I am having problems downloading tasks from all of my computers except for one. The one that works fine is at a different site so it appears that the problem might be internet related at the site with most of my computers.
The computers will receive tasks and start downloading the work. When the computers try to download a file, it will start out fine and then after about maybe 5 seconds the data will just stall. Then BOINC waits for a timeout period before backing off that download while it tries another one.
I end up never getting the file even though it makes small amounts of progress over the course of weeks.

I get a lot of these messages:
3/27/2009 5:05:53 AM|climateprediction.net|Started download of HadISST_SST_N96_1990_12_1993_01.gz
3/27/2009 5:08:08 AM|climateprediction.net|Started download of 1990_12_init.gz
3/27/2009 5:14:08 AM||Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
3/27/2009 5:14:08 AM|climateprediction.net|Temporarily failed download of HadISST_SST_N96_1990_12_1993_01.gz: HTTP error
3/27/2009 5:14:08 AM|climateprediction.net|Backing off 1 hr 26 min 19 sec on download of HadISST_SST_N96_1990_12_1993_01.gz
3/27/2009 5:14:09 AM||Internet access OK - project servers may be temporarily down.
3/27/2009 5:16:36 AM||Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
3/27/2009 5:16:36 AM|climateprediction.net|Temporarily failed download of 1990_12_init.gz: HTTP error
3/27/2009 5:16:36 AM|climateprediction.net|Backing off 3 hr 38 min 21 sec on download of 1990_12_init.gz

Anyone else having this problem or have any ideas how to fix this?

Sounds like a firewall or proxy restriction to me. Create the file cc_config.conf in your BOINC data directory for one of your problem systems containing the following:

<cc_config>
	<log_flags>
		<http_debug>1</http_debug>
		<http_xfer_debug>1</http_xfer_debug>
	</log_flags>
</cc_config>

Then click <Advanced> - <Read config file> on the menu of BOINC manager\'s advanced view. That\'ll record the headers for the download attempts and hopefully shed a bit more light on the problem.

When you\'ve got the required information you can disable the debug messages by changing the values from \"1\" to \"0\" and re-reading the config file.

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"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Thanks for your response Thyme Lawn.

I did as you suggested and got the debug messages. I\'m not sure if I can post the whole list of messages but here is some of the messages that I think shows the problem happening:

3/30/2009 1:56:53 PM||[http_xfer_debug] HTTP: wrote 1260 bytes
3/30/2009 1:58:19 PM||[http_xfer_debug] HTTP: wrote 1260 bytes
3/30/2009 1:58:19 PM||[http_xfer_debug] HTTP: wrote 1260 bytes
3/30/2009 2:03:25 PM||[http_debug] [ID#1] info: Operation too slow. Less than 10 bytes/sec transfered the last 300 seconds
3/30/2009 2:03:25 PM||[http_debug] [ID#1] info: Expire cleared
3/30/2009 2:03:25 PM||[http_debug] [ID#1] info: Closing connection #4
3/30/2009 2:03:25 PM||[http_debug] HTTP error: Timeout was reached

It seems to be just as I thought... the file is downloading and then just stalls. BOINC then times out and moves on.

I am going to try and find out if something on my network here is stopping it.

If you want to see any more of the debug messages, let me know. Thanks again for your help!

That looks like something is throttling the connection, possibly once a particular number of bytes have been transferred.

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"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

I still am unable to find the cause of this issue. I am working with my ISP to try and determine if the problem is outside of my network or not. It is definitely some sort of network issue because I can take one of the computers having the problem and connect it to a different network with a different connection to the internet and it works fine.
Hopefully I can get this resolved soon...

Once BOINC has started a file upload you have 2 weeks in which to send it. After that BOINC gives up on it and the file disappears.

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