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Apprentice Joined: 13 Feb 2004 Posts: 157 Location: USA

I get inconsistent access violations, null pointer errors, and even occasionally crashes, running a simple little looping alias/trigger set I have. If I sit down to test it, I can run it a dozen times and nothing is wrong. But in actual use, sometimes it runs fine but just as often it makes dramatic error messages -- though everything still works, then and afterwards. Occasionally, though, it makes zMUD unstable and crash. (Which is a very bad thing, of course, as crashing out of the MUD can be bad for my character's health.)

This "system" is two aliases which create and uncreate three triggers calling each other. The purpose is to let me specify in one line a series of commands to be executed, with me waiting for balance and equilibrium between each (this is in Aetolia). For instance, bringing up defenses, I can do this:

waitbal stand touch_mindseye touch_cloak touch_boar touch_moss touch_moon barkskin deathsight clarity

The aliases simply parse off words, replace underscores with spaces, and #exec them, then maintain three triggers which clean up after one another, to move on to the next item when I regain balance, or regain equilibrium, or when a timeout of 10 seconds passes.

The crash always happens when the process is ending, and seems to be more likely to happen if I'm typing the next thing I'll be doing while it's churning away. Here's the alias that's executing when this end arrives:

Apprentice Joined: 13 Feb 2004 Posts: 157 Location: USA

If I start a series of actions with waitbal and just watch them play out, this never happens. If, however, I'm typing or executing other commands while this is happening, it's very good odds that I'll get a crash at the end of the waitbal sequence, regardless of what I was typing. Once I've gotten one, I keep getting them on nearly all subsequent executions of waitbal.

This seems to me to point to a bug within zMUD, but I can't see how to narrow it down farther. Is there some other means by which I should report this?

GURU Joined: 10 Oct 2000 Posts: 4379 Location: USA

quote:
Is there some other means by which I should report this?

Yes, the best method is to e-mail the bug report to Zugg at [url="mailto:zugg@zuggsoft.com"]zugg@zuggsoft.com[/url]. Alternatively, if it is "beta season", a post in the Beta Forum would also work. Right now, e-mail would be the best method since there is no current beta version being tested.

However, you should try to obtain a set of steps that, when followed, will always reproduce the bug. If you can't get this, chances are that Zugg won't be able to do much about it.

Also, try hitting ESC in the Character Selection screen to obtain a blank window and create the aliases in question over there. This window has no settings, so you can assure that there are no other settings causing the problem. If you can consistently reproduce the bug in the blank window, then it is even better.