Connection problems/resets/broken pipe with 3.08

[lch]

It seems that the 3.08 patch introduced or at least didn't fix some problems when one tries to connect to a network server. The server seems to drop the connection and the client hangs itself up on this behaviour, it doesn't respond any more at all. Workarounds include to kill the client and directly connect again to the server, which "usually works". The mid_Unlucky game seems to suffer from this (see the discussion on page 10, 11 and 12 of that thread), for example. We're having exactly the same problem on a server for a game from another board.

Since the number of people having problems with this might be even higher and we should track down and isolate the problem, who else is suffering from this? What OS are the servers using, which OS does the client use, are other games on the server affected aswell?

[llamabeast]

This is the problem where it stops on "Waiting for Game Info", right?

[lch]

Yep, and if you try a second time you "usually" can connect. The client becomes totally unresponsive though and has to be killed manually - if you have the game windowed that can be done, if the game was full screen you're out of luck since the client locks up completely. This behaviour, which can be observer when you're connected to the server while it hosts aswell, should really be changed so that the client doesn't lock up like that.

Please list all problematic games here that display the problem described in the first post on a regular basis.

[Gandalf Parker]

It appears that the secret is making a "second connection". This can be while another person is in, or very soon after your first try, or opening another copy of Dom3 to connect with.

Hosts can improve the actions on their games by keeping a copy of Dom3 linked to the game sitting with the "Waiting for game info" screen.

Gandalf Parker

[lch]

Yes, there are workarounds floating around which might work in some or even most situations, but we should be rather more interested about isolating the problem so that the devs can fix it for good. If it would happen rarely and due to other circumstances with the net connection itself it would be excusable that this happens, but it really seems to be a problem with the server software, after all.

[Gandalf Parker]

Thats what I was saying also.
Up until now I thought it might have been a problem only with my servers. I have now reported it in the beta group to the devs.

[Argitoth]

Dominions in text mode on windows is completely invisible. "Broken pipe" is a message I only get on Mac. When I get that message, the Mac closes the server for no apparent reason.

[lch]

Dominions in Windows writes its output to .txt files since it can't divide between a message log and an error log on the screen.

Your mac problem doesn't have anything to do with the things described in this thread, I think.

[Lingchih]

All of Zachariah's games exhibit this problem, but unfortunately he has mysteriously disappeared. We are still playing one game though, Testament of Blood, because one of the players has kindly left a client permanently connected on the "waiting for info" screen.

One of Velusions games exhibited the problem for a few turns, but it has subsequently gone away.

The workaround is unusable for me, because if I leave multiple, windowed instances of the game open so that I can connect, my graphics card overheats and shuts down.

[lch]

Lingchih said:
The workaround is unusable for me, because if I leave multiple, windowed instances of the game open so that I can connect, my graphics card overheats and shuts down.

I don't know about Wraithlord's server info program, but the Dominion 3 Server Monitor Tool that I inherited from MarcinM definitely does not disconnect from a server unless you tell it to. So it should be sufficient for the purpose of holding a connection, without any burden to the CPU. It hasn't been updated to accomodate the 3.14 changes yet, but that would be negligible for this task, anyway.