Strategic Double Clicking

[GP2]

Originally Posted by storm5510

I'll take the top two and add them to my queue in Prime95.

Done: I should have results on the first this coming Saturday; the second on July 4.

Are you sure you queued the top two? There don't seem to be any assignments or results.

51954559	1	1	14	DoubleCheck=51954559,73,1
54274777	1	3	10	DoubleCheck=54274777,73,1

[Sergiosi]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Here's a list of "unknowns"

...

Exponent    Unk    worktodo
41676091    1    DoubleCheck=41676091,72,1
42142421    1    DoubleCheck=42142421,72,1
...

I took the first 2 from the latest list.

[Prime95]

I took these:

43835563	1	DoubleCheck=43835563,72,1
43837823	2	DoubleCheck=43837823,72,1
44504917	3	DoubleCheck=44504917,72,1
45512063	2	DoubleCheck=45512063,72,1
48566747	1	DoubleCheck=48566747,72,1
48647167	1	DoubleCheck=48647167,72,1

[cuBerBruce]

I took the next two, the 49M ones:

49214119	29	DoubleCheck=49214119,72,1
49233293	28	DoubleCheck=49233293,72,1

[storm5510]

M54711067 from MadPoo's original list gifted a major headache yesterday evening. There was a power outage. What are the odds that Prime95 would have been writing its backup files at the same instant as the outage? Astronomical, if I had to guess. Prime95 was at 53% of the test.

After power restoration, Prme95 began at the start and not where it previously was.

[ATH]

Originally Posted by storm5510

M54711067 from MadPoo's original list gifted a major headache yesterday evening. There was a power outage. What are the odds that Prime95 would have been writing its backup files at the same instant as the outage? Astronomical, if I had to guess. Prime95 was at 53% of the test.

After power restoration, Prme95 began at the start and not where it previously was.

You should add this to your prime.txt:
NumBackupFiles=2
TwoBackupFiles=1

Then it always has 2 files, one without any last name and one called .bu for example:
p04N4353
p04N4353.bu
Where p04N4353 is the newest backup and p04N4353.bu the oldest. So if the primary backup file does not work, you can remove .bu from the other one and continue from the one earlier backup.

Edit:
If you want even more "security" you can add: InterimFiles=5000000 or InterimFiles=10000000. Then it will save additional backup file every 5M or 10M iterations (or whatever you choose) called .001, .002, .003 and so on, and you can again remove the last name to restart from one of those "checkpoints". Note that these files are not removed automagically when the exponent is done, so they will pile up in the folder over time.

[S485122]

Originally Posted by ATH

You should add this to your prime.txt:
NumBackupFiles=2
TwoBackupFiles=1
...

"TwoBackupFiles" is an old syntax and will be converted. If none of those two variables are set "NumBackupFiles" defaults to 3 which is the maximum.

Jacob

From the file common.c in the sources :

/* Convert old TwoBackupFiles boolean to new NumBackupFiles integer. Old default */
/* was 2 save files, new default is 3 save files. */

[ATH]

Ok, I had it on 2 files since I started in 2003, so I did not know the standard had changed.

So if 3 backup files is standard then storm5510 should be able to recover his progress by removing the last name of one of the backup files.

[Prime95]

Originally Posted by ATH

So if 3 backup files is standard then storm5510 should be able to recover his progress by removing the last name of one of the backup files.

Prime95 does that automatically. You'll get an error message saying something along the lines of "backup file no good, trying previous backup file".

It sounds like storm's problem is that backup files are not getting written to disk at all.

[storm5510]

Originally Posted by Prime95

Prime95 does that automatically. You'll get an error message saying something along the lines of "backup file no good, trying previous backup file".

It sounds like storm's problem is that backup files are not getting written to disk at all.

In Options > Preferences, I have the number of backup files set to 3. The first will have no file extension, the second will have, ".bu," and the third is, ".bu2."

I've been running the various versions since 2009 and this is the first time this has happened. Sometimes, these machines do very strange things. I can live with this.

[ATH]

Originally Posted by storm5510

In Options > Preferences, I have the number of backup files set to 3. The first will have no file extension, the second will have, ".bu," and the third is, ".bu2."

I've been running the various versions since 2009 and this is the first time this has happened. Sometimes, these machines do very strange things. I can live with this.

If this ever happens again and Prime95 did not autorecover the backup files I would:
1) Stop Prime95 and check Task Manager (on the "Processes tab" in Win7 or "details" tab in Windows 10) that no prime95.exe is still running)
2) Move the savefile without lastname out of the Prime95 folder, lets say its called "p81N3639"
3) copy p81N3639.bu to p81N3639
4) start Prime95 again and see if it started from the 2nd to last backup spot. (What is the default time between backups?)
5) If it did not work: Delete p81N3639
6) copy p81N3639.bu2 to p81N3639
7) Start Prime95 again and see if it started the 3rd to last backup successfully.