MP Courier Crashing

[Leffe7]

I don't believe the crashes are game-type or scenario specific. I think they are caused by couriers and overall performance of the game. Next time i will try to play a scenario in MP and if it crashes too, then we can focus on that.
I just think it is too random to narrow the courier-bug down if everyone is playing on different maps, different OOBs, hunt-em-down or line-of-sight, brigade/army level, ...etc. Remember this bug is not new, it is appearing since I play this game, with varying chances of occuring...

[Little Powell]

Little Powell, I can't remember if I saw this answer to my question, but are your crash-free games over a LAN or the internet?

Would a couple of you be willing to join our games to see the crashes we are having?

Do you guys use HITS? Can you try editing your sowgb.ini file so that plyrradius=2 and MPplyrradius=2 and let us know if you get crashes then? Maybe that magic number 2 is causing our crashes.

They are over internet.

We can try those settings. Have you guys tried it without that setting and does it crash?

[norb]

I received the logs and of those I received only two were valid, but as long as I have two I can see what's going on. It's the same thing it always is on these games. There is no crash. It's a packet not getting through to some people. One time I received a log where I saw the person had sent the packet, but no one received it. This is a lost packet and in the latest patch I put in a method to rerequest those packets. I should not need to because the low level network code is supposed to deal with that for me. But now people are reporting even more issues for some reason, although all that changed is a rerequest if an amount of time goes by without receiving the expected packet. We played a long game on this same code base with no issues.

It really looks like someone just loses their connection somewhere. There's absolutely nothing happening in the game that is causing it, from what I can tell from the logs. Everyone is just waiting for the courier message packet. The problem may occur with couriers because they have larger packets. Again the network layer is supposed to split apart and put together again larger packets.

If I received all the logs, there may be more to see, but I wouldn't count on it.

We will continue to keep guessing at a fix, because no matter how hard we try we cannot get this thing to cause a problem. We play over the net, while on skype, write tons of courier messages, even very long ones. The first step to fixing a bug is recreating it and we just have not had any luck doing that. We even play with mods enabled, no server mods, but lots of guys play with toolbars and unit mods.

Please keep sending the logs and we'll keep testing and trying for a fix. We will still count on you to test the fixes since no one here can cause the issue.

[Blaugrana]

Can you try editing your sowgb.ini file so that plyrradius=2 and MPplyrradius=2 and let us know if you get crashes then? Maybe that magic number 2 is causing our crashes.

Have you guys tried it without that setting and does it crash?

Recently (last few weeks), the Kriegsspielers have been playing with plyrradius=2 and MPplyrradius=2. Previously we were playing at 10 and getting freezes. From what I remember the other groups getting freezes when playing couriers have never used plyrradius=2 and MPplyrradius=2.

[Blaugrana]

It really looks like someone just loses their connection somewhere. There's absolutely nothing happening in the game that is causing it, from what I can tell from the logs. Everyone is just waiting for the courier message packet. The problem may occur with couriers because they have larger packets. [...]
Please keep sending the logs and we'll keep testing and trying for a fix. We will still count on you to test the fixes since no one here can cause the issue.

Thanks, Norb. If I understand you right, there's nothing unique about the courier message packets, they're just bigger than other packets?

We will keep playing and keep sending in the logs if freezes occur.

You are playing over the internet. Are you using the same port as us? [I'm probably clutching at straws here...]

[born2see]

Our testing is done through the Lobby. One of us will create a room which the others enter. Sometimes someone will have to connect directly to whoever is hosting but that is the exception. If you guys are connecting directly to the host that may be something to look at when we test. Norb would know better if it would make a difference.

B

[Saddletank]

Well.. our games continually and regularly screw up. I honestly can't believe that we have several computers/internet connections that regularly (like every night) lose connection or fail to properly send/receive packets when the NSD computers do not. BTW, one function the internet does well is dividing information up into packets and my understanding is they are all of equal size; there's no such thing as a 'big' packet.

All I can ask is that we are allowed to join some of the NSD guys or you join us and we try some games, because you are quoting exactly the same setups (even some mods) but our games frequently fail while you get 100% success (I'm amazed at that claim, I have NEVER played any online MP game that was 100% stable in connectivity).

How can the internet in your part of the world be perfect (100% perfect in fact) while for everyone else its not? Your statements actually don't make sense.

Even if our game crashes are down to internet connect problems why is SoW:GB so prone to them, when I can play other online games and I get far fewer crashes. SoW:GB suffers some of the most crashes I have seen in recent years. AND IT SUFFERS MANY MORE WHILE USING COURIERS.

[Little Powell]

How can the internet in your part of the world be perfect (100% perfect in fact) while for everyone else its not? Your statements actually don't make sense.

Even if our game crashes are down to internet connect problems why is SoW:GB so prone to them, when I can play other online games and I get far fewer crashes. SoW:GB suffers some of the most crashes I have seen in recent years. AND IT SUFFERS MANY MORE WHILE USING COURIERS.

Ok, you're going to have to stay patient with us. It may not make sense to you that our games are crash free, but it's the truth. I know of other groups that play regularly and their game play is also very solid.

When folks start getting angry, it hurts morale.. Again, please stay patient with us and we'll get it figured out.

[born2see]

ST,

We are amazed by your claim as well. Many people play MP every night and usually have games without issues. We play the same exact setup over and over and just cannot recreate the problem.

We still have yet to receive all the logs from any one game. We want to help, and have asked many times to receive all the mp logs and all the sowgb logs of every player from a bad game. We still have not received this so all we can do is guess at the problem. We usually get 2-3 logs that match up. Even if we were to join, without all the logs we cannot see if there is a particular problem on someone's machine that is causing the issue.


B

[Chamberlain]

Guys,

How about this :

Treat this the same way as a MOD that is causing problems, enabling them 1 at a time to find the problem one.
Try 1 player vs. 1 player for an evening and see how it goes and see if anyone is having a problem. If not, then you can add another player, play an evening, and so on.
Or, all of you guys go 1 vs. 1 see and how it goes. If someone does have a problem, pair them with someone else, 1 vs 1 and see if the problem follows the person.

It's worth a shot....Let us know....



Chamberlain