Should I continue expired assignments?

[Zhangrc]

Hello, I haven't been here for some time, but I noticed that one of my assignments expired several days ago.
It is M115024603.
I reserved it as manual testing, then I copied it to a remote machine (which has unstable network connection and I don't always have access to).
It was originally assigned as Category 4 (I'm very sure about it), and according to Category 4 rules, "Assignments are recycled if assignment is not started within 90 (unless manual testing) days or when the exponent moves midway into the first category and the assignment is more than 360 days old."
The question is:
1. Should I continue?
2. Why does it expire even if I reserved it by manual testing, and extended it on https://www.mersenne.org/manual_extension/? Is it a bug of the assignment system?

[S54370]

The link in your post (M115024603) shows that someone else started working on the exponent on 1 November 2022 and has done 17.6 % of the work already. So, no, you shouldn't continue.


I can't comment about the manual extension system.

[slandrum]

Originally Posted by Zhangrc

Hello, I haven't been here for some time, but I noticed that one of my assignments expired several days ago.
It is M115024603.
I reserved it as manual testing, then I copied it to a remote machine (which has unstable network connection and I don't always have access to).
It was originally assigned as Category 4 (I'm very sure about it), and according to Category 4 rules, "Assignments are recycled if assignment is not started within 90 (unless manual testing) days or when the exponent moves midway into the first category and the assignment is more than 360 days old."
The question is:
1. Should I continue?
2. Why does it expire even if I reserved it by manual testing, and extended it on https://www.mersenne.org/manual_extension/? Is it a bug of the assignment system?

The first rule of assignment expiration (and was in place before the categories and other expiration rules were established) is that assignments expire if there's no communication in 60 days, and the date for next update has passed. Even this rule doesn't seem to apply if you are sufficiently far from the wavefront, but it is still enforced if you are in the range where people get "normal" assignments.

[kriesel]

Save your files, in case the other run does not complete, or completes but fails to upload a proof file, or fails the Cert run.

[Zhangrc]

https://www.mersenne.org/report_expo...ll=1&expired=1
This is another exponent that have expired. It was running on a school computer of mine which is temporarily out of reach (I'm on vacation).
Managed to reserve it back, I'll copy the files when I return to school later this month.

Still, I have some problems about the assignment system:
According to https://www.mersenne.org/thresholds/?dt=2022-08-27 , it was originally assigned as category 4, which expires if "assignment is not started within 90 (unless manual testing) days or when the exponent moves midway into the first category and the assignment is more than 360 days old." Yet it's now neither in Category 1, nor is it not started, nor is it 360 days old. Still, why is it recycled?

[Andrew Usher]

That assignment again ran into the 60-day check-in limit. Logically it should not apply to manual assignments, as one of the normal points of manual use is that connection to Primenet is not required, but I imagine if abuse of manual assignments (https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=28379) can't be prevented it may be deemed necessary. I don't know what exponent ranges it occurs in, and I haven't seen that anyone completely knows the assignment rules currently being enforced. I wouldn't mind being corrected on that ...

[slandrum]

Originally Posted by Andrew Usher

That assignment again ran into the 60-day check-in limit. Logically it should not apply to manual assignments, as one of the normal points of manual use is that connection to Primenet is not required, but I imagine if abuse of manual assignments (https://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=28379) can't be prevented it may be deemed necessary. I don't know what exponent ranges it occurs in, and I haven't seen that anyone completely knows the assignment rules currently being enforced. I wouldn't mind being corrected on that ...

The way to get around it on a manual assignment is to set the check-in date far in the future. It has to be past the next check-in date AND at least 60 days since the last check-in for a manual assignment to be expired for not checking in.

Manual assignments often have the next check-in date set years in the future to avoid this issue.

[Andrew Usher]

I haven't yet encountered such a setting. Could you explain further?