matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
The best thing to do would be to have a way of indicating a backup NS2-mod store server from which to pick up mods - fairly easy to do the programming for that, the mod download is just a standard zip-file http download, and the server could just ship a backup url to the client on connect - but there are practical issues like hosting.
"Missing required mod" completely killed the siegemod server. Having a backup download server is not only ideal but atleast mandatory given that hl-1 had this setup, and I've no idea why ns2 does not.
Pre-Workshop games did not have a choice, they had to do it themselves. With Steam offering to host all of that, I guess UWE did not figure they would have to offer a backup.
That the workshop would croak regularly during every Steam sale was not part of the calculations.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
During sales, steam has always failed to respond to requests to download mods.
Pre 272, the server and client always tried to verify with steam that they had the correct version of the mod, and if steam failed, then the server/client did not mount the mod (even if they had a version of the mod already lying around).
When i see memory leak more than "0" times in NS2 logs I start to wonder :
The version of the PhysX library that NS2 uses does not shut down properly when the game ends, so there are some heap allocations that noone knows how to clean up properly ... and considering that it is just a shutdown issue, it does not seem worth worrying about it.
AsranielJoin Date: 2002-06-03Member: 724Members, Playtest Lead, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
There have been reports of other steam games having very similar issues with the workshop. But not many games rely so heavily on the steam workshop. That said, as mentioned in another thread there are plans to lower the dependency on steam when steam is overloaded
Just for the music volume, I ask for a fall-back to Build.271.
@UncleCrunch
Did you just recommend reverting this patch and all its optimizations because you couldn't find the music volume slider in the options?... o.0
I honestly can't tell if you're being serious about such a subjective and adjustable thing?
The music volume is quite fine for me in games and such.
The main menu music is clearly pushing equalizers in the red zone (compared to the rest). The kind of volume that makes you removing your headset by reflex. So who's the deaf guy that did let that happen? He should see someone. Proper re education can make life better and eventually not harm someone else ears.
Wow dude I didn't know Captain Jean Luc Picard played NS2, adjust your damn music slider or better yet adjust your master volume just before you launch the game like most people would do, CDT can't cater to every prancey whiney problem that 0.1% of the community have, nothing would get done.
Cmon now suck it up.
P.S. Software EQ = YUCKKkkkkkk, leave those bars alone
Please fix "MIssing mod required" error. I can only avoid it by deleting Workshop folder multiple times. Unfortunately, this means half my friends can't join and the server dies. It's been killing my favorite servers for days and I really want to play again.
DecoyJoin Date: 2012-09-11Member: 159037Members, Super Administrators, Playtest Lead, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, Subnautica PT Lead, Pistachionauts, Retired Community Developer
@Puphball the missing required mod issue is mainly due to the Steam sale, but some small stuff will get changed to hopefully improve it in 273. Matso went into more detail about it here. Steam sale ends Jan 2 and then we should be doing a small patch in January anyway to remove the holiday stuff.
Thanks a lot! It makes me glad that you guys already have this in mind. I appreciate all the hard work that goes into keeping this game in tip-top shape!
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Start, type "verbose 1" in console, connect to server, check log - it might give you a hint about which mod is problematic.
Though it is unusual that it Steam would consistently fail to load the mod; normally it would randomly succeed after a while...
I pressed exit and the whole computer froze. Not even the task manager was working. I knew that the game crashes by pressing "exit" from time to time, but it was never that fatal. Haven't played in a while, but that kinda took the wind out of my "let's start playing again"-sails.
Start, type "verbose 1" in console, connect to server, check log - it might give you a hint about which mod is problematic.
Though it is unusual that it Steam would consistently fail to load the mod; normally it would randomly succeed after a while...
What i did this afternoon:
On server side:
Reinstalled the server and resubscribed to mod (mainly NS2, shine, custom maps).
On client side (my PC):
Removed workshop, unsubscibed all mods, removed cache. That should do it.
-On server side the mods seem to download properly.
-On client side, it does this:
Just looking at the mod section in the main menu.
[ 30.924] MainThread : Mod "Shine Administration"(706d242): info complete
[ 35.752] MainThread : Mod "Ns2_Prison"(7f8f8e6): download complete
[ 35.752] MainThread : Error: Error installing mod '"Ns2_Prison"(7f8f8e6)' (download failed: 28)
[ 35.798] MainThread : Mod "Veil FIVE"(fdf2c56): download complete
[ 35.798] MainThread : Error: Error installing mod '"Veil FIVE"(fdf2c56)' (download failed: 28)
[ 35.831] MainThread : Mod "NS2_Outer_Rim_Ark"(f9f6aed): download complete
[ 35.831] MainThread : Error: Error installing mod '"NS2_Outer_Rim_Ark"(f9f6aed)' (download failed: 28)
[ 35.832] MainThread : Mod "NS2+"(812f004): info complete
[ 35.851] MainThread : Mod "[Shine] Extra Plugins"(c6fbbb0): info complete
It tries to do that over and over.
"Download complete" then... nope "download failed"... Make up your mind!
It appears that some mods are downloaded properly (looking at the mod section in the main menu). Some others don't. It's always the same mods. Restart the game doesn't do any good. Same errors, same mods.
Download missing mod (that couldn't be DL before) during connection to a server fails the same.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Hm... error 28 is timeout. And it times out after 15 seconds. Which is the timeout set for the curl_easy_perform() operation (NS2 uses libcurl for the http operation). And it happens for large mods only... and it is trying to download 3 large mods all at the same time...
Might be simply the fact that it fails to _complete_ the download inside 15 seconds... which, on the fact of it, would be completely silly, but ... there is a lot of silly things going around.
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
.. and here's the culprit:
curl_easy_setopt(curl, CURLOPT_TIMEOUT, 15);
That sets the maximum time allowed for a HTTP request. Was hardcoded to 15 seconds ... which means that a server that sets up 4-5 large map mods requires the ability to download 100Mb inside 15 seconds. Can be tough...
That sets the maximum time allowed for a HTTP request. Was hardcoded to 15 seconds ... which means that a server that sets up 4-5 large map mods requires the ability to download 100Mb inside 15 seconds. Can be tough...
Huh.
Well, it will be fixed in 273.
Well... not sure.
Ok my mod is heavy (100Mo) but I'm sure Veil Five isn't.
Veil five is 11.9Mo on Steam Workshop. Let's say it's compressed. The archive shouldn't exceed 25Mo uncompressed. I know there is nothing else than the map itself. It is the usual size of a map (20 ~ 35Mo).
Plus it has succeeded for other mods that are actually heavier.
So at least it should download after other mods are successfully downloaded.
A "Retry and succeed" behavior. It is not succeeding (tested tonight: CEST).
If build 273 will get rid of the issue; the obvious question is "When ?".
Concur with UncleCrunch. When the problem is at its worst, the workshop cannot even deliver tiny mods.
Tactical Freedom is 0.039MB, and if I publish an update to the mod during busy hours, many clients will be unable to fetch it on their first couple tries. Same for the server.
I took some packet captures last week and I was getting consistent 500 errors back for /ISteamRemoteStorage/GetPublishedFileDetails/V0001?format=xml... but it turns out the Steam WebAPI was totally down at the time so I don't think the captures are representative of the issue.
I'll try to take more next time it happens (although I'm avoiding push mod updates at peak hours now).
matsoMaster of PatchesJoin Date: 2002-11-05Member: 7000Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, Squad Five Gold, Reinforced - Shadow, NS2 Community Developer
Well, there isn't just ONE issue here ... the Workshop is still not reliable and will timeout both connection requests AND be very slow in uploading during busy times (and other times as well...).
But combine that with NS2 requiring that all mods must be downloaded inside 15 seconds ... and it gets a lot worse.
If I setup a server with about 110Mb (compressed) worth of mods on it AND throttle my download to 10Mbit (DeviceManager/NetworkCard/Advanced/Speed&Duplex), I can reliable fail to connect to that server due to mods failing to download.
Works fine with throttling and the 273-beta though.
273 is intended as a small remove-festivities patch + really important stuff (like the steam fix), so it should be out soonish. Ie, january-ish..
Comments
Pre-Workshop games did not have a choice, they had to do it themselves. With Steam offering to host all of that, I guess UWE did not figure they would have to offer a backup.
That the workshop would croak regularly during every Steam sale was not part of the calculations.
The version of the PhysX library that NS2 uses does not shut down properly when the game ends, so there are some heap allocations that noone knows how to clean up properly ... and considering that it is just a shutdown issue, it does not seem worth worrying about it.
@UncleCrunch
Did you just recommend reverting this patch and all its optimizations because you couldn't find the music volume slider in the options?... o.0
I honestly can't tell if you're being serious about such a subjective and adjustable thing?
The main menu music is clearly pushing equalizers in the red zone (compared to the rest). The kind of volume that makes you removing your headset by reflex. So who's the deaf guy that did let that happen? He should see someone. Proper re education can make life better and eventually not harm someone else ears.
Cmon now suck it up.
P.S. Software EQ = YUCKKkkkkkk, leave those bars alone
And why should i use any menu replacement? Do the new players do subscribe to mod before launching the game for the first time?
This clearly shows a lack of proper testing... on many aspects, i'm afraid.
ETA on this fix?
I still have a "missing mod" error. Whatever the map (which are of a different weight than scripts). Veil5, caged.. same.
Any hints ?
Though it is unusual that it Steam would consistently fail to load the mod; normally it would randomly succeed after a while...
What i did this afternoon:
On server side:
Reinstalled the server and resubscribed to mod (mainly NS2, shine, custom maps).
On client side (my PC):
Removed workshop, unsubscibed all mods, removed cache. That should do it.
-On server side the mods seem to download properly.
-On client side, it does this:
"Download complete" then... nope "download failed"... Make up your mind!
It appears that some mods are downloaded properly (looking at the mod section in the main menu). Some others don't. It's always the same mods. Restart the game doesn't do any good. Same errors, same mods.
Download missing mod (that couldn't be DL before) during connection to a server fails the same.
Might be simply the fact that it fails to _complete_ the download inside 15 seconds... which, on the fact of it, would be completely silly, but ... there is a lot of silly things going around.
Will check it out.
Thanks!
That sets the maximum time allowed for a HTTP request. Was hardcoded to 15 seconds ... which means that a server that sets up 4-5 large map mods requires the ability to download 100Mb inside 15 seconds. Can be tough...
Huh.
Well, it will be fixed in 273.
no problem B-)
Well... not sure.
Ok my mod is heavy (100Mo) but I'm sure Veil Five isn't.
Veil five is 11.9Mo on Steam Workshop. Let's say it's compressed. The archive shouldn't exceed 25Mo uncompressed. I know there is nothing else than the map itself. It is the usual size of a map (20 ~ 35Mo).
Plus it has succeeded for other mods that are actually heavier.
So at least it should download after other mods are successfully downloaded.
A "Retry and succeed" behavior. It is not succeeding (tested tonight: CEST).
If build 273 will get rid of the issue; the obvious question is "When ?".
Tactical Freedom is 0.039MB, and if I publish an update to the mod during busy hours, many clients will be unable to fetch it on their first couple tries. Same for the server.
I took some packet captures last week and I was getting consistent 500 errors back for /ISteamRemoteStorage/GetPublishedFileDetails/V0001?format=xml... but it turns out the Steam WebAPI was totally down at the time so I don't think the captures are representative of the issue.
I'll try to take more next time it happens (although I'm avoiding push mod updates at peak hours now).
But combine that with NS2 requiring that all mods must be downloaded inside 15 seconds ... and it gets a lot worse.
If I setup a server with about 110Mb (compressed) worth of mods on it AND throttle my download to 10Mbit (DeviceManager/NetworkCard/Advanced/Speed&Duplex), I can reliable fail to connect to that server due to mods failing to download.
Works fine with throttling and the 273-beta though.
273 is intended as a small remove-festivities patch + really important stuff (like the steam fix), so it should be out soonish. Ie, january-ish..