i've noticed a fair few lockups on the l4d servers (both)

its happening during campaign and versus modes

main culprit seems to be on level changing after a round finishes :/

could there be a corrupted file or something causing this or maybe a plugin is to blame? i'm not very technical so i'm sorry if i'm no help at all lol

this has been going on since day one :/ blame the game

nope dan, i've played on a lot of servers and this is definitely uncommon, unfortunately

When you say lockups, do you mean the game crashes out or that loading freezes for lengths of time but you eventually get into game?

random crahes are part and parcel of l4d, however the freezes during the loading are where the games server contacts the webserver to transfer data and other things are loaded.

Essentially the server is running enhanced logging, the bans plugin, a SQL2005 instance for ban handling across servers, the sourcemod/metamod stuff for admin etc., and the plugins for adding customised objects to the maps. The latter, while I think improves gameplay substantially (removing invisible walls, adding closet blockers and stuff for infected to spawn behind e.g. rocks at end of DT) is one of the major causes of load lag.

I've finally got both servers working correctly with the stats and bans system, so am now going to take a look at the custom objects plugin and database side to see if I can improve performance. (back to rewriting the plugin sourcecode, so this may make things worse if I cock something up )

I'll merrily post a changelog for when I've been tinkering, but would be handy if crashes are occurring to post times/dates/summary so I can trawl through the logs to pinpoint faults.

Making a start on recoding the custom objects now, will upload this to server1 and post later

Update:

I just found a glaring mistake in the sourcecode in the 16.l4d.so file and so have corrected and rebuilt it. Just finished uploading the new version to server #1

Let me know if this makes things the same/better/worse

thx,

Monkey

ok will do, i'll try and keep logs of unusually load times as and when it happens

ok heres two instances

24/10/09

1133am
1156am

both times starting campaign from a lobby forcing on to SM #1
both times we set the campaign to crash course and started the game
once connected to the server, it had reverted from "advanced" "crash course" to normal, No mercy

kinda weird it doing that

looking at it the nextmap.smx plugin reads the maplist.cfg which didn't contain the crashcourse maps for some reason... possibly causing it to load the default no mercy, normal map.

I've manually plonked them in there, restarted the server; see if that fixes it?

Any change on the server loading speed/hangsz/freezes/crashes on #1 btw?

well i would say it's been much faster the last day, ok i'll give the CC run thru a go later this evening to see if it's cleared up then, ta for the update munkeh <3

ok 24/10

time 1027pm

crashed on map change during a versus game on server 2

at end of nm2 going on to nm3

another crash tonight

versus mode server #2

about 8.00 pm

nm 2 changing map to nm3

oopsies, I'd not replicated the changes to server #2.. only #1. Updated both servers now

I've also added the cevo configs to both servers, I believe from !admin you can execute the relevent config to enable it. Methinks the cevo_off config reverts thes ervers back, but if all eslse failes logging into the server cpanel and restarting it has the same effect e.g. server1.sneakymonkeys.com or server2.sneakymonkeys.com (with the restart option)



**************************
Usage
--------------------------

- Before a match starts, "exec cevo.cfg" via rcon or the server console.
- After a match is over, "exec cevo_off.cfg" to disable the config.

both these options should be accessible through the !admin > server option > execute config (or whatever it's called)

**************************
Commands
--------------------------

(The following commands are all in chat)

During the ready-up period:

* !ready - change player status to "readied up" (when all 8 players are ready the round will start)
* !unready - change player status to "not ready" (if going AFK or want to abort live countdown)


(Admin-only commands, sm_map privileges required)

* !forcestart - force starts the match even if not all players are ready
* !abort - aborts an impending live countdown (i.e. if the match was forcefully started)


Commands at any time:

* !reready - ask for a ready-up period at the end of the first half (usually the second half will be live right away)
* !printscores - prints the scores for each previously played map, and the campaign scores
* !scores - displays the scores for each previously played map, and the campaign scores


(Admin-only commands, sm_map privileges required)

* !restartround - manually restarts a round one-time, do this twice so the teams are swapped back to normal (does not swap score! only swaps teams!)
* !restartmap - rcon changelevels to the current map (and resets the team scores to 0)

* !swap <player1> [player2] ... [playerN] - swap all listed players to opposite teams
* !swapmenu <player1> [player2] ... [playerN] <teamnum> - display a menu of players to do !swap
* !swapto <player1> [player2] ... [playerN] <teamnum> - swap all listed players to teamnum (1,2,3)
* !swapteams - swaps the infected and survivor teams
* !swapscores - swaps the campaign scores
* !resetscores - resets the campaign scores to 0/0

we were having issues trying to return to lobby when the game decided to launch us into a campaign instead of versus, the return to lobby option was greyed out in everyones menus. in the end we had to leave and make a new lobby...


can you implement this into an admin command?

That's a weird bug that I've not found a cause for yet. Will look into it in a bit

Meanwhile I've updated the plugins on both servers with modified versions, will see if that clears things up a bit.

Also, I appreciate peoples help reporting the bugs. Previously not much got done as people hardly ever told me when a server crashed (specific times or what it's doing).

If a server does something funny, can you go into the console (`) and type STATUS and paste the detail here - it help to see what the clients are getting up to at the time of things breaking

ok another crash on server 2

15.34

expert campaign mode

during the map transistion end of round 2 going on to round 3 on Death Toll

weird stuff today

trying the new maps out or trying to

ok on both servers about 3.55(#2) just before fro #1

tried to force connect from lobby to load up DBD campaign, No joy (would not connect to server)

then tried campaign mode BH advanced on both servers forced to #1 + #2 both times went straight to versus on BH and not campaign

also then while on #2 tried using admin to switch map on to DBD campaign, admin showed it as a valid command but when i selected it, the server tried to load the map but just hung on loading screen, loading bar not increasing.

pm me if all that didnt make sense

cheers
K.

well we've got a support tickey out with the game hosts at the moment (no reply as yet)

I believe the server requires mp_gamemode to be set. If we set it to coop op it locks the server to coop. If we then start a versus lobby and connect it connects in coop (rather than overiding the default as it should)

The oposite also happens if we specify mp_gamemode as versus and try a coop lobby.

This is very silly.

I've not tried it yet as a workaround, but ingame you may be able to set the mp_gamemode from the console if it loads the wrong type of game:

sm_cvar mp_gamemode versus
sm_cvar mp_gamemode coop

I've plonked a copy of my findings in the gameservers.com forums here: http://forums.gameservers.com/viewtopic.ph...31414d3b09dcf58

Will wait and see what support have to say for themselves

err would i need some sort of password to change something like the mp-gamemode?

narp, since your an admin it should let you do it. That being said I've not tested any of this... brb

monkey your cvars seem unrecognized :/


anyway maybe it would be easier to implement a server config

u already have 3 options
standard setup
war on
war off

how about a 4th option coop mode enabled?
as a option and then we can choose the standard setup when we want versus working again?

yep can do that easy enough, although I tested the cvar the other day to switch game mode - seemed to work fine without reloading etc.,

You are doing it in the developer console and not in the chat screen I assume?

Anyhoo in the meantime have applied another code change and restarted the server (if you want to give it another go)

After working with gameservers support for a bit we've found the following segmentation fault:

./srcds_run: line 368: 20505 Segmentation fault $HL_CMD

This is (probably) caused by the lastest version of a sourcemod plugin. I've written a fix and uploaded it to the server (also submitted the fix to allied modders)

Fingers crossed... this may have fixed the server issues

I've confirmed Dead Before Dawn is now working on server #2 (some corrupt files from the FTP transfer) - I logged onto the server at 7:30 this morning

i'm gonna try this after dinner *fingers crossed*

I only played for about 5 minutes, apparently later on 5 manager to crash the server after playing on DBD for a bit

although there is a chance it could be bugs in teh amsp, the DBD forums have stated there's a lot. But I'm not closing my support tickets with the server peeps until i think things are stable (which at the moment I don't)

hmm played dbd on sm#2 between 6 and 6.37

as usual force connect to server results in a nm versus game

managed to switch map on to dbd using "admin"

it started up the map "yay" in versus "not yay"

played through first map with a random, second map started in versus mode again

i remedied this using the SM_cvar coop

played through this map also then it crashed on the start of the 3rd map

bah now i cant play *any* campaigns on sm#2 without them all reverting to "versus", i really fancied a expert run there :/

well a workaround for now is to go intot he server2.sneakymonkeys.com configs (see password in the members section) and change set mp_gamemode coop then restart the server

(although this will cause problems to versus lobby's unless it's changed back )

ok had a quick look

so i can change the config myself and restart the server?

thus forcing coop for a while, then change it back when done?

yep there's line in the config that says "mp_gamemode versus"

you can set this as either

mp_gamemode versus
mp_gamemode coop
mp_gamemode survival

bah there seems to be a recurring problem on dbd munkeh,

in short i managed to set the config to a coop earlier, and managed to play on the server with a few friends

all was well and good through the first two maps

however at the start of the 3rd map, i think there must be a glitch as it put us all on the "infected" side

i managed to switch over using the "jointeam 2 " command , but this should not really be needed could you check that the maps are renamed properly etc as think maybey ma3 is named wrongly or summit :/

hmmm looking at the map list on the GSA there seems to be 2 copies of dbd vs clean up could this be affecting the map changing?


also i notice that all the valve official maps are numbered, which keeps them in order

but the dbd ones are not :/

could giving them a number in the filename help ? ie dbd01_citylights, dbd02_anna is gone etc?

ok, finally had a chance to look at this... the order of maps is defined within the maps themselves e.g. A > B > C if you start A the end bit tells it to go to B etc., so the map numbers are irrelevent. Changing the map name would stop it working (unless we were to recompile the maps which we can't as we have no source and even if we did it would differ from the official release and cause all manner of problems)

The GSA may be clipping names, within the maps folder there is:

l4d_dbd_vs_clean_up.bsp
l4d_dbd_vs_clean_up.nav
l4d_dbd_vs_clean_up_level_sounds.txt
l4d_dbd_vs_clean_up_soundscapes.txt

(the map itself, the nav file to tell bots/infected where they can go and two files relating to the custom campaign sounds)

Which brings me neatly onto the soundcache... your game pre-caches the available sounds into a soundcache file, adding a new campaign with new sounds, the game looks into this soundcache file for the new sounds, doesn't find them so crashes. There's a note about this here:

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?...mp;view=flatnew

The instructions are in this page: http://news.bigdownload.com/2009/11/03/dow...n-campaign-mod/

However I'll include them here:


Be sure to follow the installation instructions below carefully.

CLIENT SIDE (i.e Your own pc)

Extract the Dead Before Dawn folder to Steam/SteamApps/Common/left 4 dead/left4dead/addons

Start up Left 4 Dead, in the main menu open your console and type: snd_rebuildaudiocache

It will seem as if a map is loading, let it load, if it gets stuck on a full loading bar, leave it for 5 minutes before CTRL ALT DEL out of it to close it down

If you dont know how to open the console go to options, keyboard and mouse, and enable developers console. You can now bring the console up by pressing the tilde key (`) which is to the left of the 1 key.

Now back to servers 1 and 2 crashing, I've been speaking to the hlstatsx development team. Apparently there is a known valve bug in l4d that causes a server to crash if it receives an rcon command during mapload. The two systems that do this are HLSW and HLSTATSX

The stats system (hlstats) periodically sends 'status' and 'visible players' commands (and replies with P_say comamnds to commands) and may be causing this crash.Servers #4 & #5 aren't crashing, however they've not been connected to the stats system yet.

My cunning workaround is to disable rcon commands from hlstats. This will stop ingame stats comamnds e.g. top10, stats etc., from working.

Stats & chat etc., will still be logged and updated on the website, it will essentially just stop the ingame stats commands. Updated this change to servers #1 & #2 and opened them to the public to monitor.

wow sherlocke Fiend does it again, i'll have a go on them later and report any weird stuff