I recently installed BOINC and generally seem to be up-and-running OK. But I have a problem when using any of the application-specific "Web sites" buttons in the BOINC Manager. I'm running Win XP SP2, and IE6 with the standard Google Toolbar (not Google Compute).

Here's the problem. If I already have an IE window open, the buttons all work fine -- they reuse the open window and take me to the correct web page. But if I don't have an IE window open, the buttons try to launch IE, but Google Toolbar crashes on open and IE shuts itself down. I realize that the problem might be with the Google Toolbar and not BOINC, but I've been using the Toolbar for years without it ever causing any problems whatsoever before this.

When I deactivate the Google Toolbar, the buttons seem to work OK, but I notice that each time I press a button it actually is launching 2 IE windows -- a blank one (no URL and no content) and then the 'real' one. I'm guessing that the Google Toolbar issue has something to do with this double launch, but that's just a hunch.

So, my questions:
1) does anyone else have the same problem or have ideas re how I can BOINC and Google Toolbar to play nicely.

2) do other people get that second blank IE window opening too?

thanks!
-Alan Kuhn

1) does anyone else have the same problem or have ideas re how I can BOINC and Google Toolbar to play nicely.

Personally, I tend to stay away from toolbars, so I can't assist you here.

2) do other people get that second blank IE window opening too?

Nope, using IE6, only one window opens, sorry.

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ralic's law of forums: Irrespective of any prior research done, you will find the solution to your question shortly after posting it to a public Internet forum, resulting in readers concluding that you have done no research on the matter whatsoever.

Thanks for responding. Given what you said, I'm even more convinced that my Google Toolbar problem is just an artifact of whatever is causing BOINC to open 2 browser windows.

Can someone who knows a bit about the BOINC manager code help me troubleshoot why BOINC is opening 2 browser windows (the first of which is blank) when I press any of the Website buttons???

FYI, I'm running Win XP PRO SP2, IE6, and BOINC 4.45.

thanks,
Alan

Thanks for responding. Given what you said, I'm even more convinced that my Google Toolbar problem is just an artifact of whatever is causing BOINC to open 2 browser windows.

Can someone who knows a bit about the BOINC manager code help me troubleshoot why BOINC is opening 2 browser windows (the first of which is blank) when I press any of the Website buttons???

FYI, I'm running Win XP PRO SP2, IE6, and BOINC 4.45.

thanks,
Alan

BOINC manager code has nothing to do with it. BOINC passes an HTTP shortcut to the OS. Roughly analagous to going Start -> Run, then typing http://www.google.com. How the OS handles the submission of that link is 100% on the OS.

My guesses would be that:

1) it has something to do with your Homepage setting. if the toolbar has changed your default homepage to a script, that may have something to do with it.

2) Google toolbar may have hijacked the Class ID for the http://... shortcut. The Class ID is what tells the OS what program to open a given file type with (i.e. it's what tells Windows that .doc = a MS Word program). It could be that the http:// executing program just kicks off a blank IE window for some reason.

3) it could be some other form of spyware acting up.

I tend to stay away from toolbars myself, so I'm not 100% sure how (or if) you can fully fix this. My first recommendation would be to uninstall the Google toolbar. If you use it all the time, get yourself a bookmark for www.google.com.

So there's a first swing at fixing things for you. Let me know how it goes. The one thing I can promise you is that it isn't a BOINC-based issue. It's what your OS/application set is doing to with the link BOINC is passing it.

(j)
James

Thanks a lot for your reply, James. Here is some more info:

1) When I was debugging this problem a few weeks ago, I first uninstalled the Google toolbar. When I did that, I still had the double-launch problem. In my earlier posts, I didn't mention that I also use a second toolbar -- the Norton Internet Security toolbar. When I uninstalled both toolbars, the BOINC buttons started working OK (without the double launch). This suggests to me that the problem is not with a particular toolbar (e.g. Google), and is not caused by spyware or anything else. It seems to be directly related to using the BOINC buttons in combination with (any) IE toolbars.

2)FYI re toolbars in IE (since you said you don't use them much), they are managed as Add-ons via Tools -> Internet Options -> Programs -> Manage Add-ons... At least these 2 particular ones (i.e. Google and Norton Internet Security) don't do anything to my homepage setings or my HTTP Shortcut ClassID. What they do is run code (to build the toolbars) when IE launches.

3) As a test, I tried accessing the exact same URLs via Start->Run, and eveything worked fine (again with no double launch), even with both toolbars installed. This suggests to me that there is indeed something going on differently when I press the buttons in BOINC Manager vs. just accessing the webpage via Start->Run.

4) I'm almost positive that I don't have any spyware on this machine. I run Ad-aware regularly and I'm also very cautious re what websites I visit, attachments I open, etc. Again, given that the problems go away when I use Start->Run or when I remove both toolbars, I'm pretty certain that the problem is not spyware-related.

5) Just to reiterate, IE generally works fine for me and rarely -- if ever -- crashes. But it crashes 100% consistently when launched from the BOINC Manager buttons when there is not an existing IE window already open.

6) Thanks for the suggestion re using www.google.com instead of the Google toolbar. Unfortunately that won't work for me since the toolbar provides functionality that the website doesn't (and ditto with the Norton toolbar). My current workaround is to make sure that I already have an IE window open before I press any of the website buttons in BOINC, since the problem doesn't occur when BOINC is able to recycle an existing IE window.

So, in a nutshell, I'm not yet convinced that the problem is OS related instead of BOINC-specific. The best evidence I have for this is that Start->Run works fine with the same URLs. You might be right, but I'm not yet convinced (and don't know what else to test at this point). Without having ever seen the BOINC code, my suspicion (just a wild guess) is that BOINC is perhaps doing a 2-step process: first getting a handle to an IE window (and creating one if necessary), and then passing the specific URL to it. If that were indeed the case, I could imagine why it might lead to either the IE-crash and/or the double-launch if the toolbar instantiation code is still executing while BOINC is trying to pass the URL. It would also explain why everything works fine when an IE window is already running before I press the BOINC buttons. Again, this is just a wild guess, but it seems the most consistent with the behavior I'm seeing.

Any thoughts given all the above? Any other test cases that I should try?

thanks again for any input,
Alan

Hey Alan. Very interesting. I'm tempted to believe you're right, that the BOINC client is handing more than just a simple "http://....." to the OS. But I know it isn't hard-coded to start IE.

I haven't reviewed that part of the source code either, though, if you get the urge, it's publicly available if you read C++. http://boinc.berkeley.edu/boinc_dev.php

One interesting test you've probably already tried, but didn't mention is this: You said that uninstalling the Google toolbar didn't help, but uninstalling both did. Did you try using the Google without the Norton bar installed?

I'm just covering the bases here. The only thing that I can think of that's left to do is run a full Filemon/Regmon trace to see what's hitting the registry when you hit those buttons. But that's a ton of work... Now that I say that, I probably won't be able to resist the urge, but it may take me a few days to work up enough time to do it. We'll have to play that by ear.

I'm stumped at this point, so hopefully Rom or one of the other devs will wander through the forum and have some insight off the top of their heads about how BOINC submits that data to the OS.

(j)
James

Thanks again James.

I did indeed test with just the Google toolbar and not the Norton toolbar. When I did, I got the same IE crash on launch as before.

I used to code a bit and might try to slog my way through the C++ source, but it's been a few years for me and I'm not sure that I'll get bored/desperate/curious enough to undertake that. But if you or any of the other devs find something out, I'd love to hear about it. In the meantime, I have a pretty reasonable workaround -- I just launch IE first before opening BOINC Manager.

Oh, and one more thing: I have the exact same problem when pressing F1 to launch the BOINC Manager help URL. Not sure whether it would be simpler to debug that one vs. the buttons, which are dynamically displayed per application.

thanks,
Alan