I've been starting BOINC from a script at system startup. It's located in a public directory. Security is NOT an issue for this system. BOINC usually runs as "root".

After over a week, I changed the preferences on one of the projects and I wanted to update the client. So I stopped the active process and started the boinc executable as my normal userid (a non-root ID). BOINC immediately wiped out all the current projects (SETI and CPDN) and their status - without any prompting - and then asked for a project URL as though this was the first execution of the program.

I consider that to be a bug. It is aware I'm not using the same user - but wiping out all the existing work, and the WUs and CPDN model, seems to be a terrible way of handling the situation.

I now have a new model and fresh WUs....and have started over. There was no other choice.

At the very least I should have been prompted about the consequences of starting boinc from a different user ID.....and given the chance to cancel out.

In future, I will back the boinc directory and sub-directories up before requesting any project updates.

Just in case. I can at least restore what was lost then.


Anyone else had this problem?