Unable to process SETI@home data on one PC

Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : Unable to process SETI@home data on one PC
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Profile Stephen Korsman

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Message 1850794 - Posted: 23 Feb 2017, 16:41:11 UTC
Last modified: 23 Feb 2017, 16:50:20 UTC

Hi

I'm not able to process SETI@home data on my original PC. I suspect I've been banned or blocked or that something has gone wrong that has stopped SETI@home from working.

I first installed on my main PC on 11 Feb. I didn't know how to work the BOINC software at first, and got a few errors that seemed unresolvable with reboots etc., so I had to uninstall and reinstall several times. I finally got it going, but SETI@home never had any work for me. I joined Asteroids@home and that has been chugging away nicely ever since. SETI@home remains silent. For troubleshooting, this is my main PC where SETI@home doesn't work - https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8202334 - you can see 2 tasks, both of which have "Abandoned" status. They probably died in the uninstall/reinstall process. I've tried the "Reset project" option and that changes nothing.

I just installed BOINC on my other PC, and there it works perfectly, and has started work immediately. That PC is here - https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=8210617

The only difference in project "Properties" that are not descriptions of different PCs and speeds is the "Scheduling priority":
PC that works: -1.02
PC that doesn't: -0.00

I have not set any separate preferences for "home" vs "work" etc. Both PCs are at home, on the same network.

Any ideas how I can get both PCs to run SETI@home? What other data should I post for troubleshooting?

EDIT: Linux Mint on both PCs
PC that works: Mint 13, BOINC 7.0.27 [in the process of updating, hasn't been on for a while, so this may change]
PC that doesn't: Mint 17, BOINC 7.6.31

Thanks!
Stephen
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Message 1850804 - Posted: 23 Feb 2017, 17:03:27 UTC - in response to Message 1850794.  

I had several issues with Linux Mint 17(.2) either. But it was because of the driver for the GPU. When my PC booted the Boinc Manager started but didn't recognize the Graphics Card. So I had to restart the Boinc daemon manually:
Try this in your shell:

/etc/init.d/boinc-client restart

If this doesn't work can you post the whole message log of your Boinc Manager after starting it?
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Message 1850817 - Posted: 23 Feb 2017, 17:43:17 UTC - in response to Message 1850804.  

That restart had no effect. It resulted in the following if boincmgr is started from the shell (and from the launcher if tried from the shell without restarting the daemon again):


Starting from the shell produced no messages, even with boincmgr --verbose

The event log, including a manual "update" at the end is posted below. The manual update is the last 4 lines, and on the PC that doesn't work it says "Not requesting tasks: don't need ()" whereas on the PC that does it says "Not reporting or requesting tasks" (I assume because it has nothing to report or because it's busy on tasks).

Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Starting BOINC client version 7.6.31 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Libraries: libcurl/7.47.0 OpenSSL/1.0.2g zlib/1.2.8 libidn/1.32 librtmp/2.3
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Data directory: /var/lib/boinc-client
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | No usable GPUs found
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | Found app_info.xml; using anonymous platform
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | File referenced in app_info.xml does not exist: setiathome_v8
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | File referenced in app_info.xml does not exist: setiathome_graphics
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | [error] State file error: missing application file setiathome_v8
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Host name: stephen
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Processor: 4 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570 CPU @ 3.40GHz [Family 6 Model 58 Stepping 9]
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | 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 pbe syscall nx rdtscp lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm epb tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase smep erms xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | OS: Linux: 4.4.0-62-generic
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Memory: 7.76 GB physical, 7.96 GB virtual
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Disk: 907.96 GB total, 232.08 GB free
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Local time is UTC +2 hours
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | VirtualBox version: 5.0.32_Ubuntur112930
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Config: GUI RPCs allowed from:
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | Asteroids@home | URL http://asteroidsathome.net/boinc/; Computer ID 405761; resource share 100
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 8202334; resource share 1000
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | Asteroids@home | General prefs: from Asteroids@home (last modified 23-Feb-2017 07:58:08)
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | Asteroids@home | Host location: none
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | Asteroids@home | General prefs: using your defaults
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Reading preferences override file
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | Preferences:
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | max memory usage when active: 1986.55MB
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | max memory usage when idle: 7151.59MB
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | max disk usage: 15.00GB
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | max CPUs used: 2
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | don't use GPU while active
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 25%
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | gui_rpc_auth.cfg is empty - no GUI RPC password protection
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:27:35 SAST | | Suspending computation - CPU is busy
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:27:45 SAST | | Resuming computation
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:27:53 SAST | SETI@home | update requested by user
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:27:55 SAST | SETI@home | Sending scheduler request: Requested by user.
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:27:55 SAST | SETI@home | Not requesting tasks: don't need ()
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:27:58 SAST | SETI@home | Scheduler request completed
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Message 1850825 - Posted: 23 Feb 2017, 18:31:04 UTC

A quick look at this bit of your log file:
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | | No usable GPUs found
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | Found app_info.xml; using anonymous platform
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | File referenced in app_info.xml does not exist: setiathome_v8
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | File referenced in app_info.xml does not exist: setiathome_graphics
Thu 23 Feb 2017 19:26:25 SAST | SETI@home | [error] State file error: missing application file setiathome_v8


Shows you have at least one problem, possibly more.
Checking your computer data shows you have no GPUs being detected.

Taken together I would first find and remove the app_info.xml file, as this is obviously not right for either the currently available tasks, or the currently installed applications on your computer.

Next, make sure that your SETI@Home options are set to allow CPU v8 tasks to be run. While you are at it I would also enable the "tasks for other applications" option, this can sometimes trigger a few useful messages.

After doing a "update", or a restart if that doesn't work, you should start to run tasks on the CPUs using the "stock" applications - it may take a couple of 5minute cycles to get things moving
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Message 1850855 - Posted: 23 Feb 2017, 21:01:31 UTC

How did you install Boinc?
sudo apt-get install Boinc or did you install it from the Homepage?

@rob smith maybe he hasn't a GPU in his system (or let's say no AMD or nvidia).
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Message 1850892 - Posted: 24 Feb 2017, 4:29:06 UTC - in response to Message 1850855.  

Hi

@rob smith - thanks - removing the app_info.xml worked (I'm sure I tried that as part of previous troubleshooting attempts, though ... maybe I didn't). The file was not re-created when I restarted BOINC. All the other settings you mentioned were already set that way.

@ShootY - I installed via Synaptic Package Manager

My GPU:

lspci | grep VGA

01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GF119 [GeForce GT 610] (rev a1)


sudo lshw -C video

*-display
description: VGA compatible controller
product: GF119 [GeForce GT 610]
vendor: NVIDIA Corporation
physical id: 0
bus info: pci@0000:01:00.0
version: a1
width: 64 bits
clock: 33MHz
capabilities: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
configuration: driver=nouveau latency=0
resources: irq:28 memory:f6000000-f6ffffff memory:e8000000-efffffff memory:f0000000-f1ffffff ioport:e000(size=128) memory:f7000000-f707ffff


I'm running this driver - xserver-xorg-video-nouveau, v 1:1.0.12-1build2. I've run into problems with nvidia on my other PC, and I've never had a reason to change anything on the current PC.

Thanks for the help with this!! Very much appreciated!

Stephen
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Message 1850914 - Posted: 24 Feb 2017, 7:46:00 UTC

Ah, the latest version of Mint uses a "strange" driver by default. The default driver doesn't support computation only graphics, this caught me out, so have a dig around at the graphics drivers and find the option that allows you to swap drivers from the default (I think its described as "community") and change it to the "vendor supplied" one, I would re-boot just to make sure the drive has installed properly (I know that's a rare event with Linux - a PC that was stalling every other week under Windows hasn't been touched since early January). Again you should find BOINC will now detect the GPU and start to use it.

The syntax used in the app_info.xml file is very sensitive, small errors in file names, punctuation etc can all lead to the sort of thing you have described, I've got many tee-shirts, the most memorable was a file that had two consecutive underscore characters which looked like a long-hyphen on my screen...
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Message 1850985 - Posted: 24 Feb 2017, 13:52:04 UTC - in response to Message 1850914.  

I'll need a bit of courage to change drivers ... my other PC was incredibly resistant to new drivers - blank screen and shell commands (which I'm not an expert at) to get it right. In a few weeks maybe when I have a few days to spend fiddling and fixing things that break.

But thanks for all the help ... very much appreciated!
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Message 1851177 - Posted: 25 Feb 2017, 8:03:20 UTC - in response to Message 1850985.  

@Stephen: You're very welcome. Thanks to rob you could fix it! Thanks rob! I didn't know that either. There's always something to learn :D

...what brings me to my question again, because you seem to be wise in Linux ;)
@rob: would you please have a look at this thread: https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=80911
PS: like you said, the "default" driver from Linux doesn't support the GPU. So this is why I installed proprietary driver.

Thank you!
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Questions and Answers : Unix/Linux : Unable to process SETI@home data on one PC


 
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