Dedicated Server Crashes (Windows 2003)

[BigQEd 0]

FragHaus runs a Dual Xeon server with SCSI Raid on Windows 2003. We have been having an extreme amount of server crashes (rarely get through a whole mission without a crash). There is no rhyme or reason to the crashes seemingly... and yes I have looked at other threads and posts on this subject and there seems to be no definitive solution. Nothing we have tried helps the situation... nothing makes it worse either (but it would be difficult to get much worse)

I could understand if we were running a low end system that was 4 years old or something but this system is rock solid and has absolutely no reason for the crashes to be occuring.

I have taken the system down to bare minimum on programs/processes running (just the OS and its required processes and ArmA running). I have tried running with 1/2/3/4 cpu's enabled. We have tried German unpatched and patched to English using 6th Sense (it was worth a shot). We have tried small missions and large missions (smaller seems less likely to crash but still crashing). We have tried running it as a Service (in the background and foreground) and as a standard startup.

At this point we have no answer... we have no solution... however, the one thing I do have is a dump file that Windows 2003 spewed out... if BIS is interested in this dump file please let me know at bigqed@fraghaus.com.

Thanks,

[.kju 3240]

hm i guess the server should have an arma.rpt and arma.mpmt as well. might be worth a look

C:\Dokumente und Einstellungen\user\Lokale Einstellungen\Anwendungsdaten\ArmA

[BigQEd 0]

hm i guess the server should have an arma.rpt and arma.mpmt as well. might be worth a look

Negative.

Did a search on the whole system.

[sickboy 13]

hm i guess the server should have an arma.rpt and arma.mpmt as well. might be worth a look

Negative.

Did a search on the whole system.

Then you didn't search enough, or your security rights aren't sufficient and that might even be the cause of the crashes.

Standard location is: %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Application Data\ArmA

Exchange %USERPROFILE% with the location of your Documents and Settings\Username  folder.

[BigQEd 0]

1) Yes I know where the files would go... trust me when I say I searched.

2) If it is a security issue, what is arma.exe attempting to do when it crashes on a Windows 2003 system that is setup with default security settings. We have the needed ports open and players are able to connect and play fine until the arma.exe process abruptly stops. We of course also have port 80 allowed (I even disabled the firewall to test) and I set read/write permissions on the directory to "everyone" (which should not be needed... but what the heck open the baby up eh?). We also disabled DEP on the Arma.exe process (which didnt matter).

3) It seems there is an issue with ArmA on Windows Server 2003 with certain hardware configurations possibly.

4) It also is crashing on other folks XP servers just not nearly as much... lets not over look the amount of issues folks are having. There is definitely a widespread issue with Dedicated Server stability in ArmA. It needs attention.

Dual Xeons? SCSI? Intel Server MB? Maybe it just doesnt want to run on a real server

[sickboy 13]

Dual Xeons? SCSI? Intel Server MB? Maybe it just doesnt want to run on a real server

Dude, don't talk to me about real servers, have a quad opteron and dual opteron myself... Both run 100% stable except the usual once in a couple of hours happenings due to game bugs... There are about 46 missions on incl. some originals but aswell many custom coops.

If the files aren't there, it probably means that there are no write permissions in that folder, at least, that's logical to assume. Please reset the file permissions and make sure that the user under which ArmA is running has full control on it.

Goodluck  

[BigQEd 0]

Did I say you didn't have a real server SickBoy? However, it is AMD... which I guess means...

Anyway, still no solution to the issue.

I'll figure out the dump and rpt file issue yes it is probably a permission issue. However, even with that it probably wont do much good if BIS doesnt have a avenue to send to. Maybe they do which is what i asked in my first post.

[sickboy 13]

Did I say you didn't have a real server SickBoy? However, it is AMD...  which I guess means...

Anyway, still no solution to the issue.

I'll figure out the dump and rpt file issue yes it is probably a permission issue. However, even with that it probably wont do much good if BIS doesnt have a avenue to send to. Maybe they do which is what i asked in my first post.

But it might be the reason why your arma server crashes, as if the permissions are wrong it cant write a log or bug reports or crash reports, which could result in a crash.

(ArmA aswell writes an error & warning log, even without crash )

I'm not even starting on the AMD/Intel thing

[BigQEd 0]

Either way, I certainly am not the only one that has crashing issues. Other servers maybe aren't as bad but they still crash much more than they should.

I am pretty sure BIS needs to view some of our dumps to troubleshoot and really nab the culprits.

Placebo? You around bud?

[sickboy 13]

Either way, I certainly am not the only one that has crashing issues. Other servers maybe aren't as bad but they still crash much more than they should.

I am pretty sure BIS needs to view some of our dumps to troubleshoot and really nab the culprits.

Placebo? You around bud?

Suit it yourself m8, i've been on it for a few days, but the result is what counts.. 2 servers that run stable as far as stable is possible with the current version, either way... it remains running for hours while running mission after mission, ~10 players in usually.

Same goes for the SES server btw..

[BigQEd 0]

But it might be the reason why your arma server crashes, as if the permissions are wrong it cant write a log or bug reports or crash reports, which could result in a crash.

(ArmA aswell writes an error & warning log, even without crash )

I'm not even starting on the AMD/Intel thing

Nah, guaranteed not the issue... just found fixed restarted server and boom another bomb within 10 mins.

But now that I have the rpt file I will review as crashes occur... too bad I can't read the mdmp.

Yeah lets not get on the Intel is better than AMD thing

[BigQEd 0]

Suit it yourself m8, i've been on it for a few days, but the result is what counts.. 2 servers that run stable as far as stable is possible with the current version, either way... it remains running for hours while running mission after mission, ~10 players in usually.

Same goes for the SES server btw..

I believe that is my point... all servers are crashing to some degree. Some more than others... some go for almost a day without a crash and then crash 3-4 times in a row... without a real reason seemingly.

You say "as far as stable is possible with the current version"... I think you have the just of my post... there is a problem and BIS may very well need our assistance to track down the various reasons for these strange crashes. Whether it be sensitivity to mission variables or mem leaks or port issues... whatever the issues may be there are issues that BIS needs input on (aparently). Just being accepting of the fact there are crashes probably isn't going solve them... I understand many don't wanna "rock the boat" and neither do I... I like ArmA and loved OFP... but bugs are bugs are bugs and we gotta help BIS track them down if at all possible.

[sickboy 13]

...

I thought it was more about getting your servers better to run, and seeying that our servers run sweet, it seems to be possible. Indeed BIS need our input, as we were already doing in the other thread

Best throw the bug report in the wiki, at least that's what Placebo wrote me about reporting bugs.

[zyklone 1]

I'm not entirely sure where Sickboy is coming from blaming the server for these crashes.

The arma executable is crashing, not the server. That just doesn't happen unless you have memory / cpu problems or there is a problem in the application.

And since if cpu / memory is broken then you get loads of other problems it's fairly easy to rule that out.

I think the reason he thinks the server is stable is that he only runs passworded servers, this ofcourse makes things very different from the public servers.

There is really nothing we can do until BI acknowledges these problems and issues a patch, or preferably gets us real server executables.

[sickboy 13]

Quote[/b] ]Nah, guaranteed not the issue... just found fixed restarted server and boom another bomb within 10 mins.

But now that I have the rpt file I will review as crashes occur... too bad I can't read the mdmp.

Nice that you fixed that part, and too bad it didn't solve ur crashes!

...

I'm not sure where you got this story from m8, but I was just saying that it took me aswell days to narrow the problem down, but for us we found it... as I hoped would be possible in this case aswell, besides .. im not blaming anyone's server, as i'm not the one who starts about ours being an "amd" and that's ""

I'll unpassword our server 1 soon btw, let's see what crashjoy that brings

But anyway, nothing more to add, goodluck!

[zyklone 1]

But anyway, nothing more to add, goodluck!

No real offence intended to you really, and my post probably didn't belong in this thread either.

I'm really just very frustraded aboutnot being able to actually run a stable arma server.

I should probably password mine and se if it works better, atleast I might be able to play with friends then.

[sickboy 13]

No real offence intended to you really, and my post probably didn't belong in this thread either.

I'm really just very frustraded aboutnot being able to actually run a stable arma server.

I should probably password mine and se if it works better, atleast I might be able to play with friends then.

No biggy.. good idea to check it, ours was passworded from the start though, aswell as when we had our crashes.

Anyway, please update if passwording your server helped etc

[BigQEd 0]

I'm not entirely sure where Sickboy is coming from blaming the server for these crashes.

The arma executable is crashing, not the server.

I'm not sure where you got this story from m8, but I was just saying that it took me aswell days to narrow the problem down, but for us we found it... as I hoped would be possible in this case aswell, besides .. im not blaming anyone's server, as i'm not the one who starts about ours being an "amd" and that's ""

I'll unpassword our server 1 soon btw, let's see what crashjoy that brings

But anyway, nothing more to add, goodluck!

erm no offense... SickBoy I give you props on making things for the community but please man understand some of us have been around for many years running OFP servers along with many other gaming servers. We pretty much can tell there is an issue with the program vs the server itself. Yeah we may need to tweak something on the server to make the program eek by a little better but fact remains this is an application issue and I hope by us sticking together we can help BIS find a solution.  

The AMD/Intel thing is a joke and I am pretty sure everyone can see that.  

[sickboy 13]

...

This isn't about all that at all, salisan made it look as if I was merely here to kick some dirt, was only saying that aint true, anyway, as said before, goodluck and hope bis will fix it up, as the other bugs.

--

Hummm... re-reading the whole thread today it seems I completely misunderstood some of the posts and wanna apologise for the reactions, guess I was a tad on edge

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

I'm glad to see/hear these issue's (server related)...apparently long before I'll ever get my group a server up.

Maybe it will be less frustrating for me, I'll just review this thread!

[BigQEd 0]

Just got an email from another person this evening that saw this thread but was unable to post... having the same problems with a Windows 2003 Dual Xeon system.

[HitSqdhaXor 0]

Back to the Topic ....

Where do people need to send the dedicated server dump files?

Is BIS interested in this data?

Do we send to:

support@bis.com?

placebo@bis.com?

Is there an anon ftp to dump them to?

Would BIS like the files compressed?

Progress leads to perfection.

[sickboy 13]

Back to the Topic ....

Where do people need to send the dedicated server dump files?

Is BIS interested in this data?

Do we send to:

support@bis.com?

placebo@bis.com?

Is there an anon ftp to dump them to?

Would BIS like the files compressed?

Progress leads to perfection.

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/Crash_Files

[wombat-LOL- 0]

Hi,

we are testing the new Dual Xeon [LOL]Circus server and have exactly the same instability problems as the Fraghaus guys.

Our server is running Windows 2003 Server with 2 x Xeon and 2 Gb of RAM. The hardware build is absolutely stable (has been running as part of a cluster for 12 months) and is fully patched. I will go to the data centre and swap the drive packs across to another cluster node later today to prove that the hardware (RAM etc) is not at fault.

I have to agree with the Fraghaus team; we have been running Linux and Windows servers for OFP (and other games) for 5 years now and the problem (in our opinion) is related to the ArmA server code, not the environment or the hardware. I have taken a lot of time to try various mods to make the platform more stable but nothing really seems to make a difference and limiting the server process to using one CPU is such a retrograde step that I will just keep complaining until BIS investigate further...

As [LOL]Circus is completely dedicated to ArmA and no longer has any other duties I would offer to allow BIS to RDP or VNC on to the platform if they need real world servers to try and isolate the problem or observe it at first hand.

(Can't wait for the Linux dedicated server code to come along, at least we'd have a chance of getting hold of some meaningful debug info! )

wombat

--

http://www.nakedsquid.com

[LOL] Send in the clowns...

[SWAT_BigBear 0]

I use FireDaemon service manager for launching our game servers as a service, which has event logging, debuging tools built in. Never had to use those extras, but woundering if it would help with ArmA?