[Balanor]

I can confirm that simply tried to store a custom faction with the DMFI tool, and being hasted then approaching/fighting the Duergar spawn in the Mulhorandi tombs do not cause the problem (at least not by themselves). Not sure how to try and repro the issue of characters not appearing in a vault, but that is/was an indication of a bigger problem that was likely contributing to this. If that starts happening for someone again, I'd really appreciate it if you can try posting here ASAP so I can investigate things on the server. Sounds like that *could* be an early indication of one of these server crashes...

[Miscr3ant]

Thayan, two questions; when was the last database wipe of housing, and how big is that file anyway?

Also, I'm assuming that since the system (base) is older, it uses the default NWN databases. The re-write I assume would take us over to a newer, more streamlined db?

[Balanor]

There's never been a database wipe of housing. It uses the default NWN database system, handled through NBDE. This property database file was 1544 KB as of yesterday. Compare that to the storage database which is over 10 MB *already* since the seizure two weeks ago, and it's apparently kind of small. However, it is the largest DB handled through the NBDE system. The Storage DB is managed through the standard NWN functions.
I've got a thread started for this problem on the Bioware site in which I'm talking about the more technical details around what I feel is causing the problem, although I kind of doubt any major revelation will occur from it.

I guess anything would be newer than Bioware DBs. Streamlined remains to be seen. But before anyone starts clamoring for Plan C, I want to clarify that I look at it as a last resort which would only occur if Plan B ends up failing to resolve this as well. I've had no major problems with the Bioware databases (other than the fact we've had to rebuild that pack-rat database 3 times in Thay's history), and so I want to continue using that system unless all other options are exhausted.

[Wids]

Oh. My actions didn't cause the last crash (on December 14th), as I wasn't online at the time. I was decorating Corella's house the night before, and everything was still as I left it when I logged off for the night (around 4 AM CST, IIRC...about six hours before that crash). I got around to checking both of my houses again yesterday evening; Corella's house had lost all of the new items that I put down the night before the crash, while Wyren's house (which I haven't tinkered with in about two weeks) was as it should be.

Is the housing system saving back-ups of itself and reverting to the last back-up whenever there's a crash? And if so, how often does it save back-ups?

[Balanor]

Is the housing system saving back-ups of itself and reverting to the last back-up whenever there's a crash? And if so, how often does it save back-ups?

I have to manually revert to the backup if one of these crashes occur. Backups are saved daily at 3:00 AM Central.

[Wids]

That might have been right before I made those changes to Corella's house. Poopy. I did some pretty nice work with the lecturn and eight of those white floor arrows, too.

No biggie. I didn't lose anything too big; a brisk jaunt through the Tyraturos Crypts should earn it all back. I hope we can squash that bug soon, though; at Hazlok's suggestion, Wyren might be adding an Enchantment Forge to the Alchemy Hut in another two Levels or so. (Use by appointment only, of course; I wouldn't want the kleptos having easy access to something that pricey. :P )

Has anyone lost an Enchantment Forge to this bug yet, now that I think about it?

[Balanor]

No - or at least; not that I'm aware of. In the case something worth (tens of) thousands of gold is lost due to this crash and I'm able to verify it wasn't stolen, I'd be willing to let the DMs make an exception and take time getting the item(s) back to you. 'Legitimate' theft also part of the reason for this stupid hardline stance because I also want to avoid people blaming lost furniture on a potential crash, rather than a property theft (which does occur from time-to-time still). Otherwise it would be even more time consuming for me to go through logs to verify whether or not an item was stolen or lost due to a crash of this type.

[Balanor]

So until this is resolved, I have a new redundancy system in place that is finally tested and working as I originally tried to set it up. It will go into effect with tomorrow’s server reset.

1. A Windows batch file will now be running in a Windows Scheduled Task every 15 minutes to copy the property database files and append “_COPY” to the end of their names.
If the original database files don’t exist (like if this batch file tries to run immediately after a crash and it doesn’t find the original files), the very important thing is that the copied database files will *not* get overwritten with nothing, or deleted.

2. In the event of a server reset (whether from a crash or regular reset), when the property database gets loaded the first time someone enters a building a check is made to see if the NBDE system is unable to create the database from the original files. In other words – if they got deleted it is now smart enough to recognize that nothing loaded. The NBDE system will then go to the database “_COPY” files and instead load the database and building property from them, which will then be saved as the ‘true’ database.

3. The entire process in #2 will get reported to me in the server logs. In addition, there are now a BUNCH of server debug lines that are being written to the log every time the property database is saved.

So after tomorrow around noon, the most you may end up losing is 15 minutes of furniture/work, and the process of restoring the backup database is automated – so we don’t need to wait for me to do it all manually, and then restart the server. While this setup may mostly ‘fix’ the issue, know that it still exists and I do not consider this an acceptable long-term solution.

Please continue to provide any information you can in the event we have one of these crashes again and I confirm here that we had the property database disappear because of it.

[Bela]

Month 5, day 4, hour 16. In the Traveller's Sojourn Feldspaar Bridge.

I was at the Travellers Sojourn trying to figure out how to make my merchant purchase items. I didn't succeed so emptied his inventory to reclaim the gold I had put into him for testing. I told him his services were no longer required, as I did that the server crashed. I replaced the merchant when we got back in and put his inventory back, but I did not pick up the merchant sign, instead I have another merchant license, I noticed then that I had duplicate of his inventory in my pack. All of which have been trashed. I wondered if I can go ahead and fire him and try to set him again?

[Balanor]

I'm not sure I'm following exactly what happened here, although it seems unrelated to the furniture database crash. Can you instead please post a problem report in the problem report forum listing out steps there in order to reproduce it?