Folding Forum

I think it has nothing to do with any of my installed security software --on instinct, I restarted FF in safe mode ( all add-ons disabled ), went to the download page and saw the download which wasn't visible before and had no trouble downloading it.

I will now run the 7.5.1 exe that I just downloaded,see that it works properly with add-ons disabled, and then try restarting FF and seeing what effect that has on FAH

If it screws up, I'll have to disable add-ons till I find the culprit and will advise all of you. I want to repeat that I successfully downloaded the 7.5.1 exe with all my security software and VPN running but with all FF add-ons disabled.

If I have to do the disabling of individual add-ons to find the culprit, it will take significant time, so I may not be back to report till tomorrow.

The Google Chrome thing was tempting but I don't like Google and avoid using anything of theirs unless there is no other recourse ( Google Maps being an example )

Again, thanks to all of you for your help !

A bit later......so I run the exe, see the icon in my tray, run the mouse over the icon, and see "folding active". I then right click on the icon, go to FAH Control, and see that its waiting on a core update.

I disable my Super Antispyware, Malwarebytes and Cybereason Ransomfree, go to FAH Control, and see that nothing has happened. I am still on VPN and see the FAH client shown as 127.0.0.1:36330 ; I then shut down the VPN, uninstall/reinstall 7.5.1 and am taken to a blank page which I close.

I then click the tray icon and go to FAH control which now shows the FAH running with the client still shown as 127.0.0.1:36330

Just to recap, at this moment the VPN is off, as is my security software, and all FF addons are disabled. I then enable my security software and FAH Control continues to show progress.

I then restart the VPN and FAH Control continues to show progress on the work unit.

I will now restart FF, see what happens when my add-ons are running and report back.

Of course if the restart of of FF with add-ons enabled causes an issue w/ FAH running properly, I have to go through the job of finding out which add-on is the culprit -- that will take time.

So now I'm back to !?!? -- I've restarted FF with all add-ons enabled, the VPN is on, my security software is on, and FAH Control continues to show progress on the work unit ?!?! -- what now ?!!!

I will leave things as they are (VPN and security stuff all running, FF up w/ all add-ons enabled and wait to see what happens when the current work unit completes (leaving FAH Control open so I can see what happens when the WU completes. at 18% now ) and report back on developments. The WU says it will take 4 hrs from now (7:45PM Calif time Wed.)

You're really not understanding what I'm saying.

Firefox can do certain things. That has nothing to do with FAH's downloads.
IE can do essentially the same things, that has nothing to do with FAH's downloads/
(ditto for many other browsers.)

Your security software can restrict what those browsers can do but generally it doesn't restrict those things that are considered "safe"

Your firewall is not called an add-on -- which apply specifically to your browsers butt he firewall is part of your security suite.
FAH does not have add-ons so FAH's problem has absolutely nothing to do do with browser add-ons..

If you happen to download an evil program, your security software should prevent that evil program from doing those things that your browsers should be able to do.
FAHCClient is not an evil program, but your firewall must assume it is and until you inform your firewall that FAHClient should be allowed to get/return files from FAH's servers MalwareBytes is going to continue to assume FAHClient must be evil because they don't recognize it.

Telling MalwareButes you trust FAHClient is called "Granting an exception" and you have to do that in MalwareBytes;s management software. Moreover, MalwareBytes is able to differentate between FAHClient 7.4.4 and FAHClient 7.5.1 so you probably have to specifically authorize the one you want to use. That's called Granting an Exception.

If you choose to use some fsecurity software other than MalwareBytes, you'll probably have to do the same sort of thing in the management screen of that software.

Anyway, you have successfully protected your system from folding -- whether or not that's what you intended to do.

When you disable your firewall, one WU will download into each idle slot, and it will run overnight but the next day you'll need a new assignment and you'll either have to disable the firewall temporarily or -- better still -- you should create a permanent exception to the unnecessary restriction on FAH.

Please contact them for help.

It isnow 1:45 PM Thur. and FAH has been running just fine since my last post -- with all my security software enabled, no Malwarebytes exclusions yet created and the VPN up, FAH has successfully completed at least 1 WU and is working on another (due to complete approx. 4:30 ) . I will report back upon completion and successful download of the next WU.

I must note that since my last post I haven't rebooted --after I see that the next WU has downloaded and is running, I'll reboot and report back on findings.

The Malwarebytes people do know and support FAH per them --many of their team are folders like me. I talked w/ them about creating exclusion(s) for FAH ( they were surprised that exclusions might need to be created )--- what should the exact exclusion(s) terminology be ( should I exclude the whole FAH folder on my C drive ? ) The path to the FAH folder is C: > Users > APP Data > Roaming > FAH Client

Thanks again for everyones help and patience with this odyssey --I'll report more as per above.

The exclusion I've been talking about iis specifically allowing FAHClient program to download information from the internet -- and would exclude it from being blocked by he firewall

If they say no exclusions are needed, I trust them. FAH doesn't support any particular Firewall.
I'm glad to hear they support FAHClient without any modifications to firewall permissions.

I'm glad your problems seem to have been solved. There must be another cause for those problems. If you figure out what it was, let us know.

It might not Malwarebytes, it could be another anti-malware software. It also may depend on what is being downloaded and placed in the F@h data directories. The WU's are just some positional data, while a folding core is an executable that will contain arbitrary binary sequences that might be mistaken for a virus. I have not looked recently at checkpoint files, but in the past those also could have binary data that could trigger virus detection and be "cleansed". That resulted in a corrupted checkpoint that would fail if used on a restart.

I don't know what's going on --I rebooted just now and FAH continues to run just fine

If it's fixed and it doesn't come back, great.

Be sure you always log on to your OS with the same ID to run FAH.

If it does come back do the following.
* Pause all slots.
* Open the FAH data directory and move the subdirectory "cores" to the trash bin.
* Start a single slot and wait until a fresh copy of the FAHCore is downloaded.
* Repeat as necessary until all the slots are started. (Each one may or may not download a different FAHCore)

Hi Bruce,

I'm the only user of the computer --it's just Julie and I, and Julie doesn't do computer ( and never has or will ).

FAH continues to run perfectly.

I only have a slot for the i7 -860 --my vid card is a GTS 250 and apparently not strong enough to run the newer FAH stuff --it seems like that happened a couple of years ago.

barebear wrote:I only have a slot for the i7 -860 --my vid card is a GTS 250 and apparently not strong enough to run the newer FAH stuff --it seems like that happened a couple of years ago.

Fine.

Yes, the Tesla GPUs, including the GTS 250, are no longer supported.

I anticipate no problems with support for CPU-only systems.

You may be interested in https://stats.foldingathome.org/os. You'll notice that the lines for Fermi (and above) plus ATI shows there are a lot of supported GPUs.
I have go guess what the earlier line for (non-Fermi ??) NVIDIA GPUs means, but probably there are stilol a few Tesla's out there still trying to fold -- and failing.