Zugg Software :: View topic

Newbie Joined: 18 Sep 2002 Posts: 4

Everytime I get the little thing that asks for an update I download it. Once upon a time I didn't, but now I'm forced to. You see.. I did it once.. and the version I downloaded crashed like hell. Since then, I'm obliged to download the next version and hope it doesn't crash like hell. So far, new versions usually crash more than previous versions.

This latest version crashed 6 times in my first hour of operation. Zmud absolutely DIES when you try to manage multiple sessions.

Posted: Thu Apr 08, 2004 11:37 pm

If you are going to waste all of our time with a post like this, the least you can do is add some useful information like the VERSION OF WINDOWS you are using.

Given the FACT that I'm getting fewer bug reports from the 7.x versions than any previous version of zMUD and that a huge majority of people are having no trouble at all, and you even admit that you have always had trouble with upgrades, did if EVER occur to you that maybe it is YOUR COMPUTER that is messed up?

Geez.

Apprentice Joined: 01 Aug 2003 Posts: 100 Location: USA

Funny, I play multiple MUDs at a time and have no problems at all. In fact, these new versions have speeded up response time on all of my triggers considerably. Keep up the good work Zugg.

Newbie Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 4 Location: USA

I just read you response to this post and I was a bit surprised. I am also having this problem. Ever since I downloaded the new version, it has been hanging and crashing constantly. I use windows XP since that seems to be very important for you to know. I have purchased your software and would think that you would be a bit more helpful to your paying customers. I posted on your forum yesterday and have had no response. I also sent an email, hoping maybe someone would be kind enough to give me a hand. I have done everything I can think of to do. I have had a great experience with your software for the most part but this is very frustrating and I can't seem to find a solution on your site. So, if you do read this, would you please respond and let me know if there is some way to fix this problem? I appreciate your time!

Thank you!

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by Kahleah

I just read you response to this post and I was a bit surprised.

I think Zugg is under some preassure at the moment. The title of the topic for this thread "... *suck*" probably caused this to happen.

quote:

I am also having this problem. Ever since I downloaded the new version, it has been hanging and crashing constantly. I use windows XP since that seems to be very important for you to know.

Different versions of Windows are different Smile

. It might be that some library has changed slightly or introduced a bug. Wrong versions of the wrong files can also cause wrong behaviour.

quote:

I have purchased your software and would think that you would be a bit more helpful to your paying customers. I posted on your forum yesterday and have had no response.

Currently there is a weekend so one should not expect any reply for a few days.

quote:

I also sent an email, hoping maybe someone would be kind enough to give me a hand. I have done everything I can think of to do. I have had a great experience with your software for the most part but this is very frustrating and I can't seem to find a solution on your site. So, if you do read this, would you please respond and let me know if there is some way to fix this problem?

I had once written this 10.000 line program and finally decided to show it to some friends. Within seconds the entire program crashed! I was in a huge surprise - I had debugged it for hours and it had worked perfectly. Of course what the user said was simply: "It crashed." which means you would have to go through the 10.000 lines without much idea of what's wrong.

I think I heard zMUD is above 100.000 lines of code. To only get the report "It doesn't work" doesn't help finding the bug. You should tell _why_ and _when_ it doesn't work.

To find the crash issue you might want to consider posting how you use zMUD. Do you have any triggers running? What features do you use when the crash occurs? Is the database/mapper open? Do you use the mapper plugin? What MUD are you connected to - does it happen when you aren't connected? Does the MUD use MXP/MCCP? Does it work if you try with a clean set of settings? Does it work on another MUD? Are you playing just one MUD at a time or are you running in more than one MUD? Have you tried a clean reinstall? What version of Windows are you using? have you patched Windows using Windows Update? Are you using the latest graphics drivers? Have you checked MDAC? How long does it take before it crashes after zMUD has been started?
Also what error message do you get? Are you running as an admin or user?

I hope you manage to get zMUD up and running properly. It sure is frustrating when you get these odd issues.

Good luck

Newbie Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 4 Location: USA

Thank you very much for you help in this matter. I'm sorry if I sounded a bit gruff, but I've been trying to fix this for days now and I'm incredibly frustrated. I've got a few ideas on what I need to do. My use of the mud is simple. I have no triggers running and haven't since I reinstalled again last night. I don't play multiple muds, although I have tried a few different ones and still have the same problem. Sometimes it crashes right away and sometimes it hangs at the login screen. It seems to be worse at night, crashing more often. I have tried the clean reinstall and fresh settings and still had the same problem. I don't usually use the mapper and wasn't using it last night when it crashed over and over again. I am using windows xp and will check for my updates and see if that doesn't help. I have no idea what mxp/mccp is or how to find out which one the mud uses and I have no idea what mdac is or how to check it. I don't get any error messages when it crashes, it just goes down and I have to reconnect and login and I believe I'm running as an admin. I hope I have answered all the questions and I hope you can help me a bit with this solution. Again, I thank you for taking the time to respond.

Beginner Joined: 16 Sep 2003 Posts: 16 Location: Sweden

To me it sounds like you have a memory problem. Try running a program called memtest (ftp://ftp.sweclockers.com/pub/Fels%F6kning/Minnen/memtest86p_111_iso.zip).

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

quote:
Originally posted by Kahleah

Thank you very much for you help in this matter. I'm sorry if I sounded a bit gruff, but I've been trying to fix this for days now and I'm incredibly frustrated. I've got a few ideas on what I need to do.

quote:

My use of the mud is simple. I have no triggers running and haven't since I reinstalled again last night. I don't play multiple muds, although I have tried a few different ones and still have the same problem. Sometimes it crashes right away and sometimes it hangs at the login screen.

I guess this is the MUD's login screen? That sounds quite suspicious. It would be nice if you could post which MUD this is. That way we can check if it uses MCCP or MXP. MCCP is a compression protocol used by some MUDs to compress the output sent to the client. MXP is a protocol used to extend the MUD output with more colours, clickable links, pictures, and so on.

quote:

It seems to be worse at night, crashing more often. I have tried the clean reinstall and fresh settings and still had the same problem. I don't usually use the mapper and wasn't using it last night when it crashed over and over again. I am using windows xp and will check for my updates and see if that doesn't help. I have no idea what mxp/mccp is or how to find out which one the mud uses and I have no idea what mdac is or how to check it.

It sounds pretty suspicious that you experience that it crashes more during the night. That makes it sound like there is some lag splitting a packet or so causing odd behaviour. If the MUD supports colours you might want to try playing without them to see if that solves the issue. It could also probably be caused by MCCP/MXP bugs though.

quote:

I don't get any error messages when it crashes, it just goes down and I have to reconnect and login and I believe I'm running as an admin. I hope I have answered all the questions and I hope you can help me a bit with this solution. Again, I thank you for taking the time to respond.

It sounds like you say that the zMUD application doesn't crash but that it just loses connection to the MUD. Is that correct?

Newbie Joined: 11 Apr 2004 Posts: 4 Location: USA

Yes that's correct, the zmud application doesn't crash it just loses connection to the mud. I will try playing without color and see what happens. The mud I play most often is wotmud (wotmud.org). I hope that helps.

Thank you again! Smile

Apprentice Joined: 05 May 2003 Posts: 194

Wotmud is what i play! Who are you on WoTMUD? :D

Novice Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 46 Location: Australia

I have on rare occasions experienced losing my connection to my mud anything from a few seconds upto a minute or so after logging in .. ive assumed it was some obscure bug in the mud doing it and it seems pretty random but now I wonder if its related *shrugs*

Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 6:47 pm

zMUD is about 300,000 lines of my code. This doesn't even count all of the Delphi code from the libraries or the 3rd party components that I use.

I use Windows XP myself (since December) and use zMUD on Windows XP and develop zMUD on Windows XP. If there was a general problem with Windows XP, not only would I be able to see it myself, but I would be flooded with emails on the problem. After doing this for 8 years I have a good way to measure the severity of problems. For example, when I broke the "onwalkend" script in this past version, I've gotten a couple dozen email bug reports about it within the first week of the release. When there is a major resource leak that effects WinXP after running zMUD for 20+ hours, I got a couple dozen email bug reports within 2 weeks. The fact that I've gotten *2* email messages on the new version, which seem to be from the same people posting to this thread, tells me that this is not a widespread problem.

From personal experience, Windows XP can be quite unstable depending upon your hardware and the drivers you are using. In particular, as zMUD has gotten faster and faster, the bug with some network drivers in WinXP that crashes when it tries to send too many small packets at once becomes more of a problem.

As I responded to your email, my only suggestions are to reinstall Windows XP, and make sure you have the latest video driver for your graphics card and network driver.

If you are just getting disconnected from the MUD, that is NOT A CRASH! A "CRASH" is when you either get an error message and zMUD exits, or if Windows itself gives an error message and then reboots or gives the blue screen.

With disconnections, there is no way for zMUD to disconnect you by itself. It only disconnects when it receives a Disconnect message from the Windows WINSOCK library. There are several reasons why Windows might be sending a disconnect message. The most common is that the connection to the MUD went down.

Unlike web browsers, MUD telnet connections are PERSISTENT. This means that if any router between you and the MUD decides to reconfigure itself, or reboot, or anything else that might cause a momentary disconnect, you will lose your MUD connection. This kind of stuff happens more frequently on some ISPs than others. Some ISPs don't care about it because short outages like this have no effect on the major applications such as web surfing, email, etc where a new connection is used for each new page or request. Routers are also rebooted or reconfigured more at night than during the day when traffic is the highest. All of the increased traffic due to spam and viruses is also causing more internet problems and routers are configured more often at the ISP end to update their filters. So, there are any number of reasons why this might be happening more often at night or only on your ISP and not others.

You can test this kind of thing using the TRACERT program that comes with Windows. You can trace your connection to the MUD looking for any packet loss, and then trace it after the crash to see if the route has changed at all.

Windows can also send a Disconnect message if it receives a Close Socket command from the remote server, or if the remote server closes the connection without notice. So, it can also be the MUD doing this.

Since you are not having a CRASH but are having DISCONNECT problems, you should focus your attention on your network driver, your ISP, the route between you and the remote MUD server, and the MUD server itself. zMUD has nothing to do with any of these potential sources of the problem.

Unfortunately, I think this thread has gotten off topic because the DISCONNECT problem that Kahleah is talking about is nothing like the CRASH problem that soljax originally posted. Since soljax never even bothered to mention what version of Windows he was using, there is no way for me to address his post and my original reply to his post stands.

Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 6:49 pm

Oh, and yes, Kahleah, I DO take customer support VERY seriously as anyone who has been around these boards for more than a few weeks can tell you. I had no problem with your post, even though you probably should have started a different topic because your problem is completely different that what was originally posted.

But when I get a post like the first post in this thread and the insulting title of this topic, then obviously I'm going to react strongly. People need to learn how to post useful information in a polite way if they want fast assistance.

Newbie Joined: 29 Jul 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Russia

While I'm not entirely sure that it belongs to this topic, but I guess I'll post it here :)
In the last (or perhaps previlous version, it came out rather fast, and I may not noticed it), a strange bug with automapper has accured. Sometimes it just do not move into existing rooms, while #find works fine (I have to manually clear queue to get it back to work.) It just "stucks". Oh, just noticed that it happends also when you map new rooms too. "Hangs" instead of creating a new room.
It only happends when you in mapping mode.
The example of room desc:
University Training Field [Room 29] (code: qrfosvye)
This is a training field of Mud university. It's huge, spacious, and
usually filled with all kinds of weak monsters for students to train on.

[Exits: north east south west]

<1000/1000CP 20000/20000Endur>
Update:
When not mapping in mapping mode, (going thru existing rooms) - it stucks with 99% chance (or even 100%). When in follow mode, it's fine.
And it's rather recent bug - I have not encountered it in earlier versions... I have not mapped for some time, tho, so might have not noticed it for a version or too.

Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 7:38 pm

re-run mapper configuration, that should fix it. If you upgrade versions it seems it sometimes loses config in places.

Newbie Joined: 29 Jul 2003 Posts: 4 Location: Russia

I have tried.. and have failed. :)
And besides, I use mostly #tag scripts to get exits and names... It to get better versatility with areas I have building rights in, and where I don't have (in areas I don't have access to there is no [room "vnum"] message in the roomname), and it just don't get exits on manual config for some reason.

Posted: Mon Apr 12, 2004 8:00 pm

Olain, you should make a NEW TOPIC for your post since it has nothing to do with either the crash or disconnection issue that is being discussed in this topic.

Newbie Joined: 10 Apr 2004 Posts: 8

ah HA.. I see a problem already.. wotmud.org
I USED to be an AVID player there. however over the years with all the mods made to that circlemud. it has become and most likely still is the LEAST stable mud I have ever had the misfortune to play on.
I used to have the exact same problem. I now play on Achaea.com
completely stable MUD that has never (to my knowledge) crashed.
is user and newbie friendly. extremely large world and a command structure that is also quite large. try a few non circle type muds and see what you think :P
Z

Adept Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 224 Location: USA

Yeah, I was having problems before losing connections to muds and whatnot.

Damn that infernal software you created! Damn it to hell! It was obviously...the mud :) seriously, the mud lagged hardcore a few times and dropped some connections, which was verified from other players :)

The mud could be the problem guys, you never know.

*damn that infernal software you created damn it to hell was said with the most blatant sarcasm on the face of the earth*

SubAdmin Joined: 18 Nov 2001 Posts: 5182

I believe this topic has been properly split into actually supportable topics. If no one gives any really constructive stuff to this topic in a day or 2, I will delete it. I know people post and check the forums less on weekends so at the latest Monday, just to see if there is a constructive reason for this topic to be around.

Beginner Joined: 26 Dec 2002 Posts: 20 Location: Spain

I'm using zmud 7.03 with Win98 and have any problem, but some people have a lot of crashes whith it and WinXP. I supouse this info have no value but well I don't know more of this crashes...

MASTER Joined: 28 Nov 2000 Posts: 4817 Location: USA

Don't overreact Vijilante. Locking the topic should be sufficient if anything needs doing. I'd prefer you didn't delete it.

Newbie Joined: 02 Apr 2004 Posts: 3

I have been an active player of WoTMUD for about 3 1/2 years now and have been using zmud for 3 of those years. Granted I am in the states, and so usually have a better connection than most, but in light of what has already been posted, I would have to say the problem for you Kahleah, lies not with the mud, but with your personal computer.

I run several self-written scripts, and triggers, as well as a few of Charbal's plugins, running on Windows XP pro. The only times that I have experianced disconnection issues with wotmud, was either with a router going down for a time, or with some type of buggy code being implemented, and crashing the server.

If you are getting the login screen; i.e. the "By which name do you wish to be known as" message, then you are connecting and it is therefore most likely not a router issue.

If you are connecting to the mud, check the who list, if it has a number of users higher than say 20-30 I would say that the server itself is stable.

With that being said, I would take Zugg's advice and do a reinstall of your operating system.