out of sync Problems

[flash]

Today, I had massive "out of sync" problems while playing my turn with Firefox, ending in a total crash of Firefox (Version 3.6.3)

That made many mistakes in my turn (moving to the sea f.e.). Those attacks were fully intended though I wanted to test it.

[flash]

Playing with Chrome made no problems though

[SnotlinG]

Hello flash,

Did you see any javascript errors while playing?

For the out of sync, did you get the alert-popup, and the gamescreen then reloaded?
Had your units moved to unexpected locations when it was reloaded?

[flash]

I didnt see any javascript errors.

Yes, I got the alert - popup, then the game reloaded (many times). My units had move, or I have to move them again after reload. I cant exclude the one unit that moved to the sea was a missklick of me.

[SnotlinG]

Ok, its hard to tell what happened Did this happen to all of your units, or only some? Or was it when trying to move past some specific terrain/city/enemy army etc?

Let me know if you see it again and if you can repeat it. If it happens more, see if you could copy some of the debugging output (I guess that could be a bit hard as the page reloads).
I might setup a check that captures all info when the game gets out of sync if this continues to be an issue.

[KGB]

SnotlingG,

I also use Firefox and I get out-of-sync errors every turn.

This always seems to happen when click a distance greater than my unit can move. Then I click again to begin the movement. Somehow that seems to cause the out-of-sync issue that freezes Firefox and forces me to kill it via the task manager (during the freeze Firefox is locked using 100% of one of my CPU cores). The lockup forces me to kill all Firefox's that I have open.

Also with regards to the out of sync problem is that I NEVER get any sound effects during movement until AFTER I get the out of sync error. Once I get that error then selecting units and moving units gives the sound effect. I am not sure if that's related or not but figured I'd pass it on.

KGB

[SnotlinG]

So lets try to break it down.

You dont get the error when clicking the first time? (this click will try to calculate your best path, i.e. this is cpu intense for a while - I have currently set a timeout of 2 seconds, so after 2 seconds it gives up and returns the best path it currently has found. So this is what should happen for long distances, i.e. you are in danger of getting a pretty bad path-suggestion) (FYI the pathfinding "engine" is not complete yet, I have several improvments Im planning)

Is it repeatable, could you always take a unit, click a long distance path, and then when starting the movment it will get out-of sync?

After out-of-sync refresh, is the unit where you expected it to be, or did its move end earlier etc than expected?

Maybe its a problem with FF and our sound effects (not sure why this should affect the movment though), but maybe you could try to turn sound off (Main -> Settings), and see if the issue goes away?

I guess you dont see any unusal output in the debug window?

[flash]

I had that "out of sync" error today againg, after I chose to move over the water and starting (not intentionaly) the move.

[SnotlinG]

flash,
Did your unit get ordered to move to the water via an anchor?
Did you have time to notice where the unit ended the turn before the out-of-sync refresh, and where it was after the reload?

[KGB]

SnotlingG,

The worst movement path to the water problem occurs at the anchor under my capitol (game 2). That anchor is not properly connected to the land so you can't actually reach it so sending a unit there causes the move path to go crazy (but does not generate a resync) and time out after 2 seconds. This is just in response to the question you asked Flash. Any other anchor seems fine from what I have tried.

Now back to my issues. Today was the first time I have played (since about turn 3) where I didn't get a resync issue (and today I tried to get one to answer your questions better). Here are the answers to your questions.

1) I never get the problem on the initial path calculation. In fact on land based moves I have never had the 2 second timeout problem and all paths look correct (I manually check to help improve things). I only see the timeout with the anchor under my capitol as I mentioned above. I think water moves cause problems because all water is 1 movement so your algorithm probably calculates duplicate paths that are equally good.

2) I don't know if it's repeatable because once I click a 2nd time to move the unit it's moved. I can't undo the move. It definitely does not happen with every long distance move.

3) After the refresh the unit is indeed where I expected it to be.

4) I don't think it's sound related. I was just pointing that out as a possible answer

5) I don't see any output in the debug window because the browser freezes and locks up forcing me to kill it.

One more clue. As I said, today I didn't get the resync when I was trying to get it. I deliberately moved all my units more than they could reach to see what might cause it. What I DID do differently was I waited for the movement path to be calculated before I clicked the second time. In prior turns, I normally select a unit, move the mini map to where I want the unit to go (more than it can move) and then double click twice VERY fast. I think this fast double click causes the resync issue because I bet the server is trying to send back path info to my browser which is no longer expecting it and is instead looking for the unit moves.

KGB