Multiplayer crash (87b435c)

[Magnate]

Hi,

I'm getting fairly frequent crashes around turn 150 in a 2-player game (+10 AIs). I attach freeoriond.log - I'll attach a couple more when it happens again. I'm afraid I can't see any clues in it, but grateful for any feedback or other things to try.

It's not crashing every turn, and not at exactly the same point. This particular crash was halfway through turn processing - the first "Downloading and Unpacking New Game-state".

CC

[Geoff the Medio]

...crashes...

Describe the crashes in more detail? Did the client suddenly close, or was there an in-game popup saying the connection to the server was lost, or ?

[Magnate]

Here's a crash two turns later, at the same mid-processing point. It seems to allow us one successful turn with each restart, and then we crash.

[Dilvish]

Please attach the client log "freeorion.log" (not freeoriond.log, which is the server log)-- so far you've been attaching the server log, which appears to just indicate that you forced it to close from the client.

[Magnate]

...crashes...

Describe the crashes in more detail? Did the client suddenly close, or was there an in-game popup saying the connection to the server was lost, or ?

Precisely that - "The connection to the server was lost" - everything disappeared except the turn progress window and that message.

[Magnate]

Please attach the client log "freeorion.log" (not freeoriond.log, which is the server log)-- so far you've been attaching the server log, which appears to just indicate that you forced it to close from the client.

Ah bother - last time I posted a thread about this I was advised to post freeoriond.log - sorry, should have uploaded both. Latest freeorion.log added, which corresponds to the second crash.

[Dilvish]

Hmm, I'm afraid that wasn't much help (for me anyways) -- could you also get the other player's freeorion.log file?

[Magnate]

Not for that game, but here's another crash. This game I'll try and get the other player's log as well next time it happens.

[Dilvish]

Not for that game, but here's another crash. This game I'll try and get the other player's log as well next time it happens.

If you want there to be any chance of figuring this out you'll really need to post a little about what happened. From looking at those logs it kind of looks like you started one game, then quit it and started to load another, but then only one of you joined that second game, and then either you canceled the dialog, or... what happened?

[Magnate]

Not for that game, but here's another crash. This game I'll try and get the other player's log as well next time it happens.

If you want there to be any chance of figuring this out you'll really need to post a little about what happened. From looking at those logs it kind of looks like you started one game, then quit it and started to load another, but then only one of you joined that second game, and then either you canceled the dialog, or... what happened?

Thanks - I'm sorry not to be more informative, but when it crashes the priority is to get another game up and running, and my other players object to faffing around trying to preserve log files. I will try harder.

There are basically only two types of crash:

(i) "The connection to the server has been lost", always during turn processing, either halfway or right at the end (or very occasionally immediately on pressing End Turn)

(ii) endless hang - more recent versions only, and always immediately after pressing End Turn (this may be to do with autosaving because I have also seen it hang after a manual save)

What more detail would be helpful - which race clicked End Turn last? Which platform that player is using?

CC

[Dilvish]

There are basically only two types of crash:

(i) "The connection to the server has been lost", always during turn processing, either halfway or right at the end (or very occasionally immediately on pressing End Turn)

(ii) endless hang - more recent versions only, and always immediately after pressing End Turn (this may be to do with autosaving because I have also seen it hang after a manual save)

I have a hard time seeing these latest logs as fitting either of those scenarios. So even if it's only going to be you saving files and not any of the other players, please try taking a note about just what happened so you can relate that when you post the files. Knowing that it's "usually A or B" doesn't help a lot especially if the logs look like neither.

As for your scenario (ii) I would suggest that you try making sure that when doing a manual save wait until all other empires have already submitted their orders for the turn (you can tell because the little green triangle next to their listing on the empire window goes away once they've done that), and if it's been a trouble for the autosave also then try making sure you are the last person to hit end-turn (checking the same way). Let me know if that seems to help.

What more detail would be helpful - which race clicked End Turn last? Which platform that player is using?

starting race shouldn't matter. platform might be interesting -- are you playing cross platform, and using xml serialization?

[Magnate]

Ok latest crash log attached.

First, I think I am experiencing more than one cause of crash. I think one is to do with saving, and the other is to do with timeouts.

This latest one, attached, is a timeout crash. There's a long pause between turns (like an hour or more - because one of us is cooking or something), and when the second player (me) clicks end turn, it crashes per (i) above. This time I've asked the other player for her logs too. I have saved the logs BEFORE clicking OK to "The connection to the server has been lost".

In this particular instance we are both playing on Windows 7. We have played OSX-Win (using binary serialisation) and Linux-Win (where we have to turn binary off, and it takes forever to download late-game turn data).

[Magnate]

Got them - other player's logs attached, from the same crash at the same time.

[Dilvish]

This latest one, attached, is a timeout crash. There's a long pause between turns (like an hour or more - because one of us is cooking or something), and when the second player (me) clicks end turn, it crashes per (i) above. This time I've asked the other player for her logs too.

ok, please post them once you get the other freeorion.log file

For some parts of the networking (like initial connections) we set some timers of a few seconds or so, but from what you say it sounds like you are probably running into a long timer (tens of minutes) that is a default in the boost networking library we use. There might be a way for us to override that, but I'm not immediately seeing it. It could be you'll need to avoid pauses in the tens of minutes-- either sending a little message every 10-20 mins or so, or else just saving/quitting and then restarting later. Hopefully the other log file will make it a bit more clear just what happened here.

[Geoff the Medio]

There might be a way for us to override that, but I'm not immediately seeing it. It could be you'll need to avoid pauses in the tens of minutes-- either sending a little message every 10-20 mins or so, or else just saving/quitting and then restarting later.

It should be possible to make the server and clients send pings to eachother ever minute or so. That said, several years ago I attempted to set up an auto turn timer function on the server, but couldn't get it to work.