After upgrading BOINC all uncompleted tasks gone
5 May 2013 7:54:03 UTC
Topic 196941
(moderation:
After upgrading BOINC to a newer version I found out all my uncompleted tasks gone. Why don’t you have specific instructions how to upgrade that program? In the message I received there is no single word how to upgrade. (Should I uninstall the previous version? Should I complete all uncompleted tasks before installing a newer version?) There was just a link (http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php)
Please fix it.
Best regards,
Val
After upgrading BOINC all uncompleted tasks gone
)
This is the Einstein@home project forum, they don't make Boinc, so they won't fix it, althrough they might report problems back to the developers, the Boinc forum is where you'd report Boinc problems.
Installing Boinc is simple, just run the Installer, it doesn't matter if you're uninstalled the old version first or not, the Boinc Data directory is left untouched,
Looking at your hosts you now have two hosts, one which had Boinc 7.0.28, and one which has 7.0.64, eithier there's been some corruption when you're installed 7.0.64 (very unlikely),
or you're installed to a different Boinc Data directory, did you have to re-attach to Einstein and your other project?
Claggy
Dear Claggy, I am afraid,
)
Dear Claggy,
I am afraid, there was indeed as you said some corruption during installation as I only have one host with 7.0.64 version. It was long ago and has nothing to do with the current situation. Of course, I did re-attach the Einstein project. However, I chose another logical drive (not the system disk) for data supposing that the program itself would “import†my uncompleted tasks. Nothing of the kind. You see, developers should take into account this such behavior (Boinc itself gave me that option). Okay, in the future I will be more careful.
Best regards,
Val
RE: I am afraid, there was
)
If you check your account page on the website and click on the 'view computers' link, you will find that you do indeed have two computers attached to this project.
There has been no 'corruption' as you call it - you simply have two different 'identities' for the one computer. You will be able to merge these and this should allow you to recover the tasks that were assigned to the previous identity. To do this, you need to view your computers and then select the details link for your most recent computer ID. On the bottom of the details page, you will find a 'merge' link for you to use.
What was long ago?
And that's where your second host ID came from. When you installed the new version of BOINC, the installer couldn't find the previous installation files. So there was no way for the installer to find and use the previous host ID.
For future reference, to achieve what you desire (the new install finding and using the previous setup with all the unfinished tasks) you have a couple of options. The simple one is NOT to change the location of the BOINC data directory. The more complicated one (where you want to change the location of the data directory) is to firstly uninstall the old version, then move the data directory (and all its contents) to the intended new location, being careful not to alter ownership and permissions, and then run the new installer, telling it of the new location when the appropriate dialog box is displayed.
The BOINC Devs have actually invested a lot of effort into making the installer as robust and comprehensive as they reasonably can. It's years since I've actually done a Windows installation (I use Linux) and my (possibly faulty) recollection is that there are warnings during the installation process about what might happen if the user specifies a non-standard location for the data directory.
Obviously current installers might be quite different from what I last used. The next time you run the installer, read all the dialog boxes carefully to see if there was some clue that you perhaps overlooked. One way that the installer could guard against your problem would be to actually ask you at some point if you were doing a brand new install or an upgrade of a previous install. If you answer 'upgrade' the installer could complain if it can't find the previous installation data directory. I don't know if current installers actually do something like this and you somehow managed to avoid the check. If you need to bring this to the attention of the BOINC Devs then do as Claggy suggests.
Cheers,
Gary.
Dear Gary, Thank you for
)
Dear Gary,
Thank you for taking your time to carefully discuss all the aspects of that matter. I shall read your reply tomorrow as now I am short of time.
Cheers.