Heeeeelp! Getmany Failed? Multi-server fatal crashing!

[MrGraves]

Hello everyone, I hope you can help me. Please forgive me if I make any taboo errors or mistakes in this post.

This is my first post to the forums, although I have lurked awhile and been playing the game for a few years now. I am a member of another website that has a good collection of over 100 players at any given time taking part in various games.

I host multiple 24 hour perpetual games on my server (Vista) and we have recently begun planning and preparing a double bracket, elmination 1V1 tournament as a practice run for larger tournaments we may play in the future.

I am hosting 4 1v1 matches on my server, each with this command line sequence (but a variant in server name):

D:\dominions3\dom3.exe -S Tourney!A --noclientstart --nocredits --scoredump --port 1616 --hours 24 --uploadmaxp 2 --masterpass XXXXXX --era 1 --mapfile silentseas.map -T

There are 4 servers as such set up for this. I am also hosting 2 long term games that have been running for several weeks without any problems, each with multiple players:

1-D:\dominions3\dom3.exe -S DSNewbies --noclientstart --masterpass XXXX --port 1414 --era 2 --hours 24 -q --mapfile "Dom3_Faerun_466_NoSpecials.map" -T

2-D:\dominions3\dom3.exe -S Madness --noclientstart --port 1515 --era 2 --hours 25 -q --mapfile "Dom3_Faerun_466_NoSpecials.map" -T

Now here's the problem: This morning when I woke up, my D drive was full to capacity, with 199 Gigs of 200 Gigs being the Dominions 3 folder. The 1414 and 1515 games crashed and will not start up again- when I double click them to run the server, I get a Nagot message and the error 'Getmany Failed'.

The Bulk of the memory used in the dominions folder was in a file named something like 'sdtout' or 'stdout' or similiar; after rebooting my computer, the file was gone, the folder back to normal size, but I cannot startup the 1414 and 1515 servers without them crashing.

I tried manually C+P (and removing) the contents of the savedgame folders for the respective games, clearing out those saved games, but it allows only a brand new server to be created, right back at the initial nation claiming stage. When I return the contents to the saved games folder, I get the Gentmany error again, and an instant crash.

We have several people who have been playing for sometimes up to 60-70 turns on each server, so we have a bit invested in getting it to run smoothly; our games are 24 qhost if it makes any difference.

At any rate, I really appreciate you taking the time to read this and hope you can help me out? We were intending on running a trial tournament first and then I was hoping to involve or invite the players from this forum to take part in the future, but I don't think that will be possible if I cannot host a game without it constantly crashing.

Any suggestions? Once again, thank you.
Mr.Graves
sleepingtao @ gmail dot com
Yahoo: sleepingtao @ yahoo dot com
MSN: graves_keith @ hotmail dot com

Thanks!

[TheDemon]

hey friend! check the SA thread
I've asked around and your error seems pretty unique, but hopefully can be fixed with a reinstall. From what I can tell, it's a turn generation crash. If it's on multiple servers, it's caused by either compatibility or a corrupt install, not by the game's files.

If you can't restart the servers and it defaults to a new game, that means either you didn't put the ftherlnd file back into the game directory (ftherlnd files contain the game state) or the ftherlnd files are corrupt. You'll also want the .trn files, but I'm not sure if they're necessary or not.

I would back up your games, maps and mods, and uninstall, delete, and reinstall the game. If it were just one game that crashed I would say it would be a problem with that game, but more than one means it's a problem with your install.

[Ornedan]

stdout stands for STanDard OUTput. Programs have 3 standard IO streams: stdin (input), stdout (output), stderr (error messages & informational output when you don't want to mix it with whatever's going to stdout).

dom3 prints log to stdout, so the stdout file you had was probably a log full of it whining about something going wrong.


If you aren't doing backups yet, you really should start doing so. I've posted a relatively sane backup script in the Linux Admining thread. You should be able to adapt it to DOS syntax relatively easily. Or just use it directly with Cygwin. You'll just need to set the dominions3 directory in the latter case.
Or roll your own. But backup

[lch]

"getmany" is the function used to read data in bulk, for the data structures in the game files. It sounds like the game overwrote your fatherlnd turn files, but couldn't complete the write process because they grew too big, so now they're incomplete and useless. I hope you have backups. If not, you always should make backups.

[TheDemon]

Here's a backup script I use for network servers I run under Vista. Save this as backup.bat and put it in your dominions install directory, in the same folder as dom3.exe. If your games save in a different directory than default in Vista, you'll have to change the path in the script.

set game=%1
set gamebackup=%game%Backup

xcopy /c /y /i "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\dominions3\savedgames\%game%" "%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files (x86)\dominions3\savedgames\%game%\%gamebackup%"

Add this to your hosting shortcut:
--preexec "backup.bat GAMENAME"

[HappyUser]

*BUMP*

Dom3 v3.23b

Getting the same "Getmany Failed" error after applying upgrade patch from v3.21.

Previous 3.21 executable still works fine with 3.23b modified files.

I may be wrong, but I believe the problem occurs during loading of the main menu graphics.. between expl_white.tga and horror_32x32.bmp, or immediately after horror_32x32.bmp.

With 220+ views on this thread allready, you'd think more people would have posted receiving the same error message.

[lch]

You should offer the game files to Illwinter for introspection, then.

[HappyUser]

There are no game files to offer. I have systematically renamed each and every directory, and file in the installed root directory, and inspected the log file, to see where the error is occuring. ie: I am not loading any saved game, and the error is thrown before the main menu is even fully loaded.

I passed the dom3 process through PE Editor, and it seems to be throwing a malloc error at exactley 20,000kb each and every time.

This occurs on two seperate machines running vista32 and xp32.

[Gandalf Parker]

Recording here for posterity:

Problem:
runaway process, logs full, hard drive full
some dominions games will not restart
Något gick fel!
getmany failed

Answer:
Move last 2h file from game directory and try again.

LongerAnswer:
It turns out that during the problem someone did a turn. The last 2h received was a zero byte file. Removing it fixed the problem. It might also be worth trying anytime the game wont restart. Move the last 2h you received and try it then.

Tip:
Its also always a good idea to use the wonderful --preexec switch to run some routine (script or bat file) for zippng the files just before each hosting to provide backups you can restore from. Using the --postexec to do another save immediately after each hosting might not be a bad idea either.

yes I know that this seems head-slappingly obvious NOW but it caused me a sleepless night until I figured it out so I dont care if it makes me look bad to post this. It might help someone else later