Hello Raspberry users!

My name is iikka and I come from Finland. I have some really peculiar problems with Raspberry Pi's and Seti@home. Maybe you can help me to get back to number crunching. I wrote about my problems in here before, but they never got solved: https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/forum_thread.php?id=84681

Then I found this RPi thread and thought I'll try again.

Some background: I used MS Windows some time ago, and also a Raspberry Pi 3B+, both of which worked well and got me credits. Then I gave up with Microsoft and moved wholy to the Linux world. The new RPi 4 is so powerful, that it is my nr 1 computer in web surfing and other every day tasks.

I bought this brand new Raspberry Pi 4B with 4 gigabytes of memory, installed system by NOOBS, and did the same to my former Pi 3B+ (which before worked fine with Seti@home). So, they both are running the latest Raspbian software available.

Problems:
Seti packets downloads fine to both devices, but they never get ready. Tasks reaches in to 99 % and the calculation time slows down the nearer it is to the end... SLOOOOWWWW... Gets days and then nothing. Also, if I reboot the Pi's, all tasks start from beginning again... This is not how it should be, me thinks.

Both devices are cooled, 3B+ with a Pimoroni Fan SHIM (great device) and 4B with an aluminium heatsink case (from Pimoroni too), and they run in between 55-65 C. So, temperature is not the fault here. The Pi4B is connected via ethernet cable, while the Pi 3B+ uses my wifi network.

More problems:
Just before writing this, I thought I decided to change the BOINC Manager language from Finnish to English, just in case I might send some screen capture images. What happened, was that the program now opens (in English) but I can't see any projects or tasks at all! Tried uninstalling and re-installing with Synaptic packet manager, rebooted in between... Hoahh, weird this is. If i open the Task manager (CTRL-ALT-DEL), I can see that Seti tasks are still running. BOINC manager does not see them. Also, all preferences options are greyed out in the manager, can't do anything. I've modified Raspbian to please me, so a total re-install would be the latest thing to do now. Any ideas how to fix these?

Also, when I go to my Seti@home page and look for 'my computers', it reports the Pi 4B (id 8815834) having 19 packets in calculation... Huh? Pi 4B has been on for a whole month now, no credits. When BOINC worked, it showed four packets at a time as one would expect.

-iikka

Long story, but I want to be back in business.... BTW, RPi 3B+ has now reached 94,786 % with all it's four tasks and is slowing down considerably. Takes another day to reach 99,99 % and start from scratch again.

I just update my 3B+ to Raspbian Buster. And I was seeing the same thing as you. Open the Manager and it was blank, greyed out but was connected to the localhost. The client was still running. Very strange. The only way I could get the Manager to work was to reboot. Only after a reboot does it show anything. If you shut down the Manager and leave the client running, and then work on any file in the boinc-client directory, when you relaunch the Manager it is back to blank. Never had this issue on Stretch. This is directly caused by the new BOINC version in Buster.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I just update my 3B+ to Raspbian Buster. And I was seeing the same thing as you. Open the Manager and it was blank, greyed out but was connected to the localhost. The client was still running. Very strange. The only way I could get the Manager to work was to reboot. Only after a reboot does it show anything. If you shut down the Manager and leave the client running, and then work on any file in the boinc-client directory, when you relaunch the Manager it is back to blank. Never had this issue on Stretch. This is directly caused by the new BOINC version in Buster.

Hello, and thank you for answering. As frustrating it might be to you, I'm relieved that I'm not alone here... But weird enough, my project and tasks disappeared from BOINC Manager only after changing the program language option from Finnish to English. Install/re-install does not help. Now, because all options are greyed out, I wonder if there is any config files that I could try editing? I'm not a Linux guru at all, but with some advice I might get that done.

Question 2: Since my homepage statistics for my Pi 4B show 19 tasks as 'calculating', is there any way to remove those or reset/remove just that computer? I really would not delete my whole account, because with my former Windows machine I did some serious crunching...

-iikka

I wonder if there is any config files that I could try editing? I'm not a Linux guru at all, but with some advice I might get that done.

The first thing I would check is the gui_rpc_auth.cfg (its in /etc/boinc-client with a sym link to /var/lib/boinc-client). The manager needs to have the password that is in there in order to connect to the core client. If you can't add the "--password xxx" where xxx is the value in gui_rpc_auth to the desktop shortcut for BOINCmgr then edit the gui_rpc_auth and blank out the password.

I run buster on my Pi's but they are all headless so I don't even install the manager. I use BOINCtasks on a windows PC to look at the farm (it also needs the password). I have buster on some of my x64 machines with the manager installed and I always add the password line to the desktop properties otherwise they won't connect to the core client.

Question 2: Since my homepage statistics for my Pi 4B show 19 tasks as 'calculating', is there any way to remove those or reset/remove just that computer?

Once you get the manager going you could try the ghost recovery protocol to try and get the 19 missing tasks back. There is a sticky message thread that describes it at the top of this forum.

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BOINC blog

So can you explain why Buster makes a symlink for the entire /var/lib/boinc-client directory to an entirely new and never had before /var/lib/boinc directory when we used Stretch?

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

So can you explain why Buster makes a symlink for the entire /var/lib/boinc-client directory to an entirely new and never had before /var/lib/boinc directory when we used Stretch?

It wasn’t Buster, it was in earlier versions of BOINC where they changed the package install scripts, although I can’t recall when they did it, it might have been with 7.14. The Debian Linux maintainers are trying to make it consistent with other Linux flavours. The other flavours of Linux use /var/lib/boinc but for some reason Debian used /var/lib/boinc-client. They will eventually get rid of the boinc-client directory, but that will be in a future release.

Also the 7.16 release has done away with the ability to shut down the core client from the manager. There was discussion about it but the Linux guys feel if you are going to stop a system started service you should use the tools available for security/permission reasons eg “sudo systemctl stop boinc-client”, or if you are on the console as root “service boinc-client stop” still works.

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BOINC blog

The change to install into /var/lib/boinc was made in BOINC version 7.10.2. I knew about that. But I was totally confused by why I had a /var/lib/boinc-client directory too. And the default data directory in 7.14.2 is STILL in /var/lib/boinc-client. It's printed in the startup of BOINC each time. So WHY bother to make a symlink to /var/lib/boinc and not just install into /var/lib/boinc in the first place which is what the commit in 7.10.2 says its going to do?

https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/commit/344ddabeb4e0b453ab7c3be8d5d1d5e478de2561

Default working directory changed to /var/lib/boinc
This change should got into the 7.10 client release.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

The change to install into /var/lib/boinc was made in BOINC version 7.10.2. I knew about that. But I was totally confused by why I had a /var/lib/boinc-client directory too. And the default data directory in 7.14.2 is STILL in /var/lib/boinc-client. It's printed in the startup of BOINC each time. So WHY bother to make a symlink to /var/lib/boinc and not just install into /var/lib/boinc in the first place which is what the commit in 7.10.2 says its going to do?

https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/commit/344ddabeb4e0b453ab7c3be8d5d1d5e478de2561

Default working directory changed to /var/lib/boinc
This change should got into the 7.10 client release.

I expect they were worried something might still use the boinc-client directory so a sym link allows them to keep working. I can ask when they are going to switch to the one directory.

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BOINC blog

Thank you all for taking part to my problems. I'm not going to leave you, but at this time it looks like I have to re-install my RPi 4B / Raspbian from scratch. Too many problems have occured, like losing sound totally after trying to make my phone to send files to RPi via bluetooth. Even HDMI sound is gone. Also, the "Keyboard layout handler", that I have added to Panel, have never accepted my settings properly - the settings window does not close from the 'close' button, but from the window crossmark it does. Settings are changed for your on going session, not anymore after reboot. And I'm still seeing most of seti@home.berkeley.edu pages in russian language - which I can read but understand very little. But this is a Vivaldi thing, because with other browsers it is fine. I just like the Vivaldi...

I will be back, but am very busy right now, so maybe to next week. Then I should be receiving my SDR radio (DX Patrol MK4) and most likely want to install new antennas to it and to my Tecsun PL-880, and definitely some software to RPi 4B - like GNU Radio and Gqrx. Maybe my BOINC problems will ease out - maybe there are other problems to come!

-iikka

P.S. Of course there are those certain problems with my RPi 3B+, BOINC and Raspbian Buster still on - not getting packets ready. But let them be for a while.

Over on Einstein @ Home Robl has documented how to Install Ubuntu 19.10 on a Pi 4
https://einsteinathome.org/content/install-ubuntu-1910-pi-4

Would this be a good place to post this url? https://www.solid-run.com/nxp-lx2160a-family/honeycomb-workstation/ Its on sale for a pre-release price of $550. You still have to install it in a case.... etc... but given how naked most of the other SBC's discussed on this thread I don't think it will be a major issue :)

16-core ARM Cortex A72 and yes it runs a Linux version as well as has support for a ATI type gpu. No mention of Nvidia support when I last looked (1 pci-e slot).

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

Hi,
I have decided to go "Christmas shopping" on SBC's in a "big way" this year. I am shopping for 4 people. We are all novice SBC people.

I have a grandson who is into gaming that I would like to encourage to start programming. Recommend a kit?

I have a granddaughter that is into writing but I want her to get some exposure to some kind of "Coding for Girls" kit.

I have a son who needs to move into some kind of maintenance and repair career so I am wondering if there is a good "industrial controls" kit?

And me. While I have located a $550 16 core ARM kit, maybe I want to start smaller. It will be crunching Seti but I want to be able to try to learn to do some coding on it too.
I am presuming they will all be running Linux variants.
Any ideas?

Thank you.

Tom

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A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association).

A Pi-4 fits the bill very well - and at a fraction of the $550.
To "learn programming" needs a very well supported system, that is not expensive and is readily available.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

A Pi-4 fits the bill very well - and at a fraction of the $550.
To "learn programming" needs a very well supported system, that is not expensive and is readily available.

I'll second that. Pi's were designed as a teaching tool. What is missing when you buy the board are books to get started. Those are available and also lots of web resources.
As to control, that is their second design feature. That 40 pin GPIO header. People build battle bots with them. Lots of other things too like weather stations, model railroad control, they are perfect little IoT building boxes.

A Pi-4 fits the bill very well - and at a fraction of the $550.
To "learn programming" needs a very well supported system, that is not expensive and is readily available.

I'll second that. Pi's were designed as a teaching tool. What is missing when you buy the board are books to get started. Those are available and also lots of web resources.
As to control, that is their second design feature. That 40 pin GPIO header. People build battle bots with them. Lots of other things too like weather stations, model railroad control, they are perfect little IoT building boxes.

A very good recommendation for all your cases ;-)

Even better, getting the same for all of you means that you can more easily help each other out and experiment in parallel.

For an easy start, take a look at: Raspberry Pi 4 Desktop Kit "Full desktop computer kit - just connect to HDMI display(s)".

Perhaps the first power-up/add-on/customization that you might want to add will be a custom heatsink or passive heatsink-case!


Have fun!!

Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

I would stay away from the Pi4. Too hot, too hard to cool. Very bad early software support. The distros are having lots of issues with the hardware. You need bleeding edge Linux distros of at least 5.3 or 5.4 versions to have any luck of it running correctly.

I would just go with a tried and true Pi3 B+. Cheaper too. All the books and online resources are tied to that platform.

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Seti@Home classic workunits:20,676 CPU time:74,226 hours

A proud member of the OFA (Old Farts Association)

I would stay away from the Pi4. Too hot, too hard to cool. Very bad early software support. The distros are having lots of issues with the hardware. You need bleeding edge Linux distros of at least 5.3 or 5.4 versions to have any luck of it running correctly.

I would just go with a tried and true Pi3 B+. Cheaper too. All the books and online resources are tied to that platform.

For experimenting and learning, all of the RasPi variants are excellent with very good support and enthusiastic forums.

The RasPi4 gains a big advantage additionally for general use for having the 2GByte and 4GByte RAM versions available. (As opposed to 1GByte or 512MByte for the various earlier variants.)

Note that the RasPi4 is a LOT faster than the previous RasPi versions and so it will run hot if run at high utilization... With the 'official' case, the RasPi4 will throttle back (slow down to RasPi3 speeds) so as to not get too hot. Or better, swap the official case for some heatsinking or add a quiet fan for cooling.

The early firmware problems have been fixed for the official Raspbian install. There's a few hiccups still for running Ubuntu. Easiest is to go with Raspbian until you become more familiar with the system.


The RasPi has excellent capability and possibilities. Well recommended!

There's a blog article for the RasPi4 Desktop kit: What’s inside the Raspberry Pi 4 Desktop Kit?. Check out the comments...


Keep searchin',
Martin

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See new freedom: Mageia Linux
Take a look for yourself: Linux Format
The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3)

Hi,
I have decided to go "Christmas shopping" on SBC's in a "big way" this year. I am shopping for 4 people. We are all novice SBC people.

I have a grandson who is into gaming that I would like to encourage to start programming. Recommend a kit?

I have a granddaughter that is into writing but I want her to get some exposure to some kind of "Coding for Girls" kit.

from 5 to 95Yo >https://meetedison.com start programming with a robot ^^

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Been using SETI on the Pi3 for many months all is well and no issues. Just got a Pi4 and setup a fresh SD card with new copy of Stretch, added the SETI program for the add and remove apps, bit it didn't seem to install.

Is setting running OK on Pi4 is it is not compatible yet?

You want a pi4B there is one update and another on the way

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Mike Bader
BOINC V7.16.5
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/team_join_form.php?id=5 - Join Our International Team
[img]http://boinc.mundayweb.com/one/stats.php?