I recently bought a Rasperry Pi and installed "rsapbmc" as the OS (Media Center) and some other tools including BOINC.

Everything works just fine except for the BOINC client telling me ALWAYS that the "computer is in
use" and that's why computing is suspended!

The only way to start computing is to change the BOINC settings to "Activity -> Run always".
For obvious reasons this is not really practical (see above, Media Center use).
I am using BOINC for year on different platforms and can't complain.
I understand that support for the Pi is currently more or less "experimental".
But the ON/OFF option (e.g. run always vs. suspend) is extremely annoying.

I just spent 4 hours researching the web and trying different settings, no success.
I ASSUME that the client is not able to retrieve valid CPU usage infos from the OS (rsapbmc (debian linux)). Does anyone have an idea what to do??
Many thanks in advance, any help is appreciated!

Technical details to my installation:

Processor : ARMv6-compatible processor rev 7 (v6l)
BogoMIPS : 697.95
Features : swp half thumb fastmult vfp edsp java tls
CPU implementer : 0x41
CPU architecture: 7
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0xb76
CPU revision : 7

Hardware : BCM2708
Revision : 000d


Software:

Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Starting BOINC client version 7.0.27 for arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Libraries: libcurl/7.26.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1e zlib/1.2.7 libidn/1.25 libssh2/1.4.2 librtmp/2.3
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Data directory: /var/lib/boinc-client
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Processor: 1
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Processor features:
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | OS: Linux: 3.6.11
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Memory: 375.46 MB physical, 0 bytes virtual
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Disk: 14.72 GB total, 12.50 GB free
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Local time is UTC +2 hours
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | No usable GPUs found
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | SETI@home | Found app_info.xml; using anonymous platform
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | Milkyway@Home | Found app_info.xml; using anonymous platform
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Config: GUI RPC allowed from any host
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Config: GUI RPC allowed from:
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | SETI@home | URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID <manually removed for this post> ; resource share 100
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | Milkyway@Home | URL http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/; Computer ID <manually removed for this post>; resource share 100
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | Albert@Home | URL http://albert.phys.uwm.edu/; Computer ID <manually removed for this post>; resource share 100
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | Einstein@Home | URL http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/; Computer ID <manually removed for this post>; resource share 100
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | LHC@home 1.0 | URL http://lhcathomeclassic.cern.ch/sixtrack/; Computer ID <manually removed for this post>; resource share 100
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | Albert@Home | General prefs: from Albert@Home (last modified 11-Jul-2013 23:01:46)
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | Albert@Home | Computer location: home
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | Albert@Home | General prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Reading preferences override file
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Preferences:
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | max memory usage when active: 3.75MB
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | max memory usage when idle: 337.91MB
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | max disk usage: 1.00GB
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | don't compute while active
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | don't use GPU while active
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 40 %
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | (to change preferences, visit the web site of an attached project, or select Preferences in the Manager)
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Not using a proxy
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | Suspending computation - computer is in use


With additional logging settings are enabled:

Sat Jul 13 15:04:02 2013 | | [suspend] net_susp 0 file_xfer_susp 0 reason 0



Manually launching BOINC (sudo service boinc-client start):

[....] Starting BOINC core client: boinc.
[....] Setting up scheduling for BOINC core client and children: idle,.

This "idle,.." seems suspicious to me, shouldn't it be "[OK]"??

1) Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | max memory usage when active: 3.75MB
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | max memory usage when idle: 337.91MB
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | max disk usage: 1.00GB
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | don't compute while active
Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | don't use GPU while active
2) Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 40 %

1) Is this your normal memory permission setting when in use? Figure there are few projects that will fit in, and you'd encounter "task paused - waiting on memory" or something to that effect.
2) Set the percent higher until the point that computing resumes.

Of course you could also set an <exclusive_app> in the config for when your MC program runs.

Question: Are there any tasks on the device?

edit: You could also untick the option that stops computing when device is in use instead of Run Always.

Sat Jul 13 16:42:23 2013 | | don't compute while active and toy with 1)/2)/<exclusive_app> till you find the right balance.

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Coelum Non Animum Mutant, Qui Trans Mare Currunt

Hi and many thanks for your quick reply!!!

I changed the memory settings to 50% and 50% just to see if it makes a difference. Result: no change, still "Suspended - computer is in use".

Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | Reading preferences override file
Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | Preferences:
Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | max memory usage when active: 187.73MB
Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | max memory usage when idle: 187.73MB
Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | max disk usage: 1.00GB
Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | don't compute while active
Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | don't use GPU while active
Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 40 %
Sat Jul 13 19:49:37 2013 | | (to change preferences, visit the web site of an attached project, or select Preferences in the Manager)
Sat Jul 13 19:49:45 2013 | | Suspending computation - computer is in use


Regarding "task paused - waiting on memory": never found this message in the logs.
And YES, I do have tasks to work on for every single project I attached and they get worked on as soon as I manually "force" BOINC to "run always".

I was thinking about <exclusive_app> too but that's not an option as the MC app always runs, even though with different cpu usage (watching a movie, doing nothing).
I guess BOINC "only" checks if this "exclusive app" is there or not and not how much cpu it consumes, right?

Thanx
Bob

Right, you said that computing started when "Run Always", so not a bright question to ask if you had tasks :O

Not personally encountered, but on Linux there were reports of system not detecting if user was active, or the other way around. Try a newer release like 7.0.65 [if that is available for your flavor of nix.

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Coelum Non Animum Mutant, Qui Trans Mare Currunt

It seems that 7.0.27 is the most recent version for my Linux (Debian):

pi@raspbmc:~$ sudo apt-get install boinc-client
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
boinc-client is already the newest version.


Not sure if I can "force" the system to find a newer version (beta?)...
Will do some more research and get back to you.

Many thanks!!
Bob

Not sure if I can "force" the system to find a newer version (beta?)...

http://packages.qa.debian.org/b/boinc.html has 7.0.65
Don't go for 7.1 or 7.2, as these are really unstable development versions with active bugs in them.

Also, for future reference, check http://wiki.debian.org/BOINC

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Yep, thanks for the links!

Using (as stated on http://wiki.debian.org/BOINC):

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install boinc-client

gives V 7.0.27 as the latest version. That's the one I am running now AGAIN after several hours of trying to fix my problem :-(

I downloaded the source for 7.0.65 and tried to manually compile it on the little Raspberry, no success. After setting up a more or less full blown development environment I failed to get some of the libs to work with my Pi.
I then found a compiled binary on the web and tried to install that one, no success :-(((
No error messages, nowhere!, but I always got "boinc not running" when starting the boinc-client.

Anyway, after cleaning up the mess and getting everything on the Pi back to a "normal" state, I am back on 7.0.27, manually turing BOINC on and off.
Maybe one of the future versions will fix this.....

Ah, BTW, I did not dare to install one of the "unstable" versions > 7.1.x.
I had enough "unstability" for the next months ;-)

Thanks for your help!!
Bob

My advice to you is to contact Gianfranco Costamagna on this. He's one of the maintainers of BOINC for a lot of distros, including Debian. He may still have an older version available from his PPA. See https://launchpad.net/~costamagnagianfranco/+archive/locutusofborg-ppa for his contact details.

What you can also do is approach Bikeman (Heinz-Bernd Eggenstein) at Einstein, perhaps through private message, and ask him how he got things to run correctly on his RasPi.

If need be, point back to this thread for more info for him, as well as that he can possibly use this to give info for others having the same trouble.

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