Hi,

a fellow cruncher is advising me to contact Willy to fix this issue :

jeu. 14 oct. 2010 20:12:00 CEST Account manager contact succeeded
jeu. 14 oct. 2010 20:12:00 CEST [error] Inconsistent signing key from account manager

I searched and found explanation in this wiki saying "it may happen", but I also found this and this, so I tried to detach and reattach to BAM : it worked, the message disappeared... for some time, and now it's back again, after each BAM synch.

I'm using ubuntu 10.10 with boinc 6.10.58 (installed from depot) in a virtual machine.


So please Willy, thanks for your help.
Jerome

Did you search this forum (Bug Submit Guidelines! (section 1))???

You would've found this: Inconsistent signing key from account manager

You have locked my other topic in quite an aggressive and impolite manner, so I'm forced to duplicate it since i cannot answer to you.

You say :

"Did you search this forum (Bug Submit Guidelines! (section 1))???

You would've found this: Inconsistent signing key from account manager"

YES i did, I also mentioned several URL as results of searches that I have performed, I did not mention the thread you are giving but I had read it, and as I mentioned in my post i consider the method they are referring to : "so I tried to detach and reattach to BAM : it worked, the message disappeared... for some time, and now it's back again, after each BAM synch."

So unfortunately this thread did not solve the issue, that's why I posted here.

Besides, one of the moderator of berkeley forum did suggest me to post the issue here, but it was obviously not a very good idea...

The problem is described by Saenger in the thread I referred to.

It's a OS problem, not a BAM! issue, there is nothing I can do about it.

You only have one thread on this forum, and since we can post in it, nothing is locked.


You could try the "[Quote]" link to avoid duplicating manually, as I have done. ;-)

Gruß,
Gundolf

@gundolf : Willy had locked my first thread, i created a second one to answser, he merged the content + unlock the first, please get informed before judging.

@Willy : this is why I posted on the berkeley forum, as explained, and there a moderator said :

"Checking in the source code, you get this message when BOINC doesn't accept a new signing key when it has one already.

You will have to contact the account manager administrator to get that fixed.
Contact Willy through his forums. "

Now you say "it's an OS problem" ? do you mean it is related to Mac OS X ? or ubuntu 10.10 ?

I'm pretty much confused now...

I have tried the procedure again to confirm : I just detached boinc from BAM / restarted my virtual machine / attached again to BAM / did the BAM synch : all ok, no error / restarted the virtual machine / same error again in boinc manager... the "solution" given in the other thread you mentioned seems to only working into one active session.

Note that the error prevents any project update to happen : adding or removing a project, etc.

This is rather frustrating for me too. I use Ubuntu, but instead of using its package manager to intall the Boinc client, I installed it manually from http://boinc.berkeley.edu; first 6.10.58, now, 6.12.6. So, I did not use the package from Ubuntu, if that was the issue. Yet, the issue remains.

In the threads at several sites both Willy and a Boinc developer pointed to an OS issue, but Ubuntu seems to believe that by synchronizing to a more recent version of the Boinc client fixed the issue, in spite of many users still noticing the issue.

Would there be any mitigating action that I could do?

TIA

When testing the new BAM! RPC version I found that my Debian test system didn't like changing the account manager URL in acct_mgr_url.xml. I got the Inconsistent signing key on the next connection. Changing it back didn't solve it. Windows clients don't care about changing the URL.

Now normally you don't change this value by hand so that won't be the problem, but it looks like the Linux client is more sensitive to changes in the XML files. I can imagine that if the client fails to connect to BAM! one time (for example internet connection down at the client side or some issue with BAM!) it invalidates the AMS key and even follow-up connections which are 100% are invalidated after that.

So, is there a way for you to check if the host had a bad connection before the Inconsistent signing key message appeared?

Hi,

i'm sorry but by now I had to do some reinstall and in the ubuntu 10.10 VM that i'm using the boinc is not attached to BAM, since I only crunch 2 non OS X project in there that I want to keep in the active list (virtual prairie and freehal).

Jerome

Willy, I cannot trace back that far, but it's quite likely, since I do have some network hiccups every now and then.

TIA

I started having a similar problem after a network disconnect recently.

2010-12-18 12:50:40 PM | | Contacting account manager at http://bam.boincstats.com/
2010-12-18 12:50:42 PM | | Account manager contact succeeded
2010-12-18 12:50:42 PM | | [error] No signing key from account manager

I did an uninstall of 6.12.4, verified it was uninstalled using Microsoft Uninstall cleanup, then installed 6.12.8.
I cannot connect. Whether the password is good or bad, I get a message from BOINCMGR that "now using account manager" but that is incorrect on two counts: (1) The "connect to manager" is still shown and the "disconnect from account manager" is NOT shown and (2) The "sync with account manager" is missing. It is not connected but it did contact boincstats because the date for the last contact was updated.
This is Vista64 windows and it happened on only one of my boinc systems. If BM says "now using account manager" then it should show that it is being used. That is a bug in BM I suspect. I posted my problem at t BM forum and was referred back to this thread at boincstats. However I suspect it is a BAM! bug but BM is not handleing it correct.

Currently, the system is crunching just fine, but I cannot get onto BAM!. If useful I can put a network monitor on the 31415 port, but if the username/passwords and response are encrypted then there is nothing useful (for me) to look at.

EDIT: Want to add that if I put in an INCORRECT password, BM still reports "now using account manager" so obviously there is some type of disconnect between BM and BAM! communications.

Vista Ultimate 64 with all patches.

Just had this happen to a second system. This was a linux (Dotsch/UX). I shut it down to add a GeForce 250 card and after booting, I was unable to sync to my host. I added two GPU projects before installing the card, and attempted to sync to pick those two up. This is what showed up in the messages:

1 2010-12-18 11:05:19 PM Starting BOINC client version 6.10.56 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
9 2010-12-18 11:05:19 PM OS: Linux: 2.6.27-7-generic


72 2010-12-18 11:10:48 PM Fetching configuration file from http://bam.boincstats.com/get_project_config.php
73 2010-12-18 11:10:52 PM Contacting account manager at http://bam.boincstats.com/
74 2010-12-18 11:10:53 PM Account manager contact succeeded
75 2010-12-18 11:10:53 PM [error] No signing key from account manager
76 2010-12-18 11:10:53 PM [error] Inconsistent signing key from account manager

Please tell me you have the contents of acct_mgr_reply.xml from that reply.

I emailed you the contents of that file using the boincstats private mailing tool. I disconnected from BAM! after the failed attempt to sync but I assume the reply was from the earlier attempt to sync.

The signatures are shown with a <CR><LF> in the email. I assume that is an artifact of windows converting the unix text (xml) file. I used windows putty to log into my linux system, ftp'ed the file back to me thru another server, and opened the file using windows notepad. There were no extra line feeds when I viewed the file on the linux system using "cat acct_mgr_reply.xml" and notepad did not show any linefeeds either, but when I pasted the text into your mailing tool, blank lines showed up in the signature paragraphs.

FWIW, I attempted to open the file using internet explorer 8 and got the following error message:

The XML page cannot be displayed
Cannot view XML input using XSL style sheet. Please correct the error and then click the Refresh button, or try again later.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Only one top level element is allowed in an XML document. Error processing resource 'file:///C:/Users/jstateson/Downloads/a...

<b>Warning</b>: SimpleXMLElement::addChild() [<a href='simplexmlelement.addchild'>simplexmlelement.addchi...

EDIT: By "blank lines" I mean double spacing in the signature key. I assume any type of white space like that would cause decryption of the signature to fail. The signature were single spaced when viewed using "cat" on the linux system.

Thanks! That gave me a clue. I did not anticipate for wrong codes in the team name. Your team name has a '&' in it (Texas A&M University) and XML doesn't like that when not encoded. I think I fixed that and you should no longer have the error at the top of the file.

Please let me know if it is fixed.


Took the wrong approach to fix it, should be OK now!

Yes, that fixed it. I re-attached to BAM! just fine.

I had complained on the boinc forum HERE about this very same problem: the ampersign showing up on certain projects. That was back in march 2010 and did not get any response. The two projects involved had the ampersign when I joined. The A&M teams I created did not have the same problem but they did have an ampersign.

Question - Is the following text from client_state.xml correct?

<master_url>http://aqua.dwavesys.com/</master_url>
<project_name>AQUA@home</project_name>
<symstore>http://aqua.dwavesys.com/symstore/</symstore>
<user_name>BeemerBiker</user_name>
<team_name>Texas A&amp;M University</team_name>

ie: does the A&amp properly escape the ampersign?
Or is it incorrect and should be just A&M

That was my question back in March to the boinc forum. It was never answered.

Hi !

Same problem here, but it seems that the cause is a XML syntax error in the acct_mgr_request.xml :


The closing host_authenticator tag.

The error is well spoted in the response :

What I see in acct_mgr_request.xml is even worse:

<host_uhntiiccaator>8da...64f</host_authentictoor>

That file is built with informations in acct_mgr_login.xml
Which is false too :

<acct_mgr_login>
<login>xxxxxxxx</login>
<password_hash>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</password_hash>
<previous_host_cpid>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</previous_host_cpid>
<next_rpc_time>1296075817.604989</next_rpc_time>
<opaque>
<host_authenticator>xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx</host_authenticator>
</opaque>
</acct_mgr_login>

I searched in the sources, but really didn't find where thoses files are built !
Probably around client/acct_mgr.cpp...

I've posted a bug on the debian package I use :
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=586788

Indeed, the same gibberish in acct_mgr_login.xml:

<host_uhntiiccaator>8da...64f</host_authentictoor>

However, acct_mgr_request.xml contains the correct tags now.

Please, advise.

The opaque section is send with every reply from BAM! and simply send back to BAM! on the next request. Don't know why it's present in acct_mgr_login.xml as well.

Changed a line of code, a malformed request should no longer throw an error.

Willy,

So it seems that the source code for the BOINC client is buggy somehow in that this tag gets corrupted, right?

Is this issue related to this one too?

TIA

It's probably not the client nor BAM! but some bad bits in the data transfer from BAM! to the client or visa versa.

The issues might be related.

I'm now getting this error:

BOINCstats BAM! error: acct_mgr_request emyty

Only the LInux system contact with BAM results in this error; the Windows system does not.

Please, advise.

You get that error because the XML is indeed empty or it is invalid. You still have the same problem as before (corrupt XML) but BAM! doesn't send garbage back to the client anymore. Maybe on the next connect the host will not send invalid XML and get a proper response.