NS2 server crashes on start

cH40z-Lord · March 2012

<div class="IPBDescription">Trying to run NS2 on Amazon AWS</div><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (Santo @ Mar 1 2012, 11:11 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1908644"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Hey there,

I'm actually tring to host a server as well but I'm encountering an unexpected problem. The server just keeps crashing after a short period of time. After checking the windows event log, I figured out that his might be the problem :

Faulting application name: server.exe, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x4f47fdc8
Faulting module name: Physics.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time stamp: 0x4f47fd8d
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Fault offset: 0x00081eff
Faulting process id: 0xbe4
Faulting application start time: 0x01ccf717bab208af
Faulting application path: C:\Ns2\Server\server.exe
Faulting module path: C:\Ns2\Server\Physics.dll
Report Id: 1e5cb7a1-630b-11e1-abef-ed48a1dc7fd0

Some1 of you already faced that problems? I tried it on severall server specs. All used Windows 2008 Server as OS. May this be the crucial point?

Looking forward to your reply ;D

Cheers</div>

Floodinator · March 2012

So when I read your post I can see 2 things :

1.Faulting module name: Physics.dll, version: 0.0.0.0, time
And
2.Faulting module path: C:\Ns2\Server\Physics.dll

Do you have physics installed, because it say version number 0.0.0.0?

cH40z-Lord · March 2012

Of course PhysX and DirectX are both installed on the machine. When trying to re-run the setup it offers me to repair or remove the current installation, so it might work fine.

Floodinator · March 2012

Was googling some things:

About the exeption code:
<a href="http://www.updatexp.com/0xC0000005.html" target="_blank">http://www.updatexp.com/0xC0000005.html</a>

Do you run the exe as administrator? Think on Windowsserver it could cause more problems, if you lack on right than in any home edition.

Try to delete the whole Server path and the server exe. Also the server options in %APPDATA%, then check game integrity to redownload the missing files.

player · March 2012

Haha, that's an access-violation, hardly has anything to do with rights or the lack of binary-packages, it concerns accessing a pointer that points into oblivion. We've been observing a very similar problem. It's a crash that is (sometimes) triggered when dailing into your server using RDP, and has been ocurring since B191 (so since January 13th). Does any of that ring bells?

cH40z-Lord · March 2012

It doesn't occur sometimes on my server, it occurs every time I try to run the NS2 server, doesn't matter where or how I run my server, even how often I restarted the VM or relogged in my RDP - it crashes all the time!

Actually I'm pretty sure the issue is more related to a memory problem, as the NS2 server consumes 100% of my RAM while starting. So I guess I need a bigger Amazon AWS environment in order to run a NS2 server. I was able to run a NS2 server on Windows Azure without a crash but unfortunately they don't allow firewall settings for UDP, so I get a few errors while starting:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>C:\NS2>server.exe -name "Azure Test-Server" -map ns2_summit -limit 16 -lan false

Changing setting 'lanGame' to: 'false'...
Changing setting 'mapName' to: 'ns2_summit'...
Changing setting 'playerLimit' to: '16'...
Changing setting 'serverName' to: 'Azure Test-Server'...
Press Tab to open the console window
Press Ctrl-C to exit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Build 199
Starting Natural Selection 2
Failed to load Steam Service
<span style="color:#8B0000"><b>ServiceStart: failed to start
BOpenService failed
ServiceStart: failed to start</b></span>
Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 4920
Connected to Steam servers
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/alien/shift/shift.model
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/alien/shift/shift.animation_graph
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/alien/cocoon/cocoon.model
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/marine/exosuit/exosuit_mm.model
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/marine/exosuit/exosuit.animation_graph
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/marine/exosuit/exosuit_mm_view.model
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/marine/exosuit/exosuit_view.animation_graph
Loading 'maps/ns2_summit.level'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/props/refinery/refinery_fan_blade_01_big.anima
tion_graph
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/props/refinery/refinery_fan_blade_01.animation
_graph</div>

When I run the NS2 server on a Azure-VM that is equal to the AWS-VM then I run into an thread allocation-error right after loading the map. The slight difference is that the NS2 server + the OS on Windows Azure consumes "only" 87% of the (small) VM.

At the moment we're not sure if we should spend some money trying out on a real Amazon AWS account, as we're currently using a trial-account which only allows us to run on a small VM, just to figure out the NS2 server has a bad performance or still refuses to run in any cloud environment. We planned a very cool system that would be able to run a dynamic number of VMs including a fully configured NS2-server that is pre-installed depending on the usage and demand, but actually I think we will not invest more time and money into this project.

endar · March 2012

Do you know what sort of specs you are provided, in terms of memory and cpu speed? Interesting concept but it does sound a little hard to accomplish, especially since a lot of those platforms arnt designed for highly single threaded tasks. Interesting nevertheless.

cH40z-Lord · March 2012

Depends on the Cloud-Provider you're using and on the VM-size. The last NS2 server test ran on a Windows Azure medium machine, just to be sure there is no memory lockup :P

Just check out
<a href="https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/offers/ms-azr-0019p" target="_blank">https://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/offers/ms-azr-0019p</a>
and
<a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/" target="_blank">http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/</a> / <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/" target="_blank">http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/</a> ( the AWS trial-account runs on a extra small instance which is like 1/2 of the small instance... :S )

IMO Windows Azure is the better choice for a service like that as it's much cheaper and from my far experience with both services much easier to use and also much more powerful ( i.e. real powerful services, better integration for common programming languages using a dedicated SDK ), beside the lack of no "raw" UDP-support ( I need to dig in a bit more, maybe there's a sexy walkaround :) ).

I've already seen tons of great services ported into the cloud, as it's really easy to accomplish. So far it's also not a big deal to realize a service like introduced above if there would be a greater hardware support. There's also no real difference running a server on a "normal" root-server or a VM inside a cloud, both actually run on the same OS with some additional packages ( to remotely control or monitor the VM ). As a software developer and huge NS2 fan I really wanted to do something like this, unfortunately it has to wait until I found a solution for my UDP-problem :S

cH40z-Lord · March 2012

After a long night I spend more time investigating the possible cause of the error by installing Visual C++ 2005 to 2010, re-installed DirectX 9.0c and PhysX, unfortunately it's still not working. So I headed over to the Server Configuration panel and added exceptions for the NS2 Server.exe to allow Incoming and Outgoing traffic ( it's not based on basic port exception, it is based on the server.exe to allow ANY traffic on ANY ports ), still no luck.

After a few tries I noticed that the server once did managed to get to another step to crash, to be more clear: He managed to get to "Connected to Steam Servers" or something like that and then crashed. Normally the server crashes before he's able to go to that step. Nevertheless adding exceptions to the Windows Firewall didn't change anything.

I took a screenshot of the whole server:

<img src="http://www.abload.de/img/ns2servercrash5rkq3.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />

It may look like DirectX 9.0c hasn't been installed - in fact it is installed but won't show up the installed program list when using the DxWebinstaller.

Any ideas? The exceptions posted in the event log are always the same ( access violation in physics.dll ).

I've tried it once again on a bigger Amazon AWS machine but I'm still experiencing the same errors as on Windows Azure:

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Failed to load Steam Service
ServiceStart: failed to start
BOpenService failed
ServiceStart: failed to start</div>

Am I doing something completely wrong or are those errors completely normal?

Soul_Rider · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Mar 1 2012, 10:37 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1908842"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Haha, that's an access-violation, hardly has anything to do with rights or the lack of binary-packages, it concerns accessing a pointer that points into oblivion. We've been observing a very similar problem. It's a crash that is (sometimes) triggered when dailing into your server using RDP, and has been ocurring since B191 (so since January 13th). Does any of that ring bells?</div>

I guess you missed this post!

As advised by player it is a bug that occurs when you connect to the machine using RDP. If you can connect via another method, it won't crash. This is a bug.

endar · March 2012

I don't think its due to connecting via RDP. Connecting via RDP will very rarely crash the server, and it only happens shortly after connecting. If you connect, and then start a server it will be fine, but if you close the connection and a few hours later start a new session, it might crash the server shortly after connecting.

That's been my experience anyway.

devicenull · March 2012

Honestly, you aren't going to get acceptable performance running the server within a VM somewhere. NS2 eats as much CPU as you can give it, and having to contest with other machines/hypervisor overhead is pretty much going to kill it.

The ServiceStart errors you mentioned are normal, and don't hurt anything.

player · March 2012

Any server-operators out there running Windows Server 2008, are we looking at an OS-incompatibility? or perhaps something specific to Amazon's service.

Though devicenull is right of course, you need a wicked fast CPU(-core) to run a proper server for NS2. Looking at those Amazon specifications, they appear to be based upon multiple slow processing-units, combined to yield a specified performance. Where NS2 demands a single (extremely) high-clocked thread, I fear you will have a terribly performing server.

devicenull · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Mar 4 2012, 03:26 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1909938"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Any server-operators out there running Windows Server 2008, are we looking at an OS-incompatibility? or perhaps something specific to Amazon's service.

Though devicenull is right of course, you need a wicked fast CPU(-core) to run a proper server for NS2. Looking at those Amazon specifications, they appear to be based upon multiple slow processing-units, combined to yield a specified performance. Where NS2 demands a single (extremely) high-clocked thread, I fear you will have a terribly performing server.</div>

Yes, I run all my servers on 2k8, and they all work fine (2k8 R2 SP1 specifically).

cH40z-Lord · March 2012

Don't worry about the CPU, there are plenty of VM-types available with quad- or 8-core CPUs, 64 GB of RAM and so on :) All VMs on AWS and Azure are dedicated servers that won't be shared with other customers. Azure might be the better choice for high-performance computing than AWS, as their raw cpu-power is much higher.

I've already tried running NS2 on Windows Server 2008 SP1 and 2008 R2 SP1, both had the same issues.

And no Soul_Rider, I didn't miss that post. It even won't either when I launch the NS2 server through a self-written webservice or program, so RDP should not be the problem.

Thanks so far guys for brainstorming, but are there any other ideas what might cause the problem?

player · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cH40z-Lord @ Mar 4 2012, 11:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1910001"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Don't worry about the CPU, there are plenty of VM-types available with quad- or 8-core CPUs, 64 GB of RAM and so on :) All VMs on AWS and Azure are dedicated servers that won't be shared with other customers. Azure might be the better choice for high-performance computing than AWS, as their raw cpu-power is much higher.</div>
Yes, but idea is that the NS2-server is wholly single-threaded, meaning there is no difference in terms of performance between an octo-core and a good ol' fashioned single-core. The only relevant piece of information is the clock-speed of the specific core the server will run on. Right now you require something as high as 4GHz or even higher to sustain a good tick-rate throughout the game, this is something you don't easily acquire from cloud-services, or even normal game-hosting services for that matter. Most (if not all) top-tier servers at the moment are more akin to overclocked desktops than actual servers.

devicenull · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cH40z-Lord @ Mar 4 2012, 06:21 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1910001"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Don't worry about the CPU, there are plenty of VM-types available with quad- or 8-core CPUs, 64 GB of RAM and so on :)</div>
NS2 needs about 2GB of memory, and the fastest CPU you have ever seen. Multiple cores do nothing. 64GB of RAM, does nothing

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>All VMs on AWS and Azure are dedicated servers that won't be shared with other customers. Azure might be the better choice for high-performance computing than AWS, as their raw cpu-power is much higher.</div>
Umm, no. When you rent a VM somewhere, you're getting just that.. a virtual machine. Within the virtual machine, there might only be one NS2 server running, but outside of the VM (on the same physical machine) there are almost certainly many other customers. They might be doing nothing, or they might be using 100% of the CPU. You don't know, and NS2 will not like being interrupted so some other code can run.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>I've already tried running NS2 on Windows Server 2008 SP1 and 2008 R2 SP1, both had the same issues.</div>
And if you launch it on your desktop, does it work? This is probably an issue only with virtualized servers

cH40z-Lord · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (devicenull @ Mar 5 2012, 03:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1910048"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>Umm, no. When you rent a VM somewhere, you're getting just that.. a virtual machine. Within the virtual machine, there might only be one NS2 server running, but outside of the VM (on the same physical machine) there are almost certainly many other customers. They might be doing nothing, or they might be using 100% of the CPU. You don't know, and NS2 will not like being interrupted so some other code can run.</div>

That may be true for normal server-hosters, but not for AWS and Azure. There is only one VM running on each server, you don't share ANY of your resources. It was mentioned several times by Microsoft in their webcats and it also written on their websites that you don't share anything with other customers, as every customer has it's own dedicated server.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (devicenull @ Mar 5 2012, 03:14 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1910048"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>And if you launch it on your desktop, does it work? This is probably an issue only with virtualized servers</div>

You mean on my local desktop machine or on the desktop of the cloud-machine ?

endar · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cH40z-Lord @ Mar 6 2012, 07:20 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1910224"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>That may be true for normal server-hosters, but not for AWS and Azure. There is only one VM running on each server, you don't share ANY of your resources. It was mentioned several times by Microsoft in their webcats and it also written on their websites that you don't share anything with other customers, as every customer has it's own dedicated server.</div>
Are you saying that every sever azure hosts is a single dedicated server, which is not used by any other customer apart from yourself?

Or are you saying that you're guaranteed a minimum amount of resources on the host(s).

Soul_Rider · March 2012

If every customer has their own dedicated server, then why bother installing a VM on it in the first place? It's just loss of performance for no reason. Virtual machines are for OS incompatibilities, or for running multiple VM's on a single server, or for using multiple servers as a single machine. There is nothing but a performance hit if you have just one VM per machine. Not to mention additional licensing costs for the VM solution. That really makes no sense from any business standpoint. Can you post a link to the information about these services? I'd like to find out more.

As previously mentioned, you want the fastest single core you can get for NS2, or the fastest dual core chip you can get, with one core exclusive to NS2, although I don't think that is possible due to OS loadbalancing features..

---Edit----

Checked out AWS and can only find information about cloud storage/mmo hosting for a facebook game. I can't see a mention of dedicated servers anywhere, do you have a link?
A search for game server on azure returns no results.

Be careful. A friend of mine found a really great dedicated server deal, and promptly hosted his game on it. But it was a webserver host, not a gameserver host and it did not work properly and cost him a fortune. I can't find any info on dedicated game server hosting on either of the sites, unless you have some specific links, I would have to say these are NOT suitable for hosting games on, or they would be more open about what they offer.

devicenull · March 2012

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (cH40z-Lord @ Mar 5 2012, 03:20 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1910224"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>That may be true for normal server-hosters, but not for AWS and Azure. There is only one VM running on each server, you don't share ANY of your resources. It was mentioned several times by Microsoft in their webcats and it also written on their websites that you don't share anything with other customers, as every customer has it's own dedicated server.</div>

You seriously think that you get your own dedicated machine when you use a "cloud" provider? That's insane.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Different instances running on the same physical machine are isolated from each other utilizing the Xen hypervisor.</div> -> from <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/articles/1697" target="_blank">http://aws.amazon.com/articles/1697</a> (see "Instance Isolation")

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>Amazon EC2 provides virtualized server instances. While some resources like CPU, memory and instance storage are dedicated to a particular instance, other resources like the network and the disk subsystem are shared among instances. <b>If each instance on a physical host tries to use as much of one of these shared resources as possible, each will receive an equal share of that resource.</b> However, when a resource is under-utilized you will often be able to consume a higher share of that resource while it is available.</div> -> <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/" target="_blank">http://aws.amazon.com/ec2/instance-types/</a>

You're confusing microsoft's marketing speak with what actually happens. "not shared with other customers" == "you have your own virtual machine to play with, noone else can access that". I'd love to see it if you can find somewhere where it explicitly says each PHYSICAL machine is dedicated to one customer.

The only way you can get a dedicated machine from amazon is with this: <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/dedicated-instances/" target="_blank">http://aws.amazon.com/dedicated-instances/</a> (and why would they offer this if their normal vm's already had a machine to themselves?). At that pricing, renting a physical machine from someone else is much cheaper.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'>You mean on my local desktop machine or on the desktop of the cloud-machine ?</div>
Your local machine.

golgotha · April 2012

Hi,

I too am having the exact same issue. I created a 2008 R2 VM on very beefy ESXi server. As soon as it starts, I get the error messages that chaoz does. I am unable to connect to the server as well. If someone can figure this out, there'll be another NS2 server out there to play on. I've got 8 cores, 64GB, and 1 Gb feed to the net available....

golgotha · April 2012

Press Tab to open the console window
Press Ctrl-C to exit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Build 203
Starting Natural Selection 2
Failed to load Steam Service
ServiceStart: failed to start
BOpenService failed
ServiceStart: failed to start
Setting breakpad minidump AppID = 4920
Connected to Steam servers
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/marine/prototype_module/prototype_module.model
'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/alien/shift/shift.model'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/alien/shift/shift.animation_graph'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/alien/cocoon/cocoon.model'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/marine/exosuit/exosuit_mm.model'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/marine/exosuit/exosuit_mm_view.animation_graph
'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/marine/exosuit/exosuit_mm_view.model'
Loading 'maps/ns2_mineshaft.level'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/props/refinery/refinery_fan_blade_01.animation
_graph'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/props/refinery/refinery_fan128_blades.animatio
n_graph'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/props/refinery/mining_rockbucket_animated.anim
ation_graph'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/effects/windowcracks.model'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/props/refinery/refinery_fan_blade_01_big.anima
tion_graph'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/props/refinery/mining_drill_hung_01_animated.a
nimation_graph'
Error: Couldn't open file 'models/props/refinery/mining_crusherpress.animation_g
raph'
Error: PhysX: Adjacencies::CreateDatabase: can't work on non-manifold meshes.
Error: PhysX: Gu::ConvexMesh::loadConvexHull: convex hull init failed!
Error: PhysX: Error cooking body 5 of model models/props/refinery/refinery_rock_
stalagtite_08.model

NS2 server crashes on start

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