How so I unreserve orphaned exponents

[SSteve]

When I was setting up this Ubuntu machine last night (and into this morning) I created a directory ~/mprime to hold mprime work files. I somehow wound up with some exponent files in my home directory along with an empty worktodo.txt file. Is there any way I can unreserve them? The files are pP319317, pP319447, pP319753, and pP319869.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by SSteve

When I was setting up this Ubuntu machine last night (and into this morning) I created a directory ~/mprime to hold mprime work files. I somehow wound up with some exponent files in my home directory along with an empty worktodo.txt file. Is there any way I can unreserve them? The files are pP319317, pP319447, pP319753, and pP319869.

The simplest way is to log in on the PrimeNet website and check the exponents then unreserve them there. It is possible to rebuild the worktodo and rescue the exponents. I don't remember the method for interpreting the second letter, but you can get the exponent and even the assignment ID (you have to look at the webpage source) from PrimeNet.

[SSteve]

I logged into my account and the exponents aren't listed, only the ones I'm working on. So I looked at prime.txt in the directory with the exponent files and it says "V5UserID=ANONYMOUS". I'm not sure how I managed that. At my age you'd think I would have learned not to continue setting up a new computer after 11pm. At that point I just start making mistakes.

So unless there's another option I guess I'll just leave them sitting there until PrimeNet decides they're abandoned.

[xilman]

Originally Posted by SSteve

So unless there's another option I guess I'll just leave them sitting there until PrimeNet decides they're abandoned.

Why not just delete them and pretend that nothing ever happened?

Paul

[Brian-E]

Originally Posted by xilman

Why not just delete them and pretend that nothing ever happened?

Paul

This would indeed cause little harm, despite the fact that the work is the in-demand double-checking in the 25XXXXXX exponent range (towards proving that M25964951 is the 42nd Mersenne Prime), because these four exponents won't add significantly to the overhead caused by people abandoning work instead of tidily unreserving it.
But isn't it good to see people like SSteve demonstrating a team mentality by wanting to do just that? And is there really no way of unreserving an exponent if it's in an anonymously-owned state?

[lycorn]

Originally Posted by SSteve

So I looked at prime.txt in the directory with the exponent files and it says "V5UserID=ANONYMOUS".

Have you fixed that? Otherwise you won´t be credited for any work you submit.

Originally Posted by SSteve

So unless there's another option I guess I'll just leave them sitting there until PrimeNet decides they're abandoned.

I don´t know of any other option. The server will in due time reassign the exponents to someone else.
As xilman hinted, you may safely delete the savefiles that are in your Prime95 directory.

[SSteve]

Originally Posted by lycorn

Have you fixed that? Otherwise you won´t be credited for any work you submit.

Yes. I made a directory to hold the mprime files so they wouldn't clutter up my home directory. Everything's set up correctly there.

I don´t know of any other option. The server will in due time reassign the exponents to someone else.
As xilman hinted, you may safely delete the savefiles that are in your Prime95 directory.

Ok, I'll do that. Thanks to everyone for all the help.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Brian-E

But isn't it good to see people like SSteve demonstrating a team mentality by wanting to do just that?

Yes, it is. :-)

And is there really no way of unreserving an exponent if it's in an anonymously-owned state?

Consider the (un)desirability of allowing anyone other than those who know the assignee's password to be able to unreserve an exponent.

[KingKurly]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

Consider the (un)desirability of allowing anyone other than those who know the assignee's password to be able to unreserve an exponent.

I may be "mis-remembering", but I'm pretty sure that you can unreserve an exponent with the exponent and the assignment ID alone. I think I remember accidentally assigning something to anonymous instead of myself through the manual assignment form, and I was able to unreserve it as myself by putting the worktodo line into one of my computers and then unreserving the exponent like normal.

Or you can just let it sit for 60 days or whatever and it'll get automatically dropped for inactivity.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by KingKurly

I may be "mis-remembering", but I'm pretty sure that you can unreserve an exponent with the exponent and the assignment ID alone.

Thank you for this reminder.

My statement should have been:

Consider the (un)desirability of allowing anyone other than those who know either the assignee's password or the assignment ID to be able to unreserve an exponent.

I think I remember accidentally assigning something to anonymous instead of myself through the manual assignment form, and I was able to unreserve it as myself by putting the worktodo line into one of my computers and then unreserving the exponent like normal.

Yes, if one has access to the assignee's data files (such as by being the assignee), one can get the assignment ID.

My intended point was that it is not desirable to allow anyone who does not have access to the assignee's data to be able to perform unreservations.

- - -

OT: BTW, would "de-reserve" and "de-reservation" be better terms to use than the "un-" versions, to refer to the act of asking PrimeNet to cancel an assignment?

That is, an exponent that is currently not assigned/reserved is in an unassigned/unreserved state, but it would make sense for the act of requesting that an exponent's status be changed from assigned/reserved to unassigned/unreserved to be deemed an act of deassignment/dereservation (or maybe disassignment/... instead).

Even farther OT: Those individuals who object to such a change in designation would be "antidisassignmentarians", whilst the term for their collective campaign to oppose such designation would be "antidisassignmentarianism"? :-)

- - -

Or you can just let it sit for 60 days or whatever and it'll get automatically dropped for inactivity.

Well, yes, that applies to any case, whereas the discussion above was about explicitly returning an exponent without waiting for that timeout.

[KingKurly]

All true, yes. I wasn't picking on you, just clarifying. Perhaps I clouded your point by focusing on a sidebar discussion instead of the main point -- and your main point was correct, but not the whole story.

Hopefully I didn't add to any confusion that may exist; my intent was to decrease confusion!