Fix For Lost Proth Test

From SeventeenOrBust

Taken from the forums:

Note from Alien88: vjs took a lot of time to write up a detailed answer to this problem that occurs a lot. I thank him greatly for his time in compiling this.

Contents

Introduction

This has come up so many times it's not even funny anymore. There is a solution for certain cases, but for others there is none. This is understandably frustrating.

Lost tests are generally a Microsoft problem, not SOB - it has to due with the Windows registry - and 95% of the time can be easily fixed. If you lose a test, perhaps after a crash, then here is a step-by-step procedure to regain the "lost" work.

Before doing anything else, exit the SOB client.

Locate the lost test file

Start by looking in your SOB directory for the file containing the unfinished work.

This is generally C:\Program Files\SB\ or wherever you installed SOB to. Within this directory there should be a blank file icon, with a name in the format z#######, where # is any digit from 0-9: for example, z6779487. Generally, when you have a lost test there will be two of these files.

If you don't have any z####### files in the SOB directory, you're either looking in the wrong place, or you're out of luck. Since your client only reports its progress to the SOB server, there's no way to get the file itself back from the server. If you've deleted the file itself (perhaps with Cleansweep, or somehow else by mistake) then your work is more than likely unrecoverable. Sorry.

Identify the work file

The numeric value in the work file's name is its n-value. For example,

  • z6779487 has an n value of 6779487
  • z6670993 has an n value of 6670993

If you have two files, then the lower n-value is probably your lost test.

The next step is to login to SOB and check your test management page.

Or, if you're already logged in,

You will be presented a screen which looks a bit like a speadsheet. It'll contain a table like this (or several tables if you run more than one computer).

ID Number IP Address Assigned Last Reported Progress Percent cEMs/s Expire?
363953 4847�2^6779487+1 169.1.000.100 Thu Aug 19 15:59:21 2004 never 0 % -0 [Expire]
358621 28433�2^6670993+1 169.1.000.100 Sun Aug 1 03:08:44 2004 Fri Aug 13 03:52:13 2004 4589089 68 % 8301754 [Expire]

One test shows as 0% complete, while the other shows as 68%. The row with 68% is your lost test. Looking at the column headed Number, we can see two values:

  • 4847�2^6779487+1
  • 28433�2^6670993+1

Notice that the numbers between the caret (^) and plus symbols match the n-values for the two work files given in our example above - 6779487 and 6670993.

The numbers before the question marks are the k-values. The k-value for our lost test here is 28433.

Update the Windows Registry

The next step is to inform the client what file it should be looking at. This has to be done using Windows' Registry Editor. To get to it, from the Start Menu, choose Run. Type regedit.

Caution! Using the Registry Editor you can seriously damage your system if you don't know what you're doing. Only change the values relevant to SOB as described in this document.

Now navigate to the following folder

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARELhDnsobcache

Clicking on the cache folder will bring up three REG_DWORD values, which must be modified to reflect your lost test.

cache REG_WORD 0x00000002 (2)
k REG_WORD 0x000012ef (4847)
n REG_WORD 0x0065ca91 (6779487)

Left-click on k to select it, then right-click and choose Modify. You will be presented with a dialog box titled Edit DWORD Value.

Click the Decimal radio button under where it says Base (this is important), then enter the k-value you found earlier - in our example, 28433 - into the box labelled Value data. Click OK.

Repeat this procedure for the n-value that you found by left-clicking n, choosing Modify and so on. Again, remember to select decimal before doing this.

If your cache value is not 2, then change it to 2 as well using the same method.

Get up and running again

Now restart your SOB client. It should pick up from where the previous test left off - in our example, 68%. If everything went smoothly, you can now re-login to the SOB website and delete the 0% test from your test management page.

Good luck!