kicked off to the main page!?!?

[matlu]

I just received this complaint:

i was jaust playing a 4 way game  and  suddenly 2 players were kicked off to the main page  and  it was me and prodigy(spelled right i think)

Well this is probably NOT a bug. Let me explain some technical details:

The game server has to communicate with computers of players - it sends one message per second to each connected player. It may happen, that for some reason it's not possible to deliver a message to a player (connection is broken or too laggy). If it happened, the game just freezed.

Today I implemented a detection of broken connection. If your computer doesn't receive any message from server for 4 seconds, it considers that connection is broken and you will be switched to login page.
You will probable object, that 4 seconds is too short period. It is not. At normal conditions, it should not take longer than 1 seconds for a message to travel anywhere on the world. If it takes longer than 4 seconds, there is some serious problem with connection.

- anyway I'm going to increase this limit to 5 seconds
- I will keep on thinking, whether it is good idea, and possible improve it somehow
- I'll possibly create also some "ping" display, so you can see how fast is your connection

If more people experienced this problem, please report it

[Parsley]

Could I suggest that the first 1-2 drops give warnings, and the next kicks?

Even my broadband cuts for several seconds to refresh every now and again (admittedly it is a very crap service... but still)

[matlu]

Could I suggest that the first 1-2 drops give warnings, and the next kicks?

Even my broadband cuts for several seconds to refresh every now and again (admittedly it is a very crap service... but still)

Actually it was not meant to notify player that he has laggy connection, it was meant for situations, when connection is irrevocably broken, so instead of having freezed game which doesn't respond to your input, you are at least kicked to main screen so you can login again.

The question is, when could be a connection considered "irrevocably broken". It seems that java's network interface is mostly not able to detect it (at least that's what I think, I'll investigate it further). So I put there this timeout counter. Currently it is set to 5 seconds. (You are expected to get a message from server each second). It is really quite long period.  (Imagine that you've played some first person shooter over internet. Can you imagine what would happen, if the server failed to communicate with you for 5 seconds?)

It somebody is getting disconnected too often, please report it and I will make this timeout period longer. And I'm still thinking about how to improve it somehow.

[kaoss]

Yes ive been kicked now about 6 times now in the middle of playing a game
This never happened when i first started to play, it has also happened to the players i was playing against.

[matlu]

Ok, I'll try to fix it somehow today evening.

[kaoss]

Thx would be good

[matlu]

I increased timeout limit to 10 seconds. It really should eliminate incorrect disconnections.

I found out that this timeout detector as anyway a bit broken, at some situations it's not able to detect that connection was closed, and the game may freeze. I'll fix it once. (But there is so much other work, that I don't even know what to start with )

[matlu]

email from MetalGear822:

is there any specific reason the game crashes every once in awhile do some people manipulate it to do so in their favor?

I guess this is same problem.
So the game tries to detect people, who have VERY poor internet connection. If game server fails to communicate wih you computer for 10 seconds, you are disconnected.

I'm not sure, there is possibly some bug in this detection system, or perhaps you REALLY have very poor connection, dial-up or something? Another thing is, that the game server is located in central europe, and people from some 'exotic' parts of world may really have very poor connection here.

In ANY case, I'll try to improve this system somehow, I think it's not perfect. Anyway currently I'm too busy with other stuff

[MetalGear822]

i think this has to do with that timer thing but while im waiting for a game to end and another one to start im usually doing something else looking at the screen every once in awhile but it automatically disconects me if i dont type some random key every once in awhile i dont see why the timer needs to be in place there shouldnt there

[matlu]

Jeez, this was discussed so many times.

If you do nothing for 5 minutes, you are disconnected. To prevent it, just type something to chatbox from time to time.

Reason: to not have lobby (and game room) crowded with people  who are away from keyboard for 1 hour.

BTW I'm pretty sure that Rune$cape disconnects you after one minute or so.

[MetalGear822]

i dont play runescape or so but if you dont want people to sit in the lobby for an hour or something set it to an hour not 5 minutes

[flamingdragon]

The problem has been fixed. Its ok at 5 min. No one gets kicked out anymore.

[Chase]

I got logged off to login page just now. The game was already lagging horribly so im not surprised. BTW dial up connection should be illegal

[matlu]

Actually, I've found something that needs to be improved in this reconnecting feature. Now I understand why you were moved to login page without a warning. I guess it can happen when it's your turn. When it's not your turn, you should (almost) always get reconnecting message and auto-reconnect. Will fix it soon

[bizolt]

in the beggining of this, i never got kicked off, now im literally getting kicked off once every 2 games....it might be my internet, i have 56k, but when it kicks me off the internet is still on,(i know this because im talking on AIM)