Zugg Software :: View topic - [3.16b] Text stops scrolling normally and new gets mixed up with previous text

Apprentice Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Posts: 105

After a while of playing on Discworld MUD with CMUD 3.16b (fresh install, no changes other than adding mud) with Windows 7 64-bit, ATI Radeon 5870 graphics card with latest 64-bit drivers (catalyst 10.3) I find that text stops scrolling normally and new text starts getting mixed up with previous text, unless I scroll the window up and down which resets it temporarily. It then usually happens again, or sometimes stops for a while if I mess around with it more dragging the tab out then back in again, then comes back later inevitably. It's very annoying and offputting and makes it longer fun to connect using CMUD especially when you know it might start doing it at a bad moment. :/ it makes it impossible to read what's going on because it's mostly the old text that covers the new stuff, though moving slightly and mixing lines up when new lines arrive.

It's been going on for a long time and I stopped playing for over a year cos of it (had two different PCs too, one Vista 64 and one just plain XP had the exact same problem), but I thought at least someone should report it

I have the sneaking suspicion it's probably something to do with the MXP frame (I think it's MXP anyway) I have enabled to have the in-game map in another window:

when you're on the mud you type:
options output map look = frame
options output map lookcity = frame
options output map = doors

discworld.atuin.net port 23 or 4242

screenshot of when it's acting up after it's started doing it (usually seemingly randomly while moving with otherwise no problems before):
http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9914/cmudproblem.gif (copypaste this into new window if doesnt work and ctrl+f5 straight away after pressing enter img20.imageshack.us/img20/9914/cmudproblem.gif)

then if I scroll the window up it fixes itself:
http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/2255/cmudproblem2.gif (copypaste this into new window if doesnt work and ctrl+f5 straight away after pressing enter img405.imageshack.us/img405/2255/cmudproblem2.gif)

but then goes bad again as soon as any text is received or I move rooms

Posted: Thu May 06, 2010 5:16 pm

Does the problem go away if you turn off the MXP frame? Also, does it happen in a blank session with no scripts?

If there is a way to reproduce this quickly with a new character on discworld, then send me the exact commands and exact procedure. We have tried to track this kind of issue down in the past but nobody was ever able to provide a way to reproduce it. It's either the MUD sending some control code sequence that messes up the screen, or something with user scripts. But we've never been able to pin it down, so if this is something you can easily reproduce, please help us track this down.

Apprentice Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Posts: 105

I said it's a a fresh install, no changes other than adding mud, there are no scripts, unless you mean I should delete the system ones :/ I uninstalled cmud ages ago cos of it it's so annoying happily playing then this comes and starts ruining it unless you exit the whole program and open it again really (since "fixing" it means it comes back again sooner than usual still).

the options to turn on the map window when connected are:
options output map look = frame
options output map lookcity = frame
options output map = doors
that's the only thing in the game's options command relevant to output that is changed from default for me, but its so very useful when it actually works that playing without it feels like being blind

well, the problem is like I said it doesn't seem something that's easy to turn "on or off" like I said it starts happening after a while and it feels rather random ... I'll try to make a point of when it happens next deleting the map window and turning it off in the mud itself's options if it carries on and see if that makes a difference... never been able to work out what makes it happen so can't make it happen immediately, it just seems to happen after moving around doing stuff a while.

Posted: Fri May 07, 2010 2:22 am

I get a similar paint issue if i switch to AIM and it only covers part of the CMUD screen, hitting ctrl-z usually clears it up.

Posted: Fri May 07, 2010 4:45 pm

Apprentice Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Posts: 105

(oops delete this didnt mean to make two posts, meant to edit)

Apprentice Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Posts: 105

wellllll.... zugggg *kitten eyes*..... http://www.zuggsoft.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=156462#156462 .... if you played now and then you would be bound to see it happen and be able to work out what's causng it like we can't >.<

it's avg 200 people online... and despite the novels it's based upon having had 2 films (The Colour of Magic, and Hogfather (hehe), tho nowhere as good as the books) made of them, and 2 TV series (example), 4 other, commercial, computer games (The Colour of Magic text-based game, Discworld, Discworld 2 (hehe), Discworld Noir)... the MUD has no commercial stuff at all, they don't even take donations (I have tried to lol) - the author Terry Pratchett was knighted last year for services to literature (loads of other awards too) - he's the second-most read writer in the UK (7th in the US top 10) (a nice interview :))

There's a third Discworld film that's going to be shown this month (May) in the UK, Going Postal: http://sky1.sky.com/Going-Postal-new-trailer
And another semi-professional fan film, Troll Bridge under production (Snowgum Films did this previously too - totally reminds me of the MUD at times hehe)

The mud itself is notable enough to have it's own Wikipedia article too, something that most of the MUDs that paid for the advertising icons don't have: http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld_MUD :) it's been covered in PC magazines and been mentioned in a book called An Introduction to New Media and Cybercultures, with a paper written about it called Quests in Context: A Comparative Analysis of Discworld and World of Warcraft (I remember reading that one of the things you personally were disappointed in was how people don't play MUDs as much and instead that kind of game)...it's been running 20 years next year too :)

discworld.atuin.net on port 4242 (or 23)
it's even got a webbrowser version: http://discworld.atuin.net/external/java/newtelnet/java_client.shtml (which is rubbish compared to CMUD, yet a lot of people don't know how good CMUD can be!)

its really worth making CMUD work with it... even if you don't like it for some reason, it's a very big market... hell if you could get more people that know Discworld to exists to know MUDs exist you could get very rich lol :) if only MUDs were more advertised like commercial games are, the media noise from them about anything to do with games blots out chance people have of finding out about MUDs these days (I found out about them when I was like 11 I read something about virtual reality and multi user dungeons and thought it sounded cool so did a web search [probably on Altavista then lol])...

Posted: Sat May 08, 2010 5:41 pm

I know you love Discworld, but please stop trying to sell it. Some of your posts are bordering on advertisement.

These days I have little to no time to play *any* MUD. I'm too busy fixing other bugs, rewriting help files, etc. I'm just one person and I rely upon players like you to help with Beta Testing. If you really care about CMUD and want to help people who are playing Discworld and attract more people, then perhaps you'll put the work into tracking down this problem. I'm sure your Discworld friends would appreciate it.

But I just don't have the time to sit and play a MUD for several hours just hoping that it might or might not fail. In that time I could have fixed other bugs that effect a lot more CMUD users.

Please just to try and play for a while with the "frame" options off to see if that is related to the problem.

Apprentice Joined: 14 Apr 2008 Posts: 105

ok :/ and yes, I was trying to convince you cos I've read you say so many times now "well I haven't played discworld [so x]" and similar... fair enough if that is the reason okies, won't bother you

when it's actually happening is there any way I can get anything useful to send to you? it's happening right now thought I should mention before I turn the frame off

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

You could try disable MXP and see if that solves the problem. options->general->session->MXP/HTML

Posted: Mon May 10, 2010 4:41 pm

Probably the most useful would be a set of debug log files. You can enable these files using the command:

#DEBUGFILE test.raw test.txt

This will create those two files in your CMUD Data files directory (or maybe in the subdirectory for your MUD session). There shouldn't be too much of a performance hit from enabling these files, although it will slow down a bit. But this will log the low-level data from the MUD and I will be able to use those files to "replay" the session offline to see if I can reproduce the issue.

Just be sure to issue this command *after* you log into the MUD so that it doesn't save your login information.