I also faked that VirtualBox is installed as alternate

New-Item "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\virtualbox.exe" New-Item -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Oracle\VirtualBox" New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Oracle\VirtualBox" -Name "Version" -Value "7.2.2" -PropertyType "String" New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Oracle\VirtualBox" -Name "VersionExt" -Value "7.2.2" -PropertyType "String" New-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\SOFTWARE\Oracle\VirtualBox" -Name "InstallDir" -Value "C:\Program Files\Oracle\VirtualBox\" -PropertyType "String"

Seems like the don't use vbox would stop the tasks being sent from server.

In reply to Dave Studdert's message of 16 Apr 2026:
All Theory tasks failing at random times even after 3 hours of computation with no Stderr output.
Any insight to what might be going on here? Is it something on my end?

Boinc 8.2.9 Theory Simulation 302.10 (Docker)
https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/show_host_detail.php?hostid=11089134
This computer did not return any log, did't it?
Hence, you may need to ensure that docker works independent from BOINC or use Podman instead like on your other computer.

https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/show_host_detail.php?hostid=11077476
This computer reports what's going wrong:
time="2026-04-15T15:21:03+09:30" level=warning msg="The cgroupv2 manager is set to systemd but there is no systemd user session available" time="2026-04-15T15:21:03+09:30" level=warning msg="For using systemd, you may need to log in using a user session" time="2026-04-15T15:21:03+09:30" level=warning msg="Alternatively, you can enable lingering with: `loginctl enable-linger 112` (possibly as root)" time="2026-04-15T15:21:03+09:30" level=warning msg="Falling back to --cgroup-manager=cgroupfs"

So, you either
set 'cgroup_manager="cgroupfs"' in the [engine] section of the boinc user's containers.conf
or
you enable lingering for userid 112 as shown above,

A BOINC client restart may not be required but is recommended.


Additional hint
Both computers report 40 cores.
Please ensure you run a local CVMFS client on each of them.
If no CVMFS client is present on the host, each Theory container will use it's internal CVMFS.
So, 40 containers on a host will increase the network load by a factor of 40.

Good decision to cancel that task.
According to mcplots none of them succeeded so far:
run events attempts success failure unknown pp z1j 8000 - - sherpa 2.2.9 default 0 56 0 13 43

How to ?
I am on MacOS Sequoia

The wrapper is part of the main BOINC code base:

https://github.com/BOINC/boinc

Its maintained.

MadGraph5

These types of tasks are rare, but I see the same scenario on one of my PCs.
1. For about half an hour, there is some activity in the VM: Guest shows some CPU load, it downloads around 200 MB, and writes about 100 MB to the disk.
2. After that, Guest activity drops to zero, all performance graphs are flat, and the task log file becomes unreachable.

Here is an excerpt from the log:
===> [runRivet] Wed Apr 8 07:03:39 AM UTC 2026 [boinc pp zinclusive 13000 -,-,200 - madgraph5amc 2.7.2.atlas3...] ... ValueError: unsupported hash type md5 AttributeError : 'module' object has no attribute 'md5' ... ERROR: missing LHE output file: /scratch/tmp/tmp.UjcDJkl2wh/MG5RUN/Events/run_01/unweighted_events.lhe ... [2]+ 2535 Running ( $rivetExecString; exit $? ) & ERROR: fail to run madgraph5amc 2.7.2.atlas3 or Rivet (error exit code)
My preliminary, but not yet firm conclusion: The simulation never started because the angry Python strangled everything, maybe even itself. :)
My action: Brick therapy for that VM.

P.S. For those who are experienced or have real knowledge – please comment, is this "Brick therapy" a correct solution?

Thanks for correction, sorry.

This task is now under ERROR but continued to run after BOINC & PC shutdown and restart...
Name Theory_2922-4882143-675_2
Workunit 239288667
Created 11 Mar 2026, 21:53:12 UTC
Sent 12 Mar 2026, 1:12:12 UTC
Report deadline 23 Mar 2026, 1:12:12 UTC
Received ---
Server state Over
Outcome No reply
Client state New
Exit status 0 (0x00000000)
Computer ID 10970528
Run time 0 sec
CPU time 0 sec
Priority 0
Validate state Initial
Credit 0.00
Device peak FLOPS 5.56 GFLOPS
Application version Theory Simulation v302.10 (docker)
windows_x86_64

Ah thats why i saw a ton of upload backlog on my Boinctasks before shift.

again no tasks available - what's going on over there ?

Well, it turns out I DID have to blacklist KVM.
Like this -

If it doesn't exist, create this file -sudo touch /etc/modprobe.d/kvm.conf
Edit kvm.conf and paste these lines -blacklist kvm blacklist kvm_intel blacklist kvm_amdand Save.

Update the GRUB configuration (if necessary):sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfgReboot.

It works now. Thanks!

Bonjour,est ce que vous prévoyez d'optimiser encore l'application 302.1 theory ou est ce le modéle définitif parce que c'est lent avec docker.
ça va beaucoup plus vite sur virtualbox.

Hello, do you plan to further optimize the 302.1 theory application or is it the definitive model because it’s slow with docker.
it goes much faster on virtualbox.

Two other jobs where I tested the cpu- and elapsed time difference when using VBox rather than docker for the same job:

pp bbbar 7000 20 - pythia8 8.313 default 100000 644 vbox: Run time 1 hours 18 min 2 sec CPU time 1 hours 16 min 34 sec docker: Run time 45 min 3 sec CPU time 38 min 16 sec
pp zinclusive 8000 -,-,100,170 - pythia8 8.306 tune-AU2m 100000 650 vbox: Run time 5 hours 7 min 54 sec CPU time 4 hours 57 min 50 sec docker: Run time 1 hours 54 min 10 sec CPU time 1 hours 40 min 49 sec

apres essais ,l'émulation linux pour docker me fais perdre environ 20% de performances globales sur mon pc en me basant sur les temps de calcul des autres projets non docker.C'est sans interet.autant resté sous linux.

after trying, the Linux emulation for docker makes me lose about 20% of overall performance on my PC based on the computation times of other non-docker projects. It is of no interest. as much remained under linux.

Cool, thanks for that last tip about the runRivet.log file. At least there I can keep an eye on it.
Very useful.



In reply to Crystal Pellet's message of 12 Feb 2026:
Yeah, Advice is ... let it run.
Theory tasks can run from 5 minutes to over 10 days, so don't look at the % done or remaining time. That's of no use.

The Show Graphics button is only available for VBox-tasks, not for the docker version.

I see your task is running in slot 0
In that slot is a folder named 'shared'.
In the shared folder is a file called 'runRivet.log'.
The process running in the container is writing the progress of the event processing into that file.[/quote]

In reply to Crystal Pellet's message of 9 Feb 2026:
Your i7-8700 can't make a connection to CERN:

Probing CVMFS repositories ...
Probing /cvmfs/alice.cern.ch... Failed!
Probing /cvmfs/cvmfs-config.cern.ch... Failed!
Probing /cvmfs/grid.cern.ch... Failed!
Probing /cvmfs/sft.cern.ch... Failed!
Probing CVMFS repositories failed

Thank you...

This workunit containing the job "boinc pp z1j 8000 - - sherpa 2.2.8 default 100000 500" starves because of EXIT_DISK_LIMIT_EXCEEDED
https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/workunit.php?wuid=238981772
The 20 hours running docker task with peak disk usage of 7.48 GB contains:

got abort request from client
running docker command: kill boinc__lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome__theory_2922-4899195-500_1
program: podman
command output:
boinc__lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome__theory_2922-4899195-500_1
EOM
.
.
.
stderr end
running docker command: container rm boinc__lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome__theory_2922-4899195-500_1
program: podman
command output:
boinc__lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome__theory_2922-4899195-500_1
EOM
running docker command: image rm boinc__lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome__theory_2922-4899195-500
program: podman
command output:
Untagged: localhost/boinc__lhcathome.cern.ch_lhcathome__theory_2922-4899195-500:latest
Deleted: 79376ef46d917bc296637af0b05b32bfd9343f28f7fbcb0b1de6c1c506d72d39
Deleted: 9259743e983aaef18ae52b23e457320fa4e849e4e352edb3ad1bd4eece38cec6
Deleted: a42a951158504bf9a4debe713e6aa7365d4651bd8f02aa676adef32a66e324da
Deleted: e06ed2ad55322792d5d90223aced1f2c12f101443f88bc2e586a122413c7ebe0
Deleted: c4f9331961caded74fc715fe1b0e5a576df596340e8a2d50385e0fbdc1cd9ea6

I aborted mine.

In reply to homer__simpsons's message of 6 Feb 2026:
Some of the tasks I received completed in less than 20 minutes, some took 2-6 hours (displaying at 99.987% or 100% for hours). This (21h+) is displaying at 100%.

The task: https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/result.php?resultid=432278682
The workunit: https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/workunit.php?wuid=238897618It is very usual when a Theory task is running for more than 1 day. Up to >10 days (very rare)
Your task with the herwig7 generator can last longer than 1 day. Let it run.
You may show the progress when using "Show Graphics" from BOINC Manager.
Highlight the running task and press the "Show Graphics" button. A local webpage will popup. Press the Logs link and then the running.log.

Most errors occur on the 670±1s
It's quite random

The Theory app is now available on Windows via the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL). Documentation for the setup is available here, with Windows-specific instructions here.

TL;DR

1. Enable WSL
   
2. Install the BOINC WSL image