Let us know what works or let us know if it doesn't work and we'll try again!

Well, in the umpeen work units I've processed, it looks like the most recent one (the one in the middle of your instructions) has processed successfully! I hope this is the start of a new trend! :-)

Congratulations! I just looked at it and guess what? I didn't see an error!!!
I'll keep my fingers crossed!

*sighs* Nope. Most recent one had another error. At this point I don't know what to do. I've tried everything.

To tell you the truth, I just now looked at your computer. It's a laptop! Have you got any power saving features turned on? Such as shutting down the hard drive, slowing the cpu down, going to hybernation/sleep, or anything like that? That has also been known to cause errors. Boinc and the seti application will only run properly if everything is powered up continuously.
Turning off the display is fine, just nothing about the computer itself can be powered down.

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

Let us know what works or let us know if it doesn't work and we'll try again!

Well, in the umpeen work units I've processed, it looks like the most recent one (the one in the middle of your instructions) has processed successfully! I hope this is the start of a new trend! :-)

Congratulations! I just looked at it and guess what? I didn't see an error!!!
I'll keep my fingers crossed!

*sighs* Nope. Most recent one had another error. At this point I don't know what to do. I've tried everything.

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Let us know what works or let us know if it doesn't work and we'll try again!

Well, in the umpeen work units I've processed, it looks like the most recent one (the one in the middle of your instructions) has processed successfully! I hope this is the start of a new trend! :-)

Congratulations! I just looked at it and guess what? I didn't see an error!!!
I'll keep my fingers crossed!

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

Let us know what works or let us know if it doesn't work and we'll try again!

Well, in the umpeen work units I've processed, it looks like the most recent one (the one in the middle of your instructions) has processed successfully! I hope this is the start of a new trend! :-)

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Very possibly. Many of the places I found where this bug was reported mentioned various dll's that were out of date. Different applications would call for replacing a different dll, but there did seem to be a "core group" of dll's that was causing the problem. Mind you I didn't read every one in detail, but that was the general idea that I got from glancing through probably 50 or more from different sources, and even the Microsoft Knowledge Base itself. I couldn't put my finger on anything specific to boinc or the seti app, but they all gave the same error and all of the dll's mentioned had something to do with the way the operating system handled memory.

That's kind of weird since I recently wiped my entire hard drive and reinstalled XP from scratch about a month ago. It should have fixed the 'sharing' problems. I'm slowly working my way through your set of instructions...hopefully they work. Thanks for helping me so much!

If your copy of xp were an older copy without the updated dlls it might still be the cause. Also they just gave a version on the one dll that I saw where they even gave a version, they didn't give a release date. Most of the other answers were "you need to upgrade to the latest service pack/bug fix/release/update"

Here is another one you might add to the list. If you do a complete detach and reattach from the project I think it will do this anyway, but you might try deleting the seti application itself and letting boinc download a new one. It is very possible you might have a corrupt application. I notice while reading the forums (my wife is disabled and I have to stay at home to take care of her so I have a lot of reading time! haha!) that during the past few days, people have been complaining about corrupted files during downloading work units. This happens to look like a problem with the servers at Berkeley, so if you downloaded your application during that time it is very possible that it may have been corrupted too. Seems like we have also had a spike of problems like yours showing up during the same time. Mostly from people just starting out, so it's possible that they have a corrupt app too. (It seems possible, but then again maybe just a coincidence.) This is more just guessing than anything but it might be worth a try. The splitters are responsible for creating work units but the application is compiled and stored, then just copied as needed. There is also a "signature" that is sent to make sure the file arrives intact, so really i don't see how it could arrive corrupted, but I guess anything's possible.

Let us know what works or let us know if it doesn't work and we'll try again!

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

Very possibly. Many of the places I found where this bug was reported mentioned various dll's that were out of date. Different applications would call for replacing a different dll, but there did seem to be a "core group" of dll's that was causing the problem. Mind you I didn't read every one in detail, but that was the general idea that I got from glancing through probably 50 or more from different sources, and even the Microsoft Knowledge Base itself. I couldn't put my finger on anything specific to boinc or the seti app, but they all gave the same error and all of the dll's mentioned had something to do with the way the operating system handled memory.

That's kind of weird since I recently wiped my entire hard drive and reinstalled XP from scratch about a month ago. It should have fixed the 'sharing' problems. I'm slowly working my way through your set of instructions...hopefully they work. Thanks for helping me so much!

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Tyrrlin

I have been doing some more research on this problem since you are not the only one having errors. The error message you get is caused by a program trying to access memory that Windows claims is in use by another program. I have checked the web and also the Microsoft Knowledge Base and it seems to be a very common problem. The fix it seems is to upgrade to the newest files available for your particular operating system version. This seems to happen to many Windows programs plus a lot of programs written in Visual Basic. So if the problem continues you may need to upgrade your os files.

So, basically I have to run Windows Update?

Very possibly. Many of the places I found where this bug was reported mentioned various dll's that were out of date. Different applications would call for replacing a different dll, but there did seem to be a "core group" of dll's that was causing the problem. Mind you I didn't read every one in detail, but that was the general idea that I got from glancing through probably 50 or more from different sources, and even the Microsoft Knowledge Base itself. I couldn't put my finger on anything specific to boinc or the seti app, but they all gave the same error and all of the dll's mentioned had something to do with the way the operating system handled memory.

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

Tyrrlin

I have been doing some more research on this problem since you are not the only one having errors. The error message you get is caused by a program trying to access memory that Windows claims is in use by another program. I have checked the web and also the Microsoft Knowledge Base and it seems to be a very common problem. The fix it seems is to upgrade to the newest files available for your particular operating system version. This seems to happen to many Windows programs plus a lot of programs written in Visual Basic. So if the problem continues you may need to upgrade your os files.

So, basically I have to run Windows Update?

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Tyrrlin

I have been doing some more research on this problem since you are not the only one having errors. The error message you get is caused by a program trying to access memory that Windows claims is in use by another program. I have checked the web and also the Microsoft Knowledge Base and it seems to be a very common problem. The fix it seems is to upgrade to the newest files available for your particular operating system version. This seems to happen to many Windows programs plus a lot of programs written in Visual Basic. So if the problem continues you may need to upgrade your os files.

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

I've tried both Prime95 and Memtest86 without problems, but SETI still has computation errors. What else can I do to make it right?

Puzzling...
I just read in another post that this could be a problem with the graphic card drivers. It is a known bug with older ATi drivers. Try turning off the screensaver and see if that works. If it does, update your graphics card drivers and try again. You may have to run without a screensaver for now.

If that doesn't work....

Ok, lets start trying some drastic things here.
Set the project to "no new work" (click on the no new work tab until it says "allow new work").
Let any wu's you have now finish.
Hit "update" to make sure all of them have been reported right.
Hit "reset the project"
Detach from the project
reattach to the project
Change all your settings back to allowing work, let it download one result then hit "no new work" again.
Crunch that wu and return it to see if this corrects the problem.

What I'm thinking in the above is that something might have corrupted one of your files, either the main SETI application or one of the support files. The above procedure will assure that everything is cleaned out and reported then will erase everything and start new. It will download a new application and start again.

If this doesn't work, the next thing I would suggest is that since I see you are just running the standard SETI application, you could try one of the other applications out there. I personally suggest Crunch3r's enhanced application.

If you need to do this and need some help on it, let us know here and we will step you through it. (You have to add a "app_info.xml" file to the seti directory to prevent the boinc client from running the standard application and letting it run the new app instead.)

Good luck and let us know how it turns out. If you have any questions about the above procedure let us know.

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

I've tried both Prime95 and Memtest86 without problems, but SETI still has computation errors. What else can I do to make it right?

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It's all good. Yes, I do see a blue screen and it runs and tests. I have seen up to test #8 (?) and definitely over 60% on the top line, but after an hour or two it's back down to test #3 (or something) and 20% total completed.

Am I just being impatient, or is two hours sufficient time to realize there's a problem?

There should be a line that tells how many passes the test has completed. Once the tests complete at 100%, they'll automatically and infinately loop back to the beginning and re-test your computer until you hit escapte to reboot, all the while increasing the number of passes by one until you reboot. If no errors are listed on the bottom half of the screen, then your memory should be fine.

If your memory turns up OK, then try Prime95. That will stress test your CPU to see if it can handle a full load (which all CPUs are designed to do, but if the cooling is faulty or poor, errors will ensue).

Ahhh...okay, I've passed at least 5 times. Currently running Prime95 with no problem. I really hope SETI works after all this. Thank you all for your help so far. :-)

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It's all good. Yes, I do see a blue screen and it runs and tests. I have seen up to test #8 (?) and definitely over 60% on the top line, but after an hour or two it's back down to test #3 (or something) and 20% total completed.

Am I just being impatient, or is two hours sufficient time to realize there's a problem?

There should be a line that tells how many passes the test has completed. Once the tests complete at 100%, they'll automatically and infinately loop back to the beginning and re-test your computer until you hit escapte to reboot, all the while increasing the number of passes by one until you reboot. If no errors are listed on the bottom half of the screen, then your memory should be fine.

If your memory turns up OK, then try Prime95. That will stress test your CPU to see if it can handle a full load (which all CPUs are designed to do, but if the cooling is faulty or poor, errors will ensue).

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I will suggest to you the same procedure as the other gentleman that posted in this thread for an answer.

*chuckles* Um...last time I checked, I'm female.

Oops, My apologies! In a place like this you can't tell! Haha!

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

I'm sorry, that was a little unclear. Is MemTest86 running for hours or is it not booting up? If MemTest86 loads successfully, you should see a blue screen with your computer information and a progress indicator showing that it is testing your memory. Is that what you see?

It's all good. Yes, I do see a blue screen and it runs and tests. I have seen up to test #8 (?) and definitely over 60% on the top line, but after an hour or two it's back down to test #3 (or something) and 20% total completed.

Am I just being impatient, or is two hours sufficient time to realize there's a problem?

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Well, I've been running the MemTest86, but it just runs and runs and runs for hours at a time without booting up. Does that mean there's a problem?

I'm sorry, that was a little unclear. Is MemTest86 running for hours or is it not booting up? If MemTest86 loads successfully, you should see a blue screen with your computer information and a progress indicator showing that it is testing your memory. Is that what you see?

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I will suggest to you the same procedure as the other gentleman that posted in this thread for an answer.

*chuckles* Um...last time I checked, I'm female.

Well, I've been running the MemTest86, but it just runs and runs and runs for hours at a time without booting up. Does that mean there's a problem?

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Al, here is a link to some details on running memtest

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

thanks, Al.
I would prefer to answer you here so others can benefit from the answer.
Yes I do see something. The last time I saw something like this was an error in the memory timings for the computer. Have you changed anything about the configuration on the computer on the 22nd? I see two results that returned good on the 22nd and everything after that has the same error. I will suggest to you the same procedure as the other gentleman that posted in this thread for an answer. There is definately something wrong with your computer. Boinc uses every bit of a computer that it can. Normal use may not show up certain problems but they become apparent when boinc and the seti application are running. As with the mismatched memory timings, in normal operation it may not show up as a problem.
I suggest getting the two programs mentioned in this thread and use them. They will test your system and see what the problem may be. BTW, it is also possible that your cpu may be overheating. If this computer has a little age on it, it might be worthwile to remove the cover and clean the heat sink and cooling fans. Dust builds up there very quickly and even a small layer of dust can drastically affect the cooling efficiency of the heat sink/fan assembly. I've seen both problems cause the results you are getting and there might be other things that can cause it, but those are two that I have seen right here from helping others with this problem. Get those two programs mentioned and check out your system and one or the other of them should tell you what the problem is.
Good luck

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Jim

Some people plan their life out and look back at the wealth they've had.
Others live life day by day and look back at the wealth of experiences and enjoyment they've had.

OK - I have unhidden my computer. If you find anything, let me know at arsailman1@yahoo.com. Thanks. Al

You should unhide your computers so we can look at the Errors and you need to use the following programs to check for stability.


Prime95 Torture test

Memtest86+

and how do I unhide my computer, and when would anyone be looking into it?

You unhide your computer by going into your "preferences" page on this website and editing your personal preferences. You will not be giving access to any personal information by unhiding them. Feel free to click on my name at the left and see for yourself exactly what will be shown. The only thing that unhiding your computers does is lets people see some basic information about your computer, but most importantly to us is it shows the work units you have crunched recently. For instance if I am sharing the crunching of a wu with you, I can look at your past results to get an estimate as to how fast your computer returns results to know when to expect mine (ours) to be validated. But in this case, we could probably be able to look at your computer's results and tell you exactly what to do to fix your system to be able to crunch work units properly.Otherwise it would be nearly impossible. Once a work unit is uploaded to us it disappears from your computer so you could not copy the results to here so we can look at them. And with your computer hidden there is no way we can tell exactly what results you crunched to be able to look at them from here. There are millions of results on the system at any one time and it would be imposible to search through even a small percentage of them for the work units you crunched. If you unhide your computers the information is right there in front of us within a few mouse clicks.(I know I don't have that many results here to show but that's because my main crunching is done on the beta test trying to get the new enhanced application tested and ready for here.) As I said, feel free to look at anyone's computer you please. You will see that no personal information at all is given out, but it will make life a whole lot easier if you ever need help and it will also help trying to figure out problems with other's work units. Again another example, I am running Linux and I crunch a wu that gives problems. You are crunching the same computer and the result also gives problems but others do not. If I can look at your computers to see if you are running Linux also, then it may be a problem because we both are using the linux version of the program and te others are not.(Thinking beta test here, but the principle is the same) However if I see that you are running an entirely different system that would rule out a problem particular to a certain type of system and I would have to look somewhere else for the answer.

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