Server down?

[JohnCarver]

Working on it....

[yuukki]

Working on it....

OUR HERO

[JohnCarver]

I'm going to have to simulate this on the Test server to be sure.

But it is a perfect example of the complexity of automating this process. Somebody planted their grapevines on a makeshift cornerpost, and they then hopped over to a birch tree. They shouldn't have been allowed to, but they did due to memory corruption. This then opens up thousands of complications. Should I just let hte server keep going, so that the birch tree now allows you to harvest the object of a grapevine if present in its inventory? Should you then just be allowed to carry 3D objects in your 2D inventory? SHould I just destroy the birch tree on an automated startup when I recognize he is a problem. Do we really want the solution to have the 'automated' restart server blow up your things? And if so waht happens when they grew into your brickhouse next time?

The obvious answer is to not let them grow onto stuff they shouldn't but since we are 'here' now. I fail to see how any automation would have improved the situation and not just made it entirely worse. While me manually squashing the situation, restoring the tree, vines, and grapes to their original integrity, and continueing as if nothing happens seems like a nice thing, even when it happens when I sleep and causes some downtime.

[Ciego]

And as an additional for the record, I believe JC has stated before that automatic reboots are a bad idea. It might cause the server to try and load corrupted map tiles that were improperly saved, and mess them (or the server in general) up more completely and -without proper oversight- permanently.

Um... Yeah, but...
It IS 2018.
I remember in the mid-80's that it occurred to us (FACEPALM!), that instead of having the operator enter it upon boot, that million dollar computers should be taught to keep the date and time...

#1. - Give us a "video-reset" button, in the "settings", so we don't have to reboot the game. As a byproduct, have that app log frequency, and type of eqpt, so that devs will know which users and/or eqpt need help.
(I remember, while at Microsoft, being tasked with telling WESTPOINT that Microsoft would NOT be making printer drivers for their 2,500 HP Printers. They were not happy.)

#2 - Same sort of app to reset SOUND, or GAME LOGIC/COUNTERS.

#3 - Set up remote terminal access, so that a laptop (with proper id) can become the main server control terminal at a distance, can reboot into a "safe mode" for backups and analysis, and then reboot back to normal.
(In rural Oklahoma, we set those up worldwide for factories producing CDs and DVDs, back around yr 2000.)

#4 - back in the 1960's SERVERS would crash, if a programmer accidently attempted "division by zero". Now-a-days, we trap exceptions that theoretically could cause a "crash", and basically delete the "problem" instead of letting the server go down. So if a user, or a client-side app begins controlling more resources than "the limit", then crash just that client. (Talking theory, the correct autism-spectrum response is to dismiss all this out of hand, with distain, then later weeks or months down the road, examine what part of this can be implemented.)

[toddesloan]

JC, does it crash immediately after stuff like this happens? Could you simply roll everything back to the "last" world save and automate a restart? I am assuming you are auto saving in interval time frames? So the last save would be before the player "planted their grapevines on a makeshift cornerpost, and they then hopped over to a birch tree" etc. etc. Now if they did the same thing it would obviously crash the server again. And if they kept doing it, well...

Or does the world save process happen after the crash? If that's the case, yeah we are pretty much screwed....a reboot would just keep looping the memory leak/crash..

[JohnCarver]

JC, does it crash immediately after stuff like this happens? Could you simply roll everything back to the "last" world save and automate a restart? I am assuming you are auto saving in interval time frames? So the last save would be before the player "planted their grapevines on a makeshift cornerpost, and they then hopped over to a birch tree" etc. etc. Now if they did the same thing it would obviously crash the server again. And if they kept doing it, well...

Indeed. And having the server come up and down over and over doesn't sound fun. THe grapevine spreads without player involvement so its not even like the playerbase as a whole could be like "Hey Everybody, don't do what you just did". IN this case the server would be brought up, the grapevine would spread through memory onto something bad, and blow you guys up. While I have no doubt that somebody could spend millions of hours and dollars thinking through every possibility and having the server automatically adjust for them, we are just not in a world yet where the complex decisions revolving around these types of problems are easily solved.

[toddesloan]

That stinks man. Especially for you. I will buy another starter pack for Concord lol you can thank KKK

[Judaism]

That stinks man. Especially for you. I will buy another starter pack for Concord lol you can thank KKK

You were killed by the Kapitalists, is it hard to distinguish those two things ?

[toddesloan]

It is. Sorry. It's hard to delegate between some of you. You chose to role play some very very odd scenarios for a colonial Massachusetts 1690's mmo...lol

[lachlaan]

JC stop being such a ***** scrub and code SKYNET already, then task it to dev in your place. Jesus Christ man, get good

If it were that easy to make perfectly stable and self moderating servers and stuff, we wouldn't need to outsource to indian tech support and development nearly as much.