Query about age of assignment
 

I have two exponents that are due to finish in about a week. I logged on and found that two more had been assigned to me: 23,404,477 with an age of 0 days, and 23,988,329 with an age of 142 days and last updated on 1st April.

What is the significance of the 142? Does it mean that someone else started the check and never finished it?

G

You can check the status of your exponents from the Primenet page [URL]http://v5www.mersenne.org/[/URL] clicking on Exponent Status under the Results Queries menu.

[URL]http://v5www.mersenne.org/report_exponent/?exp_lo=23988329&exp_hi=23988329&B1=Get+status[/URL] shows that this exponent was assigned to you as a double check on 1 April 2010, which explains the 142 days, and it has only been tested (test completed) once before.

Yet I've been checking other numbers since then, which have been assigned to me as the previous one finishes. How could this one have been assigned for nearly five months with no work being done on it? I've looked through some backups and it doesn't appear on old worktodo files.

G

Have you looked at the prime.log file on all of your machines for an entry from around the time that, according to PrimeNet, the exponent was assigned to you?

Have you ever started the client software up on a machine you don't normally use?

Have you ever made use of the manual reservation system?

According to [URL]http://v5www.mersenne.org/assignments/?exp_lo=23988329&exp_hi=23988329&B1=Get+status[/URL] the exponent was manually reserved and no estimated completion time ever reported.

[quote=Brian-E;226558]Have you looked at the prime.log file on all of your machines for an entry from around the time that, according to PrimeNet, the exponent was assigned to you?

Have you ever started the client software up on a machine you don't normally use?

Have you ever made use of the manual reservation system?[/quote]

1) There is only one machine. It was brought into service on 23rd June 2009.

2) I have checked the prime.log files. The oldest I have is 24th April 2010, but all of them contain my history back to 3rd Feb 2009.

23,404,477, which has an age of 0 days, appears for the first time in the file dated 22nd August and 23,988,329 does not appear at all.

3) I have never started the client software on a machine that I don't normally use.

4) I used the manual reservation system in November 2009 to restart an exponent that had been lost some months earlier following a PC crash.

G

My questions were intended suggestively to help you trace what might have happened. But in the meantime ckdo has indicated a way of querying the database of which I was unaware and which shows that the 140+ day old exponent was manually assigned to you.

Whether you are able to ascertain how this happened may depend on your own records, but for practical purposes you now obviously have two options: put the exponent in worktodo.txt and test it, or return it to the pool for someone else. Since you have used the manual reservation system before you are probably well acquainted with it and how you do this (I'm not). If not, I'm sure others here will be able to answer further questions and guide you as necessary.:smile:

I didn't assign that number to myself. I would have no objection to testing it, but when I logged on and looked at my assignments I saw that I now have five in the queue: the two I am testing at present, which are due to finish in three days and five days; the next two, which I assume were given by the normal allocation process; and 23,988,329. As the next two are not due to finish until 24th and 25th September I would go past the six month limit if there was much of a delay and lose 23,988,329 anyway. I've now unreserved it.

Which leaves the question of how it got there in the first place. No-one else knows my password so could it be a system glitch?

G

[QUOTE=GARYP166;226694]Which leaves the question of how it got there in the first place. No-one else knows my password so could it be a system glitch?[/QUOTE]

yes, it could be a system glitch. Either at the primenet end but we consider that unlikely or at your browser end. For instance my mouse goes wild every so often, I dont know why, just a cheap mouse I guess. It might have happened to hit the combinations of links to reserve an exponent without you intending.

It seems to me it is easier to accidentally do a manual reservation then it should be but its pretty easy to un-reserve it too so no great harm done.

[QUOTE=lfm;227224]yes, it could be a system glitch. Either at the primenet end but we consider that unlikely ....[/QUOTE]

I'm not so sure that all of "we" agree with your statement.

Some mighty strange things have been happening with PrimeNet lately. For example, right now PrimeNet is reporting "No web site is configured at this address." when accessing "http://www.mersenne.org/".

[QUOTE=chalsall;227317] For example, right now PrimeNet is reporting "No web site is configured at this address." when accessing "http://www.mersenne.org/".[/QUOTE]It's ok here and now.

[QUOTE=Uncwilly;227318]It's ok here and now.[/QUOTE]

Wasn't a little while ago....