Problem with Llamaserver

[PsiSoldier]

I just looked at Llamaserver and all games are gone.

There are a few waiting for pretenders but other than that every single game is gone. I think it happened within the last 20 minutes or so as I just downloaded a game file a short time ago.

Is this just a problem on my end or is it that way for everyone as I am assuming it is.

[Executor]

Yeah, same here. A really bad time for me for this to happen, but look on the bride side, at least Llama is here now, or I really hope he is.

[klagrok]

Yup it just happened as I checked it a few minutes ago :( Hopefully the turn I sent in that is due in a few hours will get there.

[Gregstrom]

This looks bad. I'd ordered a rollback on Doedicurus recently, but I don't see how that would be connected...?

[Executor]

Damn, this will turn into a disaster for me if the turns aren't delayed and don't get in.

[Zeldor]

It looks like it's not accepting turn files.

[Meglobob]

I think there is a problem with lamaserver, Doedicurus, everyone staled due to ngt fel (whatever) during host and in Qwerty, 2 nations Atlantis/Oceania had corrupt trn files. So its having a bad day, I am sure it will be fixed, hopefully.:)

[llamabeast]

Hallo! Yup, I'm here, although I've actually just got back from a weekend away. The curse got its timing slightly wrong this time, ha!

So, it ran out of disk space, and obviously went a bit crazy. I didn't realise space was low; I should be able to clear some easily enough. I think fortunately I caught it right as it happened, only a couple of games actually suffered crashes (and they can easily be rolled back). I think it just tried to update its list of games and ended up writing a blank file because of lack of disk space.

Unfortunately I'm absolutely knackered and can't face fixing it now. I shall fix it tomorrow evening, so no llamaserver for about 24 hours I'm afraid.

The big problem is going to be that I've lost all the admin passwords. This is Very Annoying, and I can't see an wasy way round it. Game admins - could you perhaps PM me with your game name and the password you want? Thanks.

Apologies everyone for the inconvenience.

[llamabeast]

Oh, I shall probably set everything to host in a week's time (of course things will host sooner if players are efficient), and certainly nothing will host without the server checking its e-mail. So don't worry about games hosting and missing out on your crucial orders.

[AreaOfEffect]

llamabeast has finally decided to intervene on our own behalf. Thanks llama, you have freed me from the trappings of this wonderful game.

Edit: Then it turned out that something was actually broken. llamabeast, why won't you let my people go.

[Incabulos]

Llamabeast you are a champ!

[llamabeast]

Fixed!

However:

1) I haven't entered the admin passwords yet (it's sleepy time for llamas now) - admins, I'm afraid you'll have to wait, probably till tomorrow evening, before you can actually do anything. If you haven't already PMed me the passwords for any games you're admining, please do so.

2) I had to recontruct all the game information from scattered clues. For most of the fields I was able to do it, but not all. As such, all games are set to host in a week (unless they just hosted). All games are set on 48 hour timers. The admins can fix this tomorrow!

Sorry about the inconvenience everyone.

[LDiCesare]

Thanks a lot llamabeast.

[vfb]

Thanks llamabeast!

But Smack is missing, and I think Lapis is missing too.

[ano]

Thanks a lot, llamabeast, but something strange keeps happening in Qwerty game (game hosted on Sunday and two players received corrupted turns. Neither asking for resend nor changing email addresses helped). Could you please look here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=38640&page=15) when you have time?
Thanks again:)

[Nihil]

In my two games, LaRueda and MareaRoja there are players missing as if they had been set to IA, is there anyway to fix this?

Thank You.

[llamabeast]

Message I just put on the LlamaServer front page:

Right, I've now input all the admin passwords I've received. Admins: go! Set your games to rights! If your password doesn't work, let me know (and let me know what it should be).

However:

1) I didn't get passwords for all the games (although I did get A LOT of messages).

2) I know there's still a couple of games with problems (a couple of new ones are missing, and on or two had nagot gick fel errors). I'll get to these ASAP.

Also this still applies:

3) I had to reconstruct all the game information from scattered clues. For most of the fields I was able to do it, but not all. As such, all games are set to host in a week (unless they just hosted). All games are set on 48 hour timers. The admins can fix this.

Cheers,

llama

--

vfb, ano, Nihil, thanks for the heads up, I'll try to take a look later on (dinner time now!).

[Festin]

I've received a stale turn in game Winterstorm, even through my file was sent ages ago. Strange.

[llamabeast]

Yeah, something bad happened to Winterstorm. I'll look into it.

[llamabeast]

Okay, most things are fixed now, but there will be some games which hosted with insufficient space that need sorting (that's going to be tomorrow now I'm afraid). Ones I know/suspect have issues:

Lochness
LaRueda
MareaRoja
Qwerty
Winterstorm

If anyone else is having issues, let me know! Otherwise everything should now be back to normal.

[llamabeast]

The above games, plus EpicBattles and World_Where_Magic_Dwells, are still damaged, mostly afflicted by a bug in the new patch. JK's already made a fix, so we're just waiting on it being made public. In the meantime I've stopped the server from hosting any turns so no more games get "nagot gick fel" errors.

It should be pretty trivial for me to rehost all those games once the new patch comes out, so fear not!

[llamabeast]

Right, I've updated the dom3 version on the server with the soon-to-be-released 3.23b (JK says it won't cause any issues trying to load turn files from it with 3.23), so there should hopefully be no more crashes. Hosting is therefore now back on. However, the games which crashed will have to wait till tomorrow evening to get fixed.

[llamabeast]

Actually I've just fixed all the crashed games, with the exception of MareaRoja and LaRueda, which the admin will have to tell me what to do with.

[llamabeast]

Oh, fixing will have looked like a rollback followed by a hosting (because that's exactly what I did). If your game crashed and it hasn't been fixed let me know.

[ano]

I can't even say "Thank you" because of terrific turn in Qwerty our team received instead of quite good one...
But still thanks for all you do for us :).

[JimMorrison]

I've come to think you do things like fill up the hard drive, to give yourself projects to practice on. ;)

Whatever the case though, you are the Llama! <3

[DonCorazon]

Not a big deal, but fyi - the scores for the game Epic_Battles are stuck on turn 57, though the game is hosting fine and is on turn 63.

[vfb]

Is the llamaserver okay? Did Preponderance crash?

Game: Preponderance
Turn number 56
Next turn due: 00:56 GMT on Monday April 6th
...
Last updated at 00:55 GMT on Monday April 6th
Current time: 02:04 GMT

[JimMorrison]

That's kind of funny, I was just about to check that. It looks like hosting Preponderance borked the server. Good job. :p

[llamabeast]

DonCorazon - the graphs should now update on the next hosting.

Everyone else - yeah, somehow the server got stuck (waiting for something to finish hosting). I'm not sure what it was waiting for, so maybe Preponderance did fail.

[fungalreason]

I'm not sure if this is related, but a few of the games I'm in seem to have the incorrect turn number displayed for the status page:

http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=Diversion (status says turn 3, game is on turn 4)
http://www.llamaserver.net/gameinfo.cgi?game=Magellan (status says turn 12, game is on turn 13)

Everything else seems to be working properly though, so perhaps it's a non-issue... e-mail messages have the correct turn number. One of them hosted without issues. Strangely even the score pages have turn 4 and 13, just not the status pages.

[Quitti]

Magellan just informed me when mailing a turn in:

I received an e-mail from you, but unfortunately there seems to be a problem with it.

Your 2h file seems to be for a different turn number to the one the game's currently on. The 2h file is for turn 13, while the game is now on turn 12.

Edit: Also beyond


I received an e-mail from you, but unfortunately there seems to be a problem with it.

Your 2h file seems to be for a different turn number to the one the game's currently on. The 2h file is for turn 25, while the game is now on turn 24.

[Donny]

Same problem happened to game DarkMistress. The game has hosted and sent turn 64 with no problem in turn file. But it is still turn 63 on the game page and I got wrong turn number message after i sent the 2h file.

[atul]

Same problem in Noobs vs Vets 2.

[llamabeast]

Hmm, how very odd. Well, I don't understand the cause, but I have set all the games back to the correct turn number. Let's hope it was a one-off freak caused by Preponderance crashing.

[AreaOfEffect]

llamaserver hasn't updated for about an hour and a half now. The MilkShake game seems to be suspended between turns. Interesting note though, I am getting confirmation notices on turns I submit.

[Scarlioni]

The game Knife is also frozen between turns. Maybe an issue with the quickhost feature?

[llamabeast]

Ho hum, I think maybe Preponderance caused this again.

I should improve the system. When a game hosts, it blocks all other games from hosting. If it crashes normally the server copes fine, but if it crashes in a certain way it seems that it never goes and unblocks hosting, so when I wake up the server has been waiting to host for a few hours. I should make it so that it won't wait more than half an hour or so I guess.

[Scarlioni]

Whatever you did it's instantly been fixed.

[llamabeast]

Yep! :)

[Zeldor]

Preponderance seems to be really unlucky. I wonder what may be causing it, as that game already had way too many crashes and weird problems.

[AreaOfEffect]

I've hacked my way into the game. Not only that, but I'm also about to win and you don't even realize it yet.

[DonCorazon]

Turn numbers are messed up on a few games on the llamaserver - there is a separate thread about it here (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?t=42830) but fyi reporting it in the llamaserver problems thread.

[llamabeast]

Fixed! Thanks for the report.

Oddly mysterious problem though...

[DonCorazon]

Llama - if you're ever in San Francisco - look me up and I'll buy you a Guinness or whatever you drink! :) thanks!

[Zeldor]

Yeah, you can get a good real Polish beer when you happen to be in Gdańsk :P

[Zeldor]

Last updated at 07:20 GMT on Wednesday April 15th
Current time: 10:45 GMT

And games are not hosting...

[Zapmeister]

Llama - if you're ever in San Francisco - look me up and I'll buy you a Guinness or whatever you drink! :) thanks!

And if any Dom player is in Hobart, Tasmania, look me up and I'll buy you a drink. More as a prize for finding the place than anything else ;)

NOTE: Tasmania is not in Africa.

[Zapmeister]

And games are not hosting...

Now, none are listed. Looks a lot like the time the disk filled up ...

EDIT: Oops, now they're back. Strange.

[Zeldor]

And it looks like they got fixed and hosted.

[llamabeast]

So I've worked out what the problem is. When the game TrueGod hosts it takes... maybe 12 hours. Something like that. Nothing else can host in the meantime, and when it finishes it can confuse other games about what turn they're on (for reasons not worth explaining but which could be fixed if I had more time). It's a bug in dom3, so I've posted the files for Illwinter. In the meantime I guess I just have to hope it stops happening.

[chrispedersen]

How about offloading True god to another server?

[Zeldor]

Down again?

[archaeolept]

down as of 3:05 GMT

[ano]

Torin says he didn't receive turn 25 for Marignon in Heracles game (Discussion (http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showthread.php?p=687198#post687198)). I am not sure if it is a llamaserver problem of course because it seems that email problems like this (each nation but one received turns) never raised up before.

[llamabeast]

No, they happen from time to time. I believe it may just be the fickleness of e-mail, although actually come to think of it the university mail server was down for a few minutes yesterday, so it was probably that.

[Meglobob]

Problem with Llamaserver? Not updated since 3am...

[llamabeast]

It's this same aggravating problem with TrueGod. While it's stuck hosting it it e-mails me every five minutes, and I wake up to a fifty e-mails or so. It's annoying that it always hosts at 4 in the morning. Hmm, actually I think I'll just postpone it so it hosts at a time when I'm awake.

It's possible TrueGod will just have to be abandoned. So far turn 50 has tried hosting 3 times, and now turn 51 once having abandoned turn 50 as a stale, and every time it's knocked the server out for a few hours till I've woken up.

[Zeldor]

Maybe you should take a look at turns there? Maybe someone has messed up .trn or .2h files.

[llamabeast]

Yep, I probably should. On the other hand I probably shouldn't, as I have lots of work to do!!

[Executor]

Llamasever OK?
It seems the turns aren't hosting.

[calmon]

Yes Chronicles_MA doesn't host. Any others too?

Maybe a hosting error in this game. I tried to force hosting but it didn't work.

[Burnsaber]

Spellchecker isn't hosting too.

[fungalreason]

same with Diversion

[sansanjuan]

same with Diversion


same with use_of_weapons

-ssj

[Lingchih]

Llamaserver would appear to be dead at the moment.

[llamabeast]

All is well again, I believe.

[Cicadian]

Did the admin passwords get reset at all? The one I set for Use_of_Weapons no longer seems to work.

[llamabeast]

They did get reset some months ago, but your password is set. I'll PM it to you.

[Toran]

Am I the only one getting a "llama's gmail account is full" message after submitting a turn?
(I mean - my turn seems to get in, and I get the standard confirmation mail, but this one is *in addition* to the standard mails).
This message was created automatically by mail delivery software.

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its
recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

llamaturns@gmail.com
(ultimately generated from turns@llamaserver.net)
SMTP error from remote mail server after RCPT TO:<llamaturns@gmail.com>:
host gmail-smtp-in.l.google.com [209.85.221.30]:
552-5.2.2 The email account that you tried to reach is over quota. Please
552-5.2.2 direct the recipient to http://mail.
552 5.2.2 google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6558 38si2560870qyk.56

------ This is a copy of the message, including all the headers. ------

[seryozha]

Yeah! I am having the same problem :S

[secretperson]

Yes, I got that too. The turn seemed to go through though despite the message.

[llamabeast]

Fixed! I have a gmail account that backs up all e-mails that get sent the server. It got full. So I just made a new one!

[lch]

llama, in case you aren't using it yet, have a look at Google Apps.

Give a domain or even just subdomain to Google and you can use all of their Apps. Including Google Mail hosting for up to 500 email boxes under your control, created instantly.

[Torin]

In game darkheavens all players received an automatic mail saying a nagot gick fel error message appeared and decided to do a mass stale turn.
That happened 2 consecutive times and seems that we can no longer play that game.
Anyone had this error before? is the game lost?

[LDiCesare]

This message means the hosting failed, so having a stale turn afterwards won't change much. You should rehost before the Nagot gick fel and hope it doesn't appear again. I don't think there's any specifically identified cause for it unfortunately as it just means something unexpected happened.

[vfb]

Oh no! Time for the llama-signal:

Game: ShaBay2
Turn number 15
Next turn due: 14:35 GMT on Tuesday June 16th

Atlantis 2h file received
Fomoria 2h file received
Niefelheim 2h file received
Tir na n'Og 2h file received
Yomi 2h file received

Last updated at 00:45 GMT on Tuesday June 16th
Current time: 04:05 GMT

It looks like the llamaserver got stuck on some game.

[DakaSha]

yeah ive been wondering if this is normal

[P3D]

Well, not normal but happens every month or so.

[vfb]

This is what normally happens if the dom exe on llamaserver gets stuck processing a game. So, in a sense, yes, it's normal. :)

It is even more normal to have it happen when Llamabeast is busy or traveling, so odds are good he is somewhere in Antarctica chairing a commission on the current world economic crisis.

[DakaSha]

noooooooo i want to plaaaaaaay

ok got that outa my system

[Frozen Lama]

Yeah geez, i want the turn to process so i can see if my 15 sidhe lord airdrop on DakaSha's Niefelheim empire worked. ;)

[Jazzepi]

This is what normally happens if the dom exe on llamaserver gets stuck processing a game. So, in a sense, yes, it's normal. :)

It is even more normal to have it happen when Llamabeast is busy or traveling, so odds are good he is somewhere in Antarctica chairing a commission on the current world economic crisis.

I'm pretty sure he's hunting polar bears with his bear hands.

Jazzepi

[Trumanator]

This is what normally happens if the dom exe on llamaserver gets stuck processing a game. So, in a sense, yes, it's normal. :)

It is even more normal to have it happen when Llamabeast is busy or traveling, so odds are good he is somewhere in Antarctica chairing a commission on the current world economic crisis.

I'm pretty sure he's hunting polar bears with his bear hands.

Jazzepi

With Bear Grylls perhaps :D

[Gregstrom]

Not the thesis crisis?

[llamabeast]

'Twas exactly as vfb says, and yep, I was travelling! As it happened though I checked my e-mail as soon as I got up, so it only lasted the length of time I was asleep (fate has got very adept at having all issues begin just as I fall asleep).

Now I am back to return to my everlasting thesis crisis!

[Sombre]

Thesis, most longwinded of the Arcoscephalian pantheon, noted for the incredible sense of freedom and relief left in her wake. Also her crushing heft.

[vfb]

Crushing heft? Perhaps this is the goddess of whom you speak?

http://i175.photobucket.com/albums/w148/vfb_dominions/venus.jpg

[Sombre]

Crushing heft not crushing cleft.

Oh how deft!

[Calahan]

Just a heads up to everyone that it looks like the llamaserver isn't currently sending out the turn files for games with it's usual pinpoint efficiency.

I know many players rely on the llamaserver email to tell them a new turn file is out for the games they are playing in. But I'd suggest at the moment in order to avoid staling in your games, that it's better to keep a close eye on the games status page instead, and ask for turn resends where you suspect your are missing a turn file.

No need to panic though folks, as I'm sure it's just that 'time of the month' for the llamaserver, and everything will be running smoothly again before you know it :)

[DakaSha]

yeah been noticing random strangeness but thanks for the heads up :)

[DakaSha]

uhm llamaserver keeps deleting my new games

[llamabeast]

Several (three) people have reported that the server has started to fail to send them new turns, although it still does resends fine.

I have no idea why this might be, but the current server is absolutely on its last legs. Its window manager has crashed and it's not even usable directly (I have to login remotely), it's running very slowly, and I daren't restart it because I don't think it will work. However, the new server has arrived and I should be able to switch to it in the next week or so. Hopefully that might fix the issues.

[Calahan]

Thanks for looking into it llamabeast. Awesome stuff from you as usual.

Edit: Like ano below, I have encountered this problem a lot over the past week or so. In fact I can't remember the last time I had an automatic turn from the llamaserver. Only mentioning this in case it helps with any trouble shooting in any way.

[ano]

Thanks llamabeast.
As a side not, I also ran into this problem more than once.

[llamabeast]

Wow, sounds like the problem is more serious than I thought! Thanks everyone for your patience until I can get it sorted. (I'm also moving house this weekend and starting work on Monday, having handed in my thesis on Friday - busy busy!)

[DakaSha]

thanks llama :)

[rdonj]

Tourmaline is gone? We were waiting on one last person to submit their pretender for the game to start and now the game has disappeared from the server. Is there a time limit a game has to fill up by or something? I have no idea what happened here.

[Burnsaber]

Tourmaline is gone? We were waiting on one last person to submit their pretender for the game to start and now the game has disappeared from the server. Is there a time limit a game has to fill up by or something? I have no idea what happened here.

This happened too with Unsanity. It had something to do with naming spell or something like that. You can read more about it in the Unsanity game thread.

[llamabeast]

In this case it was because the .map file had spaces in its name. Neither the .map file nor the .tga/.rgb file can have spaces in its name. I'll do some work on the LlamaServer soon either to fix this or to prevent people from uploading such files, since for some reason there have been a rash of people having this difficulty recently.

As for the turn files not sending, I am getting lots of reports of it now! Very odd, but I hope to get the new server running very soon. Maybe tomorrow or Monday.

[rdonj]

Huh? I thought I'd fixed that. Oh well, seems my game is started, so I guess thanks are in order :)

[LDiCesare]

As for the turn files not sending, I am getting lots of reports of it now! Very odd, but I hope to get the new server running very soon. Maybe tomorrow or Monday.

IS the problem fixed? I haven't received a turn for Pyrothere but it's slow-paced so the failed send was about 1 week ago. I just hope the resend works anf works fast now.

[Gregstrom]

LdiC: If you need a delay to avoid staling, please post in the game thread or pm me.

[llamabeast]

LdiC: I hope it's fixed. I haven't had any reports about it for a few days.

Has anyone had the no-turn-received issue since I switched the servers (Monday)?

[DakaSha]

One of the players in my acronymless game just received a corrupt turn file and stalled cause of it. what does that mean?

[Calahan]

Does anyone know what happened to the 'Last Updated' stamp that used to appear at the bottom of the llamaserver? As all that seems to be displayed there now is the "Current Time".

I found the "Last Updated" stamp very useful for telling if the llamaserver was working or not. Since (during its time of the month) when it showed that it hadn't updated for several hours, it usually acted as a pretty good indication that something had gone wrong.

Please note that I'm not saying anything is wrong with the llamaserver at the moment :) I'm just curious about the change/missing stamp.

[llamabeast]

Calahan: I hid it. I was wondering whether anyone would notice. Due to an, er, unfortunate network situation, I can't actually log into the LlamaServer at the moment. So I'm just praying it stays happy for the next few weeks until I can get my hands on it (it's at my brother's office, in a different city). However, it's got a little unimportant error that it's worrying about (and sending me an e-mail about every five minutes). So long as it has an error it won't update its last updated stamp, so basically the last updated time won't update for the next few weeks. Rather than cause mass panic I thought I should hide the time. :) (I can still log into the web server, which is a different machine.)

[Calahan]

Sorry llamabeast, you can't hide anything from this community as too many of us have cast a 999 Eyes of God :)

But thanks for the info. Good to know that the missing stamp was an intended thing and not a gremlin. And I'll start crossing the fingers that no real gremlins creep in while your 'unfortunate network situation' is in force.

[llamabeast]

Inexplicably, both of those problems (the five-minutely error, and my inability to log into the server) have fixed themselves. Hooray! The “Last updated” timer is restored.

[Calahan]

Maybe the llamaserver picked up the Chalice from somewhere and can now cure its own afflcitions :)

[Calahan]

Just a heads-up to everyone that it's 'that time' again for the llamaserver, as there seems to be an increasing number of posts about it not sending new turn files out when it's games are hosting.

During 'this time', you, the players, have to put a bit of extra effort into your games, and make sure you check the status page to see if the turn has hosted yet or not. Don't just lazily wait for the llamaserver to tell you about it, since it has its own problems to deal with right now. It takes very little effort to check a games status page, so there should be no excuses for not doing it. (and requesting a turn resend should you find you haven't received your new turn file yet)

So can I ask you all to please be sympathetic and understanding about the llamaserver's wants, needs, and emotions during it's monthly mood swing.

[thejeff]

Llama, a question/request.

I've been told that when there is a rollback the .2h files remain on the server and don't have to be resubmitted even though they don't show up on the game web page.
First, I want to be sure this is true before I force hosting.

Second, would it be possible to add this to the email sent out with the rollback? We're currently having something of an issue over in MistsOfTime which could have been avoided had everyone known they didn't have to resubmit.
Thanks