I find that my account has 2 different computers...well it had 3 originally (reflecting my recent upgrade from XP-home to XP-pro) and I was able to merge one with another. But I still have two showing, yet there is only one computer running BOINC in my household. (I don't *think* I ever installed it on my laptop; I'm sure I decided against it.)

I suspect it happened when I uninstalled BOINC for a short time and then reinstalled it (on the same machine). Both computers show XP-Pro (although the CPU descriptions are worded slightly differently, for some reason), so somehow the system thinks that I started up a second computer when I restarted BOINC???

Anyway, the point is: how do I merge the two? When I've clicked on "merge this computer" it doesn't show the other computer to merge it with. That's true for either computer listing. I read somewhere here that I should wait for a couple of days for the system to catch up with itself, which I've done, but it still shows two computers, neither of which I can merge with the other.

Any ideas? Thanks for the help.


StarHugger

One host has the name "GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz" and the other "Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz Pentium", therefore you can't merge them.

One has been running Boinc v4.13, the other was created when Boinc 4.19 came out.

---

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Have a look at the Technical News
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Best greetings, Thierry

> One host has the name "GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz" and the
> other "Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 1.80GHz Pentium", therefore you can't merge
> them.
>
> One has been running Boinc v4.13, the other was created when Boinc 4.19 came
> out.


Thanks for the reply, Thierry. Even though the host description names are different, they are in fact the same machine. And yes, I guess I must have done a fresh download of BOINC when I reinstalled it, so I'm using a newer version now. But this is just technicalities. Is there no way I can alter the computer info and merge the two?

I suppose it doesn't make a lot of difference but it makes me a bit nuts when things aren't tidy and consistent and functioning properly. (Of course my messy house is an exception to that...) Paul's wonderful documentation site (mentioned in your sig) doesn't seem to say what to do in a case like this.

Any other ideas? I'm assuming the BOINC technical team aren't going to use precious volunteer time on a situation like this that isn't critical to the project (nor, probably, should they).


StarHugger

> I find that my account has 2 different computers...well it had 3 originally
> (reflecting my recent upgrade from XP-home to XP-pro) and I was able to merge
> one with another. But I still have two showing, yet there is only one computer
> running BOINC in my household. (I don't *think* I ever installed it on my
> laptop; I'm sure I decided against it.)
>
> I suspect it happened when I uninstalled BOINC for a short time and then
> reinstalled it (on the same machine). Both computers show XP-Pro (although the
> CPU descriptions are worded slightly differently, for some reason), so somehow
> the system thinks that I started up a second computer when I restarted
> BOINC???
>
> Anyway, the point is: how do I merge the two? When I've clicked on "merge this
> computer" it doesn't show the other computer to merge it with. That's true for
> either computer listing. I read somewhere here that I should wait for a couple
> of days for the system to catch up with itself, which I've done, but it still
> shows two computers, neither of which I can merge with the other.
>
> Any ideas? Thanks for the help.
>
>
> StarHugger
>
>
>
>
Do believe I read somewhere that once all the results for the older ID have passed through the deleter you will be able to get rid of it.

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98SE XP2500+ @ 2.1 GHz Boinc v5.8.8

And God said"Let there be light."But then the program crashed because he was trying to access the 'light' property of a NULL universe pointer.

Yep,
Thats true. You just need to play the waiting game for all the results listed under your second machine have been fully processed, when that is 0, you will be able to merge the old and new descriptions of the same machine, i had the same problem a while ago!

Matt

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Thanks Steve and Matt,

I see my "other/old machine" had 3 jobs in progress when I uninstalled. Their due dates are passed now, so presumably they'll be processed and deleted when the system catches up with itself? Guess I'll wait. (like I have a choice... LOL)


StarHugger

> Thanks Steve and Matt,
>
> I see my "other/old machine" had 3 jobs in progress when I uninstalled. Their
> due dates are passed now, so presumably they'll be processed and deleted when
> the system catches up with itself? Guess I'll wait. (like I have a choice...
> LOL)
>
>

You must wait till the db_purger has done its job and removed all the listed results, this can be a very long wait since AFAIK it haven't been run since they upgraded to the new db-server 10. February...

> Thanks for the reply, Thierry. Even though the host description names are
> different, they are in fact the same machine. And yes, I guess I must have
> done a fresh download of BOINC when I reinstalled it, so I'm using a newer
> version now. But this is just technicalities. Is there no way I can alter the
> computer info and merge the two?

As other wrote it's sheer aesthetics to merge the two hosts. But you can do it:

- stop the boinc
- backup the boinc directory tree to some safe place if anything goes wrong
- then uninstall the running version (presumably 4.19) of boinc binary. Leave the rest of files (most notably client_state.xml) intact
- install the old version of boinc binary (presumably 4.13) into the same directory
- run the boinc and make it update the project(s). This will cause project database to change CPU description of your 'current' host description to the old one
- you should be able to merge the two hosts now
- stop the boinc client, uninstall it
- install a current boinc binary (you might want to jump up to the newest stable release such as 4.25)
- run it

The key thing when upgrading boinc CC is to save client_state.xml file somewhere because this is the file that contains the host ID ... nothing else matters really.

---

Metod ...

Downgrading to v4.13 can give you a nasty surprise, especially if you're running CPDN...

> Thats true. You just need to play the waiting game for all the results listed under your second machine have been fully processed, when that is 0, you will be able to merge the old and new descriptions of the same machine, i had the same problem a while ago!

Issue is there some of us that may never see all their files cleared. I want to delete an old machine, but it has "bad data" from Database problems in July, August, November and December. Those are not getting cleaned, and unsure they ever will. I would love to delete this old machine, but alas I think it may sit there forever (as many acknowledge there is an issue, but no one gives any hope of a solution).

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My movie https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/502242

> Downgrading to v4.13 can give you a nasty surprise, especially if you're
> running CPDN...

What kind of surprise?

---

Metod ...

>
> What kind of surprise?
>

CPDN-wu will very likely error-out if you downgrade to v4.15 or earlier...

Not sure if other versions and other projects has similar surprises, and haven't any plans to try to find out either.

Thanks for the instructions, Metod. I don't think it's worth all that. ;-) It's vanity, I guess. LOL Doesn't matter. It's all about the project anyway, right? :-)


StarHugger

> Thanks for the instructions, Metod. I don't think it's worth all that. ;-)
> It's vanity, I guess. LOL Doesn't matter. It's all about the project anyway,
> right? :-)

I have a few also ... and I agree, it is a pain. What is so funny is that I can merge two computers that really are not the same machine, but I cannot merge some that are ...

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> I have a few also ... and I agree, it is a pain. What is so funny is that I
> can merge two computers that really are not the same machine, but I cannot
> merge some that are ...


Rilly!!! LOL Ah well, I'm sure it's logical from some angle. ;-)


StarHugger