World Crash Rebooter

**trevius** · #1 03-12-2008, 11:20 PM

That is awesome! My world.exe never crashes, but I am sure this will be handy for many that might have lesser stability.

Do you think you could make one that restarts the world.exe on a timer? To have it close out the existing one and start a new one? And if possible give a 30 minute warning countdown in game? I am able to deal with daily server reboots manually to keep mine running in tip top shape, but lower maintenance is always appreciated

Plus, that would be extra handy when the server owner goes on vacation for a week :P If you run a windows server, it would probably be unplayable after a week of heavy play.

Just a thought for something extra if you had time. I don't think it is in high demand, but if it wasn't much change from this app, it might not be a bad additional program to have

**cavedude** · #2 03-13-2008, 12:40 AM

I actually purposely kill the world process every now and again on TGC when it starts acting up. We have a world auto-restart built into our script (running Linux) so no need to worry about that. The cool thing is when world goes down, really the only people who get disconnected are the ones zoning. For the most part, it's business as normal for everybody else except for the zone reconnect spam.

It isn't just Windows servers that are effected by heavy load and such, Linux boxes have the same issues though not as bad I think.

This is a great tool for Windows users, though. Mind if I add it to the next version of the Installer?

Richardo · #3 03-13-2008, 04:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trevius

That is awesome! My world.exe never crashes, but I am sure this will be handy for many that might have lesser stability.

Do you think you could make one that restarts the world.exe on a timer? To have it close out the existing one and start a new one? And if possible give a 30 minute warning countdown in game? I am able to deal with daily server reboots manually to keep mine running in tip top shape, but lower maintenance is always appreciated

Plus, that would be extra handy when the server owner goes on vacation for a week :P If you run a windows server, it would probably be unplayable after a week of heavy play.

Just a thought for something extra if you had time. I don't think it is in high demand, but if it wasn't much change from this app, it might not be a bad additional program to have

I'll work on that right now. It sounds like a really fun project.

Cavedude: If you think my software is worthy, I'd be honored.

Richardo · #4 03-23-2008, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by trevius

That is awesome! My world.exe never crashes, but I am sure this will be handy for many that might have lesser stability.

Do you think you could make one that restarts the world.exe on a timer? To have it close out the existing one and start a new one? And if possible give a 30 minute warning countdown in game? I am able to deal with daily server reboots manually to keep mine running in tip top shape, but lower maintenance is always appreciated

Plus, that would be extra handy when the server owner goes on vacation for a week :P If you run a windows server, it would probably be unplayable after a week of heavy play.

Just a thought for something extra if you had time. I don't think it is in high demand, but if it wasn't much change from this app, it might not be a bad additional program to have

I'm almost done with this tool for you.

It will actually telnet into your server... send a message to everyone telling them the world will shutdown... then after that grace period timer ends.. it will end the world process and restart it. All of the timers are completely customizable as well as the emote it sends out to the players (including the color of the emote). All customizations will be done through a single config file (Timers run by milliseconds 1000 = 1sec 60000 = 1minute etc... Maximum that you can run a timer is 1 week.).. I just need a tester to test this script for me.

**trevius** · #5 03-23-2008, 09:57 AM

Woot, sounds very awesome! I wouldn't mind giving it a test run if you need

I know for sure that this will help when Admins need to go away for the weekend (yes, it happens)!

One more question; Will this tool restart the world server automatically after a #worldshutdown is issued? Are both the reset on a timer and the crash restarter combined together in the new tool? This way, guides or GMs on the server can restart it anytime it needs one. I have a GM account on another server other than my own and could have definitely used that option over this past weekend. If I could have just don't a #worldshutdown and it would automatically restart, it would have helped server performance there considerably while their GM was away. So, does the crash restarter only work on a crash, or anytime the world server is shut down?

I notice that you mention it watches for "World.exe has encountered an error". And I am not sure of the message given if it is shut down with the #worldshutdown command.

Thanks for all of your work on this. I am sure it will be well appreciated by both server admins and players

Richardo · #6 03-26-2008, 06:00 AM

Well I can do many things... Right now it waits for an error, closes the error and reopens world. I could code a guide world rebooter/zone rebooter in 20 minutes if you want. I'll encorperate them all into a large pack and let you select which ones you want enabled.

**trevius** · #7 03-26-2008, 07:35 AM

You are the man! With a tool like this, I think options are the key. With the ones you have planned so far for the package, I think it should be a pretty complete tool that any server admin would find useful when it is needed.

Thank you!

circuitdragon · #8 03-26-2008, 10:17 AM

Here is a quick question for you. Will this affect only the world.exe file, or the zone.exe also, and thus doing a complete restart? If the zone.exe is included, then I have another question. When I use the shutdown command in game, it will close everything but the zone.exe's (plural, one for statics, one for dynamic zones). Just tossing out the ideas here, if this is something that will be included. Now the zone files themselves seem to "close down" all the zones they are running, just leaving a blank window open. Anyhow, just my thoughts/suggestions.

nosfentora · #9 05-29-2008, 02:15 PM

I've put together an auto-crash killer and auto server-restarter. It's written in VB.Net and seems to work fine. Here's the source and win32 binaries

The crash-killer should close any crashed window - whether or not you have a debugger installed.

The server restarted can be set to restart your server periodically, or stop and start your server with one click.

The only thing it needs is to know where your .bat file for launching the server is. It can be installed in any directory.

Here's the .bat I use:

@echo off
cls
echo *** CLEARING OLD LOGS ***
del "C:\EQEmu\logs\*.*" /q
echo *** STARTING EVERQUEST WORLD EMULATOR ***
start world.exe
ping -n 15 127.0.0.1 >nul
echo *** STARTING EVERQUEST ZONES ***
start eqlaunch.exe static
start eqlaunch.exe dynamic
exit

Feedback is greatly appreciated!