Dedicated servers-bad bug!

[suchey 0]

We are continuing to experience the ghosted player bug...when a player gets dropped from the server they sometimes are able to stay in game with a zero ping...according to BIS, this is a "feature" (extended time out) which allows for dial up players to reconnect if their connection drops...this is happening ALOT...when this happens the player can not get back into the game...in addition, that spot is then GONE until the dedicated server reboots for ANYONE, meaning noone can join in that spot until the server is rebooted. For example, a player drops from the game but according to the game is still there...the admin can kick him, and his name will dissapear from the list, but sometimes he is still there on his screen and can even effect objects in the game (very bad news)....although I have heard of this being 'used' by cheaters, it sometimes happens to players that arent trying to do it. Either way, when this happens, the spot in the game just becomes disabled and the player cannot rejoin and neither can anyone else...so if your server limit is 16 only 15 would be able to play when this bug happens to one player...14 when it happens again...so on and so forth. Sometimes this happens when a player is booted as well. This is a SERIOUS bug and has made running a good dedicated server almost impossible. In addition, there are times when even booting the ghosted player does not work....they can continue to run around the game grabbing flags, etc until they decide to disconect. This issue is becoming more and more of a problem as more people buy resistance. PLEASE take this extended time out off of dedicated server or at least allow the option to turn it off...I can almost guarantee that anyone currently offering a good dedicated server to the public would turn this option off if given the chance. This is happening to both broadband and dial-up users alike and is killing the on-line game quickly. At this point, even a beta patch would be helpful as, in its current state, Resistance is a poor game to run on e dedicated server due to this issue. Is there some sort of estimated time on a patch? Given enough time this will seriously decreas the ammount of dedicated servers which are currently being offered. Thank you in advance if you respond BIS.

[mikelw 0]

I have also had the same problems with the new Resistance add-on. I think this is something that needs to be fixed as soon a possible, for it is making game play difficult.

I have tried many ways to work around being dropped and than trying to get back. I have had no luck yet. If I do figure out a work around I will let others know. And also I will post it here.

We need to resolve this soon or I feel players will give up on the game. I don't want to think of that.

[Crazy_Jnutz 0]

Where can I start. OFP. Rocks. Enough Said. Then comes resistance. My experience has not been a very good one. I started having lag issues and issues of being booted at times. Hey ok so I bought a new video card last week. Guess what. It's Fixed. Okay maybe not. Lately while playing the game I experience the same problem as listed above. I was just dropped from a server 15 minutes ago and now when I try to gain access it again it tells me "Connection Failed". This is not the first time it has happened. It kinda acts like a bad case of the 24 hour flu. I wait and I can connect later. I am not sure what this is related to but it sure is getting annoying. Any assistance would be appreciated to fix this problem.

Regards,

Cr@zy Jnutz

crazy_j@wolfefamily.info

[suma 8]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Suchey @ Aug. 01 2002,07:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">We are continuing to experience the ghosted player bug...when a player gets dropped from the server they sometimes are able to stay in game with a zero ping...according to BIS, this is a "feature" (extended time out) which allows for dial up players to reconnect if their connection drops.<span id='postcolor'>

I am afraid you are misinterpreting my response. There really is a feature that allows players to reconnect withing 90 seconds after disconnecting, but I can see no relation between this feature and "zero ping" ghosts. We are currently working on a fix for the ghost bug - see BIS Testing server topic.

[suma 8]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Suchey @ Aug. 01 2002,07:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">This is a SERIOUS bug and has made running a good dedicated server almost impossible.

...

 At this point, even a beta patch would be helpful as, in its current state, Resistance is a poor game to run on e dedicated server due to this issue.  Is there some sort of estimated time on a patch? Given enough time this will seriously decreas the ammount of dedicated servers which are currently being offered.   Thank you in advance if you respond BIS.<span id='postcolor'>

If this problem is really this bad for you, as a temporary solution you can switch your server to DirectPlay mode - it is very likely that this bug is sockets specific.

[suchey 0]

Suma...thanks for the response...glad to hear theres a fix in the works.  Regarding the 0 ping ghost, the reason I had equated this with the extension of the dial up time out is that this 'ghosting' seems to happen quite a bit when  someone loses connection...dial-ups, broadband, etc...and in each case, they are not able to reconnect...so my point in mentioning the extended time out item was that it doesnt seem to be working the way it was intended. If these 2 items are not related, then please disregard...just thought the info may come in handy.  The 2 issues may be completely seperate, but I do know that I have seen no reconnections on the server utilizing this extended time out.  I may have to follow your advice and switch back to direct play, however I hesitate to do this as the port change would confuse some players who direct connect to the server making them think the server is unavailable and the sockets method seems to run MUCH more smoothly than direct play except for the 'ghost/disconnect' thing.   The last item I can report is that the ghosting issue seems to happen most often durring mission load or mission end...Thanks again...I hope my comments are taken in the constructive manner by which they were intended...I look forward to the patch

On a seperate but related note, one of the players who was experiencing this problem on a regular basis seems to have helped his problem by completely removing OFP, scandisk, defrag, install OFP from CD and then install OFP:R without the intermitant OFP patches.  This was on the advice of OFP tech support and so far has seemed to improve his situation, so if your a player reading this who is experienceing this problem, you may wish to give this a shot...your milage may vary.

[suma 8]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Suchey @ Aug. 02 2002,16:23)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">On a seperate but  related note, one of the players who was experiencing this problem on a regular basis seems to have helped his problem ...<span id='postcolor'>

If you will find another player that is regulary experiencing this problem, please ask him not to try to fix it, but to contact me instead (if he is willing to help us to fix this bug). If we would be able to reproduce this bug consistently, hunting it would be much easier.

[suchey 0]

Suma...I have one in mind...I will ask him to contact you.

[Crazy_Jnutz 0]

Ok I had the problem last night and I honeslty and not sure what fixed it. I did a scandisk and defrag of my machine only. I did not touch the ofp installs in any way. I am not sure if this fixed the problem or if it was just a timing issue. Maybe something in the server timing out after an extended amount of time. This has happened to me 3 times. here are my experiences each time:

#1. Connection was dropped sitting in the lobby of multiplayer mode. I could still see all the other players pings changing but could not choose to start or to talk to them via text chat. Closed out of ofp and rebooted machine. When attempting to reconnect I got " Connection Failed". Next day it worked fine.

#2. Admin manually selected another map and my connection was dropped. It sat at waiting for server forever before I finally realized what had happened. Closed out of ofp and rebooted machine. When attempting to reconnect I got " Connection Failed". Next day it worked fine.

#3. Last evening. After all sides were chosen in the lobby and admin hit start I loaded the mission fine and got to the briefing screen. Relized 3 players where downloaded and ready and green. Everyone else including myself was red. However my ping was 0. Closed out of ofp and rebooted machine. When attempting to reconnect I got " Connection Failed". Did a scandisk and defrag and was able to reconnect.

Hope this may help in someway. If you need any other info please feel free to email me or post me a message. Thank you.

Cr@zy Jnutz

crazy_j@wolfefamily.info

[Sh@d0w_Killer 1]

Suma, just a note to let you know what codemaster's had me do to fix the ghost player problem.

1)Run Scandisc program

2)Run Defrag program

3)Uninstall Ofp and Ofp-R

4)Go to c:windows/programs/codemasters/

and delete the folder

5)Shut off all background programs (win98 users use cntrl-alt-del) and only keep explorer and systray open

6)Re-install Ofp

7) Re-install Ofp-R

8) This is the most important! DO NOT INSTALL ANY OFFICIAL OR UNOFFICIAL PATCHES OR ADD-ONS

most people install Ofp then install of of the old patches and this is where I think the problem is.

I did all of this and my ghosting problem was resolved...

[SPC G-Man 0]

Suma,

Suchey just let me know that you're looking for someone to do a little testing/debugging for you in regards to this problem. If I can help in any way, please let me know.

I had the problem again last night. I usually have problems with loading maps. I have a problem getting bumped back to the desktop during the black "receiving" screen. Sometimes during the gameplay too though. When I try to get back in sometimes, I get the connecting failed error. People on the server tell me that it shows that I'm connecting the first time I try again, but it never says connected. After that, usually it tells me the server is full even through it's not. The LAN game browser shows 14/14 but if I go to the internet browser, it shows the correct amount of people but I still can't get in even though there's slots open. The error is "server full".

I've tried rebooting, changing my game name, and everything else I can think of during these periods but no dice. I can also get onto other servers, but when I try to go back to the server I'm having a problem with, still no go. Suchey has also tried everything he can think of during these periods without success. Rebooting the server is the only thing that will let me reconnect again.

Something eventually times out after an hour or 2 because I can usually go back some time later and get back on without the server being rebooted. I've also been told during some troubleshooting with Suchey over teamspeak that sometimes when only 1 person disconnects, my game browser goes from 14/14 (which is incorrect) to the real number (say 10/14 for example).

I hope most of this made sense to you, it's kind of hard to explain. My brief thoughts about it is that it appears my Id# or something gets "stuck" in the server as being halfway connected when I'm not. I draw that conclusion from troubleshooting sessions with Suchey and him telling me that it says "SPC G-Man connecting" but never comes across saying "SPC G-Man connected". On that connection attempt when it does that I get a "connecting failure." message on my screen. Then attempts after that either give me a server full if the game browser says 14/14 (when there's less than that really), or the failure message if the game browser shows less than 14/14.

Like I said, let me know how I can help. I would really like to squash this bug!

Here's my system stats, all have latest drivers available:

Abit kt7a motherboard

AMD 1.4Ghz (266FSB) non-oc

2x512M pc133 ram

ATI Radeon 8500 (retail) dual monitor enabled

19" + 17" monitors

Philips Acoustic Edge soundcard (4 channel enabled)

Adaptec 3200S dual channel, u160 scsi, 32M cache RAID card

2x18G u160, 10k rpm, hard drives in raid0 on 1st channel

plextor scsi cdrw and toshiba scsi dvd rom on 2nd channel

3com 905c ethernet card, 100bt FD to switch

MS USB intellimouse explorer and USB inet keyboard pro

SPC G-Man

1st of the 123rd Infantry (RedBull) Division

[mikelw 0]

i am real glad to see we are being listened to.

Suma i have had the problem several times and am willing to do anything i can to help resolve this.

i have recently done a clean install on my system.

i didn't have problems last night.

we will see how it goes tonight.

i will come back to this forum to check if you need my assistance.

you can reach me direct many ways.

e-mail: mikelw@attbi.com

icq: 642942

msn: Farm_Boy_@hotmail.com

i can also get you my phone # but, i don't think here would be a wise place to post it.

let me know if i can help.

[suchey 0]

Suma...above are a couple players that are willing to help out as requested...if you would rather that they contact you via email or something, please post here and I will make sure they see the info. Thanks!