Syntax
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I know this has been brought up several times before, but I would really like to see a fix for this.

It usually takes 4 or 5 attempts to get F6 to display the demos/correct demos for a given room.

The info I get (and others have reported similar behaviour) is a combination of:
* This hold is not published on CaravelNet
* There are no demos recorded for this room
* A list of demos for a previous (cached?) room list

This has been going on for a few years now (since late JtRH dev (pre-TCB)). I've been using wireshark for work recently and thought it was time once more to attempt to fix this issue.

I would like to spend some time with a dev with access to the caravel logs (and a packet sniffer) comparing tcp access logs so this can finally be solved.

Possibly related links (at least they could explain an intermittent drop in connection):
Briareos and Squid
Syntax continue mishandling

Briareos
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Syntax wrote:
Briareos and Squid

Note that you'll have to actually go through a Squid proxy for this to happen, and what happens totally isn't DROD's fault...

np: Jared Emerson-Johnson - Chariots Of The Dogs Cutscene Suite (Sam & Max Season Two OST (Disc 2))

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Syntax
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Briareos wrote:

Syntax wrote:
Briareos and Squid

Note that you'll have to actually go through a Squid proxy for this to happen, and what happens totally isn't DROD's fault...

np: Jared Emerson-Johnson - Chariots Of The Dogs Cutscene Suite (Sam & Max Season Two OST (Disc 2))

Sorry yeah... I was using your post as an example of Continues not being handled correctly but a similar issue could explain the problem at hand. I've never heard of/used Squid but maybe certain ISPs use a similar protocol on their gateways for example.

I'm just keen to check the packets here whilst the same is being done server side. That should hopefully explain the invalid caravel responses.

Briareos
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Syntax wrote:
Sorry yeah... I was using your post as an example of Continues not being handled correctly but a similar issue could explain the problem at hand. I've never heard of/used Squid but maybe certain ISPs use a similar protocol on their gateways for example.

No need to be sorry for anything...

But if the above were the case you wouldn't be able to get a connection to the CaravelNet server at all, not even intermittently.

I'm just keen to check the packets here whilst the same is being done server side. That should hopefully explain the invalid caravel responses.

Which is surely the best course of action here. But I guess you'll have to wait until Schik comes back...

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Tahnan
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If it helps, I think you can actively generate the error by:

* Recording two demos in a room
* Pressing 'F6' to bring up the demo screen
* Immediately--i.e., while it's still saying "downloading data"--hit the 'delete' key to delete a demo.

That should produce the "There are no high scores for this room" message.

EDIT: ...never mind, maybe even that doesn't reliably produce the error. Grrr.

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[Last edited by Tahnan at 04-30-2009 09:38 AM]

robin
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File: drod.err (4.7 KB)
Downloaded 37 times.
License: Public Domain

I sometimes have also "There are no high scores for this room" message.

But I don't know how that is.

I will post my DROD.err file
maybe that helps a little to find the problem

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[Last edited by robin at 04-30-2009 10:05 AM]

Syntax
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I think this is an issue regarding the mishandling of certain packets. I would also be interested in knowing who else is getting this behaviour - F6 only working roughly 1 in 4 times for me.

If you're affected by the same bug, please post.

slimm tom
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I can report I experience the above bug sometimes, but I wouldn't say it only works 1 out of 4 times. More like 3 out of 4 for me.

agaricus5
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Syntax wrote:
I think this is an issue regarding the mishandling of certain packets. I would also be interested in knowing who else is getting this behaviour - F6 only working roughly 1 in 4 times for me.

If you're affected by the same bug, please post.

I'm not seeing this nearly as often as 1 in 4, but I do get it occasionally if I conquer a room for the first time and re-enter it, followed by pressing F6 before I get a placement notification. And this is in build 83 (I shall upgrade at some point to build 85 to test it).

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CuriousShyRabbit
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Yeah, I see this too on a regular basis and I've posted about it before too.

Pressing F6 and getting the incorrect "there are no scores for this room" depends on the time of day for me. In the wee hours of my morning (several hours sometime between midnight and ~6am pacific time) everything slows down. It takes a really long time to load a regular page from the forum, it can take literally forever to load a highscores link from the forum, and the "there are no scores for this room" comes up a lot in game.

Pressing F6 in one room and getting scores for an entirely different room depends on how many times I've pressed F6 in that game session. After pressing F6 30 or 40 times, the game gets pretty well confused, and will start occasionally showing me results from previous F6 queries (like 20 or 30 queries back) in place of the results for the currect query.

agaricus5
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I think I also got the "hold not published" error too.

I downloaded a copy of Suit Pursuit from my profile area, and proceeded to import it into DROD by opening it. I wasn't able to upload any scores or view any demos, even after re-downloading the hold in-game.

The problem only resolved itself when I went to the Settings screen and pressed "Upload My Scores", after which, I didn't see the error again.

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mxvladi
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agaricus5 wrote:
I downloaded a copy of Suit Pursuit from my profile area, and proceeded to import it into DROD by opening it. I wasn't able to upload any scores or view any demos, even after re-downloading the hold in-game.

The problem only resolved itself when I went to the Settings screen and pressed "Upload My Scores", after which, I didn't see the error again.

I have the same problem with Devilishly Dangerous Dungeons of Doom...

agaricus5
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Okay, I think I can reproduce the "hold not published" error I described above. These steps can reproduce it for me:

1. Download a hold from the Holds board (as a hold file) that you have never played before.
2. Import it into DROD by opening it (not with DROD open).
3. Now play the hold. I find that no matter how many times I press F6, the hold never shows up as published.
4. Now go to Change Location and select a different published hold, restore to a room, and press F6 to view the room's demos.
5. You should see scores appear, or a "this room must be conquered first" notice (if not, this is a separate bug).
6. Now go back to the hold you imported. Go to a room and then press F6. You should see both "This hold is not published on CaravelNet" and "Downloading scores" appear in the score box. The room's scores will then appear.
7. Leave the demo screen, then press F6 again. The scores disappear and you get the "not published on CaravelNet" notice. This will continue to be the case until you repeat 4-6.
8. Now download a different hold. Import it as in 2.
9. You will find that this hold is "not published" on CaravelNet either.
10. Go back to the first hold you imported. The hold is now correctly listed as published and as far as I know behaves normally each time you press F6.
11. If you now go back to the second hold you imported, you will find 6 and 7 are again true.
12. Repeat 8-11 with other holds; I've found this to happen with four completely different TCB holds.

Notes:

1. "Upload my scores" fixes this bug.
2. You cannot get the effect in 6 and 7 to occur if you do not press F6 in another room in a published hold with scores. If you simply play the hold, or press F6 in a truly unpublished hold, on performing step 6, you only get the "hold not published" notice.
3. This effect appears not to occur if you import a hold from CaravelNet directly, or import one using the "Change Location" screen. As in 10, importing any hold abolished the effect on the previously imported hold.
4. You also can't get this effect to occur if you import a previously imported hold that is identical (I haven't tried what happens if you import a hold that has been updated, though).

Okay, so please let me know if you can reproduce the error using my steps, or if I need to clarify anything.

Edit:

According to my highscore page, demos recorded during the period while DROD consideres the hold unpublished are not uploaded. Thus, although I have a demo in Grud's Dungeon, for example, it hasn't appeared in CaravelNet because I recorded it immediately after importing it as above. Currently, I have VIP in a non-published state and although I can still record new demos, they are also not being uploaded, even when I repeat step 6 and can see the room's scores. In addition, I can also download demos while on step 6.

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[Last edited by agaricus5 at 05-01-2009 11:51 PM]

Syntax
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I was a beta tester and had to delete/re-download the hold for scores to work. Updating the hold wasn't enough.

Syntax
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Another bump really...

F6 still flitters between "No demos available", "This room must still be conquered" and actually showing the demos (once conquered).

I haven't looked at the implementation, but maybe there should be a higher timeout, or a 3-time retry and pick the "primary"? ie if one call does acknowledge conquer status and presence of demos, display them...

Just a thought

[EDIT]

The same seems to apply in chat with random present players missing, or the room being classified as empty. I presume it's a similar issue and would be great to see both fixed

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[Last edited by Syntax at 07-04-2010 02:50 AM]

mrimer
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Schik has made a fix to CaravelNet requests that might fix this issue. Would you please check this out in 4.0.2?

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mrimer
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[Post Deleted] Trickster wrote:

mrimer wrote:
Schik has made a fix to CaravelNet requests that might fix this issue. Would you please check this out in 4.0.2?

I can attempt this come the weekend, but not likely sooner. I'll check current versions of 3 and 4 on the machine that suffers (my desktop under XP).

Oh, sorry for being unclear. The fix has not been released yet. It's a client-side issue. It'll be out in 4.0.2.

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Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
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mrimer
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[Post Deleted] Trickster wrote:

mrimer wrote:
Oh, sorry for being unclear. The fix has not been released yet. It's a client-side issue. It'll be out in 4.0.2.

Any chance the fix could make its way to 3 if it works for 4? I imagine some people might benefit from it (and I haven't ported everything over yet either).

Yes, I understand that Schik is submitting a fix for this for 3.3 also, and for DROD RPG.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.