botdelete problem ?
 

I'm still working on find out the cause of this weird problem.

I had a mage bot spawned (with his pet). I targeted the bot and typed
^botdelete
The bot sat down and literally looked like he camped out.(depopped) but his pet
hung around. A few seconds after that, my client was kicked back to the
character screen.
When I logged the client back on to server, the bot was deleted, as intended.
I repeated the procedure and same thing happened. Any ideas ?

I'll check the code to see what may be happening..

..did you have a related server crash?

Now that you ask (chuckle). Found this crash in the logs, but server wasn't
disrupted at all, aside from being tossed to character screen.

Just so I could clarify when this crash log was generated, before I started the server,
I cleared all logs from both server and client (UF).
After starting server and logging client in, I spawned another bot. But before I went
any further, I checked the logs and verified they were at normal state.
As soon as I typed the ^botdelete, I immediately looked at the server log folder and it
had generated a "crashes" folder with a crash log in it.
"crash_poknowledge_version_0_inst_id_0_port_7004_1 276.log"
It was all the same info as I posted above. I looked in client log and all it had was the
disconnect message:
I was back at character screen but, I entered world again, everything was
normal, then I camped the toon out normally.
I haven't seen any indications of anyone else having this kind of problem yet,
so maybe something on my end ?

That's definitely a server crash..anyone else in that particular zone would have been booted as well.

..is probably a 'dangling' pointer - a pointer reference that contains a non-null value..but, has had its resources released.


It could be on your end..but, I'm leaning more towards the server code.

I tried not to change bot methodology when I was coding the new bot system (existing issues would still be existing issues...)

I honestly didn't go through and test every condition in every command of the old system to see what was a 'pre-existing' condition.

And it's very possible that I missed this particular condition when I tested the new one O.o

I won't be able to test this until later tonight and possibly push the fix tomorrow - if it works...

But, you can test this out and see how it does until I get back and can finalize it: http://wiki.eqemulator.org/i?Module=...Paste=N6sDbJGO

Ya, I just tried this with my rof2 client and got the exact same thing.
This particular copy of my server, is totally barebones with no mods
done to the database other than what updates are available through
the update script. It's the first time today that I used that botdelete
cmd, so I have no idea where the cause comes from, "yet" (chuckle)

I ran into this problem awhile back and on the old source you could make your bot unsummon there pet then do a bot delete and everything would be fine. But the pet being out always seemed to if not crash the zone create a huge amount of lag. Not sure if this is still an issue on the new source as I have not tested but worth a test.

Ok, thanks, I will check it out and post the results.

Yeah, if I had to change something in the bot class, I usually just interpreted what was there..and it looks like the crash was transposed :P

Just compiled and tested out the fix you posted.
SUCCESS :)
Bot and pet depopped immediately, no hassles.
Thank you so much.

Roger that!

I'll do a little more testing tonight and push it tomorrow..need to make sure that it doesn't break other systems.

Something else I noticed, which is not a new issue on these forums, getting bots to zone
with your toon. I tried something out a few times, if I spawn a non-pet class bot,(tank),
it will zone with my toon no problem, but any bot with a pet will not zone.
After spawning a mage bot, I tried using the ^petremove command, but get a message
about not having any bots spawned capable of charming, etc.
I get a little chuckle out of the variety of pets that a mage will spawn. At many levels,
it seems to use the "monster summoning" spell instead. Sitting in the PoK, it will summon
anything from a pumpkin head to a giant white rat or sarnak. At one point, it summoned
a little tiger that looked more like a stuffed animal floating a few feet off the surface.

Owner-based group bots should zone properly with their owner..and I thought that I had tested the 'with-pet' case..but, I could be mistaken. I will take a look at that.

Currently, bot-group based bots do not zone with their owners due to the way that groups are currently handled. (The group class will require a rewrite.)

Hotkeys work really well for getting them back up and running.


Yeah, the ^petremove command is really for releasing a charm-class bot's pet so that they can charm selected targets (enchanter, druid, necromancer...)


EDIT:

I tried with both enchanter and magician pets using in- and out-of-zone travel.

My bots traveled with me.

Even tried using the ^pset monster option to see if it was a model issue.


It may be something on your end..but, I'll need more criteria to verify if it's a server code-related issue.

Yes, I have hot keys setup to spawn the bots to make things simple.
I personally don't worry too much about bots zoning, since I wouldn't
really spawn them while I am travelling anyways, rather just wait until
I am at my destination, then bring them up. But I will have to look at
things on my end, to see why it's not working, since you tested it and
verified that it works for you. I will try different pet classes and see.

I will check things out in the database to see what kind of changes I
can make for the mage pets, so they spawn the regular pets of air,
water, earth and fire.

If you use ^pset [air|water|earth|fire], it should keep that pet under most circumstances.

I think the only way to side-step it is to quickly camp a bot after its pet dies.

I did use the ^pset fire on the mage. He does keep the fire pet, even after total server
shutdown/reboot then respawning, he keeps that pet.

On the issue of bots zoning, it seems to be directly an issue with the mage bot. I tried
several different classes and combinations and they all zoned no problem. Necro, Enc,
Beastlord, all zoned with pets, even when all grouped together, but as soon as I add a
mage bot to the picture, none of them zone. Weird.

What level is the character that you're experiencing this with?

Also, what zones are you zoning between?


If I can replicate the issue, I stand a pretty good chance of finding and fixing the issue :)

I was using level 20 characters recently. I have tried it with level 35 and 65 as well.
I am simply zoning between PoK and Nexus for testing.

Got something new that I found in the problem. I have to test other RACES with the
mage bot. I was doing all that with a HUMAN mage bot. I just tried a gnome mage bot
and it zoned no problem.

That's pretty specific..I'll see what I can dig up tonight - thanks :)

I can confirm now, it definately is only the human mage that doesn't zone.
I tried all other races and they all zoned. Then I spawned the human again,
and it would not zone. I'm going to try other human casters and see if it's
an issue with other human classes.

Ok, things have got better. It definately was something on this end. I wiped the whole
bots schema from DB and redid it all. The human mage bots are zoning now. It was
driving me nuts (chuckle), after I tried out all the human classes, the mage was a pita.
So far, after 3 tries, they zone properly when grouped with me and the pets they cast
are the normal mage pets. (not monster). I didn't make any adjustments to the DB, so
not sure how it got a little buggy that way and more confusing it was only the human
mage's. Burgers and Beer. The only two things that make sense. (chuckle)

I'm glad it was resolved!

I almost felt bad last night when I tested human mages and they zoned properly :/

I was feeling guilty after you putting that effort in to the problem, when it turned out
to be something on my end. I don't like to pick people's brains unless mine are starving.
But I really appreciate your help anyways, so thank you.

Hehe! No worries!