Players going semi link dead

[So_1337]

Hrm. I think I should clarify: When I said that some don't "recover", I mean from being bugged. Everyone's connection recovered. We've had it happen on boss fights before, and if nothing else, your character will still be auto-attacking away. So depending on which class it is (boxed rangers, especially), it doesn't hurt to leave them DPSing until the end of the fight, and then you can camp them out and back to un-bug them. The easiest way to tell if a character recovered from being bugged or not in that situation was to see if the mob actually died on their screen, or if it was stuck at 0% health indefinitely.

I probably shouldn't have brought it up, sorry. It's related, in that it has the same symptoms, but it's certainly not from the same cause.

I thought that the high NPC population might be a contributing factor in Storms, as it's not like a script had been executed yet with us just zoning in and grouping up. (Other than the script that makes the corpses at zone-in actually lay down on the ground.) Heck, it may well have been a connection hiccup that caused the problem. In fact, I don't think I've seen anyone get bugged from doing literally nothing since we upgraded our pipeline. We used to run far too many people for the connection we had, and would see the problem often in zones with large populations, like Ssra and PoStorms.

For instance, we used to be able to run about 9 people with no trouble. Any time we'd get over that, a random person would usually get bugged. The server and clients just couldn't pass information back and forth quickly enough. And yes, sometimes it would happen just from doing nothing. Especially if while someone was doing nothing, there were people doing lots of things elsewhere =P

[moydock]

I'm liking the windows server max connections idea.

I run windows xp pro to run my server as well but i've always got it locked and never have more than 5 people on it. And i've never experienced the half-d/c on my server. And i've spent hundreds of hours deving it.

However, on the tz/vz server I get this bug nonstop. Some days more than others.

What opcodes does the server send to the client while he's sitting still? That may be a good thing to make sure is functioning properly.

[trevius]

Here is a post on my server forums that shows a few players reporting the problem on my server, which is running 1099 emu version atm. The earliest Emu version I have ran was 1071.



It seems like the complaints about this has died down since I added in my zone resetters. Since those keep the number of connections under control somewhat (with player ghosts), that leans me even more towards thinking this could be a bandwidth/connection issue.

I can't imagine why some people would see this no matter what class of character they play. It isn't like they are seeing it every time they are clicking their epic or casting 1 particular spell. They see it at random times.

I have been doing some research into it possibly being a connection issue and I will keep people up-to-date here on what I find. And if I can find a good solution, I will start a new thread for it.

Last night, I flashed my Linksys router's BIOS to run a linux based BIOS called DD-WRT. It has a TON more features than my previous bios. It was a bit harder to get it running properly, but it seems pretty smooth already. The reason I did it was to get more options with how my bandwidth is used and I haven't gotten into that part just yet. BUT, when I loaded it, I found that it has many great features that I think will really help me narrow down some network performance issues and maybe even help troubleshoot player ghosting as well as the "lag bug" issues. I can now see my router CPU utilization, memory utilization and how it is being divided up, buffer utilization, total number of connections and a full list of every IP that is connected to each of my machines, and it even shows a real-time chart of bandwidth utilization for LAN/WAN/Wireless for in and out totals. This is some really awesome stuff! I am a network admin, so I get into this kinda thing :P It makes me wish I had changed it long ago.

I still have a lot to learn about customizing my new router BIOS to see how much I can really tweak it, but it is already set to run at least as well as the old one. I am hoping that with all of this new real-time info I can see easily, it will help to narrow down certain issues.

I currently have my server log directory renamed to keep it from getting to gigs in size after a week or so. So, I might have to rename it back for a few days to see if I can compare the debugs with what I am seeing on the router when these problems occur. I will be sure to post my findings here when I get around to that. I still have more content to work on. My network and server are by no means unstable or in bad shape, so this is a secondary thing I am trying to work on when I can. The goal is to get something out that will help all other servers to increase performance and reduce disconnects and bugs.

[trevius]

Oops, messed up the link to my thread for examples of this bug:


http://sh.makeforum.org/lots-of-serv...else-t103.html

[So_1337]

It's just happened to me 4 or so times in the past 30 mins or so... There are only 49 people logged in, and I've never had it happen this bad even when there were 60ish people in.

What kind of download/upload rate is your server's connection running on? That seems like a lot of people unless you've got some heavy-duty speed and a router that can handle the throughput. Your download really doesn't matter, it's gonna be the upload that's your limiting factor.

[So_1337]

Server stats are:
OS: Windows XP Pro
AMD 3400+ CPU
3GB RAM
Dual Hard Drives for easy database backups
Cable Internet Connection

Server box seems well enough, but even cable can have issues with enough concurrent connections. Hit http://www.speedtest.net/ on your server box (or any computer on the same LAN) and let us know what kind of upload you're getting.

[trevius]

Ya, with my new router bios, I can finally tell exactly how many connections are being used and how much bandwidth etc. Seem with about 45ish people on, my upload utilization jumps around a bit, but goes as high as the mid 300s. I think my upload is supposed to be 512, but from speed tests in the past, I normally get in the 650 range.

So, getting more than 60+ on is probably starting to push my limit on upload. Seems like there isn't much I can do about that, and I expected there to be a limit around there.

But that is not the point of this thread. The point is mainly about the lag bug issue. I am still looking into it on my side. So far most of the tweaks I have done seem to have lowered player ghosts to a minimum and reduced the occurrences of the lag bug. Again, this is hard to confirm, since both are sporadic.

[So_1337]

Right, but it's seeming more and more like your issues might be bandwidth related. I was having trouble keeping more than two groups connected on a business-class DSL connection (3 Mb down/700k up) that was mostly limited by a junky, off-the-shelf router whose throughput seemed to be the bottleneck. You seem much better off in regards to the router, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that you don't see this happening at times of low population (12 people and under).

It's exactly akin to the 'bugged' state we discussed earlier in the thread that is caused by missing op_codes and the client and server getting out of sync. It's much easier to miss an op_code or crucial piece of data if your server's connection can't push things to the client. We used to see people on my server getting bugged very often any time we had more than 12 (twelve!) characters logged in. Since we upgraded to our DS1 connection, we've never seen it happen except from spells/skills and op_codes, etc.

[jasper]

so im seeing this problem still on other char types, not just my war as mentioned. I get it alot .. and it seems like there is no reason for it.

Today I was just running along.. tried to con a mob and got no response. Did the /who all, which I use to see if the bug has happend.. and yup was bugged. I know I did nothing special to cause it.. I was just running from one zone to another, EC to WC.

[Joetuul]

I have recently come across this bug myself, as it happens to me. here are some details that I'm hoping will help the dev's...

When I sit in the nexus, I am fine for hours on end. but if I sit in Natimbi for too long this happens to me, could it be a problem with specific zones? is there a fix for this that just hasn't been posted? Even if I am actively doing something in Natimbi it still does it. I have to keep doing /who all just to make sure I am not bugged, if I am I /q out and log back in just fine. No one else on my server has reported this happening to them.

any help for me? or am I SOL?

[trevius]

This problem has been resolved months ago in a code update. If you are running old code, the best solution would be to upgrade it to current (from the SVN).