FTE server download issues to client

[ratbert]

Hopefully Spike see this - was trying to send private message to you. Somehow it says your don't exist here at all.

Any one giving feed back in advance - thanks very much.
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I've been having new players connecting to my server complaining that FTE is crashing their client after downloading bunch of files (model/sound). Any of the players cannot really give a good feedback what error is happening. I can tell you that they are windows based clients using fuhquake, fuhquake xe (xavior version) and ezquake (various versions with up to the latest stable one) they all suffer from the same problem. FTE server program is almost the latest code that is running at revision 3910.

Now I've tried running FTE server code from your 1.00 release from June 2011 up to revision 3910 with just your chunked download enabled and disabled so it would just use regular downloading of things to clients. No matter what server release revision is running it all ends in the quakeworld client crashing with it downloading a lot of files. I've had existing players connect that only had to download a few files and connect find to player the coop mod. Seems problem occurs when their are a lot of files to download (aka new player never connected to the server).

Just for the heck of it i went back to FTE 3343 release your quakeworld server for testing. No matter what windows based quakeworld client I used it was able to download all the needed files and connect just find. I've tried using the latest "fteqw.exe" that is available for download as a dedicated server just see whether that makes a difference or not. It suffers the same problems as I described above.

Has anyone else seen this issue happen or do I have something setup wrong with the server to cause this to happen?

[Spike]

ezquake requests an invalid chunk after downloading, which naturally causes the server to report an error message to the client, which the client spectacuarly fails to handle.
using either fte or fodquake clients will not give you the issue. darkplaces, fuhquake, zquake, mqwcl are all unaffected also.

fte's svn branch has a change to simply ignore these explicit invalid requests, ezquake's dev branch also has a proper fix too, I believe.

[ratbert]

ezquake requests an invalid chunk after downloading, which naturally causes the server to report an error message to the client, which the client spectacuarly fails to handle.
using either fte or fodquake clients will not give you the issue. darkplaces, fuhquake, zquake, mqwcl are all unaffected also.

fte's svn branch has a change to simply ignore these explicit invalid requests, ezquake's dev branch also has a proper fix too, I believe.

Well one I got the regular windows fuhquake to crash using the latest FTE server code. As for Windows based EZ-Quake no matter what client I ran it crashed regardless with latest FTE server code and work perfect with your older FTE 3343 server with chunked downloads or without chunked downloads.

Question how come when trying to send you a private message says user "Spike" does not exist?

[OneManClan]

Hi guys,

I really, really hope a resolution can be found because (as Spike knows) this has been an issue w the AGR server for a while now. When people connect during games and say something ("I can't dl the files!!"), someone can tell them "it's ok, just ignore that message, and keep reconnecting until you have all the files", BUT ... I shudder to think of those who got the 'invalid chunk' error, got disconnected, said nothing, assumed the mod was broken, gave up, and disappeared (!).... never to return..

I suppose I could specify on the AGR website what client/version players need to use, but as ratbert pointed out, many have issues. Until this is fixed, is it possible for fte to send a message to clients during downloads saying something like:

"WARNING: Some files need to be downloaded one at a time. If you get disconnected, please ignore error messages and keep reconnecting until you have downloaded all the files"

Or can such a message be sent (to those not connected yet) via QuakeC?

[ratbert]

Well for starters

OMC i am not having issues with people cannot download files or downloads get disconnected. Issue I am having is new player connects using ezquake (or what ever client) downloads a mess of files (as you know my coop has a ton of custom things in it) and somehow FTE server is crashing the client. I've been able to reproduce the errors using windows based ezquake and fuhquake clients using high speed downloads or just regular download speeds.

As for the "invalid chunk" I know Spike has one in there where just a warning message per say which I don't if what your having is related. To me that just useless nag message that I commented out in the release I am using. OMC release I see your using is FTE SVN 3813 which is an old version might try upgrading to a new linux version?

As for my problem with FTE crashing clients I think I found a fix for it. I've tested on my server with windows based ezquake and fuhquake with no more crashing clients. Needs a few more clients to connect and test out.

[OneManClan]

OMC i am not having issues with people cannot download files or downloads get disconnected. Issue I am having is new player connects using ezquake (or what ever client) downloads a mess of files (as you know my coop has a ton of custom things in it) and somehow FTE server is crashing the client.

Ah, you mean actually crashing, ie player need to restart the client; I thought you meant 'getting kicked from the server but still at the console'.

I've been able to reproduce the errors using windows based ezquake and fuhquake clients using high speed downloads or just regular download speeds.

FWIW I've never had issues connecting, or staying connected to rat-coop; been using (Winxp) ezquake.

As for the "invalid chunk" I know Spike has one in there where just a warning message per say which I don't if what your having is related. To me that just useless nag message that I commented out in the release I am using. OMC release I see your using is FTE SVN 3813 which is an old version might try upgrading to a new linux version?

AFAIK I am using the latest release... ie weeks old, hm (I'll edit this post with the version number later today).

As for my problem with FTE crashing clients I think I found a fix for it. I've tested on my server with windows based ezquake and fuhquake with no more crashing clients. Needs a few more clients to connect and test out.

I'll test tonight with FTE and fuh, and report back.