BOINC 7.8.6 for Mac OS is now available on the primary BOINC Download Site:

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php

From Charlie Fenton ...

This is a release for Macintosh only; there are no changes from 7.8.3, 7.8.4 or 7.8.5 affecting the code for any other platform. It fixes a couple of Mac-only bugs in 7.8.5:
* Reliably installs the BOINC screensaver (unless asked not to do so.)
* Fixes a bug which could prevent determining the correct size of RAM when run on versions of OS X older than OS 10.11.

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In October 1969 I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
There was no expiration date.

I see my Mac is running an older version, but why isn't the update automated through the regular update system for Mac software? Doesn't seem to be worth the trouble unless maybe it fixes that old problem with the Notices tab, where it always returns the server not found error. (Actually, now I'm not certain if that error is only for the Mac version. The notices are not very frequent, but I'm sure that I haven't actually received any of them in a long time. Also, that's probably yet another BOINC-level problem out of the scope of Rosetta@home.)

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#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Constrained) Choice{5} != (Beer^3 | Speech)

This is the version of BOINC Client that you load / loaded on your Mac back then. As it is a manually loaded app by the User there is no Auto update.

The Cal Berkley down load point is at ...

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php

Bill F

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In October 1969 I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
There was no expiration date.

I should have been more explicit. My concern is with the proper updating of the Mac BOINC Client. If it updates itself, then I know that everything has been handled properly, but there are various possible problems if I have to intervene and I don't even want to spend the time worrying about or studying those potential problems.

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#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Constrained) Choice{5} != (Beer^3 | Speech)

The MAC BOINC client does not update itself. The new version is developed and tested by BOINC developers, Once it has been tested by the developer it is released to a group of volunteer testers who are willing to try to break it. If and when it passes that round of testing it is put forward as a improved version for release to the BOINC community at large as a new Recommended version.

After it is out world wide for a couple weeks it is usually pretty bullet proof.

Of course you have to download the version that matches your hardware and OS level.

Bill F

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In October 1969 I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
There was no expiration date.

Well, there is some other Mac-specific problem with Rosetta@home. Apparently unable to upload any finished tasks now. No problem on any other machines, but my MacBook Pro has a long list of "Ready to report" tasks there. Several days worth.

That did get me to try (per force) the upgrade to the new version. Went quite smoothly, but did not resolve the problem. I also tried an alternative network routing, which didn't help, but mostly I do NOT want to be bothered by such things and feel like I am wasting time when I fuss over the problems (which is especially annoying when the problems could be eliminated).

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#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Constrained) Choice{5} != (Beer^3 | Speech)

On your network activity tab do you have your Network set to always available ?

I am not seeing any thing on the Server Status screen that indicates a network issue for Rosewtta

Bill F

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In October 1969 I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
There was no expiration date.

I think you mean that I should try checking on the option "Network activity always" rather than the option "Network activity based on preferences", so I'll give it a try. I cannot imagine why that would make a difference, and especially not when I manually click on Update from the Projects tab.

In my first test, the behavior seems unaffected and still incorrect. Normally (and the behavior remains normal as far as I can tell on all other computers), the Update click takes a few seconds and all of the pending units ("Ready to report") are cleared. Now it takes a long think, and usually nothing happens. The pending units are still sitting there, and it usually announces a long delay time, such as "Communications deferred 03:57:53" and starts counting down.

So far I don't believe that any of the tasks have missed their deadlines because of this peculiar behavior. It appears to succeed every day or three. It also seems to be keeping a sufficient number of tasks on hand so that the CPU is never idle.

Whatever is wrong, it is NOT specific to the new version, since the weird behavior started first and it then persuaded me to download and install the new version of the BOINC Manager.

The network configuration of the Mac is actually simple. It's always connected to my slower network. Most of my Ubuntu and one of the Windows boxen also use the slower network, but show no similar symptoms. I have other machines that sometimes use the faster network and sometimes use the slower one, and again none of them show any problems. And yes (as I believe I already noted in this discussion), I did try the Mac on the fast network without improvement.

Right now the Mac has 7 tasks in limbo. Seems pretty likely to me that there is something wrong on the Baker Lab end, and it affects Macs but not Windows 10 or Ubuntu Linux.

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#1 Freedom = (Meaningful - Constrained) Choice{5} != (Beer^3 | Speech)