I just recently upgraded to 5.2.13 from 4.19. I'm running on Win-XP Pro. I uninstalled 4.19 first and then installed the update. The installation seemed to go fine. I'm running SETI and World Community Grid (1:2 proportions...I think; at least I tried to set it up that way). According the the messages in BOINC Manager, they seem to be running, uploading and downloading work without any problems. However, I've had some weird things happening since upgrading.

For one thing, when I boot up my 'puter, BOINC Manager seems to try to materialize (a blank white window), then the window disappears, leaving a "ghost" button on the task bar (where running programs are shown). Sometimes this goes away on its own after a couple of minutes, and sometimes it doesn't seem to. I can't get a window to come up by clicking the button (hence "ghost" button). I have to right-click the BOINC icon in the system tray, open the Manager and then close it. Then the task bar button goes away.

The other thing that's happening quite often (and I wonder if they're connected at all?) is that when I go to shut down the computer, I get a brief message window after I click the last shut-down button (Start -> Turn off computer -> Turn off). The message says something is still running (or something like that) and it has an "End Now" button. It disappears too quickly for me to read or respond to it, but I've seen BOINC in the top of the window so it seems to be something about the BOINC Manager maybe.

So it's not like it's interfering with the shut-down process, but I'm wondering if it's still an indication that something isn't running right. And I don't want this to complicate anything on my computer OR mess up the processing of the BOINC jobs.

Any ideas? Sorry if this has been discussed already, but I didn't see anything that looked like it in a quick scan of recent topics. Thanks for the help!

Wendy

I just recently upgraded to 5.2.13 from 4.19. I'm running on Win-XP Pro. I uninstalled 4.19 first and then installed the update. The installation seemed to go fine. I'm running SETI and World Community Grid (1:2 proportions...I think; at least I tried to set it up that way). According the the messages in BOINC Manager, they seem to be running, uploading and downloading work without any problems. However, I've had some weird things happening since upgrading.

For one thing, when I boot up my 'puter, BOINC Manager seems to try to materialize (a blank white window), then the window disappears, leaving a "ghost" button on the task bar (where running programs are shown). Sometimes this goes away on its own after a couple of minutes, and sometimes it doesn't seem to. I can't get a window to come up by clicking the button (hence "ghost" button). I have to right-click the BOINC icon in the system tray, open the Manager and then close it. Then the task bar button goes away.

This is a bug that is known. One thing that you can try is to go to your Startup folder and right-click on the Boinc shortcut.
Select properties.
In the target windows add a space /s at the end
e.g. "C:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\boincmgr.exe" /s
Click OK.
This sometimes work to get rid of the taskbar ghost button and send it to the tray.
The blank white window is normal when the Boinc Manager starts up.

The other thing that's happening quite often (and I wonder if they're connected at all?) is that when I go to shut down the computer, I get a brief message window after I click the last shut-down button (Start -> Turn off computer -> Turn off). The message says something is still running (or something like that) and it has an "End Now" button. It disappears too quickly for me to read or respond to it, but I've seen BOINC in the top of the window so it seems to be something about the BOINC Manager maybe.

So it's not like it's interfering with the shut-down process, but I'm wondering if it's still an indication that something isn't running right. And I don't want this to complicate anything on my computer OR mess up the processing of the BOINC jobs.

This is just the application that is a bit slow to shut down. Nothing to worry about.

Any ideas? Sorry if this has been discussed already, but I didn't see anything that looked like it in a quick scan of recent topics. Thanks for the help!

Wendy

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Boinc V 7.4.36
Win7 i5 3.33G 4GB NVidia 470

You can avoid the second problem by giving BOINC a fair go. Click File/Exit first, then wait a few seconds until it shuts down.
Then exit Windows.

This is a bug that is known. One thing that you can try is to go to your Startup folder and right-click on the Boinc shortcut.
Select properties.
In the target windows add a space /s at the end
e.g. "C:\\Program Files\\BOINC\\boincmgr.exe" /s
Click OK.
This sometimes work to get rid of the taskbar ghost button and send it to the tray.
The blank white window is normal when the Boinc Manager starts up.

Thanks for replying, Aurora Borealis. I checked and the " /s" was already there. I guess that trick isn't going to work in my case. Hopefully this bug will be fixed sometime in the foreseeable future. Even if it's not creating problems, it's a nuiscance. Same with the shutdown issue.

Les, I just saw your reply when I hit reply to AB's post. Thanks for the suggestion. I suppose I could do that, although it's another nuisance. As long as it's not hurting or interfering with anything, I guess I can live with it. It just makes me nervous when things don't wrap up in a nice neat package. ;-) Thanks for the reply.


Wendy

Hi again. I just thought I'd mention that I've been manually shutting down BOINC before shutting down my computer at the end of the night, and I don't seem to be getting those "ghost" buttons when I start it up again the next morning. So the buttons might be due to BOINC not shutting down properly. Just thought I'd pass that along for the troubleshooters. It might be coincidence, but who knows? Maybe this will help. :-)

Wendy

Okay, I just thought I should update my observations. It seems the "ghost" buttons are NOT resolved by manually shutting down BOINC before turning off the computer. Either way, they appear sometimes and not at other times. There doesn't seem to be any real difference in how often it happens, with or without manually shutting down BOINC before shutting down Windows. Just thought I should update that, in case anyone was taking my previous report seriously. ;-)

Wendy