A couple of days ago I updated boinc on my win10 box. Didn't see anything about virtualBox anymore, instead saw that Podman is the replacement. Maybe? Not sure, whatever. After jumping through annoying hoops to try and install it, Boinc wouldn't run, as in projects wouldn't load, nothing worked. The interface was simply locked up. After fussing around a bit thinking I broke things, I tried removing podman. Magically, Boinc started right up again with all of my projects and tasks.

It's been about a week and I'm trying to pop Boinc on a Linux Mint box I have. Completely different machine. Luckily Podman was far more streamlined with the Linux instructions through the CLI. Tried starting up Boinc, first time I've tried it from a CLI, and...found fun annoying issues. Tried Boincmgr, and finally got some error to look up easier. Ran into a thread here from the beginning of the year titled "dreaded invalid client RPC password". I can't reply there, so...

After playing around with the different port suggestions in that thread, and Boincmgr actually starting, I still had issues doing anything at all. Same with my Win10 install, basically in the Advanced view of the GUI practically all menu options up top were greyed out. Then it clicked in my brain "oh right, I bet I know what it is..." I removed Podman and reversed the installation suggestions...and poof, Boincmgr suddenly works and opens with all options available like I've come to know and love for the last 25 years.

I have no idea what Podman is for, and at this point I don't much care. This has annoyed me enough that I'm sitting here on a Friday morning at 0130 creating an account just to try to help others out. Far as I can tell Podman is trash and it should be removed from ANY suggestions of installs until it's streamlined for idiots like me.

It really shouldn't be the recommendation. Only BOINC Central and LHC-dev use docker. Unless you're running either of those, just install BOINC only and your own install of VBox when you want to run an app that requires it.

+1
I installed Podman as an exercise. It didn't mess things up on my XUbuntu installation other than stopping VB from working. (I already knew from other posts that it stopped VB from working. I have since removed it and unless CPDN go down that route, I won't be going back to it.

In reply to Dave's message of 29 Nov 2025:

+1
I installed Podman as an exercise. It didn't mess things up on my XUbuntu installation other than stopping VB from working. (I already knew from other posts that it stopped VB from working. I have since removed it and unless CPDN go down that route, I won't be going back to it.

+1

Podman has no place on any of my machines.

I followed the instructions exactly as they were given and installed the upgraded version of BOINC and Podman with no issues on both Win 10 and Win11 systems.
I only downgraded BOINC because the Remaining (estimated) time for Tasks was broken and no longer updated in the newer version.
Podman wasn't an issue.

---

Grant
Darwin NT.

In reply to Grant (SSSF)'s message of 29 Nov 2025:

I only downgraded BOINC because the Remaining (estimated) time for Tasks was broken and no longer updated in the newer version.

Is there an open ticker on GitHub that describes this issue?

---

BOINC maintainer.
For any insight, check my BOINC Development Blog.

In reply to Vitalii Koshura's message of 30 Nov 2025:

In reply to Grant (SSSF)'s message of 29 Nov 2025:

I only downgraded BOINC because the Remaining (estimated) time for Tasks was broken and no longer updated in the newer version.

Is there an open ticker on GitHub that describes this issue?

Yep, it's still there.
BOINC does not adjust estimated time based on previous tasks any more #6449

---

Grant
Darwin NT.