World Community Grid - View Thread - BOINC: [error] App version has unsupported platform xxxxxxxxxx

This error message reporting failure of work retrieval, occasionally happens when the client identifies itself incorrectly / incompletely. It happens mostly to 64 bit Linux clients in form of this message set:

[error] App version has unsupported platform i686-pc-linux-gnu
[error] No application found for task: i686-pc-linux-gnu 617 ; discarding

An easy fix for this can be applied by creating/changing the cc_config.xml file and inserting the following line into the <options> section:

<alt_platform>i686-pc-linux-gnu</alt_platform>

Below is a sample file structure, where the highlighted line [printed bold] facilitates to fetch 32 bit work where there is no 64 bit science application available. [WCG only compiles 32 bit science apps]

<cc_config>
   <log_flags>
      <task>1</task>
      <file_xfer>1</file_xfer>
      <sched_ops>1</sched_ops>
      <checkpoint_debug>1</checkpoint_debug>
   </log_flags>
   <options>
      <alt_platform>i686-pc-linux-gnu</alt_platform>
   </options>
</cc_config>

Instructions how to format the cc_config.xml and where to locate the file in the BOINC data_dir, are found in this wiki: Client_Configuration. For Ubuntu and having used the Synaptic Package Manager (Recommended to install BOINC), the command to modify the file from a terminal window is sudo gedit /etc/boinc-client/cc_config.xml The location may vary for other Linux distributions (symlinked into the BOINC data directory).

NB: For this option to take effect the client daemon/service has to be restarted! The commands to achieve that for Ubuntu from a terminal window are:

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client stop or sudo service boinc-client stop
sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client start or sudo service boinc-client stop

Those "64 bit" Linux systems that are receiving a very limited selection of projects, e.g. getting only Computing for Clean Water (C4CW) and the VINA based sciences such as GFAM/DSFL/Sn2S **, though all or many projects are selected, could be missing the necessary 32 bit libraries to get all other research projects [provided sufficient system resources are available]. In this situation the above cc_config.xml change has to be applied and a terminal command
sudo apt-get install ia32-libs needs to be executed to import these libraries.

** Present 64 bit compiled sciences are as at Feb.9, 2013, if work is available:

C4CW
SN2S
DSFL
GFAM
HCC
FAAH (as of when the new AutoDock engine goes in production, presently in alpha/beta)

Related topics:
Output file xxxxxxxx for task yyyyyyyy ab sent [Linux ia32-libs missing] (official BOINC wiki)
Client Configuration cc_config.xml maintenance (official BOINC wiki)

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