[CF-Devel] cfclient bugs and server issues

[Mark Wedel]

Jochen Suckfuell wrote:
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      Hi!
     
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      Client issues:
     
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      I have started playing crossfire again after a year of abstinence. Since I'm
     
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      behind a firewall I use an ssh portforwarding to a public crossfire server.
     
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      Since I also have a local server running on the default port 13327, the
     
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      portforwarding is on 13328.
     
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      Unfortunately, the cfclient (from rpm, 0.96.0) simply ignores the -port option!
     
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      So I have to kill my local server if I want to play online and use the default
     
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      port for ssh. :(
     
     
 I've fixed that problem.  Note that whatever value is used for -port, it will
use that port number for all servers it connects to via the metaserver. 
Probably not an issue for you since you have to set up specific port forwaring
in any case.

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      The cfclient has another bug when I stand on a large pile of items. Then the
     
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      lower left window (which usually shows items on the ground or open containers)
     
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      shows an open container when there is none and I get an output like "the dust
     
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      of ignition is not a container". I have to open and close a container from my
     
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      inventory to reset this window then. On several occasions the client just dies
     
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      with segfault when stepping on a very large pile.
     
     
 If your running stock 0.96.0 server, there were some bug fixes in CVS that may
fix this (or you may be reporting an unrelated bug).


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      Now for some server issues:
     
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      (this is the server damn.informatik.uni-bremen.de which is running a current
     
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      CVS snapshot or at least version 0.96.0, iirc)
     
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      Problem: The golem following me to other maps - deadly experience.
     
     
 There was a bug in this.  Golems were supposed to always move away from players
when you change maps.  Unfortunately, the values were reversed to the golem
would always move towards you.  I've made a change so that golems will move
away.

 I believe one of the reasons golems are not friendly is to make them trickier
to use.  If golems were friendly, it would be a piece of cake to use them when
adventuring with some friends - as it is now, you would need to be careful.


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      Problem: The server doesn't see when my connection dies.
     
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      I'm sharing an ISDN line with other people and it happens that someone cuts it
     
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      while I'm playing. Then my player is still standing where I left it and I can't
     
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      log in again for another 10 minutes until the server decides that I'm somehow
     
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      absent! Luckily I haven't died that way yet.
     
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      If I just kill my client, the server saves and removes my player correctly.
     
     
 This is purely on OS issue, and nothing that crossfire can do much about (there
may be some tunables to make the connection die faster).  But simply put, with
the way tcp traffic works, it does quite a bit of work to handle lost packets
and what not.  A cut connection is basically just a lot of lost packets, so it
takes some amount of retrying before it figures out that the connection really
is dead.

 The reason killing the client works for an immediate exit is because the OS the
client is running on sends a termination packet to the server (this is all done
in the OS), so the server OS sees that termination packet, and does the right
thing to the socket, which the crossfire server then sees and does the right
thing.


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      Problem: reproduceable server crashes
     
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      There are houses which crash the server when entering. I don't know if there
     
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      are random maps in them. Anyway this is a convenient way the get the maps reset.
     
     
 It really helps out if you give specific examples of these.  Ie, what house and
what map is it on.

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      Some teleporters which are triggered by some action often crash the server. It
     
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      happened each time when I put the chalice of fire into the water around Twis'
     
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      prison cell in the Butakis fortress prison. Other teleporters which are
     
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      triggered by saying something work sometimes.
     
     
 I'll look into that.

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      Problem: altars of Devourer as decoration in random maps
     
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      When I try to reconsecrate them I get an error message like "you cannot
     
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      reconsecrate the altar of (null)".
     
     
 I'll look into that also.