v8.3.5 Installation fails silently under Ubuntu

[ElectricVehicle]

Open fah-client_8.3.5_amd64.deb with Software Install
Click install
enter my password for install
Install starts and progress bar increments
Then it seems to complete and the red uninstall button appears

But the fah-client isn't running and web control https://beta.foldingathome.org/ can't find a running client on the machine.

I've gone through numerous reboots, install / uninstall / install - it just doesn't work and there's absolutely no clue as to what's wrong.

This machines sole purpose in life is to fold. A GPU is a terrible thing to waste....

[bollix47]

Describe what you see if you go to the following link:

https://beta.foldingathome.org/account

IIRC there is a bug in the linux beta version (fixed in alpha version) which causes the account button not to show at the top next to the half moon. You can run the following and see if you can see/use the account :

https://alpha.foldingathome.org/machines

[calxalot]

What version of Ubuntu?

Have you tried systemctl commands?
I believe if the service was disabled somehow, the installer will not re-enable.

Code: Select all

systemctl status --no-pager -l fah-client
sudo systemctl enable fah-client
sudo systemctl start fah-client

Some other commands:

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sudo systemctl stop fah-client
sudo systemctl restart fah-client

[ElectricVehicle]

@bollix47 I hadn't created a Beta user account yet, but that's not the issue. Anyway I created the account. I was working before with 8.3.5 without an account.

@calxalot - Yes!! Thanks!!!
I had 8.3.5 previously installed and working fine. my PPD had dorpped from 12k PPD to 5K PPD for an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER
on Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS .

Nvidia driver versions seem to have given me issues on FAH 7.6.21 and after upgrading / downgrading drivers, Ubuntu updates and dealing with FAH 7.6.21 breaking during this process I decided just to move to FAH 8.3.5 .

Sooo.. 8.3.5 was installed and working, the PPD dropped, so I updated Nvidia drivers to the latest along with the latest Ubuntu updates 22.04.4 LTS. In the process FAH broke.
I previously uninstalled FAH 7.6.21 prior to installing 8.3.5 but the uninstall was not complete, so I took this chance to manually remove /var/lib/fahclient and /var/log/fahclient .
With the machine relatively clean at this point I Uninstalled FAH 8.3.5 and re-installed it (Open fah-client_8.3.5_amd64.deb with Software Install). FAH did not come up or appear in https://beta.foldingathome.org/machines . The fah-client was not running as reported by Systme monitor GUI, or cmd line ps. Then numerous reboots, install / uninstall / install..... to no avail.

I ran the systemctl commands in your post and everything is good now! Running again at 12k PPD on the latest Nvidia drivers!

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mik@6Monster:~/Desktop$ systemctl status --no-pager -l fah-client
○ fah-client.service - Folding@home Client
     Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/fah-client.service; disabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: inactive (dead)

mik@6Monster:~/Desktop$ sudo systemctl enable fah-client
[sudo] password for mik: 
Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/fah-client.service → /lib/systemd/system/fah-client.service.

mik@6Monster:~/Desktop$ sudo systemctl start fah-client

mik@6Monster:~/Desktop$ uname -a
Linux 6Monster 6.5.0-28-generic #29~22.04.1-Ubuntu SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Thu Apr  4 14:39:20 UTC 2 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

mik@6Monster:~/Desktop$ cat /proc/driver/nvidia/version
NVRM version: NVIDIA UNIX x86_64 Kernel Module  550.67  Tue Mar 12 23:54:15 UTC 2024
GCC version:  gcc version 12.3.0 (Ubuntu 12.3.0-1ubuntu1~22.04)

mik@6Monster:~/Desktop$ sudo nvidia-smi
Sun Apr 21 03:58:59 2024       
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 550.67                 Driver Version: 550.67         CUDA Version: 12.4     |
|-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id          Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |           Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                        |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+========================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 ...    Off |   00000000:03:00.0  On |                  N/A |
| 35%   55C    P2            232W /  285W |    1231MiB /  16376MiB |     94%      Default |
|                                         |                        |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+------------------------+----------------------+
                                                                                         
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Processes:                                                                              |
|  GPU   GI   CI        PID   Type   Process name                              GPU Memory |
|        ID   ID                                                               Usage      |
|=========================================================================================|
|    0   N/A  N/A      1475      G   /usr/lib/xorg/Xorg                            425MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      1625      G   /usr/bin/gnome-shell                           93MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      2885      G   gnome-control-center                            3MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      5351      G   ...irefox/4136/usr/lib/firefox/firefox        158MiB |
|    0   N/A  N/A      6647      C   ...nux-64bit-release-0.0.20/FahCore_22        530MiB |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Is it possible the FAH 8.3.5 uninstall is incomplete and leaves files or systemctl configuration for the fah-client service that keeps the installer from making a good install with a running fah-client?

[calxalot]

I believe some files are leftover from both v7 and v8 unless you use the purge option uninstalling, which also deletes all your old config and data.

I believe you normally install v8 over v7. Then you optionally purge v7.

Marcos knows everything. He rewrote the Linux installers for v8.

[Marcos FRM]

I ran the systemctl commands in your post and everything is good now! Running again at 12k PPD on the latest Nvidia drivers!

[...]

Is it possible the FAH 8.3.5 uninstall is incomplete and leaves files or systemctl configuration for the fah-client service that keeps the installer from making a good install with a running fah-client?

Known issue in 8.3.5: after removal (without purge), installing again will lead to disabled and stopped service. Fixed for the next beta:

https://github.com/FoldingAtHome/fah-cl ... t/pull/218

[ElectricVehicle]

Thanks @Marcos FRM and @Calxalot! Great to know this is fixed in the next release.

How do you do the "purge" to work around the bug with uninstalling and then re-installing 8.3.5?

[Marcos FRM]

In a terminal:

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apt purge fah-client

[calxalot]

I would recommend you do not purge v8, unless you are quitting fah on that machine.