BOINC 5.8.15 and optimized app problem

[Fivestar Crashtest]

I upgraded the BOINC on my Pentium M laptop to 5.8.8 but wasn't doing any Seti on it, just Rosetta and LHC.  I decided to try the 2.2b app on it, it already had 2.0 on it, I think or maybe 1.41.  I completely emptied out the setiathome.berkeley.edu folder and dropped the PM 2.2b app in. I allowed it to download some work.  And a bunch of work units errored out before it went back to doing Rosetta. 

When I looked in the folder again, the slideshow pictures were back, and the 2.2b files were there.  I downloaded a fresh 2.2b app and let it overwrite the ones in there.  And the rest of the work units errored out.  Which makes me a bad person, because I did not back up my BOINC folder before I did this.  But I never ever had any trouble before.

So, I detached from Seti and reattached.  Now I have a setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu_sah folder.  I put the optimized app in there and danged if BOINC didn't download the standard 5.15 app and use that.  There were no messages about my anonymous platform, so it isn't seeing my app info file.

I tried using the auto installer but it complains that it can't find a part of the path

Files\BOINC\projects\setiathome.berkeley.edu etc, so it is looking for that folder and not setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu_sah.

I have no plans at all to change any other computers to 5.8 since I can't figure out what is going wrong here.  I did not like the simple gui, and only use the advanced view.  I DO look in task manager to make sure BOINC is dead dead dead before I start fiddling with its files.

I hadn't seen where anyone was having troubles with their upgrades and wondered what kind of stupid thing I could be doing to cause these problems?  Life is not worth living without the optimized apps.

Before I detached, my error said it couldn't find a file, this would have been when I still had the setiathome.berkeley.edu folder.  I always use the single user installation.  There is no message about remote control being allowed either, although BOINCview can see this computer on other computers.

Pam

[Simon]

Hi Pam,

I also had some trouble with 5.8.x versions prior to 5.8.15. Did you look inside stdoutdae.txt and stderrdae.txt to find out the real reason for your trouble? They show more information than the "Messages" tab does and also keep it logged vs. throwing it away on restart.

Maybe inside those log files there are some clues.

I don't know in what exact order you did things - here's how I do it:

1) Detach and/or clean stuff (only if this is not a new installation)
Make sure there's no old stuff lying around like .exe files and/or app_info.xml. Easiest is, like you did it, to delete the project folder after emptying your cache.

2) Attach to project
Let it download the stock application and files, and some WUs. Let it finish downloading everything, maybe even crunch a WU for a couple of seconds. Just make sure it's working.

3) Stop BOINC -
close manager, stop service, whatever. Like you said, make sure boinc.exe is not running in the task manager.

4) Install app -
Drop in optimized app and app_info.xml.

5) Restart BOINC
Check "Messages" tab, it should now say "Using anonymous platform" again and not have things error out.

HTH,
Simon.

[Fivestar Crashtest]

I downgraded back to 5.4.11 BOINC and detached from Seti.  When I reattached, I made sure the home page was setiathome.berkeley.edu and not setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu.  It seems to switch back and forth.  Then my project folder was named setiathome.berkeley.edu and the automatic installer worked.  By using that, I don't have to worry about whether I forgot to delete something, it does it for me.

I got my anonymous platform message and everything is ok.  But this is the first time I ever had trouble switching applications.   

Happy Crunching,

Pam

[Simon]

Hm,

didn't know it switched; are you attached to Beta on that host as well? The Beta project's URL contains setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu.

In any case, yes, the auto-installer only checks for a folder called "setiathome.berkeley.edu" specifically; it will not work if it doesn't find it.

Hope all works out for you now.

Regards,
Simon.