[Penguirl]

Security Update 2009-002 broke BOINC running as a service (BOINC daemon launches at bootup rather than BOINCManager starting at login) on all three of my PPC Macs running 10.4.11. Running the "Make_BOINC_Service.sh" script fixed it, just a warning to anyone else running BOINC as a service, especially on remote Macs.

[Penguirl]

It looks as though I may have jumped the gun on declaring the issue resolved. It appears that BOINC 6.6.29 will run as a service until the current workunit is finished and then fail to start another if logged out, but runs fine when logged in. I'm still in the midst of testing, but at this point I'm guessing that it's the 6.6.x release of BOINCManager at fault, as I updated to 6.6.20 about the same time I installed Security Update 2009-002. I saw at the BOINC forums someone had a similar issue with the Windoze build that turned out to be incorrect permissions, unfortunately repairing permissions hasn't seemed to resolve my issue. If it turns out that I am correct my next step will be to downgrade to 6.2.18 and see if the issue goes away.

[Penguirl]

What I've found using SSH and VNC is a jumbled mess. I downgraded BOINCManager to v6.2.18 and the daemon still seems to finish the current work unit when I logout and then goes idle, although sometimes it seems to go idle immediately. When I'm logged in the daemon seems to work properly, although sometimes the current process does not show up (ssh remote) in top and sometimes it does.

So it appears that it is indeed Security Update 2009-002 that broke BOINC as a service on my PPC 10.4.11 machines. If anyone has suggestions on how to correct it I would appreciate it very much because it's beyond my abilities. I suspect trying to get help from Apple would result in a "not supported" response. I may post at the main BOINC forum too to see if they've got any ideas.

[reader50]

I have 10.4.11 PPC also - just downloaded the security update to check the files list. It replaces a bunch of commands in:
/usr/bin/
/usr/sbin/
/bin/ (i noticed /bin/launchctl in particular)

These commands would be at the top of my suspect list. But there are too many possibilities. Open up Activity Monitor, show all processes, and Inspect the BOINC and worker processes. Click over to the open files tab, see if it's using any files from this section.

If you find a short enough suspect list, you could track down the previous versions of the files - say, from earlier security updates, or from the 10.4.11 combo update. Extract files with unpkg (or Pacifist), swap in, repair permissions, try BOINC again.

[Penguirl]

Originally Posted by reader50 

I have 10.4.11 PPC also - just downloaded the security update to check the files list. It replaces a bunch of commands in:
/usr/bin/
/usr/sbin/
/bin/ (i noticed /bin/launchctl in particular)

These commands would be at the top of my suspect list. But there are too many possibilities. Open up Activity Monitor, show all processes, and Inspect the BOINC and worker processes. Click over to the open files tab, see if it's using any files from this section.

If you find a short enough suspect list, you could track down the previous versions of the files - say, from earlier security updates, or from the 10.4.11 combo update. Extract files with unpkg (or Pacifist), swap in, repair permissions, try BOINC again.

My education continues, thank you reader50 I will take a look at that.

I used to wait on version updates until other people had "beta tested" them but assumed security updates were ok, even desirable to install immediately. Sadly my naivety has been quashed.

[Penguirl]

Originally Posted by reader50 

I have 10.4.11 PPC also - just downloaded the security update to check the files list. It replaces a bunch of commands in:
/usr/bin/
/usr/sbin/
/bin/ (i noticed /bin/launchctl in particular)

These commands would be at the top of my suspect list. But there are too many possibilities. Open up Activity Monitor, show all processes, and Inspect the BOINC and worker processes. Click over to the open files tab, see if it's using any files from this section.

Strangely some process' will show an Open Files tab, but neither the specific project app nor the boinc daemon show the Open Files tab when I inspect them. Only the Memory and Statistics tabs are present.

My second and third line Macs have been restored to Security Update 2009-001 configuration and are happily crunching work units as a service. I haven't decided yet whether to downgrade my primary Mac to that state, there's no rush anyway because it's currently always logged in working on another job.

[Penguirl]

FWIW, Security Update 2009-003 seems to have resolved the issue and BOINC is again running as a service.