[Miscr3ant]

We have a problem with player housing, in which manipulating furniture in player housing can cause a server crash that wipes out the furniture database, causing everyone to lose the furniture in their house. To resolve this, what we need are the details; we have got to track step by step what precedes a crash. I don't mean "I was moving furniture"...we need more. What we need is for everybody who is a homeowner to keep extensive notes every time you so much as change out the roll of TP. ;)

So, here are some tips of what kind of details we are looking at; this is not by any means all inclusive. If you can track even more details, so much the better.

A caveat; don't try to recreate this after the crash, you might forget something or leave out that crucial step. If you are moving furniture from this point on, keep notes...every time. That way, if the crash happens, your notes are alredy done.


1. Time/Date - What is the IG time and date; to get it hover your cursor over the compass rose in the lower right corner of the screen. It may be that what causes it is something as simple as the time changes from dusk to night.

2. What Is It? - What was the EXACT piece of furniture you were manipulating when the server crashed? Is it furniture, is it a container, did you empty the container, is it full still?

3. Is this initial placement, or adjustment? - Is this the first time you placed down a new piece of furniture, or is it that old sofa your wife told you to move to every wall of the house so she could see how it looks there? Husbands in real life, you know whereof I speak. ;)

4. Did you use JUST the key method, JUST the voice commands, or a COMBINATION of both? (self explanatory)

5. At WHAT POINT in the process were you when the crash occurred? - This one is key, folks. We need to know EXACT STEPS that were taken by you that produced the crash, i.e....

"I used the voice command "!moveto" and told the "X" placeable to go to 5.0, 5.0, 0. Right when I pushed the enter key, the server crashed"

or

"I selected it with the house key, then tried to raise the placeable. I raised it three times by entering my choice with the keypad, and when I raised it the fourth, but by mouse clicking on the selection instead, the server crashed."

6. How many pieces of furniture did you move? - Keep track. It may be that the script is superstitious, and crashes on every thirteenth piece of furniture. ;)

7. Is anyone else...

A) In their home?
B) Do they have the same floorplan?
C) Are they moving furniture at the same time?

Thayan, this one may have to be tracked by us. Can you put in some debugging lines that send a server message so folks can see when someone is starting to move furniture? I'm not talking every cushion they fluff, but perhaps a choice folks can select when they begin and when they end, so others on the server can keep track as well.

This list may be added to. ;) But you see what I mean. The Devil is in the details, people, and we need your help to exorcise him. ;)

First sentences edited by Thayan for clarity.

[Animayhem]

Well WillowWhite and I discussed since we have the same floorplan, Rimeth and Daeris, that we are in our homes at the same time in party and maybe move an identical item at the same time like a trashcan. naturally we wil wait til after purge.

[Balanor]

At 10:20 Central time this occurred again today. It looks like 9 players were on when this happened, but from what I understand no one was in a building. The following is the last minute of the server log, which gives me no clues in regard to the database being lost. I'm posting this here in an attempt to start some kind of pattern recognition for any of the 9 people logged in. Please try to keep note of what you were doing, and if you do anything similar (or identical) to it again and it causes a server crash, post or send me a PM.

Code:

Connection Attempt made by NOITCA (FFUXNEHV)
[Sun Dec 14 10:19:52] NOITCA (FFUXNEHV) Joined as Player 9
[Sun Dec 14 10:19:58] Kothan Ikkar(Miscr3ant)[Talk] Anything the dead do not need.
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:00] NOITCA/FFUXNEHV/99.42.10.93 logged in with Hirt Turgen
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:12] Yashana(Beladra Marias)[Talk] ready
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:17] DEAD: Goblin Shaman(3.00)/Tyraturos Catacombs - South/Daihanda
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:17] Kothan Ikkar(Miscr3ant)[Talk] So...anything
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:18] NOITCA Left as a Player (8 players left)
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:19] Kalos Amraphel(Pleiade_08)[Talk] go
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:26] Kothan Ikkar(Miscr3ant)[Talk] A lovely key you have there
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:28] Rivanna Cross has taken Kama out of Remains. (Tyraturos Necropolis - Upper Tombs)/Magic Kama/4gp/
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:33] DEAD: Goblin Elite(3.00)/Tyraturos Catacombs - South/Daihanda
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:36] DEAD: Duergar Mage(12.00)/Moszabbar - Ancient Mulhorandi Tombs/Yashana
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:38] Rivanna Cross(Solace)[Talk] works on many locks
Connection Attempt made by NOITCA (FFUXNEHV)
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:39] NOITCA (FFUXNEHV) Joined as Player 9
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:43] NOITCA/FFUXNEHV/99.42.10.93 logged in with Hirt Turgen
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:48] Daihanda has taken Magic Ring out of Corpse of Goblin Elite. (Tyraturos Catacombs - South)/Magic Ring/113gp/
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:50] DEAD: Summoned Dire Bear(8.00)/Moszabbar - Ancient Mulhorandi Tombs/Mirella Lock
[Sun Dec 14 10:20:54] DEAD: Duergar Mage(12.00)/Moszabbar - Ancient Mulhorandi Tombs/Mirella Locke

[DarkRanger]

Group was mass hasted, approaching a group of 3 Duergar chiefs when the game stopped. No spells were being cast at the time, I changed target once by clicking a different chief during approach.

[Miscr3ant]

One thing...NOITCA had reported that his server vault was empty of both Khreed and Dandrik; that's why the log in with Hirt. After the reset his server vault was whole again. Not sure what that indicates, but it is a tidbit.

Rivanna and I (as Kothan) had basically just started in the Tyraturos Necropolis when the crash happened

[Bela]

DarkRanger pretty much got it spot on, after the mage was killed we ran over to the three duergars waiting for us and everything froze.

[Karilynn]

I was creating encounters in the encounter area. At the time of the crash, was trying to save a faction (of a hostile halfling mercenary) to custom faction. I had just used the tool on it, and the menu never came up.

[NOITCA]

Right, the server was actually having troubles before that, when I had logged in with Dandrik. Khreed wasn't available at that time.

When I logged off with Dandrik and came back, only Hirt was available. That would be where the log picked back up. It was crashed when I tried to come back. So, maybe me logging off and the database saving was the final blow.

If I remember correctly, Hunter Housing also uses the internal database. Just a speculating here, but, could there be a similar function or variable string that the two databases are using, causing a conflict?

Just guessing.

[Wids]

What's Hunter Housing? :-/

Also, I made several changes to Corella's house about two days ago...incorporated two glowing crystals into her altar, added a few more Mist objects, added a lecturn and added a tome and a wall banner to said lecturn. Those changes are now gone. Is there any way for me to get them back? :(

[Balanor]

Hunter's Housing was/is a script system on the NW Vault site that allowed for persistent player-owned buildings. It is, in fact, the base for our system - although heavily modified and expanded in almost every respect for Thay.

Because I need EVERYONE's help address this, and because DMs trying to replace lost furniture will be a never-ending affair until this is resolved, I've made the dictator-like decision that lost furniture items will not be replaced anymore. This decision is perhaps unfair, and I apologize for that, but I hope it will be incentive for everyone (as almost everyone has a house with one or more of their characters) to provide all the information you can when/if one of these crashes occur. So if you're reading this, I need your help right now with either trying to repro or create one of these server crashes so that I can figure out the root cause. Right now these crashes happen about 1-2 times a month, so they are relatively rare. But the first step to fixing it is to determine the cause, and I can really only do that with confidence when I have a set of steps laid out that produce the problem.

With that plea out in the open, if this continues to drag on for many more months, I do have a Plan B:
Destroy the database file entirely in the hope the problem is 'just' operating system file corruption that gets fixed when it is rebuilt. Although, without determining what the cause truly is, there's no guarantee this would permanently fix the problem. But, at least to start with for the first year(s) or so, I'd put the odds at better-than-average it may.

Or Plan C:
Move to an entirely different database system, which will be very design intensive as I will need to learn how to use the new scripting functions for a new database system. This is almost guaranteed to fix the problem, but will require a lot of my time to implement.

In either case, both backup plans are painful because they would require everyone to completely redecorate their buildings. So that brings us back to Plan A (see above).