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Procedure for Installing BOINC updates

Procedure for Installing BOINC updates

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old_user470806

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Message 31341 - Posted: 13 Nov 2007, 7:59:18 UTC

Those who know the recommended procedure for installing a BOINC update should post a \"sticky\" message that discloses what it is. Until that happens, my computer will continue running the version of BOINC that is currently installed. Obviously, updates must not be very important, or a procedure for installing them over the existing software would be explained in the FAQ and/or in some message prominently posted near the beginning of the messages on this board. Searching for keywords like \"update\", \"upgrade\", \"new version\", etc. finds nothing.


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Message 31342 - Posted: 13 Nov 2007, 8:06:29 UTC
Last modified: 13 Nov 2007, 8:22:42 UTC


It is mentioned in a few places already:

NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS thread / (3rd Sept):
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?p=67806#67806


README files / Crashes and other problems / Boinc :
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=5896

\"If you update Boinc, make sure that you install it in the same location as the existing copy of Boinc.\"

\"Don\'t install BBC variant if you already use boinc, attach instead\"


You might want to take a backup first, in which case README files / Backup and Restore
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=5895


The links for READMEs and NEWS are in my sig and elsewhere, including the \'Information about running the climate models\' which is sticky in this forum.


Finally, there is the question \'Is it actually WORTH upgrading\'? to which there isn\'t any advice on these links. Personally I like keeping up with the updates simply because I want to see what\'s different, but there is little advantage in using anything more recent than 5.8.16.

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Message 31344 - Posted: 13 Nov 2007, 9:35:52 UTC


At all times, the advice has been that BOINC MUST be Exited from first.

Up until a few weeks ago, the recommended procedure was to download the new version in the same place as the old version, \"over the top\" of the old version.
(Unless the \'current\' version is a completly obsolete version 4.*, in which case the curent version MUST be Uninstalled first!)

Since Vista\'s conflicts with BOINC have become known, the new recommendation is to NOT install BOINC in: C:\\Program Files but elsewhere. e.g. C:\\BOINC.
Which will necessitate Uninstalling BOINC, moving the BOINC folder to the new location, and then installing the new version of BOINC there.

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Message 31351 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 0:35:20 UTC - in response to Message 31342.  


It is mentioned in a few places already:


You missed the point, namely, that it isn\'t mentioned in THIS section of the message board, as far as I can determine. Oddly enough, I checked the \"News & Announcements\" section before looking for update instructions on this part of the board, but there was nothing among the most recent messages about the new update. Just how much time and effort do you think that we should be both able and willing to expend in order to find such basic information as a software update procedure?? And why isn\'t the information either in the FAQ, or described in a \"sticky\" message SPECIFICALLY about UPDATING BOINC?? How many message boards do you guys have?? I used the Search feature to look for \"BOINC update\" (entered in quotation marks) on the board accessed by the following URL:


NEWS and ANNOUNCEMENTS thread / (3rd Sept):
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?p=67806#67806


The query returned 59 pages of messages -- 2,916 \"matches\". It apparently returned every message in which \"BOINC\" (without the quote marks) was found and every message in which \"update\" (without the quote marks) was found, and perhaps every message in which both were mentioned, but whether any of them contained the string \"BOINC update\" (without the quote marks), I did not investigate. Message #67806 might have been returned as one of the \"matches\", but how much time and effort do you expect us to expend in order to find it??

Apparently being expected to spend a lot of time and effort hunting for information is one reason that people eventually abandon running BOINC and the climate models. If I ever meet the jackass who originally designed the \"search\" feature to function the way that I described, an assinine design that has been copied by countless lazy programmers since, I\'m going to beat him to within an inch of his life in revenge for all of the time and effort I\'ve wasted during the past 40 years while using his so-called \"search\" routine.


README files / Crashes and other problems / Boinc :
http://www.climateprediction.net/board/viewtopic.php?t=5896

\"If you update Boinc, make sure that you install it in the same location as the existing copy of Boinc.\"

\"Don\'t install BBC variant if you already use boinc, attach instead\"


Gee, does a software update qualify as a \"crash\" or as \"(an)other problem\"?? You have one line of advice buried toward the bottom of a long page of hyperlinks interspersed with lines that aren\'t hyperlinks. Is that all that we need to know?? Should we overwrite existing files?? Are there any files that are in the BOINC directory or among its subdirectories, but are not included in the update distribution?? If so, then what do we do about them??


The links for READMEs and NEWS are in my sig and elsewhere, including the \'Information about running the climate models\' which is sticky in this forum.


Frankly, I never read a \"sig\" that is more complicated than mine. The links to which you refer don\'t display as hyperlinks in the sig (as far as I can see), but the main problem is that they are illegible to me without a magnifying glass. I don\'t mean to take out my frustration on you personally, but, IMHO, this project is not very well managed. Too much time and effort is required just to find the most basic, essential information, and resolving more complex problems becomes next to impossible.

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Message 31354 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 3:10:16 UTC

I, for one, take offense at your tone.

Moderators are volunteers, otherwise participants like yourself (though with a bit more tolerance for imperfection).

The amount of time and effort spent by the others to make the WIKI, Q&A, Stickies, et al -- on sundry CPDN Bulletin Boards -- is considerable. That it fails to meet your exacting standards is regrettable. But, as we lack omnipotence, we haven\'t yet put all the ducks in line. Perhaps with the next brood...

Perhaps you\'d like to volunteer to do all that?

By the way, did the Mods miss the point or could you, perish the thought, have been inexplicit?

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Message 31357 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 3:55:00 UTC
Last modified: 14 Nov 2007, 4:04:04 UTC

I think there really should be click-by-click instructions on how to upgrade on the boinc download page. I\'ve looked before and couldn\'t find any. It might have to be explained separately for Windows, Linux and Mac. I have to say that a few years ago when I realised for the first time that I needed to upgrade my boinc version, I put off doing it for several months because at the time I had no idea what to do.

When I have time I\'ll check the boinc download pages again and if necessary post a BOINC Trac ticket requesting detailed instructions about how to upgrade.

Anyway, my version of boinc on this computer needs an upgrade. When I do this, probably on Friday or at the weekend, I\'ll write out the exact instructions from beginning to end for Windows and put them into a post which I\'ll link to in the Running the Model README. When I\'ve finished that I\'ll say so in this thread.

But if I\'m delayed in doing that, please be patient. I work on Wed and Thurs and currently have three French students staying.

The reason some of us drag these heavy sigs around is that we contributed to writing the READMEs and know they are the most comprehensive and detailed source of information available about running all types of climate model.
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Message 31359 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 5:08:21 UTC

These are the instructions at the BOINC website http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ReleaseNotes#install.
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Message 31361 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 8:39:53 UTC - in response to Message 31351.  
Last modified: 14 Nov 2007, 13:00:10 UTC

...

Frankly, I never read a \"sig\" that is more complicated than mine. The links to which you refer don\'t display as hyperlinks in the sig (as far as I can see), but the main problem is that they are illegible to me without a magnifying glass. ...


This is the link, at least on my normal browser (Opera) it displays as large as other normal text on the page. I deliberately set the text in the two links bigger than the rest of the signature.


Does it display differently for you?


Secondly, if every single little thing had its own sticky post, there would be dozens, and nobody would be able to find normal posts. I presume you\'ve upgraded before, based on an earlier forum posting (to an early 5.10 version), did that upgrade work OK?

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Message 31363 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 11:02:18 UTC
Last modified: 14 Nov 2007, 11:08:23 UTC

Hi Pwillener

Thanks for the link. I was aware of these instructions and know that they\'re linked to from the boinc download page, but I do think that some first-time boinc upgraders need more explanations and instructions than are provided there. My intention is to provide this in a README post as soon as I have time. Ideally of course CPDN wouldn\'t need to provide this - step-by step instructions would be on the boinc page.

Hi Stardance

I, like MikeMars, need to know whether my sig displays normal size or not.
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Message 31364 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 11:46:46 UTC
Last modified: 14 Nov 2007, 11:51:05 UTC

well in my firefox both your sigs show as the same size as the normal text AND in bold AND underlined!!

You can take a horse to water but you can\'t make it drink ;)

edit: same in IE as well.
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Message 31368 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 14:31:22 UTC - in response to Message 31351.  

...
Oddly enough, I checked the \"News & Announcements\" section before looking for update instructions on this part of the board, but there was nothing among the most recent messages about the new update.
...


We post messages about the major updates (5.8 -> 5.10, etc), but unless there\'s something important in a particular minor release we don\'t usually bother. I recently posted details of a Mac update in the Mac forum because of an important bug fix which was specific for Macs only, and when there is a stable release of 5.10.30 or later I\'ll post that on the main thread because it contains an important fix for xC0000142 errors.


How many message boards do you guys have??
...


Rather a lot ...

CPDN Boinc boards
BBC/CCE Boinc boards
SAP Boinc boards
Beta Boinc boards
And finally the most important one, the shared phpBB board.


I'm a volunteer and my views are my own.
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Message 31373 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 17:01:56 UTC

Stardance,

As a historical aside, there have been two projects processing CPDN models: climateprediction.net and the BBC Climate Change Experiment. In order to simplify the BOINC experience for first-time crunchers on the \'BBC\' a number of changes were made to the installation procedure, including changing the destination folder from the BOINC default. This resulted in BOINC upgrades causing models to disappear and the general advice to BBC participants was therefore not to upgrade. Different advice here and on the BBC might well have caused confusion. However, now that the BBC project is running down and those who want to continue have transferred from \'there\' to \'here\', it might now be a good time to change the advice and to facilitate the upgrade process.

Having just joined, you weren\'t to know the background - but there is a reason why we are where we are. Where the various resources available don\'t provide the information you need, a post here in the Q & A sections will get a response. If the issue is one of general interest then it will make its way into updates eventually.

Iain
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Message 31376 - Posted: 14 Nov 2007, 18:05:05 UTC - in response to Message 31351.  
Last modified: 14 Nov 2007, 18:07:46 UTC

... I used the Search feature to look for \"BOINC update\" (entered in quotation marks) on the board
...
...
The query returned 59 pages of messages -- 2,916 \"matches\". It apparently returned every message in which \"BOINC\" (without the quote marks) was found and every message in which \"update\" (without the quote marks) was found
...
If I ever meet the jackass who originally designed the \"search\" feature to function the way that I described, an assinine design that has been copied by countless lazy programmers since, I\'m going to beat him to within an inch of his life in revenge for all of the time and effort I\'ve wasted during the past 40 years while using his so-called \"search\" routine.
...


When searching via http://www.climateprediction.net/board/search.php, you need to tick \'Search for all terms\', which searches for posts containing all of the search clauses. The alternative, \'Search for any terms ...\' searches for posts which contain any one of the search clauses. So before you beat up any programmers, it pays to read the screen first. :-)



PS Another handy trick is to tick \'Display results as: Posts\' which gives you an extract from each post. I find this much more useful in locating information than the \'threads\' option.
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Message 31381 - Posted: 15 Nov 2007, 7:41:09 UTC - in response to Message 31357.  

Thanks for your reply, mo.v (?). I\'m looking forward to reading your update instructions. I am aware that the moderators are volunteers (I\'ve been a volunteer moderator on boards ran by other services) and perfectly understand the challenge of dealing with the demands upon your time -- much of my frustration stems from the time wasted in using the forum \"search\" feature in an attempt to find \"BOINC update\" messages.




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Message 31382 - Posted: 15 Nov 2007, 7:43:57 UTC - in response to Message 31359.  
Last modified: 15 Nov 2007, 7:47:41 UTC

These are the instructions at the BOINC website http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ReleaseNotes#install.


Thanks, but those instructions are for initial installation and for uninstalling the software. They completely overlook the possibility that the software is almost certainly going to be CHANGED while it is already installed. It is not clear that we can simply install overwrite existing files with updated files, aside from the other updating issues.




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Message 31385 - Posted: 15 Nov 2007, 8:19:08 UTC - in response to Message 31361.  


This is the link, at least on my normal browser (Opera) it displays as large as other normal text on the page. I deliberately set the text in the two links bigger than the rest of the signature.


Does it display differently for you?


Mike, the two hyperlinks underneath the black box following the line \"I\'m a volunteer ... \" display in type large enough to read. The last line of text in the black box is smaller than 4-point Diamond type as displayed by Firefox, and my eyes just can\'t make it out very well without a magnifier. The black box appears to be an image incorporated into the signature.


Secondly, if every single little thing had its own sticky post, there would be dozens, and nobody would be able to find normal posts. I presume you\'ve upgraded before, based on an earlier forum posting (to an early 5.10 version), did that upgrade work OK?


Upgrading or updating software while it is in use is NOT \"a little thing\". It is an essential part of the activity of computing. Any useful program will almost surely contain an error(s) that must be corrected, whether the program\'s features are otherwise improved and/or increased. Updates? You can count on them occurring!! In my experience, problems with updating arise when the systems analysts and programmers who create the new version of the software don\'t have much, if anything, to do with distributing and installing it. Which is also to say that the people who are responsible for distributing, if not also installing, the new version often don\'t ask for advice or instructions from the folks who created it.

Yes, I upgraded BOINC once from 5.13 (?) to 5.10.20 but I can\'t recall the procedure. I am sure that it wasn\'t a set of instructions, however brief, that I followed. I undertook it as an experiment, if I may say so, and whatever I did seems to have worked. Then again, recall the long series of messages that we have exchanged about the error message \"Task ... exited with zero status but no \'finished\' file.\" .... I have posted an update on that subject, by the way.

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Message 31388 - Posted: 15 Nov 2007, 8:53:09 UTC - in response to Message 31376.  



When searching via http://www.climateprediction.net/board/search.php, you need to tick \'Search for all terms\', which searches for posts containing all of the search clauses. The alternative, \'Search for any terms ...\' searches for posts which contain any one of the search clauses. So before you beat up any programmers, it pays to read the screen first. :-)


I am not sure which option returned the huge number of matches but, if memory serves, the other one didn\'t return anything. The difference between the two options is not clear. The problem seemed to be that the search looks only for individual words that are separated by the <space> character in the input field. However, it did not output an error message for the string of two words in between double-quotation marks. Maybe I should have used \'BOINC update\' instead of \"BOINC update\" but there was no HELP available for using the search feature, so it might not accept any strings regardless. I was just hoping that it would, as some do. (And I still recall only too well searching a database of magazine articles for the string \"White House\" and getting a list of each and every one that contained either the word \"white\", \"White\", \"house\" and/or \"House\". So I tried some Boolean terms in the next search, and the software crashed. ....)


PS Another handy trick is to tick \'Display results as: Posts\' which gives you an extract from each post. I find this much more useful in locating information than the \'threads\' option.


Using that is probably why there were 59 pages. :-) I found it strange that none of the extracts that I read contained a string which included either \"BOINC\" and/or \"update\". Unfortunately, when one is confronted with a large volume of results, what one really needs are tools to narrow the search to actually return that for which one is searching.

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Message 31389 - Posted: 15 Nov 2007, 8:58:38 UTC - in response to Message 31385.  
Last modified: 15 Nov 2007, 9:02:22 UTC


Mike, the two hyperlinks underneath the black box following the line \"I\'m a volunteer ... \" display in type large enough to read. The last line of text in the black box is smaller than 4-point Diamond type as displayed by Firefox, and my eyes just can\'t make it out very well without a magnifier. The black box appears to be an image incorporated into the signature.


The two links are the important bit, so I\'m glad it\'s readable :-) The disclaimer is in small print because 99.95% of the time it is not of interest to anyone. The 0.05% was someone who was offended by the idea of moderators having normal user IDs and being allowed to chat informally...

Similarly the project and credit list in the image is only of interest to a small minority of people.
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Message 31396 - Posted: 16 Nov 2007, 2:03:54 UTC
Last modified: 16 Nov 2007, 2:06:08 UTC

I just upgraded BOINC 5.10.20 to 5.10.28, and I performed the following steps

  1. BOINC Manager; Activity | Suspend
  2. File | Exit
  3. Backup Program Files\\BOINC folder
  4. Run installer boinc_5.10.28_windows_intelx86.exe
  5. Re-launch BOINC Manager; Activity | Run always

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Message 31397 - Posted: 16 Nov 2007, 4:27:47 UTC
Last modified: 16 Nov 2007, 5:42:42 UTC

Well said, well done. Good for you, pwillener.

It isn\'t a difficult procedure. The only complication is for long-time participants still running 4.19 era core clients. It is necessary that those really old versions be \'uninstalled\' with Windoze \'add/remove\' before installing a recent version of boinc core client.

Recent versions* comfortably overlay earlier versions; the only condition is that the boinc folder be idle.


[* Edit: By this I mean Core Client 5.* versions.]
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Questions and Answers : Windows : Procedure for Installing BOINC updates

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