TCP/IP Problems

[Alan_Bernardo]

Al and I tried a little online play via TCP/IP. We got an assertion error after a few turns, which it seems a lot of people are getting.

Here's the screenie of the error:





This did not happen during any kind of battle, but while on the main map, during a file transfer.

We also noticed random lockups during detailed battles.

It's pretty obvious that online play is not working. All these errors makes it impossible to get a game going. The game runs smoothly online, though, except for these random freezes and assertion errors.

Any possibility of you guys narrowing down the problem? I'm on cable and Al was also. Another weird thing that happened was that as client, I had to forward ports in order to see the host. This is typically not the case, but it isn't any big deal.

Maybe Al and I should try IPX to see if we get the same problems. Whatever the case, online play is broken.


Thanks,

Alanb

[Erik Rutins]

I know Eric is working on this. TCP/IP play was tested and continues to work for us without these assertions, but whatever is wrong we'll get it fixed.

[Call Me Earl]

We played two games, the first one ended when we initiated a detailed battle. The game froze during the detailed battle. We could scroll around the screen, open the advance menu and do other things, but the game had no units selected and just sat there as if paused. We had to control/alt/delete out.

The second game Alan had an assertion failed error after several turns, he was able to continue the game by ignoring it. We played several more turns and initiated another detailed battle, same thing, the game froze during the detailed battle.

Its good to hear that you are looking into this problem and you intend to fix it. Many thanks in that regard. Earl

[Alan_Bernardo]

Thanks, Erik and Eric. Get rid of these assertion errors and the problems with the semi-freeze in detailed battles, and this game would be excellent online. As I said, things are pretty quick playing online. The detailed battle, where the user can scroll the screen and do most everything else except move units, is strange and puzzling.


Alanb

[ericbabe]

As I mentioned on the "next patch" thread, my current hypothesis is that this is being caused by dropped packets.  We're not getting the problem on our LAN, but the LAN is very unlikely to drop packets.

It would really help if anyone else who is playing TCP/IP and having this problem would just post a little not on this thread saying that they're having the problem, and similarly, it would help if anyone who is playing TCP/IP (LAN vs. Internet play) and not having this problem would also post.  If people are having stability problems more frequently on Internet play, this will go a long way toward confirming the hypothesis.

[Maulet]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

As I mentioned on the "next patch" thread, my current hypothesis is that this is being caused by dropped packets. We're not getting the problem on our LAN, but the LAN is very unlikely to drop packets.

It would really help if anyone else who is playing TCP/IP and having this problem would just post a little not on this thread saying that they're having the problem, and similarly, it would help if anyone who is playing TCP/IP (LAN vs. Internet play) and not having this problem would also post. If people are having stability problems more frequently on Internet play, this will go a long way toward confirming the hypothesis.

When scippio help me to play by tcp/ip, my friend and me have the same problem.
The battle was frozen two times. But the first battle, not the second.

[ETF]

ORIGINAL: ericbabe

As I mentioned on the "next patch" thread, my current hypothesis is that this is being caused by dropped packets.  We're not getting the problem on our LAN, but the LAN is very unlikely to drop packets.

How are your LAN games going? Are you also experiencing the Event problems?

[ericbabe]

The Event report isn't programmed to open on the client (it's not as easy to do because things are running on different threads) so the answer is yes, but it's not a problem with the code, strictly speaking, because the Events report was never programmed to open automatically on client machines.