asmussen
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 188
Registered: 04-02-2004
IP: Logged

Is there a problem with CaravelNet at the moment? Connectivity to it worked fine for me when I installed the game, and for the last couple of days, so I'm assuming my problem isn't the bad key thing that has been mentioned. Earlier this evening while I was downloading the user made holds into JTRH, I got about 1 page into the list of holds, and after I finished downloading chainsaw, it appeared twice on the list of holds. After that, I tried to download the next hold, and it told me something about the file being corrupt. I exitted that menu, and it showed me as no longer being connected, and I haven't been able to reconnect since. Did I trigger some sort of glitch, or did the site just happen to go down or something while I was downloading holds?


____________________________
Shawn Asmussen

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

CaravelNet is working now. I know Schik's been working on some stuff on the server, but I'm not sure if it would have affected you.

-Erik

____________________________
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asmussen
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 188
Registered: 04-02-2004
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:
CaravelNet is working now. I know Schik's been working on some stuff on the server, but I'm not sure if it would have affected you.

-Erik

In that case it looks like the problem is just me, because I still can't connect. I poked around and found a drod.err file. The timestamps on the last error messages seem to be from roughly the same time that I recall losing the ability to connect, although I have no idea if anything in there is actually related to my problem.


*** FIRST LOG IN SESSION 4/4/05 6:41PM *** Internet Error: 7
*** 4/4/05 7:05PM *** Assertion error in line 207 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\Halph.cpp: "Bad state in CHalph::GetPathTo()" *** 4/4/05 7:12PM *** Assertion error in line 207 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\Halph.cpp: "Bad state in CHalph::GetPathTo()" *** 4/4/05 8:07PM *** Assertion error in line 207 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\Halph.cpp: "Bad state in CHalph::GetPathTo()" Assertion error in line 207 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\Halph.cpp: "Bad state in CHalph::GetPathTo()" *** FIRST LOG IN SESSION 4/6/05 3:50PM *** Internet Error: 7
*** FIRST LOG IN SESSION 4/6/05 5:11PM *** Assertion error in line 207 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\Halph.cpp: "Bad state in CHalph::GetPathTo()" *** 4/6/05 5:46PM *** Assertion error in line 207 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\Halph.cpp: "Bad state in CHalph::GetPathTo()" Assertion error in line 207 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\Halph.cpp: "Bad state in CHalph::GetPathTo()" *** 4/6/05 6:06PM *** Assertion error in line 909 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\DbXML.cpp: "!decodedSize" Assertion error in line 909 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\DbXML.cpp: "!decodedSize" Assertion error in line 909 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\DbXML.cpp: "!decodedSize" Assertion error in line 909 of C:\\Caravel\\DROD17\\DRODLib\\DbXML.cpp: "!decodedSize"

____________________________
Shawn Asmussen

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

What does the connection to CaravelNet do, exactly. The game says "Connected!" but I don't see anything else happening. I know high scores can get uploaded, but the way I play, that's something that's never going to interest me.

asmussen
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 188
Registered: 04-02-2004
IP: Logged

bandit1200 wrote:
What does the connection to CaravelNet do, exactly. The game says "Connected!" but I don't see anything else happening. I know high scores can get uploaded, but the way I play, that's something that's never going to interest me.

Well, besides uploading scores, it also has some other benefits. You can automatically download and import holds, without having to manually go to the website and grab them. You can download other people's victory demos of rooms you have finished and see how they did things differently. That one is the one that I really like. Seeing the different techniques people use is interesting and often educational... There may be other things you can do too, but that's what comes to mind at the moment.

____________________________
Shawn Asmussen

asmussen
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 188
Registered: 04-02-2004
IP: Logged

Well, this morning, I tried to fix it by using the 'request a new key' feature, and that allowed me to get connected again. I decided to see if I could reproduce the problem, and I can. I went to the change location menu, and downloaded the chainsaw hold. After downloading it, it appeared twice on the menu. Once as a downloaded hold, and once as a not yet downloaded hold. The umlauted a in the authors name showed up as a square in one of the entries, so I'm thinking that it may be some sort of unicode issue? Anyway, after I did that I tried to redownload the chainsaw hold using the entry from the list that showed up as undownloaded. That and any other holds I tried to download after that gave me that corrupted file error, and generated one of those assersion errors in my drod.err file. Also, after I exitted JTRH and restarted it, I could no longer connect to CaravelNet. I guess that means that whatever is going on, it ends up screwing something up with the account on your side also, because even exporting my player data and uninstalling/reinstalling and reimporting my player data wouldn't get me connectivity back again. After I get home from work tonight, if it's still not working again, I'll request a new key again to fix it again and just not mess with the download hold function until somebody gets a chance to fix whatever the problem is.

____________________________
Shawn Asmussen

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

You can automatically download and import holds

How? The scrolling message across the bottom of the screen says Connected, but the download button is greyed out. Summat amiss somewhere, I guess.

asmussen
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 188
Registered: 04-02-2004
IP: Logged

bandit1200 wrote:

You can automatically download and import holds

How? The scrolling message across the bottom of the screen says Connected, but the download button is greyed out. Summat amiss somewhere, I guess.

Well, for me, even when I wasn't able to connect, the scrolling messaage at the bottom of the screen said 'Connected!'. It's the icon in the upper right hand corner of the screen that seems to be more indicitive of the connection status. If it's a green checkmark, you are connected. Do you have the connect to caravelnet option checked in your player settings? If everything is connected, and you have the green check mark on the startup menu screen, then you should just have to go to the change locations menu, and all of the user made holds will show up on the list of holds, but they will be greyed out if you haven't downloaded them. Then, you just highlight one, and the download button will become usable. If you try it out, I'd stay away from the chainsaw hold for now, as that hold seems to be the source of my troubles connecting, although I'm not sure exactly why.


____________________________
Shawn Asmussen

Mattcrampy
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2388
Registered: 05-29-2003
IP: Logged

If you have issues with CaravelNet, and it stops working even after you restart, request a new key.

Edit: This is a peculiarity of CaravelNet - your key actually only works once, but when DROD exits, it will get a new key for next time you play. When DROD crashes, this doesn't happen, so you need to request one manually.

It'd be cool if DROD's last gasp could be to get a new key from CaravelNet, but apparantly that's not doable.

Matt

[Edited by Mattcrampy at Local Time:04-08-2005 at 06:04 PM]

____________________________
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bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

I requested a new key but I think it must be crossing the Atlantic by air mail.

Maurog
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 1501
Registered: 09-16-2004
IP: Logged

I heard avian carriers are the latest word in packet delivery.

____________________________
Slay the living! Raise the dead!
Paint the sky in crimson red!

Oneiromancer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2936
Registered: 03-29-2003
IP: Logged

It took about 10 minutes to get mine the other night. You can also request one from your Profile on this forum...not sure if it will go any faster (unlikely), but requesting 2 in a row will make the only the most recent one valid, so I wouldn't try again unless it just doesn't show up.

Game on,

____________________________
"He who is certain he knows the ending of things when he is only beginning them is either extremely wise or extremely foolish; no matter which is true, he is certainly an unhappy man, for he has put a knife in the heart of wonder." -- Tad Williams

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

Problem solved. The new keys were going to the email address in my profile, whereas the key I received after buying JtRH was sent to one of my other email addresses.

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
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bandit1200 wrote:
Problem solved. The new keys were going to the email address in my profile, whereas the key I received after buying JtRH was sent to one of my other email addresses.

Ah, yes. This issue was recently resolved - if you use a different email address to purchase the game with than you set in your forum profile, it will update your forum profile's email address to match. It will warn you that it did so, so that you can change it back if you want to.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

bandit1200
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 290
Registered: 10-29-2003
IP: Logged

Schik wrote:

bandit1200 wrote:
Problem solved. The new keys were going to the email address in my profile, whereas the key I received after buying JtRH was sent to one of my other email addresses.

Ah, yes. This issue was recently resolved - if you use a different email address to purchase the game with than you set in your forum profile, it will update your forum profile's email address to match. It will warn you that it did so, so that you can change it back if you want to.

It didn't do that to me, unless by 'recently', you mean within an hour of you making the above post. The address in my profile is still the same it always has been.

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

bandit1200 wrote:
It didn't do that to me, unless by 'recently', you mean within an hour of you making the above post. The address in my profile is still the same it always has been.

I'm sorry, I meant that it now does this at the time of ordering.

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

DelverDom
Level: Goblin

Rank Points: 27
Registered: 04-18-2005
IP: Logged

Will CaravelNet work even if you are using a proxy? Because my Journey to Rooted Hold won't connect to CaravelNet and when I try to request a new key it says and I quote:
'Could not contact CaravelNet'

Any help would be appreciated

~DelverDom~

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

DelverDom wrote:
Will CaravelNet work even if you are using a proxy? Because my Journey to Rooted Hold won't connect to CaravelNet and when I try to request a new key it says and I quote:
'Could not contact CaravelNet'

That's a good question. I forget how proxies work, so I feel like I'll answer this wrong and am hoping Schik or somebody might jump in and bail me out. I can tell you that all the communication goes through port 80 (the known port for HTTP servers that all browsers use by default). There are no other ports used at this point.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

asmussen
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 188
Registered: 04-02-2004
IP: Logged

Well, if proxy support isn't coded into the app directly, the only way it would probably work through a proxy is if the proxy is a transparent proxy. That's where port 80 traffic is redirected by a device that is doing IP routing, and gets sent to the box/port where the proxy is running on. If it's the standard kind of proxy where you have to configure your web browser to use the proxy, then it probably will not work. However, I believe that libcurl was used for the internet portion of the code (Do not take my word on this however. I was not in any way involved with the development of this program.) That being the case, here is a quote from a libcurl tutorial at http://curl.oc1.mirrors.redwire.net/libcurl/c/libcurl-tutorial.html

libcurl automatically checks and uses a set of environment variables to know what proxies to use for certain protocols. The names of the variables are following an ancient de facto standard and are built up as "[protocol]_proxy" (note the lower casing). Which makes the variable 'http_proxy' checked for a name of a proxy to use when the input URL is HTTP. Following the same rule, the variable named 'ftp_proxy' is checked for FTP URLs. Again, the proxies are always HTTP proxies, the different names of the variables simply allows different HTTP proxies to be used.

I'm not quote sure how the environment variables work on Windows, but if I understand it correctly, this means that you should be able to configure these variables with your proxy information, and DROD should be able to use your proxy even if they did not explicitly code proxy support into the application. Again, this isn't something I have verified, and I don't have any first hand knowledge of the DROD internals, so YMMV.

P.S. Sorry for the broken link above, but I don't know exactly what I have to do to make the dash character not break the url. You'll have to cut and paste the url into your browser if you want to see the full webpage.


____________________________
Shawn Asmussen

md5i
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 109
Registered: 03-25-2004
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:

DelverDom wrote:
Will CaravelNet work even if you are using a proxy? Because my Journey to Rooted Hold won't connect to CaravelNet and when I try to request a new key it says and I quote:
'Could not contact CaravelNet'

That's a good question. I forget how proxies work, so I feel like I'll answer this wrong and am hoping Schik or somebody might jump in and bail me out. I can tell you that all the communication goes through port 80 (the known port for HTTP servers that all browsers use by default). There are no other ports used at this point.

-Erik

I believe JtRH uses curl to handle its transactions (at least the linux version does). curl pays attention to the following environment variables:

       http_proxy [protocol://]<host>[:port]
              Sets proxy server to use for HTTP.

       HTTPS_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
              Sets proxy server to use for HTTPS.

       FTP_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
              Sets proxy server to use for FTP.

       GOPHER_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
              Sets proxy server to use for GOPHER.

       ALL_PROXY [protocol://]<host>[:port]
              Sets proxy server to use if no protocol-specific proxy is set.

       NO_PROXY <comma-separated list of hosts>
              list of host names that shouldn't go through any proxy.

____________________________
Michael Welsh Duggan
(md5i@md5i.com)

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Yes, DROD does use libCurl. Thanks asmussen and md5i! DelverDom, you might try making a batch file that sets the appropriate environment vars and launches DROD. So maybe something like:

drod.bat

set HTTP_PROXY = 10.0.0.1
drod.exe

...then run drod.bat instead of drod.exe when you want to play. Note that I don't know what your proxy settings are so the above is just an example.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

DelverDom
Level: Goblin

Rank Points: 27
Registered: 04-18-2005
IP: Logged

Hey thanks. Although most of that went over my head , I did exactly as you suggested Erik but it still doesn't seem to work.The problem may not be the proxy , that just seemed to be the most probable cause.
My drod.err file says'Internet Error: 6'if thats any help.


~DelverDom~

[Edited by DelverDom at Local Time:04-21-2005 at 07:04 PM]

____________________________
~DelverDom~
Jtrh progress: Level 24

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Browsing to websites on that computer works, right? What are the proxy settings for a web browser you know works? In IE6, this is found under "Tools" -> "Internet Options" -> "Connections" tab -> "Settings" button.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

trick
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
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IP: Logged

I'm pretty sure the environment variables are case-sensitive even in Windows, so you should set http_proxy, not HTTP_PROXY.

- Gerry

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
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IP: Logged

trick wrote:
I'm pretty sure the environment variables are case-sensitive even in Windows, so you should set http_proxy, not HTTP_PROXY.

I don't think that's it, but one problem I do see with Erik's batch file is that set doesn't like having the spaces in it... it should be:

set http_proxy=10.0.0.1

____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

And please note that "10.0.0.1" is just a made-up setting. DelverDom, if you haven't already, you need to find the IP of your proxy server and possibly also a port# and use that. So it might be "53.252.11.250:99" or other things.

I don't understand the optional "protocol" section of the specification. It seems that if you are using a proxy server for http, then the protocol must always be "http", so I'm not sure what libCurl does with that protocol info. It probably can be left off.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

Schik
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5381
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Also, you may well need a username and password. Probably do need one, I'd guess. So maybe it would look like this:

set http_proxy=http://user:password@10.0.0.1:port/



____________________________
The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way it treats its animals.
--Mahatma Gandhi

asmussen
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 188
Registered: 04-02-2004
IP: Logged

ErikH2000 wrote:
And please note that "10.0.0.1" is just a made-up setting. DelverDom, if you haven't already, you need to find the IP of your proxy server and possibly also a port# and use that. So it might be "53.252.11.250:99" or other things.

I don't understand the optional "protocol" section of the specification. It seems that if you are using a proxy server for http, then the protocol must always be "http", so I'm not sure what libCurl does with that protocol info. It probably can be left off.

-Erik

According to that same libcurl tutorial I quoted before, the protocol part is just ignored anyway, so you're right, it should be possible to leave it off.

The proxy environment variable contents should be in the format "[protocol://][user:password@]machine[:port]". Where the protocol:// part is simply ignored if present (so http://proxy and bluerk://proxy will do the same) and the optional port number specifies on which port the proxy operates on the host. If not specified, the internal default port number will be used and that is most likely *not* the one you would like it to be.

____________________________
Shawn Asmussen

DelverDom
Level: Goblin

Rank Points: 27
Registered: 04-18-2005
IP: Logged

Its working! It worked when I changed it to http_proxy. Thank you all very much for your help.

~DelverDom~

[Edited by DelverDom at Local Time:04-21-2005 at 09:48 PM]

____________________________
~DelverDom~
Jtrh progress: Level 24

ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Alright, let's get a FAQ entry going. Submitted for your review:

Q: Can I connect to CaravelNet through a proxy server?

A: Yes. If you need proxy settings for web browsing, then DROD will also need them to make a CaravelNet connection. Find out your proxy server settings for HTTP port 80 traffic, including the IP address of the proxy server, port it uses for HTTP traffic, and possible username/password. For a Windows installation of DROD, create a batch file named "DROD.BAT" in the same directory as DROD.EXE. It will have the following lines:

set http_proxy=10.0.0.1:80
drod.exe

Note that the text following the equal sign will be different and depend on your proxy settings. When you start DROD, run the new DROD.BAT file instead of DROD.EXE (which your start menu shortcut points to).

For a Linux installation, instructions are similar... (anyone care to jump in here? I'm sure I'll screw this one up. )

-Erik

[Edited by ErikH2000 at Local Time:04-21-2005 at 10:08 PM]

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)