constant crashes

[Dedge]

why does the server crash every few hours?

[wangxiuming]

Oth.

Oth.

Oth.

We love you Oth <3

[Garn Greymoon]

At the end of the day, the software nwn2 uses is well over a decade old, it will have bugs, it will crash. Manually save often, good rule of thumb is every few minutes (it's only 1 click via the pctools menu).

[Druchii]

A DM is holding a big event at peak hours.
A DM is holding a small event at peak hours.
Oth
Maecius was playing with the wires again
We're getting DDOS'd by a Russian NWN2 private server
Oth.

Never change Train.

[Endelyon]

As a more serious answer, I've researched some crash logs over the last few crashes and it seems like the culprit is indeed memory crashing yet again (the same old "too many maps" problem we've been facing for a while now). I know Zanniej and Dagesh are taking steps to work on the server split which will fix most crashes that we're currently experiencing (and have been experiencing in heavier periods over the last couple months since area builder activity has dramatically increased). Unclear currently if temporary measures will be taken to reduce the issues in the mean-time (since the possible solutions all suck--removing more areas, reducing the max player count, setting the reset to 3-4 hours), but dev staff is aware of the issue and we'll work to fix the problem one way or another.

I know personally how frustrating it can be to lose progress and have RP/parties interrupted. The best advice I can offer right now is use the PC tools to save your character frequently, and try to do any critical activities like RCRing or muling right after a server reset for the best chance of getting it done without a crash interrupting and possibly eating your items/exp/etc.


Some minor tips to help with these situations in the mean time for anyone reading:

- If you are handing over gear for someone to hold for you while RCRing, ask them to use the Save Character button or log out (as logging out also will save their character) immediately after handing them the gear/gold. Then, log in to your new character and accept the items back, and then hit the Save button or log out yourself immediately to save your own char after receiving the items. Your character will be saved on a successful acquiring/unacquiring an item, however, this automatic save can only happen once per few minutes, so you cannot rely on it to save automatically. You NEED to hit that save button manually or log out/in successfully to save.

- Likewise, it is important to remember that resting is not guaranteed to save your character. If for any reason the rest is interrupted, or you've recently acquired/unacquired an item and had an automatic save in the last few minutes, your character will not save when you rest. It's better to avoid this slim possibility of failure of the auto-save and again, save manually with the PC tools button each time you rest, or, if you're more obsessive, between each group of monsters. This will keep you from losing experience or loot you've gained in the area.

- Keep 10-12 inventory spaces free at all times. When you log into the server, it cycles your equipment off of your character, into your inventory, and back onto your character. If you don't have enough free space in your inventory, some (or all) of your equipment might end up the ground. If you have the unfortunate luck of the server crashing before you have time to pick it all back up (which you can only do at the slow pace of 1 item per round) then some or all of that gear will be lost since your character will have been saved at the unacquire event (or in simpler terms, the instant you dropped all your stuff). This is really more of an "all the time" tip, but even moreso for now.

- Do NOT use campfires or drop items on the ground for muling, just don't do it. If you need to mule, get a friend. If you don't have a friend to help, just hold off on muling the items until a physical person can help you. It's not worth the risk right now, and the influx of item replacement/character rollback requests during these crashing spells reaches meme levels, inundating DMs (or admins in the case of rollbacks) with huge amounts of work that could be prevented by simply playing it safe.

- Last but not least, if you take anything out of your packhorse or your storage, save your character manually right away using the save character button or the log out/log in method. As soon as you remove the item from your bank/horse, it is gone from the database and will still be gone even if the item gets erased from your character because you didn't save.

If people are really careful most of their headaches about lost exp and items can be avoided. The headaches about interrupted RP and disbanded parties I don't have any tips for, unfortunately, but maybe someone else has some.