agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

I have been having some difficulties in the last 12 hours connecting to CaravelNet within DROD: TCB. DROD is apparently unale to connect to the internet or doesn't like my key; I keep getting the connection icon with a red cross. There is also a significant lag time in startup and leaving the settings screen.

I have tried various combinations of new keys and restarts, but to no avail, and I am unable to access the chat room via the main menu. However, I am for some reason still able to chat in the editor screen and people can see messages I am sending.

Is this a known issue, and what should I do about solving it?

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Okay. On checking my drod.log file, I appear to have this:

*** 2/28/09 9:05PM ***
Chat Parse Error: not well-formed (invalid token) at line 1:0
BufferSize=877
‡cRª Œ%Çï�@f
ðaCÖxú
Ƭ%n›Oâ�wô[ÞÐÈÁ¤Îñ9]éŸ=  ¶Ù6f‰QâYÐMˆ¨H-•<E¯ [�ÆÒ¨�µÞš½,C3¨>‹�’$yŒòQk0`Á
ÎR—U#`‰T¢òW½„¨;УX‡~0[5LCst$‡²½=§cnAç^ý…Œç>AÕHu;¤m ªÿ…_ôË4ɪšãLƒlÉù²ª
øœï9†™¬jÞR‰”N ÅµÑ™SYªüêOβ½
È‹ühØ_‰Áù„w /œo»2Èq/µ¯Þê¢(\" [
¬Ã'

Since this was around the last time I was able to chat properly, maybe this is the problem. There are no errors in drod.err as far as I can tell.

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Sorry to be drawing more attention to this thread, but does anyone have any suggestions for me?

As far as I can tell, my JtRH copy does not have any issues connecting, and has even updated the key to the latest version I requested for. I also can't upload/download scores, demos or holds in TCB either.

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
IP: Logged

Which version are you using?

I remember having a similar issue quite a while back and still have issues with F6 not always fetching the right data. Maybe the issues are linked.

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

I am using 3.2.0.83.

It's not just a F6 error, though; DROD doesn't think I am connected to CaravelNet at all, so the only function I can actually access is the in-editor/in-game chat.

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

CuriousShyRabbit
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3170
Registered: 10-14-2006
IP: Logged

I hate to see you waiting so long for help, and I am most certainly not a computer whiz. Could someone else please check that I've given reasonable advice here?

It sounds to me like your player file has become corrupted for some unknown reason. (I believe that your CNet info and password are kept in the player file.)

Does DROD let you export your player?

Here are some things you can try:
1. Back up all your DROD to a separate folder.
2. Export your player if you can.
3. Delete player.dat. (This is why you have the backup - in case this screws everything up worse.)
4. Start up DROD again.
5. Because player.dat is missing, DROD creates another one. On startup, it should ask you if you want to import a player. Import your old player if you can.
6. After obtaining a new key, does CNet work now?

In this process, if you end up creating a whole new player instead of keeping your old one, you lose ownership of all your holds. If you ask him nicely, I know that Stefan has the ability to fix that. Given a hold and a player, he can change the player ID so it matches the hold.

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

CuriousShyRabbit wrote:
It sounds to me like your player file has become corrupted for some unknown reason. (I believe that your CNet info and password are kept in the player file.)

Blegh!

Not corrupted .dats again! My nightmare comes back to haunt me! I really hope it isn't a corrupted player.dat, but I guess anything's possible.

Thanks for the advice; I will try it out when I have some time and post the results back here.

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

Syntax
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1218
Registered: 05-12-2005
IP: Logged

I'm confused... doesn't the ingame/editor chat require Caravel?

As you can still chat ingame, that must mean the actual key works. Given that the key works but that it shows you as disconnected would indicate a bug in the program, not the data files.

Out of interest, what language setup/localisation have you got? It's a really long shot, but this could be an encoding issue. I seriously doubt it though.

An interesting thing to know is what your connection speed is, and who your provider is. I've had continuous issues with getting a stable Caravel connection from the start and have always had a very fast connection. Whether it's the speed or the type of connection remains to be shown. Also, do you have a second user account in TCB?

There's been a bug raised about F6 not displaying the correct data, or displaying a generic "No highscores for this room" message. I feel this may be linked. I couldn't connect to Caravel for a while last year and decided to analyse the traffic. I remember seeing similar output to yours. I was able to connect again after a few days though...

:/

agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Syntax wrote:
An interesting thing to know is what your connection speed is, and who your provider is. I've had continuous issues with getting a stable Caravel connection from the start and have always had a very fast connection. Whether it's the speed or the type of connection remains to be shown. Also, do you have a second user account in TCB?

My connection was via the University of Cambridge; it's possible that their firewalls/server protection don't really like DROD's connectivity.

There's been a bug raised about F6 not displaying the correct data, or displaying a generic "No highscores for this room" message. I feel this may be linked. I couldn't connect to Caravel for a while last year and decided to analyse the traffic. I remember seeing similar output to yours. I was able to connect again after a few days though...

:/

Well, I've just managed to get reconnected to Caravel.net without having to do anything. Quite literally, I opened a new hold file, DROD imported it and suddenly, I was connected!

This may also be to do with the fact that I am currently at home (not on the Cambridge network) and it was the source of the problem. I'll let you know if I lose connectivity again when I return next week.

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Resident Medic/Mycologist

calamarain
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 933
Registered: 03-25-2007
IP: Logged

I don't think it's the University of Cambridge. I had no trouble connecting to DROD (and CaravelNet) on the CUDN when I was there.

I point out that this was while I was at work too TCB is great for your lunchbreak. I built about 70% of the latter Witherwood holds while at my work computer.

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My Holds