Major Instability Issues... HELP!!!! :)

[Glasswalker]

Ok, I am having some major instability problems here...

My problems are 2 things:

If I use one single machine to run world, zones, and DB, my server runs fine... (with a whopping 2-4 zones) hehehe...

But I get major instability in the zones, pretty much 2/3 times I zone, or die, my client freezes up... I can't find anything in the zone logs, zone error logs, zone debug logs, or the world logs to say ANYTHING that would help troubleshooting, the zoneserver doesn't crash, (I know because I have a watchdog tracking the process that would let me know if it crashed) and I can't figure out what the hell is causing the stability issue...

It is running on a P3800 1Gig ram, Redhat 8.0 with mysql set for "Large" to handle rapid and large transactions.

it is not a server load issue, because cpu load never goes higher than 80% during testing (when the error occurs)

Some of the crashes are client lockups, while others are the typical "EQ has crashed" message...

Any help on this issue would be GREATLY appreciated... I NEED to know what is causing the instability...

Second:

When I try and bring up my other machines (I have a few) for zone servers and run the world server as ONLY a world/db server (what I hope to be doing in the end)

Then everything appears to run fine, but then when I try to log in, I lock up the client EVERY time right after char select... I Never get farther...

The logs show "starting up zone" and such with the correct zoneserver IP and such, and the correct zone, and they show everything normal as if I logged straight into the zone...
No errors, no nothing bad... Can't figure this one out either!

The zoneserver machines are the same hardware as worldserver, running exactly the same OS... With a copy of the binary files and scripts that I use on the other machine...

The machines are on a gigabit lan with one another, and all are plugged directly into a pair of load balanced T1s... With no firewall or anything between them, and no firewall on the linux machines running either... So no port blocking at all...

Both have real public static IP addresses, and both have DNS Names mapped real world as well. I am using the DNS names to contact the servers in my scripts (for running zoneservers and such I pass the dns name rather than the IP)

Please tell me anything I am doing wrong, and what I can do to improve stability!!!

Thanks

[jbb]

This is obviously no help - but I get exactly the same instability.

[samandhi]

I assume that by saying you are running the server on one machine, you are running the client from a win box? If that is true, make sure you are running dx9 for the clients sake, as SOE has gone to dx9 with the 18th patch..... Also is there any error message from zone.exe or world.exe when you get crashed? If there isnt, it is problaby a client issue. What version of EqEmu server are you running? And, when did you patche EQLive last?

[farce]

there was a zoning issue and an LD on death issue resolved in the last few versions of eqemu.

However, if you're actually freezing the client.. i dunno if those would be likely culprits.

[Glasswalker]

Well Actually it doesn't "FREEZE" it probably is an LD issue, but it takes a good 5-6 minutes to drop back to char select once it locks up... (Unless it is the "Everquest has crashed" error)

Also yes, I am running a windows EQ client of course on a seperate machine...

The windows box has latest DX9 drivers and everything, and client is mostly stable on guildwars (before the server went down) it still did the same thing but only like 1 in 10 times instead 2 of 3 times...

The client was patched the one right before GoD came out, I haven't patched since then. (Running 5.3DR3, I recently downloaded 5.5 and am trying to compile that now)

It also appears that many other people are experiencing this, so I would appreciate any help anyone can offer (and I am sure that everyone else experiencing it would appreciate it as well)

I will post back if I find a solution anywhere else to let everyone know the resolution.

[Glasswalker]

Anyone? Any new information on this?

[jbb]

Sorry I don't have any information on this but I can add that I get exactly the same problem. When I zone for any reason it freezes in excatly the way you describe about 75% of the time