Solution to Workshop mod problems

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Comments

  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    You missed the Pinocchio, bro.

    I was attempting to bring attention to the issue because whenever i detect ruined fun (as visible in your many posts), a couple red flags pop up in my head.

    What I've gathered so far it's apparently not a big enough issue to the devs. They don't see your combat mod server as having a future (hey, I'm just the messenger!). This server is the one having workshop related problems the most.

    Their codex is to not merge quick and dirty fixes into builds. Doing this one properly is actually not that easy a task.

    Apart from that I'd still want to emphasize the importance of fixing game breaking bugs before doing cosmetic/balance/and-similar work.

    We server ops cannot concentrate on making our servers more enjoyable if we have to deal with things breaking all the time. (And no, I'm not talking about the extra instability on insane servers.)

    Mod issues have been the one thing where @Obraxis keeps playing his "... but my vanilla server runs just fine %-( " card.
    Since NS2 now relies on community-run servers, try listening to them a bit more.
  • ObraxisObraxis Subnautica Animator & Generalist, NS2 Person Join Date: 2004-07-24 Member: 30071Super Administrators, Forum Admins, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, WC 2013 - Supporter, Subnautica Developer, Pistachionauts
    edited September 2014
    ATF wrote: »
    Mod issues have been the one thing where @Obraxis keeps playing his "... but my vanilla server runs just fine %-( " card.
    Since NS2 now relies on community-run servers, try listening to them a bit more.

    We concentrated almost all our efforts for 269 on client and server crashes using the most popular mods. We actively engaged with mod creators and server ops to gather dump files and server configs.

    I see that as "listening to them a bit more" and taking action. Though if Vanilla servers seem to act fine, it does point to mod issues somewhere. Many servers have their own custom mods and balance mods, which could affect things as well. These are not our problem.
  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    Obraxis wrote: »
    We concentrated almost all our efforts for 269 on client and server crashes using the most popular mods.
    We actively engaged with mod creators and server ops to gather dump files and server configs.

    I see that as "listening to them a bit more" and taking action.

    Precisely. It made me :) to see that unexpected change. 269 is a success.

    What I'm saying is: Keep it up. More of that. Allow us to help.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    That is incorrect about it just being combat. I have had the issue of mods not loading on my normal server as well. It is just when it occurs on a normal server it does not physically stop you from playing the game. The solution to avoid it is thus to just never run custom maps nor any other custom mods like combat.

    It is bugs like this that kill mod development b/c no one want to launch modded servers with custom maps or mods when they are going to go down all the time.

    I will agree though that crashes are on the down side in the latest patches and the CDT continues to improve the game far more than UWE ever did as far as bug fixes goes.

    So was your earlier reference to @Obraxis putting the card up on the tracker real or not b/c I am a bit confused on that. Either way I look forward to one day seeing this on the tracker and knowing that a future of custom maps and other opportunities for new servers in the future awaits!
  • SamusDroidSamusDroid Colorado Join Date: 2013-05-13 Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
    edited September 2014
    ZEROibis wrote: »
    That is incorrect about it just being combat. I have had the issue of mods not loading on my normal server as well. It is just when it occurs on a normal server it does not physically stop you from playing the game. The solution to avoid it is thus to just never run custom maps nor any other custom mods like combat.

    It is bugs like this that kill mod development b/c no one want to launch modded servers with custom maps or mods when they are going to go down all the time.

    I will agree though that crashes are on the down side in the latest patches and the CDT continues to improve the game far more than UWE ever did as far as bug fixes goes.

    So was your earlier reference to @Obraxis putting the card up on the tracker real or not b/c I am a bit confused on that. Either way I look forward to one day seeing this on the tracker and knowing that a future of custom maps and other opportunities for new servers in the future awaits!

    If you make it so that it only mounts the mod when you play the map, your problems will decrease. Last time I checked you have all mods mounted all the time which increases the probability of one of them failing since there are so many map mods. This also makes it so it's less daunting to rookies when they first connect to your server and have to download a ton of mods.
  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    SamusDroid wrote: »
    If you make it so that it only mounts the mod when you play the map, your problems will decrease. Last time I checked you have all mods mounted all the time which increases the probability of one of them failing since there are so many map mods. This also makes it so it's less daunting to rookies when they first connect to your server and have to download a ton of mods.

    It was not always like this. Fairly sure he did that to increase the number of map downloads and with that increase the number of mod mirrors (mod availability) in the workshop subsystems. If one fails that isn't currently being loaded, it's not an issue.

    @ZEROibis apologies for confusing you. This is Pinocchio: :^o When he lies, his nose grows to considerable length.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    I already do that, (just not on first load on the Combat server until 2 days ago). It does not matter how much you load the only thing that matters is if it does not load either your critical mod when playing on a moded server or worst cast the actual map that your on. More often it does not load any mods not just a mod. Thus I could have a single mod, that mod being the custom map or literally every mod on the workshop and get the same results.

    The issue with mutiple mods is thus not the risk of them not loading but instead of them being updated. The more mods you run at one time the higher the risk one of them will get an update preventing players from joining until the map changes.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    edited September 2014
    For example right now my pub server is dying b/c the losing team had some players quit but the game is not ending and no one can join b/c a mod updated. This is not as bad as losing mods all together and then having the server get stuck dead in the water but it also effects peoples ability to play. I can see people trying to join but they can not get in and that is a bad experience for those users.

    It is great when your server is having 45min+ games b/c they are really exciting but then when workshop mods being updated kill the server as a result you want to encourage players not to have these games b/c the risk is to high. Many short games are best as they mitigate the issue of mod updates optimally.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    Yep server dead, all b/c I was punished for having a balanced fun game when the fucking workshop updated.
  • the_tickthe_tick Netherlands Join Date: 2014-01-20 Member: 193352Members
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    Still occurring every single day though. We may finally be able to vote on it but does that really effect anything. I mean this is such a major part of the game (mod support) not working that you would think there is a focus on fixing that.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    Or today where it goes down every map change
  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    Confirmed, last couple days it's been bad again.
  • SupaFredSupaFred Join Date: 2013-03-03 Member: 183652Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver
  • YojimboYojimbo England Join Date: 2009-03-19 Member: 66806Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, Reinforced - Shadow
    Hope you get it fixed soon mate, only server I bother to play on nowadays as it has a decent community, had to see it fall due to this pain in the arse glitch
  • UncleCrunchUncleCrunch Mayonnaise land Join Date: 2005-02-16 Member: 41365Members, Reinforced - Onos
    "file not found" on custom map like veil5... kind of making a server die fast. I believe it's the workshop issue.


    If servers can't get a single new (custom) map played, it's gonna be tram/veil/summit... i won't bet on a long life for NS2. Server side (custom or not) is the base to rely on. If there are too many crashes player just gonna leave.
  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    Caged, one of the most played customs -> file not found just now. On the bright side, I have aquired the server babysitter badge. Thank you, UWE.
  • DC_DarklingDC_Darkling Join Date: 2003-07-10 Member: 18068Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver
    I can confirm the problem, sadly.
    And yes its the workshop. Manually map changing to the map which did not load yet (or rebooting the server completely) usually forces the update again.
    Like with client connects, a retry (or more) usually downloads the updated mod and all is well.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    What has been bad is that in the last week or so here it has been getting a lot worse. At this rate when the holidays roll around you can forget about keeping your server online.
  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    Just yesterday, people want to play prison. Me, alt-tabbing and getting into position on the console to be ready for the worst, see how it takes ages to contact workshop, mods failing to load, and the error that it cannot load the map.
    I immediately (within 2-3 seconds) opened interactive console and cycled to ns2_veil. 5ish players (the fastloaders) got the "File not found" error and disconnected, the rest of the 36 remained connected, loading veil.
    Wooz then cycled to prison again, it loaded prison and two of four essential mods. He did that again and it loaded all.

    @ZEROibis‌, all it takes is omnipresence, ninja-admin skills, Wooza magic, and a tiny bit of patience on the player side who have to go through 3 maploads.

    :( #:-S (:|
  • WyzcrakWyzcrak Pot Pie Aficionado Join Date: 2002-12-04 Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Is this regional? TGNS is central United States and used to suffer from Workshop failures regularly (remember, I built an entire web application to reactively remedy the failures -- they happened a lot), but we play custom maps regularly and we're not hit with this nearly as often as we once were. Meanwhile, it seems to have gotten no better for others. We're only active 5-7 hours per day, but that hasn't changed, either.

    Here's to hoping NS2's design is improved before we again become regular victims.
  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
  • WyzcrakWyzcrak Pot Pie Aficionado Join Date: 2002-12-04 Member: 10447Forum Moderators, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue
    Done, but mostly as a gesture, at this point.

    Feels awkward voting for something so work-intensive when I'm not sure how many servers it affects in the grand scheme of things (and how often). I must say that, given TGNS' recent experience, this isn't the highest problem on our list presently (that doesn't mean it's not urgently important to other folks).
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    The issue is that it can effect servers and appears to effect the most of them when there is a big steam sale which is when the largest numbers of new players are on.

    Also what it does effect is mods and especially custom maps. I mean why bother spending a ton of time making a custom map when servers are afraid of using it b/c it will kill their server?

    I just restarted for the 3rd time today. I would guess that the issues are going to be larger in areas where there is more load and populations like on the East coast and other places where steams servers get more load than other places.

    What really sucks is just when you get a few players they want a map change and then there goes the server. You then repeat this for hours and hours until hopefully the workshop works long enough for the server to fill up.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    Oh great what is this 1 fail per hour today... Hope that others are better off than I have been so far today.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    Wow it is like clockwork! I think we could start a new civilization that keeps time based on when the workshop loses connection.
  • ZEROibisZEROibis Join Date: 2009-10-30 Member: 69176Members, Constellation
    I got to say I think there should be some sort of award for this b/c there has got to be a record for how badly this system works. I mean has anyone even heard of a system that is less reliable then this which is not run by the government?
  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    Servers getting these and stalling indefinitely:
    [22472.771] Worker 12 : Error: Mod wasn't available

    Clients getting both of these:
    Client disconnected (x.x.x.x) Server mod is out of date
    Client disconnected (x.x.x.x) Missing required mod

    Yes, even if the server mod is not out of date compared to the client.
    All three are workshop availability issues.

    Now that we have a dual game mode server, It's becoming even more obvious this has utmost priority.
    Yet as long as the vanilla servers run, there's no problem, right? This is the real topic of discussion.
  • ATFATF Join Date: 2014-05-09 Member: 195944Members
    Every other mapcycle there are around 10 clients disconnecting due to the client workshop check failing for random mods.
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