Recent assignment

[kladner]

I am puzzled by a recent action by PrimeNet. Attached are the lines from the Assignment page which refer to the first core on my CPU:

As you can see, Core 1 had been working on M52390157 for some days. Yesterday, it was assigned M332220523 (!), and stopped work on the exponent in progress.

Is this normal behavior? I have no objection to running the enormous exponent (5 year expected completion), but why did this supersede work in progress?

Also, since this assignment the following has been appearing:

[Mon Aug 29 08:07:31 2011 - ver 26.6]
Registering assignment: LL M332220523
PrimeNet error 40: No assignment
ra: already assigned, exponent: 332220523, A: 1, b: 2, c: -1

However, Core 1 is indeed working on M332220523 with iteration times approaching half a second. That seems about right, as it seems to be proportional to the size of the exponent.

Any thoughts/comments would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[MrHappy]

If Prime95 does some trial factoring and maybe P-1 on the new exponent then this is normal - because there may be a factor waiting to be found within some seconds of processing time and so your queue would be empty if you have no other assignments. When the trial factoring is done (and maybe P-1) Prime95 can be sure how long the test will take and will resume work on the first exponent.

[kladner]

Thanks, MrHappy.

[kladner]

Later observation:

However, I must note that M332220523 is doing LL work, as was M52390157. Also, in the screenshot above, the latter shows 22 days to completion. That has now been updated to 1855 days.

Again, I don't especially mind, but it does seem wasteful to put the work already done so far on the back burner that it will be reassigned.

[Mr. P-1]

Originally Posted by kladner

Later observation:

However, I must note that M332220523 is doing LL work, as was M52390157. Also, in the screenshot above, the latter shows 22 days to completion. That has now been updated to 1855 days.

Again, I don't especially mind, but it does seem wasteful to put the work already done so far on the back burner that it will be reassigned.

It shouldn't be reassigned. As long as the client is reporting to the server regularly, the assignment will be maintained.

When you say "M332220523 is doing LL work" do you mean that it was assigned as an LL? Or that the client is actually doing the LL test? It's normal for the client to do TF and P-1 factoring on an LL-assigned exponent prior to starting the LL test on that exponent. Additionally, if you have

SequentialWorkToDo=0

in your prime.txt file, it will do TF and P-1 on a new exponent before finishing LL testing the current one.

I'm also a bit puzzled as to why you've been given a 100M digit exponent to test. These are not for the faint-hearted. (In fact only one such test has ever been completed) You should not get them unless you specifically ask for them.

[kladner]

Hi Mr. P-1,

I'll try to answer, at least to the best of my abilities.

1) Is it doing actual LL work? Yes, as I understand things. Please see the screen shot attached (Worker 1). Note that two workers (3&6) recently completed and started new exponents. They are doing P-1 Stage One. Worker 1 changed during Saturday night. When I became aware of the change it appeared as it does now, except for the percent complete.

2) "SequentialWorkToDo=..." does not appear in Prime.txt.

One additional note: In worktodo.txt for Worker 1 it says:

[Worker #1]
AdvancedTest=332220523
Test=THIRTYTWODIGITHEXNUMBER,52390157,69,1

M52390157 is the exponent which it was working on previously.

I hope that I have given useful information.

Thanks for responding and posing the questions.

[lycorn]

M332220523 is currently being LL tested, as per the screenshot posted above.
It has skipped the last bit of TF and the P-1 stage (check the "Exponent status" report).
Something is not right, and the test shouldn´t proceed until TF and P-1 are done. Such a long test will very likely turn out to be a waste of time and processing resources, with the currently available hardware, and doing it without previously performing the optimum TF and P-1 trials makes matters even worse.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by kladner

One additional note: In worktodo.txt for Worker 1 it says:

[Worker #1]
AdvancedTest=332220523
Test=xxx...,52390157,69,1

M52390157 is the exponent which it was working on previously.

I hope that I have given useful information.

As far as I know, PrimeNet never gives assignments like that (i.e. using AdvancedTest, and without an assignment ID). It looks to me like you clicked Advanced > Test and entered that exponent. If you did this by accident/misunderstanding, or changed your mind about testing this number, you can go to Advanced > Unreserve Exponent, type (or paste) in 332220523, and click Ok. This will delete it from your worktodo.txt so you can work on M52390157, and tell the server that you do not have it reserved for LL testing.

By the way, if you want to do both but do 52390157 first, you can stop and close Prime95, edit the worktodo.txt to put 52390157 before 332220523, and start Prime95 again.

P.S., you might be wondering why this number is of any interest when it's so far above the normal first-time LL tests. It's because it has just over 100 million (a.k.a. "100M") digits, (to be exact, 100,008,343) and qualifies for the next EFF prize of $150,000, if it turns up prime. Looking at it from a purely practical standpoint, we probably shouldn't bother doing anything with 100M digit tests with today's hardware, (due to the length of time, cost, electricity, chance of error, etc.) but GIMPS is more geared for user choice than pure practicality.

P.P.S. you should keep your assignment IDs private (those are the long hex strings after Test=), to make sure nobody steals your assignment.

[cheesehead]

Moderators,

Please remove the assignment key shown in post #6.

[kladner]

OK. I know how this came about. See this thread:

http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthr...ight=332220523

In an unfocussed moment I entered this exponent (Advanced>Test...) while reading through various threads. Ignorance also played its part. I did not fully appreciate what I was asking the program to do. I vaguely remembered this, but could not find the appropriate thread until the light dawned and I did a search for the number itself. The line in worktodo.txt finally sank in, "AdvancedTest" as well.

Sorry for stirring things up to no good end. I believe that I should probably remove that line from Worker #1 in worktodo.txt, no?

Many thanks to those who responded. Please forgive the ignorance which made it necessary.

[Mini-Geek]

Originally Posted by kladner

Sorry for stirring things up to no good end. I believe that I should probably remove that line from Worker #1 in worktodo.txt, no?

It's easier this way:

Originally Posted by Mini-Geek

...go to Advanced > Unreserve Exponent, type (or paste) in 332220523, and click Ok. This will delete it from your worktodo.txt so you can work on M52390157, and tell the server that you do not have it reserved for LL testing.

When you've unreserved it, go to your assignments page and make sure it is unreserved.