Players going semi link dead

HurtinuDaily · #1 03-06-2008, 02:42 PM

Does anyone remember the bug where people would go half way link dead?? players spell bars would be greyed out / melees could not atatck but mobs and other players could still attack the player? From what i remember it was resolved but I cannot remember what fixxed it. Thanks in advance!

**AndMetal** · #2 03-06-2008, 05:53 PM

There's actually quite a few things that can cause it. In my experience, it usually has something to do with spells, usually one that isn't setup properly somewhere. I actually posted a bug report about it, which might help to determine if it's the same problem.

On the same note, relogging usually fixes the issue, although you sometimes have to /q.

HurtinuDaily · #3 03-07-2008, 01:30 PM

it happens to melees to, its like the client is waiting to recieve a packet back from the server. Its very annoying to say the least.

jasper · #4 03-08-2008, 01:10 AM

I keep having this problem on my War's.. only been my War so far.. 2 of them on 2 different servers.

Gets on my nerves.. heh

**cavedude** · #5 03-08-2008, 03:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HurtinuDaily

its like the client is waiting to recieve a packet back from the server.

That's exactly what is happening. Any function can cause this, if they are missing an opcode, or aren't properly implemented.

moydock · #6 03-11-2008, 10:10 AM

Yeah this bug plagues me. Is there any way to add code that says, if theres a problem with an opcode, ignore it and go on?

Also, I've noticed that if you make a change in your inventory while half linkdead, it will remember that upon logging back in. But it won't remember any movement you may have made.

Also, it seems to happen a lot more to some people than others.

So_1337 · #7 03-11-2008, 10:40 AM

My girlfriend's bard has been unplayable for some time now due to this. I've even had her remake the character two different times. All three versions wind up the same; it gets to where she can't log in. Then, when she can, she crashes whole zones when she does =P She just started playing a warrior instead, heh.

Had a thread going here about this same issue, including some of the op_code errors I was seeing. However, just seems something that has to be dealt with. Admittedly, I've seen it become a lot rarer lately than in past versions.

**trevius** · #8 03-11-2008, 11:41 AM

I am curious if this bug is seen on Linux servers. If it isn't, there may be some adjustments that can be made on Windows to stop it.

I put in a small change this afternoon on my server running on windows XP SP2. It has to do with how many connections windows allows per second. If I get feedback saying it has stopped the problem completely, I will definitely post it in the forums here. Otherwise, if it didn't stop it completely, then it probably didn't effect it at all. It is hard to judge if you are helping an issue like this since it is so sporadic.

I am trying to make adjustments 1 at a time to see if it helps resolve this issue or the player ghosting issue. Both of those problems are high on my list of bugs I would like worked out, since they both effect the players and the server overall in a huge and annoying way. I am also curious if player ghosting is only a Windows thing and not seen on servers running on Linux at all.

**cavedude** · #9 03-11-2008, 12:43 PM

The bard issue is a completely different situation. That's a zone crash caused by something in the AA listing code.

As I stated above, the "bugged" state is caused when something is missing/broken in the code and the client sends a packet to the server, but the server doesn't know how to respond so it sends nothing back. The client will do nothing but wait for the packet to arrive. Anything can cause this, and if I think about it I can probably come up with several different and unrelated situations where this can occur. Since we are unable to change the client's behavior (and let's say force it to continue on without getting a receipt packet for a function) there is nothing to be done but correct the root issue which is not always easy to find.

Generally speaking, this isn't a symptom of connection issues. They will usually cause full fledged link deaths or crashes to desktop/login.

So_1337 · #10 03-11-2008, 02:00 PM

Sorry, you're right. Bard is unrelated, but it led me to find all those other op_code errors in the thread I linked. I side-track myself sometimes. Was mostly making the point that I found with her bard, which is that in some cases there's nothing we can do but wait until the problem is found.

I know you mentioned pick pocket is an easy one to produce. I think that rogue poison (the applying portion) is another, though it doesn't bug the client entirely.

moydock · #11 03-11-2008, 02:46 PM

Often when this bug occurs i'm just running around. Not sure what opcodes i'd be sending that wouldn't get an answer there. Although, often i'm sending tells or using /w all. Perhaps if someone is between zoning or already half ld themselves, it causes you to half ld... lol that would be interesting.

**trevius** · #12 03-11-2008, 04:14 PM

This bug does seem to be caused sometimes by doing absolutely nothing on the client side. I know I have definitely seen this happen in certain customized zones MUCH more commonly than normal PEQ zones. On one server, I would get this bug almost every time if I tried to load up more than 1 character into DSP or BoT. Even if I only logged 1 in, and hit absolutely no buttons, and then loaded a second one in, etc, the first time I would try to cast a spell or do a /who all or attack anything on any character other than the first one I loaded, it would show that the character had this bug.

I am not sure what exactly would cause this, but my point is that it definitely seems to occur when players are doing nothing out of the ordinary. And for some reason, certain zones seem to cause the problems more than others. I have 100% confirmed that from previous testing in BoT and DSP on the other server I played on vs other custom zones or standard PEQ ones.

I don't know why certain people experience this more than others, but some people see it when multi-boxing and others see it when they are playing just 1 character. But, some people don't see it at all, or hardly ever.

If this is due to a the client waiting for a certain packet back from the server, couldn't that be caused by the packet getting dropped instead of the just when the server doesn't send the correct packet that the client is waiting for?

I just find it hard to believe that certain zones can cause this problem when my client is doing absolutely nothing. And that it can happen on all of my characters that I am boxing and almost always leave the first character in the zone unaffected. I would think that if this was an issue with the client waiting on something from the server, but not receiving it because the server doesn't know how to reply to an odd request, that this issue would be repeatable 100% and would be caused by certain actions. I have been unable to find anything common between what is causing this issue, other than certain custom zones in some cases.

I am not trying to question Cavedude's information, because he is far more knowledgeable about the emu than I will ever be, but it would be nice if we could get this figured out and resolved, so I am adding all info I can think of.

I made a change on my server today that I hope will help connectivity on my server. Here is the post I added to my forums to give a basic idea of what it is supposed to do:

Quote:

As an update on my work towards making he server more stable and to try to lessen issues like the "lag bug" and other disconnects, I made a minor change on the server. The short of it is that windows XP SP2 has TCP-IP that is hard coded (cannot be adjusted) to only allow a max of 10 simultaneous connections per second. It also has a sort of limiter that restricts a certain amount of connections. This wouldn't effect most people at all on their home PCs, and they were put in place by MS to restrict worms that may have infected your home PC to go crazy making an unlimited amount of connections to infect other computers or whatever. Since I am running a server, my PC requires different settings than a standard home PC.

The new change I made was replacing the TCP-IP files with some that bump the max connections per second up to 50. This doesn't mean that I can only have 50 players on my server, it only means my PC can now deal with 50 per second. Previously when it was set for 10 per second, I believe it would have to kinda switch back and forth to a different 10 connections every second. I think that means most packets for more connections than 10 will have to get buffered and dealt with later. I imagine that might have caused some issues with connectivity and I really hope this new change will make a difference. With it now being set to 5X as high as it was before, we may see significant improvement on less disconnects and "lag bugs". I wouldn't even be surprised if the default XP SP2 files I was using may have been causing the player ghosts. I haven't tried running a Linux server yet, but as far as I have read I haven't been able to find 1 person mentioning having ghosts on their server when they run Linux. So, I imagine it is something that is tied to Windows.

This is all part of me trying to increase server stability on Windows and increase performance on my server. Hopefully, eventually I can reduce lag even when there are a ton of players on.

**cavedude** · #13 03-11-2008, 11:58 PM

Oh crap, I didn't know this was happening when the player was doing nothing. Don't tell me THAT bug has returned :( We had a similar issue a while back that got worse and worse until the Emu was practically unplayable by many. I forgot who fixed it, but it did eventually get corrected. And when I say many, I don't mean all. That was the bitch some people never saw this bug, even at the worst times.

What do you mean when you say "standard" PEQ zones? Is that as opposed to custom zones, or ones with altered content from PEQ? Do those zones typically cause more problems?

To answer:

Quote:

If this is due to a the client waiting for a certain packet back from the server, couldn't that be caused by the packet getting dropped instead of the just when the server doesn't send the correct packet that the client is waiting for?

No, because after a bit the client will ask the server to resend. If it was just lag, it will and the client will be happy. If it's a situation where the server doesn't know how to reply, the client sits there with its thumb up its ass (pardon my french)

I guess I should start using Windows a bit more, both of my test servers and PEQ itself are linux which seem to work fine for me, at least in this regard. I noticed a few things that were off in Windows when I compiled my new installer that I attempted to patch up, but I am sure there are plenty more. Though, I do know KLS uses Windows exclusively (maybe?) and Wildcard I am certain uses both.

So_1337 · #14 03-12-2008, 12:42 AM

I have, very rarely, had it happen while doing nothing. Most notably, I recall it happening in Plane of Storms. We'd be doing nothing more than zoning everyone in to start getting ready for BoT keys. However, I can't attest that there was nothing going on at the time. Someone may have been buffing and possibly glitched everyone else as well?

However, this same behavior occurs if your connection should drop for, say, fifteen seconds or so while doing either something or nothing. Our router at work was acting up for about a week, where it would do exactly that. (I knew it was connection related because we host a Ventrilo server on the server box as well, and we would all lose that connection as well.)

The lag bar would consistently go out to about 83%, then jog back up to 100% in the midst of whatever we were doing. Some people would recover, some wouldn't. Those who didn't would have the behavior described above. The server sure does its best job to jog you back up to where the server is, but it doesn't always take.

**cavedude** · #15 03-12-2008, 01:18 AM

I'll have a look at postorms scripts, though off the top of my head I don't think there is anything weird going on in that regard. I do know that storms is one of the heaviest populated zones in the db, NPC wise. That may contribute.

When you lose connection, those who don't recover will eventually get booted. It may take a while but it does happen (Titanium client is VERY lenient with timeout periods). That's a true LD situation. Communication between both the server and client has failed.

In the "bugged" state, you never get kicked (or at least I've never been kicked, even after making dinner, eating it, and coming back) I guess it's because the client is still chatting away so the server knows it's still there so it never boots it. So in that case, we still have one way communication.