Mac client needs work

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Justinf123
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2020 1:00 pm

Mac client needs work

Post by Justinf123 »

Could I begin in saying, I think the work here is ground breaking & I welcome being part of it.

I installed the standard Mac client a few days back, with a generic install.

1) I found generally system instability issues began (MacBook Pro, Retina 15 inch, 2.8 Ghz Quad core i7, mid 2015, OSX 10.15.3).
I had several hard crash/reboots within a few days and I was forced to stop running the tool;

2) What I then found, was the tool was still spawning in the background on re-boot, even though I had not started the app;

3) Even killing the tool (sudo killall -9 FahCore_a7), I noticed it re-spawned within seconds;

4) Finally, I had to remove by: directory hand tree /Library/Application Support/FAHClient & binary /usr/local/bin/FAHCoreWrapper ;

I found this overly aggressive behaviour, almost virus like. I need the ability to say when the app runs, I have commercial deadlines and at times need all the cycles I can get.
When I am not running the app, I don't expect the tool to be running. I never authorised any system level (owned by root) background jobs, especially ones that self-regenerate.

Could I suggest an immediate review of the OS X client. I'm happy to be a tester when you feel the above are addressed.

I would give serious consideration to suspending the OS X downloads.
Joe_H
Site Admin
Posts: 8002
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:41 pm
Hardware configuration: Mac Studio M1 Max 32 GB smp6
Mac Hack i7-7700K 48 GB smp4
Location: W. MA

Re: Mac client needs work

Post by Joe_H »

There is an Uninstaller included as part of every install, you have to use that to remove the client. Dragging to the Trash is not the way, nor is 2 or 3 ways to pause folding.

Pausing folding client would also have stopped processing, and that is supposed to persist over computer restarts. If it didn't there is an additional setting that would.

As for instability, the MBP Retinas are marginal on cooling, reducing CPU core usage and elevating the laptop or having it on a cooler would help. I have been folding on the older MBP 2012 model for years with no instability problems at all.

As for the install, it does not install anything owned by root, and you have to use an admin account password to install. There is a client process set to run in the background as a daemon, it is inactive when folding is stopped. It is done the same way on Linux. It runs with no privileges.

As for immediate review, as one of the many OS X testers of the current and prior client, I find most of your statements are based in ignorance. You are welcome to find out more.
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Justinf123
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Mar 08, 2020 1:00 pm

Re: Mac client needs work

Post by Justinf123 »

Had you asked, I would have posted the command line dump, which you could have then passed on to your development team.

Though as you have demonstrated, its more important on this project to be 'right' than correct, I'm just going to close my involvement & mark this thread do not notify.
Joe_H
Site Admin
Posts: 8002
Joined: Tue Apr 21, 2009 4:41 pm
Hardware configuration: Mac Studio M1 Max 32 GB smp6
Mac Hack i7-7700K 48 GB smp4
Location: W. MA

Re: Mac client needs work

Post by Joe_H »

You never asked anything here, just thrashed away and had the kind of results to be expected from that method of problem solving.

As for posting, you could have posted your log or other information, you chose to instead post your uninformed assumptions
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