Outdated computer name shown in some projects

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robsmith
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Message 102157 - Posted: 14 Dec 2020, 18:21:00 UTC

It can (will) take some time for such a change to work its way through the system.
Remember the name you assign to your computer is of no consequence to BOINC or the projects that you are running.
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robsmith
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Message 102162 - Posted: 14 Dec 2020, 21:13:57 UTC

You cannot (safely) change the unique ID of a computer, it is assigned by the project server, and each project will give a computer its own number.
If you want to see what the unique ID for a given computer on a given project is there are a number of ways, the one I use most of the time is to go to the project's website and find the page that has your hosts list - only you can see the computer name, others can only see the unique ID and a brief specification. However WCG is strange in that it uses a custom built version of BOINC on their server and that makes finding the unique ID hard, but appears to use the name as the key - which would explain your difficulties in keeping track of your name-changed computer(s).
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robsmith
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Message 102184 - Posted: 15 Dec 2020, 19:13:45 UTC - in response to Message 102182.  

A lot depends on the project - some use a pseudo-random number, others it is sequential, while others use some information about the computer.
Why do WCG do what they do? - You'd be best asking them directly (and good luck).
To detect what determines a "new" computer. That again depends on the project they may use just about anything "obvious", such as operating system, CPU, motherboard etc.
Finally - "Luck" - I've had the same computer off-line for weeks and pick up an new identity, while others under the same conditions have retained their identity. In many projects one can "merge" two computers that are sufficiently similar, normally the old identity will be the one that comes through, but sometimes.....
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Profile Dave
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Message 102193 - Posted: 15 Dec 2020, 21:34:33 UTC - in response to Message 102184.  

In many projects one can "merge" two computers that are sufficiently similar, normally the old identity will be the one that comes through, but sometimes.....


Yes CPDN has a button, <merge computers by name> It usually works after an OS upgrade but not always and you have to give the computer has to have the same name. Interestingly my most recent OS upgrade on my laptop where I did a clean install of Ubuntu20.10, it didn't work and so the same computer now shows up twice, possibly more if you show inactive computers. Significant hardware changes can throw this and moving the hard disk to a computer with a significantly different CPU in the past has always made the projects' systems throw up their metaphorical hands in horror even when tasks have managed to survive.
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Profile Keith Myers
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Message 102195 - Posted: 16 Dec 2020, 2:00:41 UTC

I never liked the way that merge computers worked. It has always gone with the latest created host, never the original.

I always want to preserve the creation date and stats history of the original pc.

So I just edit the client_state.xml file hostid for the project back to the original host and increment the rpc_seqno by one more than what the project website shows for number of times the host has contacted the project and I get the original host ID back and preserve the host history and stats.
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Message boards : Questions and problems : Outdated computer name shown in some projects

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