FF051 OoS thread.

[Deckhand]

Hello, any advice regarding Out Of Sync will be very appreciated.

I and 3 friends play FFH once a week. We are plagued by OOS. We use direct IP connection to the player with a fixed IP address. Last night, we tried Planetfall and had OOS like every half hour. In FFH, sometimes it is frequent and sometimes infrequent.

Does it depend upon our connections at all?
Does it matter if others in our house are using the internet simultaneously?
What do you look for in the OOS logs? How are they helpful?
Are OOS logs available to all or only the "host"? (understand logs are broken/unavailable currently)
Is there anything we can do to minimize them?
Does use of Kuriotates matter in FFH?

a) we need to all be on same version of the mod
b) what else?
c) if it happens, all exit; should we restart Civ or reload mod or just exit to join screen? does OOS person need to do anything in particular?

 

[xienwolf]

OOS logs will be generated on each computer, and they are only useful if we have one from each person who has a different Sync Number (the thing that flashes on the score box during the OOS notification). They contain the information which is used to computer the Sync Numbers, and a few more things which have proven useful for figuring out the game picture and potential cause over the previous views. It is also helpful to get the Random Number log from each player, so it is nice to enable that gameoption (and have logging enabled on each player's computer) to provide them as well.


OOS's can be caused by the programming being written incorrectly, so that each computer decides that something different should happen, those are what we can fix with the logs sometimes. Either someone did something that wasn't communicated to the others, or one player used an extra random number, or the decision processes were different on each machine (technically in multiplayer Civ you each are playing only on your own local machine, but on occasion a message is sent to you saying that someone else has moved a unit or ordered a city to produce something. So the AI players are all completely controlled locally for each of you, and each computer must have the AI make the EXACT same decisions).

The other cause of OOSs is one which we cannot fix in the program. If your connection is too busy and it misses an update from one of the other players, or doesn't send out an update to them, then an OOS is almost guaranteed. Normally the computer can notice when communication is lost and stop you from doing anything until it is restored, but sometimes your connection is just slow or overburdened. In those cases, some data can be lost without the game noticing. So yes, having someone else on your internet and doing something intensive like uploading a file or running a Torrent service can cause OOS issues.


Some people have reported issues with the Kuriotates in the past, but the main issue they had should have been fixed in patch A, so I need to see some logs or other direct evidence that they are still broken to be convinced of it myself.


If you do get an OOS, you just need everyone to go back out to the Lobby and restart the game. No need to quit all the way to the desktop, and no special action required by the person who had gone OOS. Just if you have more than 2 people playing make sure that the person who saves had the same number as the majority of the other players, and those who had a different number need to be prepared to find that their situation might be different than it was before the OOS (they may find a unit dead who had recently won a close battle, or one alive who had recently lost one, or that some units are moved to locations other than they were told to go to. Any of these would be an indication of exactly WHAT the OOS centered on)

 

[Deckhand]

Thank you very much.

Would you mind pointing me to the information about logging random numbers and out of sync condition?

 

[xienwolf]

OOS will log themselves, no action required. Soon as you get an OOS there will be a file in your BtS folder which states your player name and turn number in the filename.

Also in the BtS folder is a shortcut to your main _Config ini file, go to that and enable logging in the settings. Then when you run an MP game as each player joins the lobby the host will get a "Player # has Logging Enabled, ensure they are a trusted player" This is a result of having logging enabled, and you need that, so now make sure in the MP OPTIONS section of the game setup screen you select the option which enabled Random Number Logging.

Once you have done that, you can go back to the BtS folder and there is a shortcut to the Logs folder, in there it will save all random numbers the game generates in a seperate file for every 50 turns. If you get an OOS I need the LAST cycle which was generated (so the most recent 50 turn chunk), the rest can be deleted if you want.

And again, these files are useless unless I get them from at least 2 players who had different Sync numbers.

 

[Iceciro]

So... I have a rather irritating OOS between me and a friend of mine. At first I was willing to blame my modules, but that isn't the case because I checked and we're 1) all using the exact same modules and 2) I didn't change anything to give the Scions more or less Hammers.

Mid-lategame Scions, and suddenly we start consistently desynching. The cause? I, the host, have seven less production hammers than the clients think I do - 110 to 117, specifically. Nothing else is different (though I'll post the ooslogs anyways.) I even pulled another one of my testers in and had him pick up the same other civ, and OOS again. So it's consistent, repeatable, and really annoying. Doesn't go away at end of turn either.

We're using all four of the Fall To Pieces modules, as an FYI. But as I said, I used winmerge to make sure those changes were the same, and I'm pretty sure I didn't change anything that would do that to the production.

 

[xienwolf]

Have you had non-OOS games which included the Scions before?

 

[Iceciro]

I haven't tried since patch B, but I'll try knocking them out of rotation for a bit and see.

 

[xienwolf]

Mostly I am just curious if having Scions in the game means that this production misalignment is GUARANTEED to happen, or if it was a quirk of special circumstances in that game. So if you have ever had a long game without OOS where one human player was Scions, then I know that I need to look at creative possibilities, and not standard code.

 

[Iceciro]

Brought another one for you. This time with the out of synch randomlogger logs for you, too.
The two other players were in synch with each other, but not with me (the host). Happened the turn after I flung a whole pack of Moroi at Abrasoke's town.

 

[xienwolf]

This is one where the randomLogger really pays off. The other players (I assume you were Xivan) appear not to have recieved the message from your computer that you performed those attacks. So this one would be a connection glitch most likely.

 

[Iceciro]

Stellar. So it's not a mod issue, or a module issue, just packets/information dropped?

Also, this morning we had a wierd issue where we out of synched, but we had identical synch numbers.
So I went on to the next turn and we actually had different numbers, so, we closed it out and looked for the oos logs, but there were none. And finally, we couldn't get the save to open. Nor any save or autosave from that particular game. Saves from other games worked fine. I can open the save in solo, but when he tries to connect to the civs it never pulls them up.

 

[xienwolf]

Yes, near as I can tell that one was a dropped packet.

The other... that's just weird.

 

[Cuteunit]

any ideas yet on a fix for all the oosing?

 

[Iceciro]

There's not really a whole lot of OOSing anymore. Once in 250 or so turns, I can deal with. I'd just like to get them all stuffed, so I post em up.

 

[Iceciro]

Sadly:
Kuriotates - Still not fixed. Keep throwing the gold count (always the gold count) off by a few coins and desynching the game.

 

[Iceciro]

Got another one... Random logger's attached for this one.

The two clients had the same synch number, I (host) was different from them.
I'm not sure if it's running things completely different - or just out of order?

 

[Iceciro]

Another one - I'd really like an answer here as it feels like we've lost this otherwise incredibly stellar game. Clearly at one point the host is shuffling defenders while the client is already resolving ranged attack damage... throws our synch out and breaks the game.
We OOS every single turn in this game now... unless there's a fix the game seems hosed.

 

[Kentarion]

i stopped playing fall further because of oos.

i only play multiplayer so we went back to FFH2 - there it perfectly works.

check out with Kael - there have to be a great deal about oos - i remeber issues in ffh2 too

don't invent the wheel again - ask how he found the obviously ultimate solution.

 

[Webrider]

I built my new rig i7 vista 64. Now it seems I can get it to connect. The first game when smooth to about turn 500 where we quit considering it a win for us.
The next game oos every few turns. WE still think it has something to do with goblin archers doing ranged fire. This game was full of them and it seems they trigger an oos when they fire on non human owned targets, it seems like a pattern. WE had to give up on that game.
I never did figure out why my old vista 32 rig quit connecting on 51 patch b. Guess I don't need that one to connect anymore

 

[Iceciro]

Well, I'm going to try pulling ranged fire from goblin archers in a quick module and playing around with that, see if it affects stability.
Some of the randlogs started to differ around when the AI started rangefiring.