Halo Custom Edition Server help

[Cloud]

im running a halo CE server it works fine then after a while it randomly says "The Game Has Closed Down". Im also using the unify mod.

heres my init.txt

; Server
sv_name "SERVER1"
sv_public true
sv_maxplayers 16
sv_timelimit 0
sv_password
sv_mapcycle_timeout 10
sv_motd "motd.txt"
sv_rcon_password (removed)

; Mapcycle
sv_mapcycle_add DangerCanyon "HaloCTF"
sv_mapcycle_begin

I also patched it with the no cd check and no ASII limitation or whatever but not developer mode (idk what i does so i didnt check it)

has anyone had this problem or know how to fix it i talked with plenty of my fellow =CE= Members and a few members on here still no luck :(

[Patrickssj6]

Are you running SAPP?

[Cortexian]

Are you that Cloud guy from =CE=/=DG= running all those stupid SmGClan servers and competing with a bunch of kids to have the most obnoxious server name in order to attract a bunch of noobs from 1.00 that don't know any better?

Fail.

[Amit]

I was starting to wonder. Almost every SmGClan server I've seen is empty most of the time. You know why? Nobody wants to play on those servers.

Might not be him, though.

[Cloud]

Are you running SAPP?

no im not but when supersniper tried setting it up it kept crashing so we just removed it outta the init.txt and now its still crashing... heres a screen shot of the folder.


and yes Freelancer thats me lol! hey at least im supporting the unify goal in a big way.

[Patrickssj6]

And without the unify mod it runs fine?

Man I wish I could replicate that error because my code should be 100% tight...it could be that I used a faulty 1.09 to begin with...I'll check.

[Cloud]

And without the unify mod it runs fine?

Man I wish I could replicate that error because my code should be 100% tight...it could be that I used a faulty 1.09 to begin with...I'll check.

yeah idk what it could be the patcher conflicting with it? at first i thought it was to many servers so i cut back then it still kept on, I noticed though once the "The game has closed down" message pops up i can hit sv_mapcycle_begin again and it works fine? idk what else it could be..... I mean if its working fine on the modacity servers shouldnt it be working fine for me?

i ran regular 1.09 before and never had this problem. :(

windows 7 maybe?

[Patrickssj6]

We are having the same problems on the Modacity servers. Nice to know that the command brings it back up but this is really strange. The code barely touches the internals.

Can anybody send me the original 1.09 HaloCE Dedicated Server without any modifications?

[Cloud]

We are having the same problems on the Modacity servers. Nice to know that the command brings it back up but this is really strange. The code barely touches the internals.

Can anybody send me the original 1.09 HaloCE Dedicated Server without any modifications?

pming it to you now

[Cloud]

http://www.filefront.com/17877771/Normal 1.09.rar right there. but yeah strange error huh? i hope i gets fixed soon

[Patrickssj6]

Has the exe NO modifications what so ever? (patches etc.)

EDIT: You send me version 1.07

[Cloud]

are you sure??? ok sorry let me get it for you i had supersniper set it up : P i guess i shoulda known.

trying to find one now upload it when i find it

[Patrickssj6]

It was 1.07 with SAPP patch :P

[Cloud]

It was 1.07 with SAPP patch :P


i cant tell lol. well i think i found one why is it so hard to find this thing? googled it and the 1.09 patch came up..

[Cloud]

http://www.filefront.com/17877832/haloceded.rar

wow just found out its in the install folder : P knew i shoulda done it and not ss.

try that out.

[Cortexian]

I'm pretty sure I sent you the completely original 1.09 haloceded.exe originally Pat.

Here it is:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/32kddsgxe53uw2l/haloceded.exe

If you find out what in your code is causing the issue, or if there's a conflict or something, let us know what it was so Skyline can fix it in the app we're using as well.

[Cloud]

I'm pretty sure I sent you the completely original 1.09 haloceded.exe originally Pat.

Here it is:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/32kddsgxe53uw2l/haloceded.exe

thanks freelancer arent you the one hosting the modacity servers? you noticed they stopped working too?

[Patrickssj6]

I'm pretty sure I sent you the completely original 1.09 haloceded.exe originally Pat.

Here it is:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/32kddsgxe53uw2l/haloceded.exe

If you find out what in your code is causing the issue, or if there's a conflict or something, let us know what it was so Skyline can fix it in the app we're using as well.

I am 99.9% sure my code cannot cause any conflicts. I already gave Skyline all infos to implement this mod directly into his DLL.


thanks freelancer arent you the one hosting the modacity servers? you noticed they stopped working too?
Yes we had the same problems.
I just added my patch to your exe...see if it works.
http://www.vivid-abstractions.net/?p=466

[Cloud]

Ok cool ill test it out. Can i still do the no ACII limitaion no cd key check patch...ect?

[Patrickssj6]

Try it without first. If it doesn't crash, you can add everything you want.

[Cloud]

ok ill let you know how it goes

[Cortexian]

jcap hosts the servers but I help him admin them, I've got full access basically. We're using the no ASCII limitation/connect from any version/no cd key check patched from Brandini's server patcher and experience server freezes where the mapcycle seems to just stop working. We've also had a few general crashes (exceptions) that we're working on resolving. That said, we're using a custom application with this built in and we're talking with our developer for the troubleshooting since there may be conflicts or something else with the other modifications to the server.

[Cloud]

tried the new server mod it didnt even show my servers in CE 1.09 i dont have 1.00 so idk if its showing in there so far no one has joined idk if they even can lol. anyways thats the status

[Cortexian]

The program alternates back and forth between 1.00 and 1.09 server lists, it doesn't show up in both at the same time. If you don't see it try hitting "Get List" again, and I'd suggest trying it WITHOUT the other fixes from Brandini's app for stability sake.

Plus the ASCII name hack is pretty lame anyways, there's no need to be at the top of the server list unless you've got really good servers for some reason. I read the thread on =DG= about this, and I kinda agree with some of the opinions raised in there. It's childish to spam to the top, if you've got good gametypes you'll get players. You seem like you've got good intentions and are a competent server admin but spamming your server with 90% ASCII characters and 10% name is pretty bad, there's no need to be that "spammy" about it.

And you could work on your spelling and grammar as well, especially if you're posting on Modacity. It's one of the forum rules.

[Cloud]

they are up took a bit longer to get on the list this time. Doesnt modacity use it xD lol. But hopefully this works this time people right now look at my servers as crap because they are so use to DG and CE they see mine and think that but once time goes on and they realize that Modaciity servers and my servers and who ever else does the mod that its better. At 4am in the morning you actually have a variety of games in 1.09ce.

[jcap]

I'm actually glad you are having this problem as well. I was worried it may have been only my current operating environment, but now you have confirmed it is indeed an issue with the Halo server.

What I can tell you so far is that it has nothing to do with Pat's modification. No matter how he patches the exe, it will continue having this problem. My best guess is that it's the version changing that is causing the problem. The Halo server most likely has some issue with version in memory, which is causing the server to stop as if it runs sv_end_game. Since it's not actually a crash, it's hard to find out exactly what is going wrong.


they are up took a bit longer to get on the list this time. :P you use it XD
I think his point is that you don't need to spam your servers to the top of the list, and IMO it is a bad reflection when you have a server name that is 90% special ASCII and 10% relevant name. While I (and several others) do put those special characters in the server name to push it up, we at least do it within reason. For instance, we don't just make the name "MODACITY01" for the sake of being on top, and neither does the XG clan. We decide on a relevant name and then fill in the blank space with the special ASCII, and it's not a competition to be on top. Heck, if it was, we would have renamed ours a while ago to appear on top of the "paradise" servers. And I think what bothered some others was when you appeared to shorten your server names even further to appear on top again when the "fuck smgclan" servers went up. I don't know why those servers even went up (I don't really care), but this race to the top of server names is equivalent to a pissing contest.

[Cortexian]

At 4am in the morning you actually have a variety of games in 1.09ce.
Yea, this is awesome. We're bringing players from 1.00 into the dead hours of the legitimate game, which only serves to increase the amount of people who play legitimately at those hours because there's other people for them to play with.

All I was saying is that you should try running Pats "Unify" changes without the ASCII patch, then without the No CD patch, etc... That way you can see if one thing or the other is causing these freezes.

[Cloud]

Yea, this is awesome. We're bringing players from 1.00 into the dead hours of the legitimate game, which only serves to increase the amount of people who play legitimately at those hours because there's other people for them to play with.

All I was saying is that you should try running Pats "Unify" changes without the ASCII patch, then without the No CD patch, etc... That way you can see if one thing or the other is causing these freezes.

im running 1 with it how he gave it to me a few with the mods and a few with no cd patch so will see which ones the last one standing in the morning.

[Cloud]

it seem to go down again hmm wonder what it could be ...

[Patrickssj6]

It has to be the modification then but I cannot figure out why in the world. Maybe the change in the interval....but still....

[sevlag]

i'd like to bring up im unable to connect to the gulch x2 or CTF gulch servers, while i havent had any problems they now just endlessly try to connect to the server, i wonder if there is a way to implement auto download into a dedicated server in CE, allowing players to DL maps from a given host then play them so they dont need to close out halo to install new maps

[Cloud]

It has to be the modification then but I cannot figure out why in the world. Maybe the change in the interval....but still....

hmmmmm i dont know... im starting to think someone found an exploit maybe idk? or theres a glitch they seem to be running fine now and its been a few hours only 2 servers crashed and i put them back up and they are running fine.....

ive been messing with the init.txt to see if theres a way to edit it so it runs correctly or something just changing things around removing things so hopefully we can fix this im not one to let my servers keep crashing... Also are the modacity servers still having problems too?

Also what are the intervals set on? whatever you did from v1.1 to v1.2(if its not an exploit which i doubt) it seems to be working "better" not freezing as much..ect

[Patrickssj6]

I increased the interval towards the old value so that COULD be a solution (I moved it from 10 seconds to 20 seconds, the original value is 60 seconds).

Maybe Korn could shed some light on this?

[jcap]

It has nothing to do with the init or any options. It's not crashing because someone is maliciously exploiting it either. It is a random occurrence which stops the game server. As far as we can tell, it is directly related to the version switching. There may never be a proper solution to this problem unless a new method of switching versions is introduced.

Pat, increasing the interval doesn't fix the issue. I had it as high as 60000 and it still froze.

[Patrickssj6]

Great...well we will see if after Skyline implements this we have the same problems.

[jcap]

Um...he has.... I'm actually using it right now, and it's been having the same problems on a stock haloceded.

[Patrickssj6]

I don't get how this can be...Skyline doesn't even have to hook if that is a problem.

[Cloud]

It has nothing to do with the init or any options. It's not crashing because someone is maliciously exploiting it either. It is a random occurrence which stops the game server. As far as we can tell, it is directly related to the version switching. There may never be a proper solution to this problem unless a new method of switching versions is introduced.

Pat, increasing the interval doesn't fix the issue. I had it as high as 60000 and it still froze.

dont think like that jcap theres always a way ;)

[Cortexian]

dont think like that jcap theres always a way ;)
Just like there was a way to fix SAPP's and Devicator's instability issues?

lol

I have confidence that this will eventually work itself out though, Termy and Rec0 aren't around to troubleshoot their apps, Pat and Skyline are. They also seem motivated to actually work on stabilization too.

[Patrickssj6]

The thing is I can just not work out the problem because this whole process is so airtight and simple to overview:

There is a loop which calles every 60 Seconds the "Send Halo Dedicated Server Information to GameSpy".

The loop calls a get functions eventually which retrieves the version info.

We modified the function so it would call our little function first that overwrites the version info with either 1.09 or 1.00.

Then the whole process is cleaned up and returns...

and this runs flawlessly forever until there must be some scenario that conflicts.

The function is not even shared, not multi threaded and the overwriting of the version number happens inline.

I just can't think of anything failing there.

[Cloud]

an app like sapp... hmm you shouldnt make it actually into the halo dedi.exe. Make a C# app that does all of that kinda like a external server tool and yeah recon is good but takes to long and isnt reliable and can be leaked with client side apps it would be better.

[Cloud]

i see what you mean... theres no error.....it just happens. Well maybe its not what we need to fix its what we need to change. Im not very knowledgeable about CE but what triggers the game to "Close Down". Is it when the server operator ends it?. I know when you close the window it just loses connection maybe there's a way to null it from being able to close down or something.....I know it sounds stupid im just trying to think of something we can try.

[Cortexian]

The server acts like someone executed an "sv_end_game" when it freezes. The console is still running but no one new can connect, however running an "sv_mapcycle_begin" usually restarts it. Interestingly enough, I've never experienced this yet on my server running the version switching. That said, my server is only running "maxplayers 10" instead of 16 but I don't see how that could be an issue.

[Cloud]

The server acts like someone executed an "sv_end_game" when it freezes. The console is still running but no one new can connect, however running an "sv_mapcycle_begin" usually restarts it. Interestingly enough, I've never experienced this yet on my server running the version switching. That said, my server is only running "maxplayers 10" instead of 16 but I don't see how that could be an issue.

wait! you haven't had this problem??? hmmmm interesting try setting it to 15 or something and see. Also what we could do is null the "sv_end_game" command outta the server so it cant be ended if something kicks it to that...

[Cortexian]

Well I doubt its actually executing the "sv_end_game" command, I'm just saying that's how it seems to be acting. And no, my server (even full with 10 players) hasn't had the freeze issue to my knowledge.

[Cloud]

Well I doubt its actually executing the "sv_end_game" command, I'm just saying that's how it seems to be acting. And no, my server (even full with 10 players) hasn't had the freeze issue to my knowledge.

im gonna set my max to 10 see if maybe that will fix it lol! idk but random ones go down now and again.... :(

[Patrickssj6]

Actually it could call the sv_end_game because of Exception Handling because the program is not crashing.

[Cloud]

Actually it could call the sv_end_game because of Exception Handling because the program is not crashing.

we should try to null that command maybe?

[Patrickssj6]

No that's not that solution :P

[Patrickssj6]

Well it actually partially might, it came to Skyline and my mind that it might be GameSpy sending a shutdown message xD

[Cloud]

Well it actually partially might, it came to Skyline and my mind that it might be GameSpy sending a shutdown message xD

your kidding they still try to moderate this game like that..? Why would they care about this?:tinfoil: I say we null that command and see how it goes. But i did not think they could shut your server down..

[Kornman00]

Set developer_mode to a value of 4 or greater then start the cycle. If you get output beginning with "qr2_adderror_callback" then it's more than likely gamespy slapping you for changing the qr2 heartbeat time

[Cortexian]

Does gamespy even have the ability to control things on the game server machines? I can understand them blacklisting a server or something on the master server, but having access to my game server console is a little extreme.

[Kornman00]

Actually, now that I look at, I'm not even sure how it's possible 1.00 people can even join the server. 1.09 uses a different authentication message (id) than 1.00 for the gamespy api. Version changer changes this value (on top of the version string used by the gamespy qr2 protocol) which is what enables clients to connect to a different version server, but this mod isn't changing that id (0x96A27). So while this mod allows the qr2 api to report to the 1.00 side, it's still using the 1.09 authentication message.

Who's the one who tested joining from 1.00 to this modded 1.09 server, and how can we be sure they were using stock exes (and no runtime mods like version changer)?

e: They don't have access to your server's console lol. The server uses the master server for querying & reporting. If the MS decides that the server is abusing communications, then it could stop responding to the server's heartbeats. Since the server is no longer sending reports, it won't appear in the global server list for anyone to see.

[Patrickssj6]

But jcap said even with the original heartbeat this does not work...

We are using Brandons Patcher which disables the "Force a certain version to join". It's just a 2 byte patch afaik?

[Cortexian]

@Kornman00: We need to use Brandini's HCEServerPatcher.exe to allow connection from any version of the game in conjunction with the version switching code.

[Patrickssj6]

@Freelancer...I think I forgot to add it in the last version :P

Added.

[Cloud]

@Freelancer...I think I forgot to add it in the last version :P

Added.

so is the v.3 fixed :D!!!?

[Cortexian]

No he just integrated the patch from Brandini's server patcher that allows any client to connect, regardless of version. I'm running the server with Olly Debugger trying to narrow down what the crash is with Skyline, he and I have been troubleshooting all the changes we've been making with his server app. We're also trying to figure out what the issue is with Pats code since Skyline integrated it.

[Kornman00]

Oh, well I was going off what you had posted here (http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?22938-Project-Unify-Halo-Custom-Edition&p=570428&viewfull=1#post570428).

[Patrickssj6]

Oh, well I was going off what you had posted here (http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthread.php?22938-Project-Unify-Halo-Custom-Edition&p=570428&viewfull=1#post570428).
Ah yes well the patch is added additionally with the patcher.

The strange thing Kornman is though, the GameSpy not simply refuses the connection but the game just terminates. Not even crashes but just sv_end_game.

[Kornman00]

What bytes did he change (in 1.08, since that's what those images you posted were of)?

And it wouldn't really be strange. If the game detects an error in the gamespy api then it's logical for it to shutdown the server process. sv_begin causes the related things (eg, the gamespy objects) to be restarted and reinitialized

[Patrickssj6]

This is 1.09 though...
http://www.vivid-abstractions.net/downloads/Halo%20Unify/DifVersionPatch.png

Didn't look at the code but there might be a nicer way.

[Cloud]

What bytes did he change (in 1.08, since that's what those images you posted were of)?

And it wouldn't really be strange. If the game detects an error in the gamespy api then it's logical for it to shutdown the server process. sv_begin causes the related things (eg, the gamespy objects) to be restarted and reinitialized


so is it actually possible to fix this :(

[Cortexian]

so is it actually possible to fix this :(
Stop asking Cloud... Just wait, it's being worked on. These things take time.

[Cloud]

Stop asking Cloud... Just wait, it's being worked on. These things take time.



>.> i know sorry :smith: