Have got BOINC set up again, after abandoning it when SETI moved over to BOINC and I lost my account. But BOINC seems to be unable to download work units.

The system messages just say this:

27/02/2006 09:22:44|climateprediction.net|Temporarily failed download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip: error 500
27/02/2006 09:22:44|climateprediction.net|Backing off 1 minutes and 0 seconds on download of file sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
27/02/2006 09:23:44|climateprediction.net|Started download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
27/02/2006 09:23:47|climateprediction.net|Temporarily failed download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip: error 500
27/02/2006 09:23:47|climateprediction.net|Backing off 1 minutes and 23 seconds on download of file sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
27/02/2006 09:25:11|climateprediction.net|Started download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
27/02/2006 09:25:14|climateprediction.net|Temporarily failed download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip: error 500
27/02/2006 09:25:14|climateprediction.net|Backing off 5 minutes and 4 seconds on download of file sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
27/02/2006 09:30:19|climateprediction.net|Started download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
27/02/2006 09:30:20|climateprediction.net|Temporarily failed download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip: error 500
27/02/2006 09:30:20|climateprediction.net|Backing off 5 minutes and 43 seconds on download of file sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
27/02/2006 09:36:04|climateprediction.net|Started download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
27/02/2006 09:36:05|climateprediction.net|Temporarily failed download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip: error 500

Anyone got any ideas?

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Boinc needs access to the internet (and also to localhost). You may need to make changes to your firewall configuration to achieve this.

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HTTP error 500 is a really tricky one to diagnose as it covers so many possibilities (and depends on the version of BOINC you\'re using). As you only seem to be getting the error on sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip my first thought would be that something (possibly a proxy server or gateway) is blocking receipt of that file (it\'s the largest downloaded file, weighing in at 22.9MB).

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"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Boinc needs access to the internet (and also to localhost). You may need to make changes to your firewall configuration to achieve this.

Thanks for the suggestions, but I have open and unrestricted Internet access from two different ADSL connections. I have told my PC\'s firewall FWIW to allow BOINC unfettered access, but no joy.

I had similar problems when I tried to migrate SETI from the dedicated program to BOINC and had to give up, after having crunched over 600 work units for SETI, which was a shame. I have to conclude that there is something wrong with BOINC.

Here is today\'s startup log:

28/02/2006 08:38:32||Starting BOINC client version 5.2.13 for windows_intelx86
28/02/2006 08:38:32||libcurl/7.14.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8 zlib/1.2.3
28/02/2006 08:38:32||Data directory: C:\\Program Files\\BOINC
28/02/2006 08:38:32||Processor: 1 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) M processor 1.80GHz
28/02/2006 08:38:32||Memory: 1.50 GB physical, 2.10 GB virtual
28/02/2006 08:38:32||Disk: 70.06 GB total, 49.17 GB free
28/02/2006 08:38:33|climateprediction.net|Computer ID: 396122; location: ; project prefs: default
28/02/2006 08:38:33||General prefs: from unknown project http://climateprediction.net/ (last modified 1970-01-01 00:00:00)
28/02/2006 08:38:33||General prefs: using your defaults
28/02/2006 08:38:34||Remote control not allowed; using loopback address
28/02/2006 08:38:34|climateprediction.net|Started download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip
28/02/2006 08:38:37|climateprediction.net|Temporarily failed download of sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip: error 500
28/02/2006 08:38:37|climateprediction.net|Backing off 2 hours, 13 minutes, and 41 seconds on download of file sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip

Anyone any ideas?

Thanks

HTTP error 500 is a really tricky one to diagnose as it covers so many possibilities (and depends on the version of BOINC you\'re using). As you only seem to be getting the error on sulphur_data_4.22_windows_intelx86.zip my first thought would be that something (possibly a proxy server or gateway) is blocking receipt of that file (it\'s the largest downloaded file, weighing in at 22.9MB).

Thanks for the suggestion, but my PC has unrestricted download access - unless BOINC uses an unusual port that my firewall may be blocking. See my answer & log to the previous response if you would - thanks.

\"HTTP error 500\" can affect a lot of people, because it is also caused by servers in the net which act as nodes. There is one somewhere on the west coast of America, which has been causing problems for people trying to access SETI.

This is one of the threads on the BOINC/dev boards which discuss error 500.

The HTTP 500 error is a known problem with some proxy servers when you\'re using BOINC 5.2.* Peter. It was fixed in BOINC 5.3.17. Although the 5.3.* versions are development releases and come with a health warning I\'ve been using 5.3.17 with no problems since the day it was released.

You can download it from here.

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"The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer