FYI I used the 5.10.13 release as an excuse to try again, this time I installed a packet capture tool to watch what BOINC did when it tried to connect.

BOINC does nothing with SOCKS proxy enabled. There is not a single packet from my workstation sent to the SOCKS proxy when BOINC tries to connect. Its pretty much a sure thing that the libCurl they're using is severely broken.

My colleague isn't volunteering his time here to taunt anyone. English isn't his native tongue (nor is it for many here -- it is a World Community Grid, after all). It may be that he did not word everthing in a manner you might have liked or understood, but this is no reason to go off on him as you did -- he is only trying to help you.

His question "We need to know more" Did you indicate what release of Windows this happened on? What level of maintenance was it at? What processor -- is it overclocked; how much RAM -- how big is the swap file? You had said, " Explorer/Boinc dying - 4 instances" which really was not a lot of information I think you will agree.

On the second item, he said, "This version has improved scheduling, and new restrictions. Suspending work units is perfectly normal, I would have to see specific instances to determine if there is a real problem." The first part of his response is a simple statement of fact. Perhaps his wording at the end was not that clear. If anything, BOINC does good record keeping. He was looking for the BOINC messages at the time of error.

In responding to the third item, he is again asking for more than a vague "Client unable to connect with server for upload - two instances" which is what you provided. If you know the client was unable to connect, you were looking at the message log. There are several reasons it may not have been able to connect, many of which are not errors. The precise message would have allowed to identify exactly what was happening.

Since you have now upgraded, there is no need to pursue the problem you first reported further.

Please, next time you experience and report a problem, collect message logs and provide them along with details pertinent to operating system and the hardware involved. It might allow us to respond with answers instead of questions.

sorry, but briefly the corners of the mouth went up.... heard all too often from the English that mine was better than most native speakers.... ;>)

Had as reported in back-room the now infamous and now known as 'desktop crash' aka Explorer exit twice on 5.10.8 (3rd time counting with the 5.10.5 case included) and in both latter cases happened to watch exactly when a job finished. Not going to touch anything further up for testing until word is out that its isolated.

(was off-line 36 hours due a contractor using a very big mechanised spade to rip the main line out that served all comms to the whole area). It's great to have cellphones these days :D

It looks like the SOCKS proxy problem is indeed in the libCurl version they're using (you probably already know that from the mailing list). Hopefully in the next build they'll upgrade to using a newer version which supposedly has fixed the problem.

Mr. Bell:
Let me try and put this into perspective for you.
First I'm not a "software" person.
I do hardware and at the risk of sounding cocky I'm pretty good at what I do. That is build exceptionally stable machinery.
My post was nothing but well intentioned and meant to bring up an issue.
Had I been asked:" Hi: Could you check this log or that file?" I'd have been more than glad to do so but the response I received left me feeling as if I wasn't being beleived and that I didn't care for.
You say that your "colleague" doesn't speak English as a native tongue.
This is an English speaking forum and perhaps one of the requirements to be a Community Advisor should be to be fluent in English so that these issues don't come up in the first place.
My "in your face"comment to him wasn't just due to this particular comment but the culmination of a year of seeing abrasive comments made to many people.
This is not just my opinion but the opinion of many who come to this forum.
You say he isn't volunteering his time here to taunt anyone but the reality is just that.
I stand by my comment that he needs to work on his people skills.
A little courtesy goes a long way and that is a point that I'm sure you'll agree on.
Now after a few days have gone by we see that my comments on this issue are being seen by many including the developers so what I posted on was correct and that was my only reason for posting, to make the issue known.
I don't come here to get into prolonged back and forths with people.
Life is too damned short for that and quite honestly is a waste of time.
If someone needs more info than what I posted just ask for specifics and I'll be glad to get them for you. All I ask is that it be done politely and not in a manner that leads me to beleive the person thinks I am making up what I posted.
A good day to you and good health to you and yours,
Movieman

The specs of the machine in question are as follows:
MB: Supermicro X7DAL-E
cpu; 2-X5350 Intel Clovertowns at 2667mhz(8X1333)
memory: 4x1 gig Mushkin DDR2-667FBDimms
PSU: PCP+C 610w Silencer

Soiftware:
OS: Windows 2003 Server Enterprise w/SP2 and all updates done.