bridgewater-brunel.me.uk - Simutrans-Experimental (devel-new-2) - testing

[jamespetts]

I have reconfigured the Bridgewater-Brunel server (net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk) for testing the current development version (devel-new-2 branch) of Simutrans-Experimental.

For the time being, please note that the saved game on the server may change without notice. I should be grateful for any feedback on whether this works well or has problems.

[AP]

What settings are required to join this server?

If I search for either "net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk" or "bridgewater-brunel.me.uk" in the 'enter a server manually' field, it doesn't find it.

I just downloaded the latest game version and pak from the links below:
http://server.exp.simutrans.com/Devel-new-builds/
http://bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/downloads/nightly/pakset/

I tried ticking "show mismatched" but still nothing.

[jamespetts]

The server may have been down - I am not sure why at this stage, and have not currently time to investigate fully, but I have restarted it, so hopefully it should be running now.

Entering net:bridgewater-brunel.me.uk in the load game dialogue will allow you to connect if the server is running.

[AP]

Interesting - why in the "load game" dialogue not the server dialogue, out of interest?

[jamespetts]

You can connect via the server dialogue, but the announce server is still not working and connecting through the load dialogue is quicker if you already know the address.

[DrSuperGood]

I get a fatal error when trying to join. Something to do with quickstone slot (3) already taken.

I am guessing I am using the wrong build or pakset? the instructions as to which the server is running are very confusing.

[jamespetts]

The server should be running the nightly versions available here.

My apologies that this new nightly system is not yet fully set up: I am afraid that debugging some desync issues has taken so long that I have had no time for anything else, including finishing restructuring the development processes to switch fully to a nightly release model.

[libertyX]

tried but the server didnt work(

[jamespetts]

I will have to look into this issue in due course. I am afraid that my Simutrans time is currently totally consumed with trying to fix some very difficult bugs relating to multi-player.

[Felix]

Is there a way to look up the exact version of the software and data files running on the server (bridgewater-brunel.me.uk)? The announce server seems to be down.

I am building the software (devel-new-2) and data package (half-height) myself on a Linux machine. With any version of the data files (pak), I seem to lack some pak files (DOG_WALKER, etc.). If I build a data package myself by manually adding the missing pak files by hand (under the assumption that they were not deleted when updating the data files on the server), I can connect, but get a synchronization error after some seconds. I think, the issue might be related to a mismatched software or data files version.

By the way, is the separate download of the experimental-specific configuration files still necessary or are they now included in the build/data package? Those files seem to be quite outdated. This might also be related to the issue above.

[jamespetts]

The announce server appears to be running here, but the link on the forum does not seem to have been updated.

Currently, the development builds do not have differentiated version numbers. This was not a problem before nightly builds were introduced and when nobody was trying to play them online to test them, but is more difficult now that there are nightly builds. I am planning to look into a way of giving the builds unique version numbers when I have a chance.

I do also plan to look into the method by which the server is kept up to date (I think that it needs to be programmed to save then restart automatically in the middle of the night when nobody is likely to be playing it so that it always gets the latest version), but I have not had a chance to do that yet, either.

Hopefully, when those things are done, it should be clear what version that the server is running, which should be kept automatically up to date. My apologies for the difficulties that you have been having so far.

[Felix]

The exact revision numbers from which the software on the server was build would be sufficient for me. I am building from source anyway.

Don't worry about the difficulties. I am aware, that this is a highly experimental build still under development.

[Vladki]

May I suggest automatic restarting to happen during the day (noon)? When most players are in work or school?
OTOH If there are players from all timezones, then it really does not matter when it is restarted...

[jamespetts]

May I suggest automatic restarting to happen during the day (noon)? When most players are in work or school?
OTOH If there are players from all timezones, then it really does not matter when it is restarted...

That is an interesting thought - but people sometimes have days off and there are week-ends. On the other hand, are there really going to be many people playing at, say, six in the morning (GMT), which was when I was planning to have the restarts?

[Felix]

With packet set Pak128.Britain-Ex-0.9.2, as published on the announce website, I get a lot of missing items. The client is missing "pedestrian-1" etc. while a large number of vehicles is different on the server.

[Vladki]

That is an interesting thought - but people sometimes have days off and there are week-ends. On the other hand, are there really going to be many people playing at, say, six in the morning (GMT), which was when I was planning to have the restarts?

OK 6 AM, is really a good time to restart. In one of the previous posts I read "middle of night" = midnight, which I did not consider a good time.

[jamespetts]

I have restarted the server with a manually recompiled executable; can anyone running Linux with and the latest half-heights build of the pakset let me know whether they can connect without desynchronising?

Also, anyone compiling on Linux, I should be grateful if you could uncomment the "WITH_REVISION" line in config.default to see whetether the new system for taking the revision from the Github commit numbers works.

Thank you all for your help with this so far.

[TurfIt]

"WITH_REVISION" line in config.default to see whetether the new system for taking the revision from the Github commit numbers works.

Don't see how it could...

Code Select Expand


#ifdef REVISION
game_engine_revision = atol( QUOTEME(REVISION) );
#else

atol expects a base10 string.

[Vladki]

Revision number does not work - it shows 0 in the server list.

I still get desync or crash within few seconds. Now I do not have a pakset mismatch, but did you check for (non)existence of that weird .routemaster.dat file?

[jamespetts]

The code for extracting the Github SHA was suggested by An_Dz, and I have no idea how it was supposed to work or why it does not.

As to the routemaster_rescaled file, it is hard to see how this could cause an actual desync (as opposed to a pakset mismatch, which can be overridden with the net: command in the load window) if the vehicle could not actually have been added to the game owing to its introduction date.

[Vladki]

I know that it sounds unbelievable, but I had some problems with my server which were resolved by getting rid of that file.

[jamespetts]

Checking on my server, there is no file called vehicle.Routemaster-rescaled.pak or anything similar in the pakset directory: only the proper Routemaster types are present (i.e. the standard, the long, the trolleybus and the coach).

[fam621]

How do I join a server online? :(

[jamespetts]

The online play is not working well at present, I am afraid (in particular, Windows clients cannot stay in sync with Linux servers) - look out for posts in the forum about when this problem has been fixed and when an online game might be more generally available.

Sorry for the trouble.

[Felix]

With the latest git version of the software (99d6634f2c44dacc986c84715fb91f942e7a79f3) and the pak files (9a8d1a8e61c296a1d65303643f1f268f0ad24e40) running on Linux (Gentoo, 64-bit), I still get the desync after a few seconds. On the weekend I still managed to save the game before the disconnect. This save game works fine, locally.

By the way, I don't get a package mismatch, anymore.

Currently, I don't have to much time, but on the weekend I might be able to try to help with debugging if this could be of any use.


If I compile with the setting WITH_REVISION = 1, Simutrans reports the first 7 digits of the git commit hash as revision in the initial window ("rf726698").

[jamespetts]

If you are able to help with debugging, this would be extremely helpful. I am afraid, however, that this is the most difficult possible sort of bug to try to find and fix.

However, I have just restarted the server with the latest updates on the devel-new-2 branch, including one which might conceivably fix the problem, and I should be grateful if you could test it to see whether it works now. Thank you.

[Felix]

Still the same issue.

[jamespetts]

Thank you for letting me know. Unfortunately, I suspect that solving this will take many months given the inherent complexities of dealing with desync issues that cannot even be reproduced locally.

[Felix]

Interestingly, the other test server (server.exp.simutrans.com) seemed to work fine.

[Vladki]

james, could you try your map with my executable and pakset?

I was comparing my pakset (http://server.exp.simutrans.com/pak128.Britain-Ex.zip) with the one from http://www.bridgewater-brunel.me.uk/downloads/Pak128.Britain-Ex-0.9.2.zip, and there are a few differences:

Code Select Expand


vladki@hex:~/simutrans$ diff -ru pak128.Britain-Ex pak128.Brunel-Ex/
Only in pak128.Brunel-Ex/: .Routemaster-rescaled.pak
Binary files pak128.Britain-Ex/tunnel.LT_Tunnel_Fast.pak and pak128.Brunel-Ex/tunnel.LT_Tunnel_Fast.pak differ
Only in pak128.Britain-Ex: vehicle.Routemaster-rescaled.pak


If that is the pak your server is running then the weird file is still there. Just to make sure - files with dot at the beginning are "hidden" on linux, so chance is that you have overlooked it.

[Felix]

The file also exists in a custom build form the latest sources of the pakset.

[Vladki]

See the topic here - http://forum.simutrans.com/index.php?topic=15906.0
I had similar problem with server.exp.simutrans.com and solved it by getting rid of that dot-file.

[fam621]

So there are online servers, but I can not join online. What is wrong? Is it that I have Windows 10? :(

[jamespetts]

At the moment, until a very difficult bug is fixed, it is not possible for a Windows version of Simutrans-Experimental to connect to a server running Linux and stay connected. (To give an idea of just how difficult that this sort of problem is to fix, last time that something like this occurred, it took two people four months of doing nothing else Simutrans related to find the problem).

It might be possible to work around the problem by cross-compiling a Windows executable using MingW32 in Linux (which would also provide nightly builds), but this has not been tested yet as setting up cross-compiling is a difficult and complex task in itself.

[prissi]

I fail to see how crosscompiling could help, since the generated code is the same GCC for the same processor as the mingw compiler that runs under windows.