So the end of the story is, as Richard noted, you were getting work but did not look in the Tasks tab view.

There's also some who complain they don't see any work listed that is ready to start. That's because they selected in a forgotten moment to only show started tasks. That option was created because a refresh of a long cache list in BOINC Manager is actually a cpu intense activity and it happens every second. For better performance, close the BM.