Another new one to test for Linux, Mac and Windows

REMINDER TO ALL ALPHA TESTERS:
It's far easier for us to fix problems if you send message logs with the appropriate flags set. The main flags are:

<cpu_sched_debug>: problems involving the choice of applications to run.
<work_fetch_debug>: problems involving work fetch (which projects are asked for work, and how much).
<rr_simulation>: problems involving jobs being run in high-priority mode.

Use these flags from the cc_config.xml file.

Report any problems you get with it to the Alpha email list. This list needs registration.


The major change for the release and the reason for this release is the addition of the CPU Usage monitor configuration item in the advanced preferences dialog. We needed this to be available since most projects haven't upgraded their server software to support this preference item yet. Please try several different settings to see how it works. Please keep in mind it may take up to 20+ seconds before it engages.

----- Rom

Specifically, the item is:
"Computing allowed
... While processor usage is less than ___ percent".

The default is 25%, meaning that BOINC will stop computing if non-BOINC CPU usage exceeds 25%. Either 100 or 0 remove the restriction and let BOINC compute whenever it otherwise would.

- WINSCR: cleanup configuration dialog text.

- Mac SS: change configuration dialog text to match new Windows wording.

- Mac installer: If installing an acct_mgr_url.xml file, don't install it directly into the BOINC Data directory. Instead, put it into the installer's resources and have the postinstall or postupgrade script copy it to the BOINC Data directory. This fixes a problem which would happen if the user later ran the standard BOINC installer without an acct_mgr_url.xml file: the Apple installer would then delete the file, causing BOINC to detach from the account manager.

- Mac Installer: add .txt extension to copyright files in GUI installer extras.

- Mac Installer: Fix receipt name for GridRepublic installer so we can remove it.

- graphics API: if font missing, find one that isn't (from Kevin)

- client: if GPU get available RAM fails, don't use the GPU

- client: detect CPU information via the cpuid instruction instead of the registry. This change is only for Windows but I haven't tested this with GCC.

- client: undo [17160]. <ncpus>0</ncpus> in cc_config.xml no longer means simulate zero CPUs. There are several places that divide by ncpus. Zero CPUs doesn't make any sense anyway.

- client: some more CPU detection cleanup.

- client: if a project is anonymous platform and it has no app versions that use a resource, don't request work from it for that resource.

- client: include CPU usage of client in BOINC total. Also include manager if its name includes "boinc" (can't figure out another way)

- manager: first whack at "suspend if CPU load exceeds x" in dialog

- screensaver: fix bug where sometimes no tasks are shown;

change font sizes for max of 2 sizes at a time

- client: don't accumulate LTD for projects w/ suspended jobs

- API: in txfRenderString, replace non-ASCII chars with ?. Otherwise it calls abort()!

- client: fix bug in "suspend if CPU load too high" feature. Forgot to convert between fraction and percentage

Following hot on the heels of 34, we now have 6.10.35. As there isn't too much in this release it doesn't deserve its own message thread.

Changes since 6.10.34

This release contains the following three fixes:

- MGR: Fix a long-standing bug that made sizers fail on Mac for Advanced Preferences dialog: I added bSizer1->Fit(this) to end of constructor. To work around this bug, the dialog had been made resizeable and the height and width were saved in the Manager settings. But this meant that when we add an item to the dialog, it is too small until the user expands it. And Modal dialogs like this should not be resizeable. I also made the dialog no longer resizeable by the user. Remove second "between" in "Switch between applications between every".

- WIN: Add some missing CPU features to the feature list

- WIN: Make sure the Brand string for a CPU is printable. Older Intel processors have some control characters.

6.10.36 is out now.

Change log since 6.10.35

This release contains the following fixes:

- MGR: Save and restore height and width of Properties dialog; fix comments.

- client: if suspend a file xfer, set upload_offset to -1; that way it will query server for file length when it resumes, rather than uploading from the beginning

- client: if have coproc jobs but coproc is missing, skip those jobs in RR sim. Otherwise we add stuff to uninitialized data structures, and a crash can result.

- client: initialize the above data structures anyway

- client: fix bug that interfered with work fetch for particular resources in anonymous platform case.

This now the Recommended (by BOINC.berkeley) version. For those who are running older versions please consider upgrading.
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BOINC blog

This now the Recommended (by BOINC.berkeley) version. For those who are running older versions please consider upgrading.

Fixes: Properly display project descriptions on Windows XP machines in the attach to project wizard.

Though UCB denies the issue I have had a system at 25% suspend randomly even while I was sleeping and thus not using the system 14 times over a 3 day period ... so ... upgrade with caution ... :)

According to the guys on the mailing list it seems 6.10.36 got pulled because they found a couple of fixes which had been done to the wrong source tree.

Yesterday I found that a change David had made in trunk had not been back-ported to the 6.10 branch.

It was a bug with the suspend/resume functionality, which might explain the Linux menu bug.

I pulled the builds since the last public release until I could finish an audit of the differences between trunk and the 6.10 branch to see if anything else was missing.

I found only one unaccounted for change, which led to discovering a different bug in trunk. After I get both fixes back-ported to the 6.10 branch I'll be putting together a new build and release to alpha testing.

The only problem is that it will suspend when there is no one on the system... and it suspends all tasks on all cores. INstead of only freeing one or more cores, it suspends all ... and the 25% limit is also low ...

It slowed one of my tasks down, unnecessarily. OK, I was using more than 25% (well actually hovering around 25%, dipping over and below). The result; many stop-starts, lengthy logs and overall slowdown of task by about 25%.

That said, it might have been saving people with CC1.1 cards from crashes.

I'd really only activate it if you need to avoid a performance hit in some other application. For general use or power crunching it's obviously no good.

MrS
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Scanning for our furry friends since Jan 2002

The new layout in Boinc Manager is a bit disorientating; the “While processor usage is less than 25%” is set to 25% by default, and could be seen as either separate to, or related to “Use GPU while computer is in use”.

Add a couple of double negatives and we would need to do professional Boinc courses to configure such settings.

It would make more sense to have a GPU Tab under which to configure the GPU!

6.10.39 is out for Windows. I haven't tried it and don't have any details on whats in it yet.

Apparently .38 crashes so don't bother trying it.
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BOINC blog

Only 6.10.37 is listed here,
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php
6.10.39 is not listed.

:)
6.10.39 Installed without any issues.
Only obvious change is the table style layout (everything is underlined).

Under the Messages Tab there is a Button to "Show only this project", useful.
I think this is recent as I have not noticed it before, but I only had V 6.10.37 on for about 2days.

Under the Messages Tab there is a Button to "Show only this project", useful.