Not Decoding after succor...

[S.H.E]

I have noticed that after a Succor, loging in/out quickly, or crashing will often times result in no decoding... The new libEQ seems to help this a bit but there seems to still be a problem with succor.

Maybe something different EQ does with reentering the same zone vs Entering from another zone?

Noob Question: How long is the Zone Key good for? 1 zone in I ASSume.

OT: Is UP the worest zone to decode? Often times this zone willl not decode or takes multiple chars entering the zone to decrypt.

[devnul]

I have noticed this as well.

One partial workaround that seems to work is if you close SEQ, then reopen it before you succor or egress it has a smaller chance to get confused, and will more often decode properly.

However the new libEQ.a has helped some, occasionally I decode on egress, where never before did I.

dn

[PawnOrc]

In 2 days of play this weekend, including dozens of lessor succors, I had the following:

4 seg faults resulting in return to terminal window.

2 "invisible" player problems. SEQ keeps running but everything, including my character are invisible. The map is still there and it scrolls but the character location graphic is invisible.

About half the time, SEQ did not "decode" once the succor was done.

Non-SEQ problems included a number (about 6 I think) eq dumps to server select and the inevitable 1018.

None of this happened when I zoned or TP'd.

Thus, no doubt stupidly, I conclude that there is something different between zone or TP and Lesser Succor. It seems logical that whatever that difference is, relates to our SEQ problems.

[Virusmaster]

I have noticed these problems when I zone hop too quickly. I'm bound at the TD firepots and will from time to time pop through several zones faster than SEQ can decode and update the display. These are the times I see SEQ have the most problems with decoding. Seems to me if I zone again before the decode is done, and while my linux box is very busy, there is a good chance I will not decode the next zone. Once this happens it tends to stay broken. Simple fix for me is kill SEQ, restart it (only takes a couple seconds) and then zone - problem solved.

A few things to note...

My linux box is quite fast, amd 1ghz, 385mb ram, but decoding a zone does make it very busy for a few seconds. My EQ machine is also quite fast and I have the datarate set at 15, files are also cached for faster zoning. I can zone in as little as 5 seconds at times. This may be too much for the SEQ box, too much to do and a packet gets missed. Who know?? I just live with it.

[showeqnewb]

I keep getting no decodes or partial decodes after a few zones, or succor!

[Cryonic]

Sounds more like SEQ is missing packets during the zone process (succor or normal zoning). Does it spit out any errors just before the decode?

I had issues with partial decoding and found that the problem was due to network traffic and a 10Mbps PCMCIA network card. Moved SEQ onto a Tower system with a PCI 10/100 Mbps NIC and the issue went away.

[showeqnewb]

System was working just fine... now isnt!

Have a Linksys10/100 4port router and due to the fact that it is a switch and not a hub I have another Linksys 5port 10/100 hub uploading to the router.

In my wifes PC (custom 1.0) I use a Kingston 10/100 NIC. In My PC (custom 1.6) I use the onboard Intel 10/100 NIC. On my SEQ machine (compaq 800 Athalon) I use another Kingston 10/100 NIC.

System has always worked flawlessly till recently and I have made no changes to my network in a long time.

After this started I wondered if I had pinched a network cable to I replaced all my cables with new cables!

[falkore]

Hmm.. That seems a bit odd to me... Unless you are sporting a $3,000 a month Dedicated T3, You aren't gaining anything by having a 100TX home intranet. Your connection to the internet is AT 100% BEST 1.5mb/ps, so to me, even if you were on Gigabit on your intranet, the bottleneck is the speed at which your cable modem can download and process data.

Just thinking out Loud.
Falkore

[adenine!]

Originally posted by falkore
Hmm.. That seems a bit odd to me... Unless you are sporting a $3,000 a month Dedicated T3, You aren't gaining anything by having a 100TX home intranet. Your connection to the internet is AT 100% BEST 1.5mb/ps, so to me, even if you were on Gigabit on your intranet, the bottleneck is the speed at which your cable modem can download and process data.

Just thinking out Loud.
Falkore

The amount of other traffic on the network and the quality of the NIC are important too. A cheap PCMCIA card (especially if it has a dongle) could definitely cause problems.

[falkore]

If there's other traffic, I can see that. Like if you have half-duplex cards. (My SEQ boq is also a webserver/phpBB/Sql database), however even the cheapest PCMCIA cards can recieve data faster than 1M/sec. And if you are on the same cable company that I am, there's NO way that you are recieving anywhere near the 1.5m d/l cap...

I am just a bit confused, a hub (or multi-port repeater) will transmit (or re-transmit with a signal bump) to all ports and the exact same speed, so as long as your EQ box is getting data at say, 600k/ps, then ideally your SEQ box is getting the exact same data at the exact same rate.... even if on a 10base PCMCIA card...

please correct me if I am totally wrong here.

[showeqnewb]

I dont have a 100mb Network for Cable or EQ. I have a 100mb Network because I like to throw LAN parties.

Trust me 16 people can seriously eat up the 100mb network very quickly!

[falkore]

I dont have a 100mb Network for Cable or EQ. I have a 100mb Network because I like to throw LAN parties.

This has nothing to do with what I am talking about.

100 or 10 makes no difference. Seq can only decode as fast as it recieves packets. Your internet connection is the bottleneck.

Lost my train of thought.

[Jynx]

When you succor/evacuate in the same zone a new key is used for the encryption. Normally when you load a zone the player profile, player items, zone spawns, zone begin data (send and receive) are sent. When you zone into the same zone only the zone begin data( to the server ), zone spawns (seems to only be a small subset, possibly only the ones that may have been missed while reloading), and the player items. The player profile is not resent which is needed currently to figure out what the true key is.

The best way to handle this is to reset the spawns when you get a Zone Begin From the server and to reset the decoder when you get a Zone begin from the client. A reset can also be done from a zone change if the current zone and the new zone are different.

One other snag is that the decode library requires the PlayerProfile to determine the key. Since there is no player profile being sent the key will not be found to decrypt the ZoneSpawns. A possible fix is to add another function to the library that can check the possible keys with the ZoneSpawns instead of the PlayerProfile. I am only guessing at the way the decode works and not sure if this is possible.

[ladybat]

Ive been debating updating my libeq for similar reasons...

But Ive found a few tricks that seem to help...some I think have been posted here....

I run multi accounts at once...so the old "pet" trick if making a pet within the first 30 secs or so seems to often force the key issue and the zone decodes....

Also having a player come IN game ( like if I am in a zone and having trouble I often camp out one charecter in addition to the one IM monitoring....then bring THAT charecter in after I myslef have come back in game...this often forces a key and zone decode for some reason)

not sure if the above helps you or not but you could try it

[wfj5444]

I know this HAS to have been asked before but I can't seem to find it...

In relation to this is there anything you can do to make the zone decode if you start a SEQ session after you have entered a zone?


Lets say I logged in, forgot got to start SEQ. Load it, and open the map after Char has logged in zone. Now can I do anything other than zoning to start the decode?

Anyone know?

[Dedpoet]

The answer to your question is "sort of." If Seq finds the key, you can get new mobs to show up as they spawn. However, without the initial zone-in info you will not get the map auto-loaded and you won't get the whole zone to decode. The best way is just to zone or camp. If you're in a group, just tell them that you just lost your mouse pointer or something and you have to camp real quick...works for me.

[Mr. Suspicious]

showeqnewb:
Have a Linksys10/100 4port router and due to the fact that it is a switch and not a hub I have another Linksys 5port 10/100 hub uploading to the router.


Funny how you mention you have a switching Linksys Hub because you're router is a switch. Make sure everything running from that hub is on the same PLANE (all 10MB or all 100MB) or get yourself a real repeater (something that doesn't use two planes and realy repeats to all ports of the hub.) For more info, read the other 250 posts about this subject that pop up if you search (http://seq.sourceforge.net/search.php?s=) for "linksys"

[showeqnewb]

Ummm.. that statement was letting you know that my router was a switch and not a Hub.

Hence the reason that I threw a Hub off of the Router, seeing how SEQ will not decode from a switch!

This problem has nothing to do with equipment, it has something to do with SEQ.

It was working, now it is not - plain and simple!

[falkore]

I am pretty sure that unless you catch it in about the first 3 or so seconds, there's nothing that you can do.

Reason being is that EQ sends all the mob information in the first flood of packets, after that it's just updates, and what it's got on it (if you loot it).

[showeqnewb]

All the information is there, because if I shut down SEQ, turn SEQ back on then succor it decodes just fine, but if I do not turn SEQ off and on it doesnt decode.

[S.H.E]

YES!!

Restarting SEQ before you succor will allow everything to decode properly 100% of the time.

This point to something that SEQ is missing during the succor?

[fryfrog]

i don't really know what kind of crack you are smoking, but i have always decoded after succor. i succored 3 or 4 times in jagged pine w/ no prob, and UP also.

[Gullork]

Nope, I have to admit, that it happens to me and a friend of mine also. Succored last night and I decoded everything except all spawns were unknown, friend didn't even get map up.

Not a big deal to me, but just thought I'd throw the info out there for validation.

[fee]

I know where the problem is and a fix is in the works. Its a pretty heafty rework and it should be complete in the coming weeks(1 to 2).

fee

[showeqnewb]

Yay, I am not crazy!