Too many sections in worktodo.txt?

[markdjonson]

Hello -
I just upgraded Prime95 from v. 28.5 to 28.9, but something strange has happened. I have a quad-core CPU which was working fine with 28.5, but when I upgraded to 28.9, the program apparently only sees one core. The communcations thread shows "Too many sections in worktodo.txt. Moving work from section #2 to #1" and similar messages for section #3 and #4. The status window shows all four current assignments under core #1 and "No work queued up" for the other cores. Any ideas what may be causing this and how to fix it?

The CPU is a Core i7-3770S, running Windows 10 Home version 1607 (64-bit).

Thanks for your help -

Mark Johnson

[ATH]

In "local.txt" file make sure you have:
WorkerThreads=4
ThreadsPerTest=1

then you should be able to revert to your previous worktodo.txt

[GP2]

With version 28.9, you have choices.

To enable each choice, you need to edit some files that are in the same directory as prime95.exe

Make sure you stop the program first before editing these files.

Also, because you will be changing the number of worker windows, it is better to completely exit from Prime95. Find the green or red Prime95 icon in the bottom bar (in Windows10 it might be found by clicking on the "^" icon in the bottom right, then right-click on the red or green Prime95 icon and select "Exit". After editing the files, you can restart the program in the usual way (for instance, double-clicking on the Prime95 line in the File Explorer window).

--------------
First option (restore the way it was in earlier versions, running four LL tests simultaneously):
--------------

Edit your local.txt file to have the lines:

ThreadsPerTest=1
WorkerThreads=4

Edit your worktodo.txt file to have four sections:

[Worker #1]
... one or more lines with Test= or DoubleCheck= ...

[Worker #2]
... one or more lines with Test= or DoubleCheck= ...

[Worker #3]
... one or more lines with Test= or DoubleCheck= ...

[Worker #4]
... one or more lines with Test= or DoubleCheck= ...

--------------
Second option (run only one test at a time, but it runs about four times faster than before):
--------------
Edit your local.txt file to have the lines:

ThreadsPerTest=4
WorkerThreads=1

Edit your worktodo.txt file to have only one section:

[Worker #1]
... one or more lines with Test= or DoubleCheck= ...

Get rid of any other "[Worker #2]", "[Worker #3]", "[Worker #4]" lines and the blank lines preceding them.

--------------
Third option (run only two tests at a time, but they run about two times faster than before):
--------------

ThreadsPerTest=2
WorkerThreads=2

Edit your worktodo.txt file to have two sections:

[Worker #1]
... one or more lines with Test= or DoubleCheck= ...

[Worker #2]
... one or more lines with Test= or DoubleCheck= ...

Get rid of any other "[Worker #3]", "[Worker #4]" lines and the blank lines preceding them.

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by ATH

In "local.txt" file make sure you have:
WorkerThreads=4
ThreadsPerTest=1

then you should be able to revert to your previous worktodo.txt

This is true. However, upgrading to version 28.9 should not have changed these values. Very strange -- no one else has reported this behavior.

[ATH]

Originally Posted by Prime95

This is true. However, upgrading to version 28.9 should not have changed these values. Very strange -- no one else has reported this behavior.

I was thinking he might just have moved just the worktodo.txt to a new folder with the 28.9 version instead of upgrade the exe-file in the old folder. What is the default number of WorkerThreads in a fresh 28.9 download?

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by ATH

What is the default number of WorkerThreads in a fresh 28.9 download?

The default in a fresh install of 28.9 is 1 worker with 3 helper threads.

[markdjonson]

Thank you all for the responses. However, it appears that the problem has resolved itself -
I haven't made any changes, but I now have received new assignments which are running on cores 2-4, and the exponents I was testing before upgrading the program are all queued up on core 1. This is the current worktodo.txt:

[Worker #1]
Test=8CE782B0F5AC2ECD3049DC76F66D6160,FFT2=3840K,73170787,75,1

;;MOVED;;[Worker #2]
Test=0A050A9078DAB7DC7C4A44857229AF47,FFT2=3840K,73151593,75,1

;;MOVED;;[Worker #3]
DoubleCheck=C9041F6650F0DAA570FE365E33CF0A50,43691959,72,1

;;MOVED;;[Worker #4]
Test=F38039779D1756622EAB66E67A5304A5,FFT2=3840K,73161071,75,1

[Worker #2]
Test=E447E853617EFEE7E19D4CAB79056322,77164693,75,1

[Worker #3]
DoubleCheck=BFC97E2BC8FE9F4E052F2C96FE9E4FEC,43712099,72,1

[Worker #4]
DoubleCheck=BC7AD1154E1F72AE47CC2F25A76F350A,43712171,72,1

It looks like I can just let things run from here. I'll post again to this thread if further problems crop up.

[Uncwilly]

Originally Posted by Prime95

This is true. However, upgrading to version 28.9 should not have changed these values. Very strange -- no one else has reported this behavior.

I had a similar issue when I upgraded. It did not get the helpers all sorted out properly.
See this post:

Originally Posted by Uncwilly

I upgraded one of my machines (an i5 with 4 cores, AVX, but not AVX2) to the Win 64-bit version of 28.9 (from an older 64-bit version)
.......
On firing up 28.9 it moved all of the worktodo.txt entries into [Worker 1]. All well and good....
But, it was only using 2 of the 4 cores, until I monkeyed with the settings to give it helper threads. Shouldn't it have applied all cores to the new task if it moved all of the worktodo to that thread?

[markdjonson]

I forgot to add - I had just done the upgrade the way I usually do, by extracting the new files into my Prime95 directory, choosing to replace the old files with the same names.

[jovada]

After a system crash (unrelated to prime95), prime95 also "moved" one thread upon the next start. Found a fix in this thread, so thanks a lot!