We, the DM staff, require your aid :)

The server has been crashing an awful lot lately. I've made this topic in the hopes that the playerbase can help us pinpoint the cause. So, for those of you that have been on lately when it's crashed I need a couple things from you.

-what were you doing exactly at the time of the crash?

-where were you at the time of the crash?

-what spells/area of effect's were happening at the time?

Anything that you can think of pertaining to this will be helpful and greatly appreciated.

One last thing. Please, keep this on topic, any posts made that have nothing to do with this will be edited, if not deleted. Thank you all and have a nice day/evening

Luf, the DM staff.

1. I was fighting ogres with Murkur.

2. Near the ogre camp, by the transition up to Desertmouth.

3. No spells in effect in the area so I know of.

Dora Crow was on too though, may have been spell effects on her part.

A few known things that cause crashes:

1.) Walking through an unstable transition with a familiar and/or summoned creature. Or running back through a transition and having a spawn follow you.

2.)Activating a huge number of feats (whirlwind attack) and/or spells (ice storm) during an encounter.

3.) Leaving a lot of lootable corpses lying around in multiple areas, this causes more work for the server as it has to keep these areas running even if people arent in them any more.

4.) Opening up areas with a lot of placeables. When building areas, the general rule is no more than three placeables per tile, and NEVER along the tile lines, as this causes the server to load the placable up several times and thus creates more slowdown.

My apologies to all for the crash this morning. My daughter, in her infinite wisdom, decided she wanted to play solitaire and closed the running applications on the computer that was running.

BWAHAHAHAHA!!!!

LOL

Solitaire, well that's excusable

Half my house is laughing at this right now...

Ok, back on track...And I'm glad to have made all of your days.

Crash Time 12:55 p.m. Eastern U.S. Time

1.Selling a few minor gems to Zelos Thund.
2.(Place is self explanatory)
3.I have no idea if any AOE's were in use during the time I was in there.Only mage of note that was on was Lia, but whether or not he was tossing anything about I do not know.

Not much help but ya never know something minor or subtle may form a pattern.

What Tearing the Weave said. North Tethyamar Trail, near the ogre raiders. Lia used a wand of invisibility which crashed the server. There were a few ogres and two giants on her tail.

Could she be playing solitaire again right now? Just crashed... hehe
Was sitting in the inn, drinking ale and trading... Nothing too special I think...

It crashed again. I don't know if it was me this time, but it very well could have been. Lia was shooting a gnoll in the face. It seemed to go right on a critical hit.

It was a standard spawn in their little gated community outside Wayrest.

It's 9:25am EST and seems like the server crashed at 9:20am EST. Was on Gandor Ironlock and the new monk was on... Somebody Fray.... What was I doing? Oh yeah! Was about to sneak attack a bugbear shaman while in stealth mode when there was alot of them around. Like two melee bugbears, one range bugbear, hunter, warrior and the shaman is all I remember. This was the southwestern part of the South Dagger Hills.

Well, this morning i logged in tried to leave the inn only to realize server wasnt responding........ i hope loggin in doesn't crash the server.....if so its my fault lol

Server Crashed and was just sitting in the OOC area while doing my online christmas shopping >_> I'm taking this as a sign that the gift I order at the time of the crash is not a good idea for my other half.

Venerate One wrote:

A few known things that cause crashes:

3.) Leaving a lot of lootable corpses lying around in multiple areas, this causes more work for the server as it has to keep these areas running even if people arent in them any more.

A non-trivial task would be to shorten the time that corpses decay. I think it's five minutes, and could be shortened to 2-3.

Look at cleanup scripts to see if they empty containers when junk is left in them...junk takes resources.
Kurt.

15:12 GMT

Crash with Varlan, I was fighting a group of Cultist priests and a few spectres. No spells being cast, crashed mid-melee.

I'm guessing that one was due to mischievous kittens. The whole computer was off. It seems they found the power strip...Sorry *looks abashed*

Thats why Im a dog man...

*the cat with the christmas lights comes to mind when it comes to cats and powercords*

FederOnline wrote:

Venerate One wrote:

A few known things that cause crashes:

3.) Leaving a lot of lootable corpses lying around in multiple areas, this causes more work for the server as it has to keep these areas running even if people arent in them any more.

A non-trivial task would be to shorten the time that corpses decay. I think it's five minutes, and could be shortened to 2-3.

Look at cleanup scripts to see if they empty containers when junk is left in them...junk takes resources.
Kurt.

I believe there is a possible solution: simply purge the area when there's no player left in, destroy all creatures spawned, lootable and non-lootable corpses and items left on the floor.

There are other issues associated with that...like a PC leaving an area FAST to kill the spawn, then go back and loot the unprotected chests.

Can the spawns have a timer that will scrub them after a set time, and also reset the trigger at the same time?

If you spawnkill - swipe up the spawns that still roam by leaving the area the spawns would have been reset too right? Right after? So it wouldn't matter if PCs run in and out, because the same spawn would then clubber them again Until they actually kill it, triggering another script

FederOnline wrote:

There are other issues associated with that...like a PC leaving an area FAST to kill the spawn, then go back and loot the unprotected chests.

That's curable - you need to respawn the area on enter.