Zugg Software :: View topic - Found *serious* problem in converting zMUD *.MUD files into CMUD packages

Posted: Mon Jul 21, 2008 8:29 pm

Thanks to a *.MUD file sent to me by Zhiroc, I have uncovered a very serious bug in the CMUD conversion of *.MUD files into *.PKG files.

The bug happens if you have a complex subclass structure and the subclass record gets stored in the *.MUD file *before* the parent class record. This can happen pretty easily if you create the subclass first in zMUD, then create the main class, then drag the subclass into the main class. Since zMUD saves the class records in the order created, this creates a *.MUD file with the subclass record coming before the parent class record.

When CMUD tries to import this *.MUD file, it gets very confused and actually creates duplicate class records. In some cases (like in Zhiroc's file), you can get a corrupted case where Class A has Class B as it's parent, but then Class B has Class A as it's parent...an infinite loop in the class hierarchy. This causes CMUD to freeze/hang.

This is serious enough that I'm going to release v2.33 later today or tomorrow to fix this. It's hard to believe that nobody else has encountered this problem since it exists in *ALL* versions of CMUD.

Thanks Zhiroc for sending me your files!

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:52 am

Yeah, if you want to try 2.32 to see if it fails and then 2.33 to see if it works, that would be cool.

But you are probably correct about the general issue here...older versions of CMUD had *so* many other various problems that it was probably hard to tell exactly what was causing the hanging. It's even possible that there are still problems to be found. But this could certainly explain why some people were getting some corrupted settings files when importing their zMUD files.

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

Well, I had some difficulty getting CMUD to convert my *.MUD file automatically like it used to, but I finally managed it: not sure why it was looking in the wrong place originally: maybe as I moved my chardb.db over after I opened CMUD for the first time and had to rerun it (deleting sessions.db). I also found, both in 2.32 and 2.33 that the first time it converted my MUD file, I couldn't see any MUD windows - I just got a grey screen. Closing all windows and trying again didn't help - I had to exit and reopen and choose Connect (not Offline - that didn't create the windows either): I'll post a proper bug report on this when I have time since I did find it quite frustrating and it did give me a bad first impression and I was almost on the point of giving up when I suddenly got it to work. It may have been something to do with trying to find my *.lay file too. (Also, it kept asking me if I wanted to Import from zMUD the first time, but that's minor and has been in dozens of versions.)

But both 2.32 and 2.33 seemed to import my *.MUD file OK in the end as far as I can tell easily: there are not duplicates and no hang. I really would have expected my *.MUD file to suffer from the problem you posted about as I'm sure I would have made some settings in the root and then moved them into class folders I created later. My *.MUD file has stuff in from probably 10 years ago! Oh, or are we only talking about moving subclasses into classes? My bad! Ah, in that case it is possible I don't have any subclasses created before the parent class. (Wow, I must be so logical and organised! Wink

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Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 3:26 am

Wizard Joined: 14 Aug 2004 Posts: 1269

This was a completely fresh install for 2.32 and 2.33 (side by side). I meant that it kept asking me if I wanted to Import from zMUD the first time I ran CMUD. After that it didn't. I'm pretty sure there were no existing *.PKG, *.XLY or *.TBZ files, but I will try and verify these issues and come up with a replicatable procedure (at least with my *.MUD file).

Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:48 pm

Ah, ok, thanks for the clarification. And yes, it will always ask you to Import from zMUD if it detects that zMUD was installed on your system in the past (via the zMUD registry key) the first time you run CMUD, or anytime you delete the CMUD.INI file.

Definitely send me the files and procedure if you can come up with something.