I was playing on Sabrada and bought a bunch of dirty water to stock my tree farms and a few minutes after stocking them, I went back around to each one to see if they needed fertilizer and I noticed that the dirty water I stocked wasn't showing up. I thought maybe it was an inteface glitch, so I relogged and still no stocks. I then thought maybe it was just slow in processing the transaction and waited about 10 mins and it still didn't show. I didn't have the credits I paid to buy the stocks with or the stocks on me and I went to the wells to check and they were still out of dirty water.
I thought I saw some weirdness like this before but wasn't real sure what was going on but this time, because it happened the way it did and since I went back and verified it, there is no doubt that something just isn't quite right...
I don't care about the credits or the stocks, I just think that this issue should be looked into and fixed if possible.
Stocks not showing up
it sounds similar to an intermittent problem thats happening on Republic and Ariya.
Its most confusing because i cant see anyway it can happen, and i've been thru the code a few times now... All transactions work by the client sending a message to the server, which verifies and completes the transaction, and only then (when its all been successful) does it send a message back for your client to update its record of the building. (i.e. if you see the change on the client, then its already been done and confirmed on the server..)
So, all very weird.. Is high on my list to fix as it seems to be affecting more n more ppl lately. If only i could find a reliable way of replicating it...
Its most confusing because i cant see anyway it can happen, and i've been thru the code a few times now... All transactions work by the client sending a message to the server, which verifies and completes the transaction, and only then (when its all been successful) does it send a message back for your client to update its record of the building. (i.e. if you see the change on the client, then its already been done and confirmed on the server..)
So, all very weird.. Is high on my list to fix as it seems to be affecting more n more ppl lately. If only i could find a reliable way of replicating it...
mmm.. after an hour investigating that, i've started to think the problem might lie elsewhere.
There is one route through the transaction code that doesnt explicitly print an error message - which is when you try to add, say, 10 wood to a building, but you have less than 10 wood in your inventory. This should never happen, coz the client wouldnt let you add 10 wood if you didnt have it in your inventory... But... if the client's inventory had got out of whack previously, then you might think you'd added the wood when the server hadnt actually done it.
This doesnt quite fit the bill (because the wood wouldnt appear in the building), but after a relog, when the client's inventory gets redownloaded, it would appear that the wood you added had disappeared from both your inv and the building. Kinda.
Anyway, i've added an error message to the 0.49.6 server, so if this is the cause we should start getting reports of ppl seeing "Inventory error - You don't have enough of the item in your inventory..". If anyone does see this, let me know here and then its just a matter of working out how the client's inv got out of whack in the first place..
(p.s. coincidentally if just located one occasion where the client inv can get out of sync with the server, but unfortunately its only when a god/sysop does a *grantitem with a negative value... so that doesnt explain why it would happen on the republic (and im guessing there were no gods around removing items from you on sabrada at the time the problem occured?) )
There is one route through the transaction code that doesnt explicitly print an error message - which is when you try to add, say, 10 wood to a building, but you have less than 10 wood in your inventory. This should never happen, coz the client wouldnt let you add 10 wood if you didnt have it in your inventory... But... if the client's inventory had got out of whack previously, then you might think you'd added the wood when the server hadnt actually done it.
This doesnt quite fit the bill (because the wood wouldnt appear in the building), but after a relog, when the client's inventory gets redownloaded, it would appear that the wood you added had disappeared from both your inv and the building. Kinda.
Anyway, i've added an error message to the 0.49.6 server, so if this is the cause we should start getting reports of ppl seeing "Inventory error - You don't have enough of the item in your inventory..". If anyone does see this, let me know here and then its just a matter of working out how the client's inv got out of whack in the first place..
(p.s. coincidentally if just located one occasion where the client inv can get out of sync with the server, but unfortunately its only when a god/sysop does a *grantitem with a negative value... so that doesnt explain why it would happen on the republic (and im guessing there were no gods around removing items from you on sabrada at the time the problem occured?) )
FYI, there were no Gods on (that I know of) at the time this happened.
Yeah, the direction your investigation is taking kind of brings to mind a few other interesting problems that might be linked somehow or may be symptoms of a bigger problem. They fall into the category of communication or possibly pointer type errors.
At times, houses and other buildings report inventory they do not have (and have never had). I've seen the inventory spinner in buildings and the credit spinner at the bank go way past the available inventory or credits. When the client goes to validate a transaction concerning invalid items, quantities or credits, the transaction is denied (as it should be) but there is something funny happening because a house shouldn't suddenly get a detailed inventory of a car dealership, a steel manufacturer or a butcher somewhere...
Also:
The other day, I was playing on Sabrada traveling around buying and selling and as I was traveling (on my Ninja I think) I was suddenly in the air sitting still like I was in spectator mode (but I wasn't) and I suddenly lost control of my character, it started floating around on it's own. I was pretty sure there was a communication problem, so I closed the client and reopened it and the problem went away. There were quite a few people on at that time and I don't think anyone was messing with me (not intentionally anyway).
It seems as if packets that should have been going to another client were somehow being sent to mine. On the other hand, though it might seem unlikely that the client was simply reacting to random bits of corruption entering the data stream from a communication error or some faulty hardware somewhere, I wouldn't rule that out either at this point...
In the past, I've lost lots of hair over stuff like this, so if there is anything I can do that will help you pin this down, don't hesitate to ask. In the mean time, I'll see if I can reproduce any of this strange behavior somehow but at this point, it all seems pretty random.
Yeah, the direction your investigation is taking kind of brings to mind a few other interesting problems that might be linked somehow or may be symptoms of a bigger problem. They fall into the category of communication or possibly pointer type errors.
At times, houses and other buildings report inventory they do not have (and have never had). I've seen the inventory spinner in buildings and the credit spinner at the bank go way past the available inventory or credits. When the client goes to validate a transaction concerning invalid items, quantities or credits, the transaction is denied (as it should be) but there is something funny happening because a house shouldn't suddenly get a detailed inventory of a car dealership, a steel manufacturer or a butcher somewhere...
Also:
The other day, I was playing on Sabrada traveling around buying and selling and as I was traveling (on my Ninja I think) I was suddenly in the air sitting still like I was in spectator mode (but I wasn't) and I suddenly lost control of my character, it started floating around on it's own. I was pretty sure there was a communication problem, so I closed the client and reopened it and the problem went away. There were quite a few people on at that time and I don't think anyone was messing with me (not intentionally anyway).
It seems as if packets that should have been going to another client were somehow being sent to mine. On the other hand, though it might seem unlikely that the client was simply reacting to random bits of corruption entering the data stream from a communication error or some faulty hardware somewhere, I wouldn't rule that out either at this point...
In the past, I've lost lots of hair over stuff like this, so if there is anything I can do that will help you pin this down, don't hesitate to ask. In the mean time, I'll see if I can reproduce any of this strange behavior somehow but at this point, it all seems pretty random.
i've had it happen many times 2 sabradas ago.
baught 1k trees, took them to my lumber mills, added 500 to each of em. checked back 2 mins later to find em all gone. could relog to see the stuff still gone and have it happen again right away.
happened many times during the worlds running, sometimes twice or three times in a row
baught 1k trees, took them to my lumber mills, added 500 to each of em. checked back 2 mins later to find em all gone. could relog to see the stuff still gone and have it happen again right away.
happened many times during the worlds running, sometimes twice or three times in a row
I still haven't figured out what happened to cause the problem I had in the original post but I think I can tell you how to reproduce a very similar problem I had tonight involving of all things undrinkable water (again).
This time, I was buying undrinkable water from another player using the marketstall option and I noticed that the item didn't show up in my inventory. I got charged for the item and the other player said the item left their inventory. We thought this was very strange (and very familliar considering my earlier post) and we were able to duplicated the problem 2 more times as well as confirm the credit transfer had actually taken place.
I didn't receive any notice or anything but after looking at the situation closely, I realized that that I already had 16 items (the maximum on sabrada) in inventory at the time I purchased from the marketstall. It seems as if the transactions were processed normally except for the fact that the items just disappeared.
This one looks like a totally different bug but I believe it can be duplicated pretty easily and I thought it might help track down the source of the original problem.
Let me know if it helps.
This time, I was buying undrinkable water from another player using the marketstall option and I noticed that the item didn't show up in my inventory. I got charged for the item and the other player said the item left their inventory. We thought this was very strange (and very familliar considering my earlier post) and we were able to duplicated the problem 2 more times as well as confirm the credit transfer had actually taken place.
I didn't receive any notice or anything but after looking at the situation closely, I realized that that I already had 16 items (the maximum on sabrada) in inventory at the time I purchased from the marketstall. It seems as if the transactions were processed normally except for the fact that the items just disappeared.
This one looks like a totally different bug but I believe it can be duplicated pretty easily and I thought it might help track down the source of the original problem.
Let me know if it helps.