Jap Player running turn multiple times

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: jwilkerson




The design is supposed to be that the results will always be the same. However, the reality is that - that is not the case. Exiting the animations can (not always) cause one instance of the so called "synch bug". The workaround is for the Japanese player never to exit the animations.

If you have any doubts, engage the services of a neutral third party. You send your turn (the turn in question) to that neutral third party and have your opponent send the third party his password. The results of the third party's run (assuming he does not exit the animations) should be correct and should match your results and your opponents result.

99.9% of the time, if the Japanese player does not exit running animations then there will not be a problem and reruns will always produce the same results. The only further exception is when the files on the two players machines do not match closely enough. The solution to this is for both players to fully reinstall from scratch using the same procedure. This should clear up the remaining major cause of "synch bug".

the biggest problem with not exiting the animation is that the Japanese player doesn´t always have the time to watch 3 hours of combat animation from one turn...

I had heard that the synch bug occurs if the Japanese player hits the esc key during combat. If you click the button to end the combat (on screen) it doesn't happen. I click the button and don't have problems with the synch bug.

i've seen claims to that... i've tested it and gotten mixed results... i suspect it can happen in some cases, but i am not positive (i.e. - the times i've gotten SYNC bug by hitting the ESC key, there were other problems at work as well...)

Since i don't normally play Japan, i haven't tried to work all this out in detail yet.

EDIT: And, of course, things are complicated by the fact that you can get different things to happen on different machines... which shouldn't happen, but somehow does...[8|]

[ChezDaJez]

ORIGINAL: rtrapasso

ORIGINAL: Mike Solli

ORIGINAL: castor troy





the biggest problem with not exiting the animation is that the Japanese player doesn´t always have the time to watch 3 hours of combat animation from one turn...

I had heard that the synch bug occurs if the Japanese player hits the esc key during combat. If you click the button to end the combat (on screen) it doesn't happen. I click the button and don't have problems with the synch bug.

i've seen claims to that... i've tested it and gotten mixed results... i suspect it can happen in some cases, but i am not positive (i.e. - the times i've gotten SYNC bug by hitting the ESC key, there were other problems at work as well...)

Since i don't normally play Japan, i haven't tried to work all this out in detail yet.

EDIT: And, of course, things are complicated by the fact that you can get different things to happen on different machines... which shouldn't happen, but somehow does...[8|]

That is correct.. do not use the ESC key to exit combat replays. It will cause the sync bug.

But using the "end" key to exit a combat sequence will not cause the sync bug. I do this all the time, especially when Brad has sent a horde of bombers against one of my airfields. I'll watch the air-air combat sequence and then as soon as the bombs start to fall, I end that sequence and watch the next. I just don't want to watch several minutes of bomb explosions. [:(]

Chez

[Miller]

I have had this happen several times whilst playing UV. For whatever reason I have re-ran the turn and found different ships have been hit etc. This is whilst playing as the Japs.

It cannot be a result of the sync bug because that only effects the Allied combat replay.

[cantona2]

Or when hordes of torpedo planes break through a meagre CAP and shred your ships [:(]

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Miller

I have had this happen several times whilst playing UV. For whatever reason I have re-ran the turn and found different ships have been hit etc. This is whilst playing as the Japs.

It cannot be a result of the sync bug because that only effects the Allied combat replay.

The "Sync Bug" is defined that way - the replays do not match... it doesn't have a single cause, but there are probably at least a half-dozen reasons it can happen.

EDIT:
If you are playing against the AI, this (different results on a rerun) can easily happen... players against the AI almost never reboot before running a turn... and if you don't reboot, the turn will frequently come out differently than when you do... i haven't run tests with UV, but i will bet it has similar things happening...

The turn after a reboot is the correct one - it is reproducible and the other ones are not.

[Charbroiled]

I've reran the combat portion of the japanese turn many times. Usually because I forgot to save the 001 turn for my opponent and ran a turn from another game. [:-][:-] In every instance, except once, the turns were exactly the same.

That one instance, my allied opponent was trying to get one of the BB casualities from PH to SF. The first time I ran it, one of my subs put a torpedo into the BB and sunk it. The next time I ran it (to regenerate the 001 save) the torpedo missed. Of course I reran it about a half dozen times to try to get the torpedo to hit, but it never hit again.

The game save file I sent to my opponent was from the 1st combat run that was over-written. I asked my opponent if the torpedo hit on his replay and he told me it was a miss (didn't think it would hit, since this was a rerun combat save). But he surprised me when he said the BB was alive and sailing on to SF. That would mean that the first combat turn I ran (where the torpedo hit) was out of sync for the Japanese.[X(]

[Bogo Mil]

It is possible to rerun the first turn for a different result if the Allied player did not do any orders in turn 1. I realised this in my game against Drew Black: We were hit by the sync bug in turn 1, and I tried to generate a new combat save - but got a completely different result.

But overall I don't understand all those worries about cheating. It is common sense, that you can not play WITP without house rules. Many of the frequently used HR are "cheatable" - the opponent will never find out if you really follow them (e.g. pay PPs for moving troops Kwantung->China or China->Burma). Thus it is necessary to trust your opponent anyway. If you don't - a neutral party running the turn will hardly help. You would need a real referee who takes time to look into the savegames and check the rules.

For me, it seems to be much more sensible to stop playing if you don't trust your opponent. We are not professionals who are paid for playing, are we? If the trust is gone, the fun is gun as well - there's no point in continuing that game.

[Chris21wen]

If you don't trust your opponent, don't play.
 
If you feel the need to 're-run' a turn or break HR, don't play.

[Feinder]

I suppose you'd never really know if the Japanese player had run and re-run the turn several times. 
 
But frankly, I would expect that situation is only a remote and infrequent occurance limited to a very narrow number of players.  I'm not going to say that "nobody around here would do that".  For the most part tho, given the matureity level of WitP players, the time commitment of the games, and the fact that (at least in my experience), I've gotten to know my opponents to a degree; and cheating wouldn't even be considered (in fact, in all of my games, after a decisive engagement, we have often swapped, "you could have won if you had..." and "I never knew you could do that..."
 
Frankly, while I certainly enjoy it when I'm "winning", I'd rather keep the game "close" as long as possible.  In WitP, it's very much the journey that counts.
 
-F-

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

I suppose you'd never really know if the Japanese player had run and re-run the turn several times.

If you are not getting sync bugs, there is no worry.

[goodboyladdie]

ORIGINAL: Chris H

If you don't trust your opponent, don't play.

If you feel the need to 're-run' a turn or break HR, don't play.

I agree wholeheartedly. You are both investing so much into a long term game, you really need to be able to trust each other completely.

[TommyG]

I don't know exactly what you mean by "reboot", so I think I am doing it wrong. I play several PBEM games. I generally play several turns without reloading the game and only do so when I switch between original and CHS. Sometimes while waiting for a turn I just minimize the game and do something else online. Sometimes the game gets corrupted but I dont notice that it happens often. I have had synch issues, but usually with only one player in one game at a time. Am I doing this all wrong?

[Feinder]

Just to be clear, sync issues does not mean your opponent is running the turn several times (in fact, it is very likely that something ELSE is culprit, not your opponent cheating).

That being said, some ways to minimize sync bug:

1.  Separate install for each game.  It's easy to copy everything in the WitP folder into WitPA, WitPB, WitPC etc.  If you've got the space, this will help because...

2.  The most common reason I've seen for sync bug is a conflicting pwhex.dat file.  When starting a new PBEM, it's best if Japanese player sends allied a copy of his pwhex file after starting the game.  If this file gets corrupted somehow, you'll see sync bugs.  The best to squash them is to simply have japan resend pwhex.dat.  For me, this helps 9 out of 10 times.  But...

3.  Wrinkle being, if you're running multiple games on one in stall, you MIGHT come across a situation where you have conflicting pwhex files on several games.  Having Japanese player send pwhex.dat from game A, fixes game A, but then game B starts getting sync bugs.  That's why it's best to have several installs.  Now, you might very well go along and have different games vs. 5 opponents going and the same install, and never have a problem. 

But from what I've seen, the most requent fix for sync bug is to get a copy of pwhex from Japan.

[Nomad]

Feinders point is very useful. A complete install is less than 800 MB and you can trim 100 MB from that by getting rid of things you don't need more than once. It will eliminate a lot of problems. On todays computers, having 5 or 6 installs should be a very small percentage of your disk space.

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Feinder

Just to be clear, sync issues does not mean your opponent is running the turn several times (in fact, it is very likely that something ELSE is culprit, not your opponent cheating).

That being said, some ways to minimize sync bug:

1. Separate install for each game. It's easy to copy everything in the WitP folder into WitPA, WitPB, WitPC etc. If you've got the space, this will help because...

2. The most common reason I've seen for sync bug is a conflicting pwhex.dat file. When starting a new PBEM, it's best if Japanese player sends allied a copy of his pwhex file after starting the game. If this file gets corrupted somehow, you'll see sync bugs. The best to squash them is to simply have japan resend pwhex.dat. For me, this helps 9 out of 10 times. But...

3. Wrinkle being, if you're running multiple games on one in stall, you MIGHT come across a situation where you have conflicting pwhex files on several games. Having Japanese player send pwhex.dat from game A, fixes game A, but then game B starts getting sync bugs. That's why it's best to have several installs. Now, you might very well go along and have different games vs. 5 opponents going and the same install, and never have a problem.

But from what I've seen, the most requent fix for sync bug is to get a copy of pwhex from Japan.

True enough... but most instances of the Sync/Replay bug i've seen are in "stable" games where there has been no issue for many turns but then you get a sync problem... the most likely problem (in my experience) is memory issues which can be solved by running the turn just after booting.

Even then, you can exhaust memory by having too much stuff running in the background... i used to have problems because i was running the "screensaver" SETI@HOME which soaked up all available memory.

Getting rid of anything big running in the background and reboot before running a turn solves most of the intermittent problems.

Usually if there is a pxhex or exe file discrepancy the replay bug shows up PDQ at the beginning of the game. Occasionally one player will change a file in mid-game and problems will develop then.

[quiritus]

i'm playing pbem as japan(1.806): the last turn i run it (for a mistake) two time.

both the times the result are different: not out of sinch really different

the first time i sunk two CV. the second time no CV battle at all. the first time i conquer tarakan. the secon time i don't.
only the two major change, but a lot others in the whole turns executions.
Both turn is reproducible: i've made same tests and i found a chain of actions that led to turn A and a chain of actions that led to turn B. i lack the time to test if there is the possibility of a turn C. but soon i made

very strange situation

i've all the saves of turn received, combat replay,combat save, japan situation at new turn start for both turn A and turn B
if someone interested

[Grotius]

So um, does AE fix the sync bug?

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: quiritus

i'm playing pbem as japan(1.806): the last turn i run it (for a mistake) two time.

both the times the result are different: not out of sinch really different

the first time i sunk two CV. the second time no CV battle at all. the first time i conquer tarakan. the secon time i don't.
only the two major change, but a lot others in the whole turns executions.
Both turn is reproducible: i've made same tests and i found a chain of actions that led to turn A and a chain of actions that led to turn B. i lack the time to test if there is the possibility of a turn C. but soon i made

very strange situation

i've all the saves of turn received, combat replay,combat save, japan situation at new turn start for both turn A and turn B
if someone interested

Discussed in P.M. (just so folks don't think i am ignoring this.)

[rtrapasso]

ORIGINAL: Grotius

So um, does AE fix the sync bug?

Pretty much the same game engine - so no, i wouldn't count on it.

[Yamato hugger]

I have tested this using the same PBEM turn on 2 different machines (me as Japan). I tried shutting off the machine mid run, I tried cutting off the replays on 1 and not the other ect, I tried putting the settings at different settings. Results: identical results.

Now doing all that (as far as changing settings and cutting off the replays) will likely change the result the allied player sees, but it will NOT change the actual result regardless of the machine it is run on. Or at least my tests failed to produce any result.

As far as AE not correcting the replay bug I'd like to ask why not? Good God, re-write that routine. Its broken, and you KNOW it.

FIX IT