pbem hosting hell! - Page 2

Mordante · #11 June 14th, 2001, 04:07 PM

we have a sort of workaround so the game will be able to continue ... it involves one of the players not using fighters in the way he wanted to though

*looks like largescale fighter combat launched from carriers is unviable with the current patch*

... shouldn't really effect the strategic dynamics. It is really working out to be a dramatic clash of fleets though ... surprisingly quick resolution of the conflict beckons.

Thanks for the offer of an alternative computer to resolve the hosting but I don't really think it is that much a matter of processor speed.

Compare ... default turns (with fighter engagement plotted) 13+ hours (still rising) on a fast NT Server...

turns with one player adjusting his fighter strategy to defensive clumps at home ...

hosting takes 3 mins (more or less as usual)

A somewhat significant difference!

dogscoff · #12 June 14th, 2001, 04:46 PM

Hehe - I wasn't offering my computer (P133!). I just thought it might be a problem specific to your machine and so it might be worth trying it on a diffrent computer.

geoschmo · #13 June 14th, 2001, 05:22 PM

Anybody have a couple hours of timeshare available on a Cray?

Jubala · #14 June 14th, 2001, 10:54 PM

Might be a good idea to mail the offending turn to MM and tell Aaron it took forever to process. Hopefully he can do something to speed up the process.

geoschmo · #15 June 15th, 2001, 01:30 AM

I seriously douubt that it is going to finish, or that it's actually doing anything at this point. 1.35 seems to be better than 1.30 at avoiding the RCE's and app errors, but I have seen a couple games that simply never process. This sounds to me like what you are describing.

If you check the task list it will probably tell you Se4 is not responding.

Geo

Mordante · #16 June 15th, 2001, 01:35 AM

ho hum, similar problem with the next turn I tried to process, this time the hosting program pauses at 60% and remains there for a long long time. (1 hour and counting this time)

Shortly before the pause begins the "end turn" text disappears from the main display window - not sure if this is connected or a symptom.

The latest turn in my pbem game is likely to include less fighter combat (since we were all warned off Last time) - so now, the solution workaround is not going to be so easy.

Does anybody know if it is possible to process 1.35 games with a 1.30 host? Would that be likely to help (for the fighter bugs alone)

As always, help and comments welcome

Mordante · #17 June 15th, 2001, 01:49 AM

btw ... i have mailed the game turn and player files involved to Aaron ... it's a nasty problem, particularly with a view to play-by-web automated hosting in the future;

How would the players know if the host was working or not, or busy processing a seemingly infinate turn?

Although the pbem game involved is high end with large numbers of ships and fighters (1000, and 20,000) respectively - I can see similar situations occuring with future games.

****************

Puke · #18 June 15th, 2001, 03:31 AM

we have a similar situation in a test game running on the seiv.pbw.cc (Admiral's PBW server) where the game is hanging on a massive fighter battle we set up just for this occasion.

I have to commend the Admiral here, and put out this plug for the SEIV PBW service (runs great, no complaints, lots of Users).. here is the way we have to work arround it on the server:

the server will let you know that the turn has crashed, the designated host of the game is then able to either work it out on his own on his own PC and re-upload a manual turn file, or the offending players can be instructed to back-off so that the turn can be reprocessed. if all else fails, the PBW administrators are always willing to help people troubleshoot and work out any problems.

so I am happy to say that PBW handles this, and hopefully when the new Version comes out, there will be less hangs to deal with.

Mordante · #19 June 16th, 2001, 01:00 AM

*happy news* - the hosting program managed to process the latest turn after more than 2.5 hours doing an impression of a crashed application (the dialogues had disappeared, the process counter had gone, the screen had gone white) But lo! Like a returning hope the message eventually popped up and gave us the files...

A right royal pain in the butt these long turns ... but, nice to know that the program can actually continue working to produce a result eventually. I have more faith now that the original problem turn (the 13 hour plus one) would have eventually worked.

Amazing really, the problem elements which caused this one to go on forever look to be some absolutely huge organic seeker ship fleets (100ish base ships, 100ish smaller ships, good proportion armed with seeking parasites, 14-20 per vessel) - that's a lot of seeker heads in a small area of space.

Still, the war goes on....

Regards

HiveLordJim · #20 June 16th, 2001, 11:06 AM

I host PBEM games and have had the computer take 20 minutes to process a turn:
11 years into the game, 10 empires left from 17, multiple fleets of 50+ common with a 500 ship per player limit.

The game will seemingly stop for 3 mintues then the progress meter will go up a percent.

I have had the game hang on 2 occassions. These hangs were because of some weird bug with fleets that malfador said they were fixing in the next patch.

Hope that helps