Bug Report: Screensaver "decorations" disappearing.
5 Mar 2005 2:37:44 UTC
Topic 188270
(moderation:
Don't know if anyone else has experienced this, but I've noticed recently that the static parts of the Einstein screen saver (logo, user/search information) have developed a tendency to disappear after a seemingly random period of time - leaving just the celestial sphere.
I'm running BOINC v4.19 and Einstein v4.79. I don't recall this happening with the previous Einstein app, nor does it seem to occur with all WUs.
TTFN - Pete.
Bug Report: Screensaver "decorations" disappearing.
)
Are you sure it's not Pirates@Home?
They look similar, and some test WU's were recently let out on Pirates. Einstein @Home does not yet have the preference item enabled to turn off static graphics, but Pirates does.
- Eric Myers
Hi Eric, > Are you sure
)
Hi Eric,
> Are you sure it's not Pirates@Home?
Yep, 100% positive. Every time I've seen this happen it was definitely the "Einstein v4.79" app/screen saver which was running.
The only "Pirates" WUs I've had over the past couple of weeks were run by an application called "Yello 4.57"....which just generated a yellow screen. I do still have the "Scroll 4.67" and "Sextant 4.66" apps in my "Pirates" project folder though.
>....Einstein @Home does not yet have the preference item
>enabled to turn off static graphics, but Pirates does.
I do have the static graphics turned on by default in my Pirates preferences. As you say, no such option available in my "Einstein" prefs.
Could there be an interaction of some sort between the two projects which is causing this?
I never saw this happen with the previous "Einstein" app.
It's happened again a couple of times today BTW.
TTFN - Pete.
> Hi Eric, > > > Are you
)
> Hi Eric,
>
> > Are you sure it's not Pirates@Home?
>
> Yep, 100% positive. Every time I've seen this happen it was definitely the
> "Einstein v4.79" app/screen saver which was running.
Very strange. There is a switch in the screensaver code to turn off the static graphics, but there is nothing in the Einstein code to turn off that switch. The only thing I can think of is that some array is overflowing and making that switch (bool) true, which is not a good thing.
If this is on Windows, can you turn the static graphics back on with ctrl-B in the graphics window?
- Eric Myers
Hi Eric, >....The only
)
Hi Eric,
>....The only thing I can think of is that some array is
>overflowing and making that switch (bool) true, which is
>not a good thing.
Agreed, I used to be a programmer/hardware engineer (I specialised in various 8, 16 and 32-bit processor assembly languages, which is why I can't get a job now. :-( ) so I understand exactly what you're saying.
> If this is on Windows, can you turn the static graphics
>back on with ctrl-B in the graphics window?
Yes, it is Windows - Windows 2000 Pro, SP4 to be exact.
I haven't had occasion to try your suggestion yet as this problem hasn't re-occurred (so far) with the latest two WU's I've processed/am processing.
However, the problem did re-occur with both of the two I processed before those.
With one WU I left the screen saver running, to see what would happen, and after a few minutes the static graphics reappeared. Unfortunately I didn't time how long this took, but I'd estimate it was around 5 - 10 minutes.
With the other WU, ALL of the graphics had vanished - static graphics AND celestal sphere! The Einstein app was crunching away merrily without a problem though.
The problem with this one is that the problem occurred while I was away from my machine for several hours, so that's all I can tell you.
TTFN - Pete.
Hi, > I haven't had
)
Hi,
> I haven't had occasion to try your suggestion yet as
>this problem hasn't re-occurred (so far) with the latest
>two WU's I've processed/am processing.
Dammit, I knew I spoke too soon....
Not 10 mins after I posted the above, the Einstein screen saver kicked in and promptly froze up my machine completely. Processing had reached 24.86%.
No data seems to have been lost after rebooting and processing is continuing normally.
I've NEVER had such a lockup with BOINC before.
TTFN - Pete.