Random Disconnects..?

[Vagabond.01]

Hey, guys. Reading over your forums and everything has really helped me out with starting up my Linux server. I'd like to say thanks, first of all!

I've got all of my plugins and everything set up, server runs perfectly with them installed. No problems whatsoever. BUT.. there's still one thing I can't figure out. Randomly, my palace will drop all user connections. It'll be fine one minute, then the next, it'll kick all users.

It wont stop the server, the machine is still fine. You can still re-connect instantaneously as if the server wasn't even the issue, which is what puzzles me. So it seems that it wouldn't be a hardware problem. Would it be the configuration of one of my plugins? Or maybe there's a plugin I need to fix the issue?

I was wondering if anyone else had this problem too, or if anyone knew what exactly was going on. If you've read this far, I appreciate your time.

[maarten]

Are you hosted on your home connection? It might be your ISP in that case. A simple way of checking if it is any plugin is to start the Palace without plugins.. if you dare :)

[Vagabond.01]

I don't believe starting the server without plugins is an option. :P

I have reason to believe it might be corrupt props causing the server to boot everyone. Is there a plugin somewhere that keeps the server from crashing if that happens?

[Vagabond.01]

Still having this issue. Still hates new props. All plugins are in place (such as CrashBlock, and the like to prevent this from happening. It even does it WITHOUT them), and I still can't escape the inevitable crash when someone wears a new avatar we've never seen before, and I have to stress that running my server without plugins isn't an option. I've lived with it for awhile to see if it would go away, but it hasn't corrected itself.

Network and router are all configured accordingly, and I can drag my friends in and out without a problem. We can create avatars on other servers and wear them, THEN bring them back to our server without crashes, but, when we try to create new ones at home, it kicks everyone.

I'm VERY frustrated with this, and stumped as to why this is happening. I've taken every precaution that I can see available, and none of it's working.

I need a second opinion, or someone who can help me troubleshoot this. I'm at the end of my wits.

[EDIT]: It seems that it only crashes due to 20-bit props. Any other props wont crash the server or trigger the Standard Props plugin.

[maarten]

Right and you are using the hacked server from Pawn for this?

Ok if this happens with the plugins the only trick I would know was changing the order of how the plugins are loaded. Have you set all permissions on the server properly? Perhaps it is a memory problem? Or a create new file problem? When the server encounters a new prop I think it starts a new temp propfile, when you close the server or after 30 minutes?!? It writes a new propfile. Ok not sure about this, but I do know it makes temp propfile. What does the logfile tell you when this happens? Is there anything in the log at the time of the crash? Check folder permissions, the group in which the palace server runs (start it as root?)

If you run your own Linux server what you should do is the following: setup a second Palace on a weird port number (don't forget to change the local port number as well in the prefs file) just start a clean Palace, check out if it has any problems, then start with your .PAT file, the load the plugins one by one. It is the only way you can be sure you have checked out options. Do not combine a single thing until you have tested them all piece by piece.

That is all I can come up with right now, hope any of it helps.

good luck.

[Vagabond.01]

Alright, thank you so much for the input, maarten.. I'm totally just baffled by this.

I'll go through each of your suggestions as you listed them. I'm not using any hacked version of PalaceServer, as I got it from thepalace.com (20-bit props are available in Phalanx, and naturally look better, so that's what we create them as when we make new ones). I'll check the log file, and make sure memory/disk space is all in order before posting again.

Again, the feedback is appreciated.

[EDIT]:

Maybe you can make sense of the errors I found at times of the crashes (external IPs censored):

11/20/2009 16:47:01 - - Error 104 Read Error from Front End [-570316608,2527]
11/20/2009 16:47:01 - - FEDown -570316608 2527
11/20/2009 16:47:01 {HFFHIINM} {ZCGGBAAPNH} SignOff xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 1 113 "terminated due to comm$
11/20/2009 16:47:01 {HFFHIINM} {ZCGGBAAPNH} Stats 0
11/20/2009 16:47:01 {FEODNEOCA} {ZFPAAMCODF} SignOff xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 1 117 "terminated due to comm$
11/20/2009 16:47:01 {FEODNEOCA} {ZFPAAMCODF} Stats 0
11/20/2009 16:47:01 - - FrntEnd 5175 Error -1 Sub: short read from sub 11596
11/20/2009 16:47:01 - - FrntEnd 5175 Error -1 Listening FE died?
11/20/2009 16:47:01 - - FrntEnd 5175 Error 32 Control: error writing to frontend 11596
11/20/2009 16:47:01 - - FrntEnd 5175 Error 32 Old listener died, using new

[theturtle32]

It's the 32-bit props that can cause major issues. You REALLY should install pawn's patched palace server. It only changes about 2 bytes of data in the executable file, and increases the allowed size on disk for an individual prop to accommodate the 32-bit tiles.

Without the patched server, you will have issues when people wear 32-bit props on your server.

Brian

[maarten]

Yep, what Turtle said, if you are making 32bit props you need Pawns server version.
He send me the file ages ago to put up on PalacePlanet. Can't find it right now, anyone got a download link for this? Might be handy to put it up.

Also looks like I need to update the client and server info to fit all the new stuff.

[pawnipt]

Hey this is Pawn, i believe the random disconnection problem is due to a low PROPCACHESIZE setting in the pserver.conf, set it to 50 and it should fix the issue. This will fix one of the random disconnection issues. There is another issue that only PalaceChat/Phalanx/OpenPalace address, is if too many props are requested at once the server will drop your connection from the server, this was fixed by a prop request delay in the client.

Also just a heads up the patched pserver was done by martyn, and it simply just raises the data limit for props to allow 32bit props because they sometimes exceed 5kb. The pserver was originally hard coded to limit props to 5kb an smaller (totally unrelated to the random disconnection problem as far as i know). But using the patched pserver does help support palacechat and phalanx functionality.

[pawnipt]

http://ee.fastpalaces.com/files/pser...it-patched.zip
for the patched 32bit pserver. It is just the executable.