My main cruncher (Mac Pro) has suddenly decided not to connect to project servers. Cruncher #2 (MacBook Pro) is humming along nicely. I've tried detaching and reattaching, no effect. I tried 'reset project' and lost all the completed tasks, but still no effect. When I look in my acct details, both are still listed. My account details list a bunch of tasks sent Aug 17 (must be the ones I lost when I 'reset'). It looks like they're supposed to run under Seti@Home V7 V7.00. Is my version obsolete? My messages under BOINC Manager show repeated attempts to connect, repeated failures to connect to servers followed by checks for internet access which are universally OK.

Computer Details MacPro 4,1, 3.32 GHz quad core Xeon, 16Gb memory. I have not (knowingly) made any software updates, still running SnowLeopard 10.6.8. Not sure what other details you need to know, but if I left something important out let me know and I'll provide the info.

Thanks for any help!

Due to DNS changes, Berkeley had to update their DNS model. This was just done in the last few days.

Had your machine been a Windows variety, I would have said:

Open Command Prompt: ipconfig /flushdns

Make sure that all browsers are closed before running this command. Further, Suspend and Exit BOINC. Then, following the command reboot, and resume BOINC.

However; with MAC, I don't know any equivalent commands, or ways to flush your DNS cache. It would seem that your one functional machine has already done this; for it continues to make contact with SETI Servers. The other needs to be updated; but, again, I don't know how to do it on MAC.

You could be patient a few more days, let it ride out, and see if it still has issues... However; for a quicker fix, someone else with proper MAC knowledge will need to answer your question.

I wish you luck.


TL

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TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos

Mac OS X v10.6
Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache:
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202516
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/dscacheutil.1.html

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Mac OS X v10.6
Use the following Terminal command to reset the DNS cache:
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202516
https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Darwin/Reference/ManPages/man1/dscacheutil.1.html

It does sound like an IP addressing issue, but I'd be surprised if it was as simple as a cache refusing to honour TTL.

@ Zemuron99 - it would be better if you could discover which IP address BOINC is trying to reach the SETI server at. BOINC can tell you this if you don't have any other monitoring tools available, but it would involve some manual editing of configuration files to enable <http_debug> logging. People here can help with that.

OP Here, tried the -flushcache and it didn't seem to work. Would a full BOINC uninstall and reinstall work?

It might work. If you still have the boinc_7.2.33_macOSX_i686 folder look in the extras folder and run the Uninstall BOINC.app. It will list the locations and names of other files to delete, Don't delete the /Library/Application Support/BOINC Data folder but make sure to delete the Preferences. When you Install BOINC again, make sure to Allow it to make network connections. If you need boinc_7.2.33 you can find it here, http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=8378&postid=51551#51551

Well, did a full backup and restart and this time it seemed to work. Maybe the -flushcache trick helped.

Anyway, I'm back to happily crunching away.

Thank you to those who replied for taking a bit of your time to help.

Thomas.

OK, it was the one running 10.6. Any reason to still be running Snow Leopard? No video cards will work with Snow Leopard, I don't even see one listed for that machine, could be the old version of BOINC causing that. Even my old ATI 2600 was listed with the newer version of BOINC. If you updated to say, Mavericks, you could buy a video card off eBay for around $50 and have a much more effect cruncher. Also, the new OSX CPU App is coming to SETI main soon and will almost double the CPU production. SETI has become much more Mac friendly in the last few months. Here's my Mac Pro 3,1 http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/show_host_detail.php?hostid=6796479