BOINC Screen saver stopped working

Jim Newton
Jim Newton
Joined: 24 Mar 09
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Topic 194295

Any help available on this? The BOINC screen saver stopped working on my computer. The screen saver attempts to load (I briefly see a new window with the star globe on it) and then fails. After failing the desktop will remain on the screen for hours.

I've downloaded and installed the latest NVida drivers - no change in behavior. This has been going on for a week now. It started after the Einsteins file servers crashed.

Thanks in advance - Jim

Bikeman (Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein)
Bikeman (Heinz-...
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BOINC Screen saver stopped working

Hi!

You should have subdirectories like slots/0 and slots/1 under your BOINC data directory. Once you see the screensaver fail, one of those two subdirectories should contain a freshly modified file stderrgfx.txt . Can you tell us what the contents of the file looks like after a screensaver failure?

Also, in your web preferences settings, you can select a graphics quality setting (low, medium high). What is your current setting? If it's not low, you might want to try that one.

CU

Bikeman

Jim Newton
Jim Newton
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Thanks for responding.

Thanks for responding. Here's the contents of slot/0/stderrfx.txt

No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@fps
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@quality
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@width
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@height
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@fps
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@quality
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@width
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@height

Something must have clobbered the preferences file. I'm running Windows XP so I doubt that XP understands XPath.

The screen saver does load if I click on the "Show Graphics" button under the "Tasks" tab of the BOINC manager.

Jim Newton
Jim Newton
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I'm also finding entries like

I'm also finding entries like these in the boinc/stdoutgui.txt file:

4:15:09 PM: Error: Can't load image from file 'projects/einstein.phys.uwm.edu/stat_icon': file does not exist.
4:15:09 PM: Error: Can't load image from file 'projects/einstein.phys.uwm.edu/slideshow_einstein_S5R5_00': file does not exist.
4:15:09 PM: Error: Can't load image from file 'projects/einstein.phys.uwm.edu/slideshow_einstein_S5R5_01': file does not exist.

The projects/einstein.phys.uwm.edu path exists, but the files aren't in that path.

Bikeman (Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein)
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Thank you very much for the

Thank you very much for the report, the devs are looking into the issue at the moment. Stay tuned

Bikeman

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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The problem has been

The problem has been identified - an incompatibility between the graphics module and BOINC 6. This particular problem is not with BOINC so a new Windows science app package is being rolled out to correct it. You will probably already have noticed version 3.05 (replacing the recently released 3.04) arriving with one of your recent new work requests.

Cheers,
Gary.

Ensor
Ensor
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Hi, RE: The problem

Message 92432 in response to message 92431

Hi,

Quote:
The problem has been identified - an incompatibility between the graphics module and BOINC 6.... ...You will probably already have noticed version 3.05 (replacing the recently released 3.04) arriving with one of your recent new work requests.

That's what I call service....I just came on here to report the exact same problem, to find it's laready been solved! :-)

TTFN - Pete.


Meldric
Joined: 1 Aug 18
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This same thing just happens

This same thing just happens to me with the latest version of BOINC.

stderr.txt:

...

2021-02-22 15:44:11.3980 (18108) [normal]: Start of BOINC application 'C:\ProgramData\BOINC\projects\einstein.phys.uwm.edu\einstein_O2MD1_2.09_windows_x86_64__GWnew.exe'.
Activated exception handling...
15:44:11 (18108): Can't open init data file - running in standalone mode
2021-02-22 15:44:11.4000 (18108) [CRITICAL]: ERROR: no result file has been specified

...

stderrgfx.txt:

...

15:43:45 (7544): Can't open init data file - running in standalone mode
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@fps
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@quality
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@width
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@height
15:43:45 (7544): Can't open init data file - running in standalone mode
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@fps
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@quality
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@width
No node found using XPath expression: /project_preferences/graphics/@height
15:43:45 (7544): Can't open init data file - running in standalone mode
15:43:45 (7544): Can't open init data file - running in standalone mode

...

Running on Windows 10.
Graphics do work if I start them from BOINC-Manager for any given workunit.
I have uninstalled BOINC, deleted ALL local files, reinstalled and the screensaver worked exactly once. Next start (after 5 Minutes of idle) produced this error again.

EDIT:
I changed the settings here on the website (1920x1080, 60 fps)... refreshed the project in BOINC-Manager and it worked... extactly once. Now it is broken again.
:-(

mikey
mikey
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Meldric wrote: This same

Meldric wrote:

This same thing just happens to me with the latest version of BOINC.

EDIT:
I changed the settings here on the website (1920x1080, 60 fps)... refreshed the project in BOINC-Manager and it worked... extactly once. Now it is broken again.
:-( 

There is a whole thread about the Einstein screen saver here https://einsteinathome.org/content/new-graphics-build perhaps that would be a better place to find an answer to your problem. At least people there talk about the screen saver all the time.

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