Just a few hints in case you get "Communications Deferred" and similar messages to tell you that work is not up/download which can happen if the servers were briefly down or the connection anywhere on that big Internet highway was interrupted.

Premise: This FAQ assumes your networking functioned properly and unexpectedly the client fails to communicate, for no reason. You've established that your Internet is up from the machine displaying the problem and you can reach the WCG forum.

General: Any action taken in the client to force communications will try to open a link and keep it open for 5 minutes, even if in the Activity menu was set to Network Activity Suspended or the Preferences were set to network according a time limited schedule.

If there is a very large "Communications Deferred for xx:xx hours" message in the Projects Tab counting down, it means that repeated and automated attempts were made by the client to contact the servers. Every time it fails, the client increases the amount of time before trying again. Select the WCG entry and hit Update to force an attempt to transact with the servers. Read the Message tab log entries. Be patient as when it is busy, it can take a minute or 2 to get a response.

Go to the BOINCmgr Advance view, Advanced menu and hit:

for BOINC 5.x "Retry Communications"
for BOINC 6.x "Do Network Communications"

Visit the Message tab and review. If there is nothing happening things should be up, or there is simply nothing to transact.

Uploading Tasks Hangs (see Projects Tab if a Communication Deferred state was invoked):

• Open the BOINC Manager Advanced View, Activity menu and set Network activity suspended, wait a few seconds and set the Network option back to what it was, activity always available or activity based on preferences.
  
• Go to the Transfers Tab of the BOINC client, and if uploading has not resumed, select a file to upload and hit the Retry Now button in left margin. The % upload counter and other counters should start going up. If failing, the % will freeze at a random value.

Visit the forums and see if anyone else reported a problem and look at the following 2 links to check if they signal downtime.

http://www.esea.dk/esea/boincschedulers.php

http://boincstats.com/page/project_status.php This one gives some detail on, though unfortunately does not as yet include WCG.

You can do your own checking if the BOINC servers are reachable from your location by running a few checks from a CMD window. In Windows open the Start Menu, find Run and type CMD and enter. Type

tracert secure.worldcommunitygrid.org

this should end in a response from IP 198.20.8.241

ping 198.20.8.246

for the secure connection is another hurdle to check. This is timing out as ping is blocked.

Soft Boot the system and reset the router/modem to refresh all may lead to clearing the problem too.

When you can't get it resolved, look at the client messages again and visit the Start Here forum and Help to find an answer. There are many there.

Eventually, if the forums do report recent issues, follow them for current information and post any supplemental information in ongoing threads. If not, create a new thread in the BOINC Support forum. Include a complete message log in your report and describe what you've done so far to correct the situation.