

But, as others have stated, the problem is reproduceable on a machine that has never had Boinc installed.

This problem really should be researched...it's not hard to reproduce...and I would think that the dev team would have a few pcs around for testing...some Ghost images would make this a very quick and repeatable test.

-Eric

It is not easily reproducable. In the same situation, new machine and a new BOINC install(5.10.30), the option was available to me. I know this because one of the first things I did was setting that option. I'll have to admit, I don't remember if this was before or after attaching that computer to a project.

It depends on how you define "easily". :) I have been installing Boinc for years on various systems and yes, I also alter this option immediately after the install process is done. I also do not recall if RAH had already been joined to the client before I went to go change the option.

But given that others have reported this issue in the very-close-to-exact circumstances as me, it should be pretty easy to reproduce. Maybe time intensive if you have only 1 machine to test with...but I'm sure the dev team has more than 1 pc...and there aren't too many scenarios left given that we've stated it 1)only happens with .30 and 2)happens on Windows XP and 3)happens on a machine with no previous Boinc install. Deductive reasoning shouldn't be too hard here. :) I'm not asking to test on all OS flavors...follow the above 3 guidelines and your matrix of possible issues quickly dwindles. Anyone in QA or Development should be able to easily track down this problem given the above 3 criteria (versus having 0 criteria and/or just rumors of problems).

A few pcs, a short checklist of things to watch, and maybe some Ghost images to make life easy and fast would do it. A few hours, at most to reproduce this problem.

-Eric

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Just as an aside to this conversation, I have just installed 5.10.35 on a brand new computer and all options are there. So could of been a 5.10.30 problem.

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