I have been running BOINC 7.0.25 (x64) on computer ID: 3324167 for some time. More recently, I switched from standard to Lunatics. Everything was working fine.

This morning I upgraded to BOINC 7.0.28 (x64). Now I get a persistent error message when I start BOINC. Luckily, BOINC appears to ignore the cause and run OK, but I am curious as to what initiated this problem.

The message in the Notices tab is:

Notice from BOINC
Unrecognized tag in cc_config.xml: <zero_debts>


The startup Messages from BOINC read:

9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Unrecognized tag in cc_config.xml: <zero_debts>
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Starting BOINC client version 7.0.28 for windows_x86_64
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Libraries: libcurl/7.25.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1 zlib/1.2.6
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Data directory: D:\Boinc\Data
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Running under account xxxxxx
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM)2 CPU 6700 @ 2.66GHz [Family 6 Model 15 Stepping 6]
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Processor: 4.00 MB cache
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | 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 vmx tm2 pbe
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | OS: Microsoft Windows Vista: Ultimate x64 Edition, (06.00.6000.00)
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Memory: 4.00 GB physical, 5.95 GB virtual
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Disk: 93.14 GB total, 36.16 GB free
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Local time is UTC -5 hours
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce 8800 GTS (driver version 280.26, CUDA version 4.0, compute capability 1.0, 613MB, 493MB available, 408 GFLOPS

peak)
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce 8800 GTS (driver version 280.26, device version OpenCL 1.0 CUDA, 613MB, 493MB available)
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | SETI@home | Found app_info.xml; using anonymous platform
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Config: don't compute while xxxxxx.exe is running
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | climateprediction.net | URL http://climateprediction.net/; Computer ID 647489; resource share 100
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | Einstein@Home | URL http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/; Computer ID 4125225; resource share 22
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | SETI@home | URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 3324167; resource share 100
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | SETI@home | General prefs: from SETI@home (last modified 08-Sep-2011 01:07:05)
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | SETI@home | Computer location: home
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | General prefs: using separate prefs for home
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Reading preferences override file
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Preferences:
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | max memory usage when active: 2046.88MB
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | max memory usage when idle: 3684.38MB
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | max disk usage: 14.00GB
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | (to change preferences, visit the web site of an attached project, or select Preferences in the Manager)
9/10/2012 12:45:20 | | Not using a proxy


In checking stderrdae.txt I actually find two errors:

Unrecognized XML in LOG_FLAGS::parse: std_debug
Skipping: 0
Skipping: /std_debug
Unrecognized XML in CONFIG::parse_options: zero_debts
Skipping: 0
Skipping: /zero_debts


I located the offending tag in cc_config.xml in the final options tags after proxy_info. It is the very last tag in cc_config.xml:

</proxy_info>
<rec_half_life_days>10.000000</rec_half_life_days>
<report_results_immediately>0</report_results_immediately>
<run_apps_manually>0</run_apps_manually>
<save_stats_days>30</save_stats_days>
<skip_cpu_benchmarks>0</skip_cpu_benchmarks>
<simple_gui_only>0</simple_gui_only>
<start_delay>0</start_delay>
<stderr_head>0</stderr_head>
<suppress_net_info>0</suppress_net_info>
<unsigned_apps_ok>0</unsigned_apps_ok>
<use_all_gpus>0</use_all_gpus>
<use_certs>0</use_certs>
<use_certs_only>0</use_certs_only>
<zero_debts>0</zero_debts>
</options>
</cc_config>


It is not present in my backup before the upgrade to 7.0.28. It is also not present in the currently running 7.0.28 versions on my other computers. Any ideas as to what this is, why and/or how it got there, and should it be there?

Thanks! :)

It is not present in my backup before the upgrade to 7.0.28. It is also not present in the currently running 7.0.28 versions on my other computers. Any ideas as to what this is, why and/or how it got there, and should it be there?

Thanks! :)

I have no idea why that tag is there now, but AFAIK that tag was deprecated in the 7.28 version and that's why it started to complain. You can safelly delete that line.

IIRC, the 7.x versions do create the cc-config file when you set/edit your list of exclusive apps on the Manager and they add all the possible options with their deffault values, so I guess that they forgot to take this tag from the list of valid tags on the 7.28 or may be that tag was added by a previous version...

---

I suspected as much, but I didn't know for sure, so I thought I'd ask. I have already removed it manually and everything appears to run fine.

Thanks, Horacio! :)

Yes, I know.

BOINC versions 5 and 6 used the concepts of 'short term debt' and 'long term debt' to keep track of the balance of work done by different projects within BOINC - if one project ran too long, it owed a 'debt' of time to the other projects to balance out resource shares.

In case things got completely out of control, the <zero_debts> option was provided to reset things to sanity.

In the early stages of BOINC version 7 development, a tool was added (a fourth tab in 'Computing Preferences') which allows you to control excluded applications direct from the BOINC Manager interface. A neat (but little known) side effect of setting an exclusive app this way is that the manager writes out a comprehensive set of cc_config tags, (almost entirely) in alphabetical order. That'll be how you got <zero_debts> at the very end: note that it has the value 0 (zero), meaning that it's inactive - of no effect.

But, although the tag is still present in the early versions of BOINC 7, it's no use at all. v7 has ditched the entire concept of 'debt', and instead uses 'Recent Estimated Credit' and 'priority' to manage resource shares.

28 sub-versions later, somebody (OK, it might have been me) pointed out that the option tag was useless, and it was removed - in such a way that it left those error messages behind if you'd got one of those super-complete cc_config files.

Unfortunately, the other half of the request:

Conversely, do we have an effective alternative tool for zeroing REC and/or priority if a client or project testing session goes pear-shaped?

was ignored - there's no (documented) way back, as we discussed at boinc recently.

Thank you, Richard. Now I know the "why", too. Well, no real harm done.
It might, however, be nice to have the next version remove the left-over debt flags so others won't be concerned about the bright red error message at the top of BOINC's Event Log.

I agree that your flip-side question should most likely be addressed, along with a way to prevent the current "cheating" done by certain projects (I won't name them here...they are fairly well known) to force their work to run ahead of everyone else's. After all, their research is no more important than that of the other projects, in spite of what the queue-jumpers may think. ;)