Dominion mod 3 synch error

[lovetrek]

Hi, after playing about 140 turns of dominion mod 3 multiplayer we seem to be getting random synch errors, it is not always on the same turn but we cannot make it a turn or 2 without a crash. We tried rebooting both computer but no luck. Any ideas? Are there debug logs somewhere to check what is happening? I noticed there are 2 mods that have multiplayer in the name. Are those the only mods that are known to be solid for multiplayer?

[thunderchero]

9 times out of 10 sync error are caused by human player.

see this post
viewtopic.php?p=12607#p12607

summary;

if you click the "turn" button twice, sync error every time.

[lovetrek]

We just tried , fresh reboots, do nothing each turn. Host always clocks turn second. Do nothing but click turn once and do not move mouse. We load the game at turn 141 and can never get past turn 144 doing this click turn not test. We are sitting beside each other and not going too fast. Any ideas?

[thunderchero]

aio version you are playing? (BOTF All in One 2.0.0 or All in one 2.0.1 beta 2)

issue may already be part of current save? if you have older one you might go back.

if you still have any save you can also attach them next time you post.

[lovetrek]

Hi, we are using the 2.0.0 all in one. I attached the save file.

thx.

[thunderchero]

so many errors for ships I can't make heads or tails of possible issue.

If Flocke has time he might look at it, but I would say file is corrupt.

[lovetrek]

So what do you recommend? Should we abandon it? We spent a few days playing to get to that point, if I can tell what not to do to not have it happen again it would be great. We did not create any custom ships, just played with what shipped with the mod.

Thx

[thunderchero]

So what do you recommend?

read and follow all suggestions in this post
viewtopic.php?p=12607#p12607
also many have suspected that over-writing a previous saved game can also cause corruption.
so create a new folder and name it "blank saves"
or extract this zip folder to install path

blank saves.zip

(1.96 KiB) Downloaded 45 times

once you have filled all save slot copy those save and place them in a new folder named "backup saves"
copy blank save into install path.

this way if you keep rotating files you should have last 12 turns as backup at all times

Should we abandon it?

if you don't have an older save you could try I would say yes, abandon it

[Flocke]

If Flocke has time he might look at it, but I would say file is corrupt.

Great you uploaded the save, I'll add this one to my todo list!
Given I am currently fixing UE save game editing issues and mod compatibility, I actually might have a look at this soon.
Current UE however still is incompatible to UDM3 and needs to be fixed first.

What you might try is unset all fleet movement and avoid battles. If that doesn't help, it is likely an AI issue. That case you could try remove all AI fleets to see if that helps. For now this however needs to be done by hex editing. And even the hex file extraction is broken with UE in part..

Is there any crash log btw?

[lovetrek]

How do I look for the crash log? Thanks for all the help from you folks.

[Flocke]

How do I look for the crash log? Thanks for all the help from you folks.

When the game crashes gracefully, in the game folder where you find trek.exe, the error is appended to the crash.log file.

[thunderchero]

I did check your saved game with new version of UE here is the errors it found/fixed

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Warning: in gameInfo: Invalid player empire mask: 6 (fixed)
Information: in SystemEntry: Planet shift: Missing system trait for Klaestron planet type 1. (fixed)
Information: in SystemEntry: Planet shift: Invalid system trait for Klaestron planet type 6. (fixed)
Information: in SystemEntry: Planet shift: Invalid system trait for Azha planet type 7. (fixed)
Information: in SystemEntry: Planet shift: Missing system trait for Merik planet type 1. (fixed)
Information: in SystemEntry: Planet shift: Invalid system trait for Merik planet type 6. (fixed)
Information: in SystemEntry: Planet shift: Missing system trait for Landris planet type 1. (fixed)
Warning: in alienInfo: The Cardassians have an unknown diplomatic status: 8

"Invalid player empire mask" may have been your main issue?

here is edited saved game saved after integrity check, if you are still interested in testing

game6.sav

(259.02 KiB) Downloaded 37 times

no promises, good luck

[Flocke]

Code: Select all

Warning: in gameInfo: Invalid player empire mask: 6 (fixed)
Warning: in alienInfo: The Cardassians have an unknown diplomatic status: 8

"Invalid player empire mask" may have been your main issue?

Huh !? Empire mask 6 tells me they are playing 2 = Federation and 4 = Dominion. I don't think this is a save issue, but rather just another issue of UE.
The planet shifts you can ignore, I already renamed it to "Planet shift" and "Information", cause they always stay to what they initially were set to.
The diplomatic status looks interesting, but likely is not related to the sync error either.

I won't find time the next few days, but I'll take a look next week. So far, what you can try with newest not yet released UE is to incrementally remove task forces and see if that helps. At least one task force must stay, since when all are removed the game crashes too.

edit: I messed empire numbers, it is Federation & Dominion, not Dominion & Romulans

[Spocks-cuddly-tribble]

EDIT:

Empire mask 6 tells me they are playing 2 = Dominion and 4 = Romulans.

0x6 should be bits of the second and third empires (IDs 1 fed & 2 dominion)? https://kb.iu.edu/d/afdl

The planet shifts you can ignore, I already renamed it to "Planet shift" and "Information", cause they always stay to what they initially were set to.

Correct, IIRC the planet shift random events or monster attacks don't remove outdated planet type bits in the systInfo planet features bitmask.

This indicates random events ON (cf. alienInfo below).

Code: Select all

Warning: in alienInfo: The Cardassians have an unknown diplomatic status: 8

The diplomatic status looks interesting

Some of my patches use for empires unused areas in alienInfo. The first quote/patch uses the cardassian entry (just in case that's the problem):

bitmask ds:5A2B78 checks whether the selected monster has already previously been generated:

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44B27F     cmp     [esp+eax*2], 24h // borg race-ID
44B284     jz      loc_ 44B382 // if borg (-> sub_44F264)
44B28A     mov     eax, 1
44B28F     mov     ecx, ebx
44B291     mov     edx, ds: 5A2B78
44B297     shl     eax, cl
44B299     test    edx, eax // if monster previously added
44B29B     jnz     loc_44B347 // exit no monster
44B2A1     mov     ecx, edx
44B2A3     or      ecx, eax
44B2A5     mov     ds: 5A2B78, ecx // update bitmask

Note: Due to inproper programming, ds:5A2B78 is not stored in the savegames i.e. works only for the current session

Fix example by switching to an unused savegame area: ([alienInfo+3C] untouched cardassian entry/since for minors only)
-> at 0x4A693 & 0x4A6A7 change: 78 2B to: 4C 20

Some more patches using alienInfo: viewtopic.php?p=51581#p51581

[Flocke]

0x6 should be bits of the second and third empires (IDs 1 fed & 2 dominion)? https://kb.iu.edu/d/afdl

Yeah, indeed, in the hurry I missed that for the bit mask the numbers ofc all are shifted. Anyhow, that message was an UE bug that I fixed, no game corruption.

Some of my patches use for empires unused areas in alienInfo. The first quote/patch uses the cardassian entry (just in case that's the problem):

The alienInfo race status is only set weird for the Cardassians, all other races have a status of 0-2 (Independent, Subjugated, Member).
It is the last 4 bytes of first entry at 3Ch, and testing around in a single-player game it randomly is set to a shifted value of 08, 20 or 40.

This occures after having played a dozen turns, I however didn't identify any specific event. When I reload a previous save I again have to play another dozen turns for it to occure and it is set to another value.

It further doesn't seem to matter what race status is set. When I modify a vanilla game and set the status it doesn't seem to have any effect either.
Therefore I patched UE for now to handle that weird value.

---

Having fixed some further UE issues, I now managed to have a look at that save. Beside the already listed issues, I found that some task forces have some order id set, that doesn't exist. This I however also found in other working vanilla save games, so I guess that one doesn't matter either.

Changing the game to single-player and progressing 4 turns, I however found that the game repeatedly crashes with:

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Version Under Test: 72
File: ..\..\source\game\solarapi.c, Line: 5279, query != NULL
Initialize State: 31
Player Empire: 2	Starting Seed: 1647748183
Galaxy shape: 2	Galaxy Size: 2

The very same error occures as soon as I select the Beta Piscis system, both on map or in build screen, and already with the attached save above.
This matches with the error report over here: viewtopic.php?p=30047#p30047
By that it seems to be a specific random event that corrupted that system.

By my feeling this easily might relate to the reported sync error, so I'm further investigating this.