Missing Account Key, Wrong Computer Identified
26 Nov 2005 21:59:34 UTC
Topic 190241
(moderation:
I am having a terrible time switching to BOINC. I previously had the classic Seti@Home. I removed all that software, successfully installed BOINC 5.2.8 on my Macintosh with OS 10.3.9. I subscribed to both Seti and Einstein. I can't get either to work. Messages indicate MISSING ACCOUNT KEY for each. Yet, I have recieved account key emails for each account. (I even had Seti processing for half an hour before I accidently reset it.)
Also, in the process of my many attempts at installing BOINC and attching projects, BOINC created several versions of my computer. In the latest go-around, I merged 3 of them from my Seti web page preferences. However, Einstien preferences show it is attached to one of the computers that disappeared on Seti during the merge. So, now each project points to a different version of my computer. Is that part of my problem?
Current status is that both projects are attached, both indicate missing account keys, Seti shows up in the BOINC work tab as DOWNLOADING, and Einstein has never shown up in the work tab. They both show up on the Projects tab as SCHEDULER REQUEST PENDING. Only error messages are the missing account keys.
I think my problem may possibly be resource allocation even though the error messages say "account keys". I had to play with those setting in order to get Seti to work that first time. I have a large disk. BOINC is installed on a small partition of size 10 GB. I keep both projects set to the same allocation. Previously I used NO MORE THAN 2GB, leave 0.5GB, and 10%. I now upped that to 100GB, 1GB, and 10%. No effect from the change.
Oh. A minor problem is that none of the web site button links work on the Projects tab. I press a button such as Seti@Home or message boards and nothing happens. Those buttons are still missing when I highlight Einstein; they only show up when I highlight Seti.
Help!
Bud Simrin
Missing Account Key, Wrong Computer Identified
)
Bud,
A hearty welcome to Einstein@Home! I know there's confusion in the transition to BOINC-based DC projects, but you'll find here a very friendly, helpful group, seriously dedicated to furthering science, who will try to make your experience go as smoothly and effortlessly as possible. I beg you to be patient, because the core of experienced, most-knowledgeable folks are getting to be stretched thin and a little overwhelmed by the influx of ex-Classic crunchers, and that situation will probably not improve in the coming few weeks, as Classic closes up shop and the volume increases.
I'm not very well-versed in sign-in/attachment problems, so I'm being more a first-responder here, but I'd like to ask if, when you attached, did you create a password, as well as filling in the project url and account key. The 5.x.x versions of Boinc have gone to password recognition, so you'll need to create one and update. If you've already created a password, go back to your account page, go to "Change password", and re-enter it, save, and exit. Often, this will solve the problem. If not, check back here and you'll probably find that someone has more clearly explained things, and you can update us on the situation.
One thing that I hope will come as a pleasant surprise to you is that Einstein messageboards are nearly totally absent of insulting, derogatory content, it's simply not the way we behave.
Respects,
Michael
(edit) I'd also like to introduce you to the BOINC Wiki, an evolving wealth of information with terrific search functions.
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
Thanks, Michael. Resetting
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Thanks, Michael. Resetting Einstein password did immediately add Einstein to the Projects tab. Without looking at the Work tab I clicked on UPDATE, possibly a mistake. The work tab now says SCHEDULER REQUEST PENDING and there are no error messages, only REQUEST RESCHEDULE CPU: PROCESS EXITED and REQUEST RESCHEDULE CPU: PROJECT OP a few times each. Interestingly, the CPU time was immediately reported as 00:50:22 with 18.48% progress. So, this is a little bit of progress.
Seti fared about the same. A 2nd task was added to Seti on the Work tab and status of both tasks was SCHEDULER REQUEST PENDING. Thinking a 2nd task might not be good, I aborted the 2nd task.
As I write this, status of both Seti and Einstein has changed to Activities Suspended. The screen saver simply reports BOINC SUSPENDED.
Bud Simrin
Bud, (edit) My apologies,
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Bud,
(edit) My apologies, Bud. The directions I've given you below apply to Windows. I'm not Mac-literate, only enough to say that System Tray, Task Manager are not part of the Mac OS. Someone, most likely Bill Michael, who knows his way around there will surely come along soon to help. Best thing I could suggest is a reboot, and/or clicking on the "Commands" tab of the Manager interface and selecting one of the "Run" options. (end edit)
I'm glad that you found your footing so easily. To get the ball rolling again, I would suggest that you right-click on the Boinc icon in your System Tray (lower right corner of screen, the stylized gold-on-blue "B" icon). If "suspend" is checked there, just click on one of the "Run" options. If the icon isn't there in SysTray, either reboot or use Task Manager/Processes tab to exit all boinc, einstein, and seti operations. Then go to Start/all Programs/BOINC/BOINC Manager. On the GUI "Commands" tab, select one of the "Run" options.
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
Welcome to Einstein,
)
Welcome to Einstein, Bud...
In general, instructions for the Windows version are pretty close to the same as for the Mac. Just substitute "Dock" for "System Tray", and "Activity Monitor" for "Task Manager". So, I agree with "reboot, then restart BOINC", just to clear out any garbage that may be sitting around from attach attempts and the like.
I think the most important thing to say is 'one step at a time'. Hitting "reset", and "abort", and "detach", and things like that will only complicate things - I wouldn't even change anything on the web site unless you absolutely must at this point. You are _almost_ working, let's just do one minor thing at a time...
Don't worry about duplicate computers on the website yet. You can delete the "extras" _after_ you have gotten credit going. It's best to leave them alone until then. SETI and Einstein are two totally different databases, so don't worry about any confusion factor.
Let's start from the top - the Commands menu should (for right now) say "Run always" and "Network activity always available". Later you can go to "based on preferences", but I want to keep it simple.
Now, we'll look at one tab at a time. If at any point what you see doesn't match what I say, stop there and let me know, we'll need to fix whatever is different before going on. Projects: You should see SETI and Einstein. Their status is all that really matters, and should be "blank", or "communication deferred". You say they are saying "Scheduler request pending" - that shouldn't be there for more than a minute or so, if your Commands menu options are right. If it is stuck there, I'm going to have to scream for a developer to help...
Work: You should see one or more SETI results, and one or more Einstein results. If no Einstein yet, that's okay. This area is your "cache", so it's fine to have one, two, or ten SETI's in here, etc. The status on _almost_ all of them, assuming more than one or two, should say "Ready to run". One OR TWO should say "Running" (you have two CPUs... it's perfectly fine, and expected to run two results at a time). A few others may say "Preempted". Eventually we hope to see one _briefly_ say "uploading", and then it'll say "Ready to report". That means you'll have credit for it fairly soon. What we don't want to see is "uploading" for a very long time, or an error.
Transfers: You should see nothing. If you see anything in here that's trying to download, that could explain any other issues - until you have the Einstein application, etc., it's not going to work. If something is in here, it will retry (communication deferred) eventually, or you can hit the "Retry now" button. Once everything has downloaded and this tab is blank, that's good.
Messages: Any errors will pop up here. I'm going to be very "non PC"... The "Missing account key" message is garbage. A bug. I just attached my Mini to Rosetta to see what the new V5.x "attach wizard" was like on a Mac, I used the password (properly), it attached just fine - but I got this bright red garbage message anyway. Ignore it. If there is not a message about disk space, then your disk space issues are fine now.
Statistics: won't work until you've been using it for >3 days, so ignore.
Disk: Whoopie, tells you how much disk space each project is actually using. In my case, I show SETI at 1.32MB and Einstein at 13.22MB.
Let us know what "doesn't match" - and Michael, you don't get to hand this one entirely off to me, I may know the Mac side, but you're the Einstein guru!
RE: Bud, (edit) Best
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Michael, you're right on! There is a COMMANDS pull-down menu in the Mac BOINC application, and it has varius RUN options. When I select RUN ALWAYS, both Seti and Einstein immediately start working.
Now, if I understand this, I don't want BOINC projects to be running ALWAYS. I want them to stop when I am using the computer, and then work when I stop for 3 minutes or when I activate the screen saver. When I changed the RUN option back to RUN BASED ON PREFERENCES (which I specified to be 3 minutes of non-use), both projects stopped and status changed to ACTIVITIES PREEMPTED. The good news is that both projects started running again after 3 minutes of inactivity so I have about 90% of the behavior I would prefer! Thank you.
To get the last 10%, does anyone know if there is any way that activity could start right away if I invoke the screen saver manually by putting the cursor in the "sleep corner"? Currently, even with the screen saver manually enabled, the projects wait 3 minutes to start. Not terrible, but what I am after is getting the screen saver to show statistics and progress as I walk away from my computer.
Later I will also do some optimization of BOINC. On the Seti message board Bill Michael has already pointed me to software that purportedly provides a 3x speedup.
Bud Simrin
RE: Now, if I understand
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If that's what you really want, that's fine... but I will say that 99.9% of the people don't use that setting, because of the extremely low priority BOINC runs at - WAY below what SETI Classic used. I run SETI and Predictor on a slow G3 iBook with only 384MB, along with Safari, Mail, iChat, iTunes... and literally NEVER notice that it's there. It's even _more_ "invisible" on my Mini, and that's running SETI, Einstein, Predictor, and Rosetta.
UGH! Never having used the "3 min delay", I didn't realize the screensaver wouldn't bypass it. I know that if BOINC is _not_ running, the screensaver kicking in will activate it - so if you _only_ want to run when the screensaver is on, you could do away with the delay ("run even when busy" in prefs) but remove BOINC Manager from your Startup Items. Then whenever the screensaver kicks in, either by the sleep corner or by time (which you could set to 3 minutes...), BOINC would be started automatically in the background - and would stop when the screensaver stops. I would warn you that this approach means you cannot run Rosetta, because of a "leave in memory" issue. SETI and Einstein should be okay. If you manually launched BOINC Manager to check the status, or just to watch, or whatever, because the setting was "always", it would be running without you having to wait. Quit the Manager, and it would stop. (This is different from Windows, btw, where the Manager and boinc.exe are separate processes.) This is probably the behavior you're really after, where BOINC functions _as_ a screensaver, and not as a process that "happens to have" a screensaver.
Maybe only 2x... and only for SETI. The Einstein app is, believe it or not, ALREADY Altivec-optimized, courtesy of the project. No manual install of a special app required.
Bud, 1) You've done well
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Bud,
1) You've done well to have worked things out so quickly, hat's off to you.
2) One comment you made set off an alarm for me. "Both Seti and Einstein immediately start working". Is your Mac a dual-processor rig? If not, then there should never be more than 1 project, crunching 1 workunit, running - everything else should be pre-empted.
3) I'd prefer, for your ease, that you not yet undertake that ultimate 10%. There have been more than a few people we've had to help after their boxes crashed or froze when they were set to crunch immediately upon returning from screensaver mode. The adjustment you're after lies partly in setting up general preferences, and partly in adjusting power settings within Windows (here, substitute the equivalent Mac function).
Lastly, when Bill said "I may know the Mac side", he was being modest. On Mac matters, especially, Bill gives amazingly concise, accurate, and complete advice; he is a fountain of knowledge, so heed his advice well.
I know my way around within the PC/Windows environment, period. My knowledge of Einstein is...adequate and growing, certainly not at the "guru" level, lol. What I've learned so far has almost in it's entirety been gleaned from reading carefully what has worked for others here on the help boards. I've barely cracked the surface of the BoincWiki, so you could say that I've learned just enough to know that there is much more to learn. Of Boinc, I know only some of the Einstein/Boinc/Windows combo, and have no experience outside that limited range.
(edited for speallink) :-}
Hmm, I see that Bill covered it well while I was taking an eternity to compose.
('nother edit) Bill, is 4.82 Altivec-optimized? Or, is AltiVec part of the instruction set in his Mac? I ask this because Bud's host's benchmarks are not in line with what I've seen of other optimized Macs. Never mind, just recalled that it's the science app that's AV optimized, not Boinc, which handles benchmarking.
microcraft
"The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice" - MLK
A few comments to
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A few comments to Michael:
Yep. Dual G4. That was buried in my answer somewhere because I did the same double-take when he talked about having two running and aborting one, so I checked.
It's actually a lot easier on the Mac side. I would be afraid to recommend it on Windows, but if it works at all, which he already said it does, it shouldn't be an issue on the Mac... there certainly isn't the "beta issue".
Bah. You underestimate your ability to help Mac folks, because we're already used to "translating" from Windowsese. I've grinned a time or two when people I know have Macs get answers from you, or some of the other Einstein "regulars" - I read 'em, and unless _I_ have trouble translating, or the answer really is totally "not Mac" (like beta app) I don't even bother to comment. The users understand fine. And I think with the exception of the developers themselves, we've ALL learned everything we know from the Wiki and the boards...
Backing up and looking at
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Backing up and looking at something that was missed from the very first post...
If you use Safari as your default browser, go to Preferences/General, and at the bottom it should have "Open links from applications:". Try setting that to "in a new window" and see if it solves the problem. If so, once they work, you should be able to switch it back to "new tab" if that's what you prefer. If you don't use Safari as your default browser, the buttons won't work (I think), but you can try running Safari and looking at the preferences anyway, they are supposed to be set in Safari and applied to whatever is your default, so that might fix it...
I just tried everything I could think of to make it NOT work, but failed. It worked every time. Maybe a 10.3.9 vs 10.4 issue? No idea. I have the places I normally go bookmarked anyway.
RE: 2) One comment you
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Bud Simrin