Posts:
2,233
Registered:
Mar 4, 2007
From:
San Francisco
Age:
45 Home page
to Dweebo
Posted:
Oct 22, 2010, 3:16 AM
Dweebo, so, theres been a rather disturbing issue with the lobby for a long time now. (about 6 months)
once upon a time, if we had a disconnect, we could just rejoin the lobby and continue playing. it was great.
but, those days are gone now. disconnects happen several times a day and when they do, your name stays in the lobby, so it is impossible to rejoin. then, the game times out. and if rated, you lose your points. for this reason i no longer feel safe to play rated. and i aint the only player with this feeling. its a serious issue.
now you may think that clearing cookies and cache in internet options will help, but no this does not work. and you may think just wait 2 minutes and the server will clear the cache, but no it doesnt. it is very consistent to take 20 minutes to kick the name, every time. by this time the game has timed out, and points are lost.
this is a big contributing factor to players losing interest in playing rated here. i sincerely hope you can fix this when you find time. or you might not find any reds playing here any more...
thanks for reading, zoeyk
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Posts:
1,032
Registered:
Dec 16, 2001
From:
Powell, OH
Age:
37 Home page
Re: to Dweebo
Posted:
Nov 5, 2010, 12:10 AM
I'm sorry to hear that Zoey,
I can't imagine what would be causing that issue.
For some reason the server must still think your browser is connected, and it must actually be connected even though it looks like it isn't (the pente.org server sends a small data packet every so often, if your browser doesn't reply you get booted).
When it happens have you tried just shutting down the entire browser and restarting? I would think that would have to work. Nothing has changed on the site in quite awhile.
For the record I often see ppl suggesting deleting cookies/clearing cache. That will never fix anything on pente.org. -dweebo
Posts:
2,233
Registered:
Mar 4, 2007
From:
San Francisco
Age:
45 Home page
Re: to Dweebo
Posted:
Nov 5, 2010, 12:18 AM
shutting down the browser doesnt work. clearing cache and cookies doesnt work. when it boots for inactivity it needs to boot the name like it used to do. now it leaves the name at the table playing, but closes the lobby on you, and the only way back in is as a guest. takes another 20 minutes for the name to boot. the name needs to boot at the same time as the lobby disconnect. it used to do this, why not now? very weird, and a issue creator for massive points loss when rated. can you think of any creative solutions for this??? can it send a packet every 30 seconds?
wait, i just got a great idea... what about this. give us a dash board button so that we can manually order a data packet to be sent to our name to boot it, or even better, a button that just forces boot of our name emediatlly. can this be done? does this sound good? i really hope this can be done. it would put the power in our hands to fix these problems on our own right away.
The Emeregncy boot my name from lobby now! button.
Message was edited by: zoeyk at Nov 4, 2010 7:21 PM
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Posts:
542
Registered:
May 9, 2002
From:
Northeast USA
Re: to Dweebo
Posted:
Nov 5, 2010, 1:48 AM
I seem to remember forum ettiquette frowning upon thread "bumping" -- especially when you just posted a message 22 minutes ago! lol
Anyways, I've been curious about this problem also. There seems to be a question about whether or not this problem is on the pente.org side or on the client side. Zoey has mentioned that he has spoken to other users and it has happened to some of them also. So far, I have not noticed this happening to me -- although I have not been live at a table very often lately either... If this is something that is happening to just a few users and not all users, then perhaps there is something on the client side causing the problem -- browser version, java version, bandwidth issues, etc.
If this happens to someone again, I would suggest taking Dweebo's suggested fix to the extreme and then report back here. The suggestion is to completely close down the browser. Here is my suggestion -- especially if you still have nearly 20 minutes on your game timer:
-- Close everything that is running on your computer. -- (Although dweebo informed us that clearing your cache and cookies has no effect, it can't hurt, right?) -- Completely shut down your computer and power it off. -- Unplug your computer -- Disconnect your cable (assuming you get your internet from a cable modem), or take comparable actions to physically sever your home from the internet. -- Set a timer and wait 5 minutes. -- Now, put everything back together and fire it back up, see if you can get back into your game.
If even this does not work, then there must be something hosed up on the server side. Otherwise, it is something going on with your local machine (perhaps there is a process still running related to your browser in the background even though the window disappeared, for example).
If this is a server side issue, it's a bit wierd, but not unprecedented. I seem to remember running into similar issues years ago -- although not necessarily while in the middle of a game, causing a time out of the game in progress. But the name staying logged in and then being locked out of the site used to be an issue a long time ago. Since then, I believe dweebo made a series of fixes and put the current system in place for detecting disconnections, popping up the "Resign" dialog box, and so on. I seem to remember that one of dweebo's major points of focus in his most recent development cycle was to try to make the site more stable.
I wonder if the site has become extremely stable -- but not indefinitely. Perhaps if the site has been running continuously for weeks or months that something in an internal database eventually gets corrupted. Perhaps it would help if the site automatically rebooted all of it's systems on a weekly basis or something and flushed all of the data that relates to players' connections, etc. (With a series of clear warnings in the lobby and game rooms popping up prior to the reboot, starting at least a couple of hours beforehand).
This seems to be the only significant bug happening right now -- Dweebo I know that you are phasing out from supporting the site, but I hope that at least this bug (and similar bugs, if any) could just get a little attention -- then perhaps if the site is stable enough, you might be willing to continue responding to situations like complete site outages, server reboots, etc -- or perhaps some admins can take on those sorts of bare necessities.
Anyways, lets see if this issue can be resolved. I hope that someone will try my suggestion and report back.
Posts:
2,233
Registered:
Mar 4, 2007
From:
San Francisco
Age:
45 Home page
Re: to Dweebo
Posted:
Nov 5, 2010, 2:42 AM
-- Close everything that is running on your computer. -- (Although dweebo informed us that clearing your cache and cookies has no effect, it can't hurt, right?) -- Completely shut down your computer and power it off. -- Unplug your computer -- Disconnect your cable (assuming you get your internet from a cable modem), or take comparable actions to physically sever your home from the internet. -- Set a timer and wait 5 minutes. -- Now, put everything back together and fire it back up, see if you can get back into your game.
up2ng, i did try these already. it is a server side issue. not a client.
i did like your idea to reboot weekly to clear out log in cache to prevent long term data base corruption.
in addition i would like to have a back up plan implemented when this doesn't work. the emergency boot me now from the lobby button would be perfect in the event that rebooting the server weekly wasn't enough in some weird situation. which weird situations tend to be common on this site. the code seems to take on a life of its own.
and yes, we need to have continued support for the most basic emergency essentials, like rebooting server if it crashes ext... im willing to help fund peter or another admin a small salary for rebooting a server crash if its the only way to get it done. although i realize that money is not the issue, time is the issue (for peter). but perhaps a admin (some one) would take on the weekly responsibility for a small salary.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
Posts:
2,233
Registered:
Mar 4, 2007
From:
San Francisco
Age:
45 Home page
Re: to Dweebo
Posted:
Nov 5, 2010, 2:50 AM
and, i bumped specifically to get dweebos attention to my post before he logged out. but it didnt work i guess. i considered the bump a special situation that was ok by my ethics. i dont feel bad for doing it. sorry tho.
Scire hostis animum - Intelligere ludum - Nosce te ipsum - Prima moventur conciliat - Nolite errare
I haven't played here in a long while, not related to this bug, whatever the cause of the bug.
However I was planning on coming back very soon, once my games with watsu (aka waterdancer) enter round 2 of zoey's tourney at BK and the critical opening phase is over. But with the reported bug, I suspect I will wait, and considering Dweebo's pente.org "burnout", or whatever you want to call it, maybe it will never happen, who knows....
Regarding possible issues regarding the timeout problem, has anyone tried logging in with a different browser? I'm not saying it would work, but it is something I have tried (without success) when trying to access other sites that I was unable to access in the past. Just a thought, seeing as how dweebo mentioned something about sending a pulse (or whatever, my computer knowledge it rather nil, so I *may* have misinterpreted) to your browser to see if it was still there....
I have had the problem dozens of times since I started playing here.
Restarting the Browser doesn't fix it Clearing the cache/cookies doesn't fix it Switching to a different browser doesn't fix it Rebooting PC doesn't fix it Switching to a different computer doesn't fix it It always fixes itself after several minutes.
This would be the very worst kind of bug to hunt down because it's intermittent. Kinda like taking your car to the shop and the problem you took it in for disappears when you get it there.
My guess is the easiest fix will be something like zoey suggested. Forget trying to figure out what is causing it and create a brute force way to eliminate it.
Posts:
542
Registered:
May 9, 2002
From:
Northeast USA
Re: to Dweebo
Posted:
Nov 5, 2010, 6:48 PM
Perhaps someone could point out a recent game in the database that ended this way -- I assume it would be the most obvious if there were only 3 or 4 moves played and then someone was declared the winner and it went into the database. Based on when this game took place, if there are any helpful log files with timestamps, etc, it might not be too difficult to track down what might have gone wrong behind the scenes.
Posts:
66
Registered:
Dec 13, 2008
From:
New York City
Age:
58
Re: to Dweebo
Posted:
Nov 5, 2010, 8:01 PM
It is true that deleting cookies/clearing the java cache does not affect anything on pente.org's server/servers, but issues that do not affect every user on the site are probably not server side problems since those who don't encounter these problems and those who do all connect to the same server/servers.
More often than not, especially since Oracle bought Sun, the Java VM version installed on the client side is the cause of erratic behavior by Java-based programs such as this one, some games on Yahoo Games, and online courseware such as Blackboard Vista.
For this reason, I no longer allow my Java VM to be automatically updated to newer versions. If I do and any of these programs misbehave, I uninstall the Java VM and reinstall an older version known to be more stable.
Note This only works with 64-bit Windows versions.
I no longer use the 32-bit browser that comes with Windows 7, since adobe square flash player preview was released, which allows the 64-bit IE to view flash content.
