LHC@home

Greetings,

As the title suggests, I've recently enabled the Theory app in my preferences, but have not received any tasks. I did so because I've been unable to get any additional ATLAS tasks. For now, I've disabled ATLAS and all other LHC apps but for Theory.

My setup includes:
An older Intel i5-based PC with integrated graphics running Windows 10 64-bit
16 GB RAM
BOINC Manager v. 7.22.2 (x64)
VirtualBox v. 7.0.6 r155176 (Qt5.15.2)

I guess my first question is: given my setup, should I expect to receive Theory tasks at all, or do they require a higher spec'd PC?

Assuming I can expect tasks, I read through a number of posts here on configuration trying to get things started, and based on that I've disabled the preference to "Run native if available" and set "Max # jobs" and "Max # CPUs" to 'No limit'. Are these good choices? Are there others I should be setting in my preferences?

Any and all suggestions welcome! Thank you.

Terry

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Your hardware is fine for Theory as it requires less resources than ATLAS.
Your website settings are also OK.

You did get tasks, lots of them, but all failed within a few seconds.
See your logs (example):
https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/result.php?resultid=395953602

You may have a broken VirtualBox installation, hence
- uninstall it
- clean all related registry entries
- reboot
- reinstall the most recent VirtualBox
- reboot

Then try fresh Theory work.

Thank you for the insights and suggestions. I did uninstall VB, deleted the VirtualBox folder from my user account, and attempted to clean the registry of VB entries (NB. I found no registry entries). After restarting, I opened the BOINC Manager and did see a Theory task briefly; but, it quickly disappeared. The BOINC log file stdoutdae.txt suggests the Theory task shut down due to an absent output file. I then went online to search for "BOINC output file absent" but the results suggest an old VB installation has to be removed, bringing me back to where I started. Not sure where to go from here...

Terry

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Yes, I selected the BOINC + VirtualBox option on BOINC's download site. As a side note, it seems odd that the [BOINC+VirtualBox] button on that page states the VB version will be 6.1.34, and yet it's version 7.0.6 that gets installed. It's also not the version you cited, 7.0.8, which must be from the VB download site. I've tried d/l VB separately years ago, but it did not work out, so I've kept to the VB bundled with BOINC.

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The computer reports VirtualBox 7.0.6.
Not the most recent one but it shouldn't fail with this kind of error.
Guest additions are not a must but if they are installed their version number must correspond to the main version.

@Koppany
On Windows VirtualBox can be installed as a service or not.
Which option did you use?

Are you able to open the VirtualBox manager and create a (fake) VM?

Another idea would be that it could be an issue caused by an antivirus software.

The VirtualBox version directly from VirtualBox should be preferred as it is usually the more recent one.

Really appreciate your interest in this, computezmie. Thank you.

In answer to your questions, it seems VIrtualBox 7.0.6 was automatically installed as a service when I ran the bundled installer from BOINC. I was able to add a New VM (without a disk), and the summary screen seemed to reflect my hardware setup quite accurately.

I ran AVG up until about a year ago, but uninstalled it (thoroughly) at that time. Windows Defender is chugging away back there somewhere, though, if that counts.

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OK, I've taken the leap and upgraded VB to 7.0.8. Cheers.

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