Adding a new/another computer to your account

Chevelle69SS396
Chevelle69SS396
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Topic 206148

 

Hi.........Can someone tell me how to add an additional computer to my account?  Thanks!

archae86
archae86
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That one is easy. The first

That one is easy.

The first thing you want to do is to download and install BOINC.  I, personally, usually just type "Donwload BOINC" into a search window, and more likely than not near the top of the first page is a link to download the boinc client.  Be sure to get the right one for your OS, and such.  Install it.   Once you have BOINC running, it makes it easy for you to attach projects.  To build up your existing fleet on a particular project, you'll need to log in, which generally means supplying the same e-mail and password you used before for that particular project.

What step are you having trouble with?

Chevelle69SS396
Chevelle69SS396
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Thanks that worked.  I have

Thanks that worked.  I have another question, tho, I now get an error message on the BOINC Manager that says "Unable to connect to the core client" and Password is incorrect.  How do I fix those?  And the current BOINC manager is way different then my previous on and NOT user friendly. The menu items are all grayed out and don't function.

Thanks, Frank Gaber

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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Chevelle69SS396 wrote:... I

Chevelle69SS396 wrote:
... I now get an error message on the BOINC Manager that says "Unable to connect to the core client" and Password is incorrect.  How do I fix those?

It sounds like you have managed to corrupt the contents of the file gui_rpc_auth.cfg that holds a 'password' (32 character string by default) that both BOINC and BOINC Manager normally use for authentication purposes when communicating.  The file is in the BOINC data directory which I think is hidden on Windows.  Do you remember doing anything with this file?

To recover, you could edit the contents of this file to contain a simpler password of your own choosing.  The contents should be just a simple text string with no extra <cr> <lf> type characters at the end.  After doing that, if you completely stop and restart BOINC, the new password should be read during startup.  Then run the Manager and it should read and use the same new password and connect without any fuss.  If after doing that you still have problems, try googling for "boinc manager incorrect password" and see if you can find one of the many hits that matches your situation.

Chevelle69SS396 wrote:
And the current BOINC manager is way different then my previous on and NOT user friendly. The menu items are all grayed out and don't function.

Your other computer is running BOINC V6.10.58 which is really ancient.  At the end of V6 (6.12.something I think) there was a major change to V7 with lots of information and comments at the time to try to smooth the transition.  So it's little wonder that you are seeing big changes.  The current versions ARE user friendly! They're just a bit picky about who their friends are :-).

If you think about it, the whole purpose of the Manager is to provide a friendly, easy to use method of twiddling all the various knobs that the client has.  If proper communication between the manager and client can't be established, of course all those knobs will be grayed out.  If you restore a usable password and get them talking, everything should then be available.

Because of the big changes that have occurred over the years, it would really help you to become comfortable with the current interface by reading the user manual.  It has lots of useful images to show you all the available functions.  Please make sure you look at both the simple view and the advanced view for BOINC Manager and understand them both before choosing which one is best for you.  I suspect that you are now seeing the default simple view whereas your old V6.10.58 would have been essentially what is now the advanced view which is perhaps why the new look came as a bit of a shock to you :-).

With regard to your old installation on your other machine, are you still intending to run it?  If not, can you please abort the remaining tasks and return them before shutting it down.  If you are still intending to run it, you should set NNT (no new tasks) and let it finish and return the ones it currently has.  That's just as a precaution for upgrading BOINC on that machine to the current version.  You really should upgrade so that you don't have two totally different interfaces to deal with.  I don't remember the details of the V6 to V7 transition but do know it was quite a big deal at the time.  After you've returned all the V6 tasks, just try a new install 'over the top' and see what happens.  I don't remember if you are supposed to uninstall the old version first with this special upgrade - normally you don't need to.  With any sort of luck, your machine will get its shiny new makeover but retain the existing project(s) and files.  I seem to remember that you really do need to reboot after this particular upgrade before you can start running BOINC again.

Best of luck with coming to terms with the new interface :-).

 

 

Cheers,
Gary.

Chevelle69SS396
Chevelle69SS396
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Gary..........I just followed

Gary..........I just followed all of the prompts for upgrading to the latest version of BOINC and never saw or inputted anything into any file.  I have NO idea on how to access the file in the BOINC data directory or edit it.

As for my other computer, it just died and does not boot up, function or anything.  I'm going to make the rash assumption that my new/current machine will process all of the downloaded tasks?  If not, I will have to cross that bridge at a later time.

Thanks, Frank

 

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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Chevelle69SS396

Chevelle69SS396 wrote:
Gary..........I just followed all of the prompts for upgrading to the latest version of BOINC and never saw or inputted anything into any file.  I have NO idea on how to access the file in the BOINC data directory or edit it.

Your original message said you wanted to add "an additional computer" to your account.  You didn't say anything about your first computer so I couldn't know that it had failed recently.  I'm sorry that happened so just ignore my previous comments about aborting the in-progress work.  The tasks will be recycled in due course anyway, so there's nothing to be concerned about.  They will not be transferred to your new machine.  They will be sent out to some other host after they expire on your old machine.

As your new machine wasn't previously running BOINC, you have done a new install and not an upgrade so everything should have been straight forward.  As part of a new install, a number of files get created in various folders on your machine.  One of those files is called gui_rpc_auth.cfg and it is placed in the BOINC data folder.  Normally, you wouldn't need to know about it or touch it in any way.  However, if BOINC Manager is still complaining about an incorrect password, you will need to do something to rectify the problem along the lines of what I posted previously.  Are you still getting that complaint???

I just had a look at the tasks list for your new machine.  It received those tasks over two days ago and none have been crunched and returned.  There has been no contact with the servers since receiving those initial tasks.  It looks like BOINC may not have been running during the last two days.  If you think it should be running, can you try rebooting your computer.  If BOINC is not setup to start automatically when your computer starts, can you launch BOINC and try contacting it though BOINC Manager to see if you still get a complaint about the password?

I'm happy to try to assist you get BOINC working well on your new machine.  Since I can't see what you see and since I haven't used Windows in over 10 years, I really can't visualise the screens you see during a new installation.  In the user manual I linked to previously, there is a complete page about installing BOINC.  There seem to be quite a few options during the install process so some of the explanation there might be useful.

 

 

Cheers,
Gary.

Chevelle69SS396
Chevelle69SS396
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Gary.............Thanks for

Gary.............Thanks for all your help and info.  Everything seems to be working just fine now.

 

Frank

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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Frank, No problem at all. 

Frank,

No problem at all.  I'm glad everything is working well for you now.

Cheers,
Gary.

Cheers,
Gary.

Billy Russell
Billy Russell
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Good evening ladies and

Good evening ladies and gents. I have added an i5 laptop to my account. (My shoulder is aching winding the old one's 'crankshaft' ;) Downloaded BOINC fine and the i5 looked to be running ok then soon after, got a flashing red, Notice with the following. "This project is using an old URL. When convenient, remove the project, then add http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/ ". May I ask some stupid questions? Do I proceed as per the Notice advise? If I do, will it affect my old lap, as coincidentally, I seem to be having difficulty inputting my password? I read somewhere that our connections are encrypted but I have always presumed the "http: part should be "https"? Apologies for my tech ignorance but can someone have a look please and advise me what to do? Thanks. BR

 

Gary Roberts
Gary Roberts
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I have no idea about this

I have no idea about this "Notice".  Your computer has been downloading work since June 15 so it seems to be able to contact and interact with the project OK.  The latest task was received earlier today (June 18).  The concern is you don't mention anything about the tasks being crunched?  Is your machine running the tasks?  If so, how many are running and what is the % complete for each one as shown in BOINC Manager?  Have any been completed?  Is there any problem uploading results?

When you say, "can someone have a look please", I'm not sure what you expect us to look at :-).  Your tasks list just shows a list of 12 tasks that have been sent to your computer as being "in progress".  You have to look on your machine and tell us what the progress is.  You should use BOINC Manager - Advanced view - and look at the task tab to see what is happening.  You should also look at the event log, particularly at all the messages when BOINC starts up.  That may give you a clue as to what is going on.

There is a pinned topic at the top of this forum about how to use the server logs for problem diagnosis.  I had a look at the latest entry for the most recent contact by your computer.  It was the one earlier today where you got a new task.  There is nothing there to indicate any particular problem for CPU tasks.  There is information there as to why you can't get any GPU tasks for your internal Intel GPU - your driver version and GPU model isn't one of the 'known good' combinations.

You should either set your preferences to not use the Intel GPU or if you really want to use it, you should enable beta (test) tasks so that the scheduler doesn't enforce the test for 'known good' combinations.  However, if I were you, I'd get the CPU tasks working before worrying about the Intel GPU.  Your biggest concern should be about heat generation if you run all your cores with CPU tasks.  How good is your laptop cooling solution?

 

Cheers,
Gary.

Nightwish
Nightwish
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Well, I'm back after my hard

Well, I'm back after my hard drive went on my last laptop. Now I am running BOINC with all of my old projects, but I can't seem t attach to Einstein@Home. I updated my account information, and attempted to connect through project manager. What am I missing here? 

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