Ver 7.0 Bug? Synch

SPWaW is a tactical squad-level World War II game on single platoon or up to an entire battalion through Europe and the Pacific (1939 to 1945).

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timc
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Ver 7.0 Bug? Synch

Post by timc »

I upgraded from ver 6.1 to ver 7.0, deleted all my saved games and started a WWII Long Campaign as Germans. First two battles, no problem. The third battle started directly after the second battle without exiting the game, starting another application or restarting the computer. At about turn 7 on the AI turn I got a message reading something like "Waiting for all players to synch" with a little clock-like disply on the lower right-hand corner of the map reading "0.00". I watched it for a while then hit escape and it went away. After waiting a reasonable amount of time for the AI turn to finish, I killed the game, restarted, restored my last save and finished the battle. The fourth battle started immediately after the third and ren with no problem. The fifth battle started immediately after the fourth and the "synch" message appeared again during the AI fourth or fifth turn.
What's up with this? Apparently the game starts thinking this is a network game.
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Warrior
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Post by Warrior »

I had the same thing happen when I tried to run an AI vs AI fight of a scenario I'm designing. However, until I know more I won't call it a BUG. More likely just something about the game I am not familiar with. If the game had one-tenth the bugs people like to claim, none of us would be here because the game would be unplayable.
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pax27
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Post by pax27 »

maybe the AI is trying to phone home?
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Post by lnp4668 »

Originally posted by pax27:
maybe the AI is trying to phone home?
Maybe with the help of the German bicycle infantry?
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Paul Vebber
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Post by Paul Vebber »

We are trying to get more info on this bug and when it occurs.

Are you hooked to a network when it happens (ie LAN, cabale modem, DSL).

When are you saving the game, or are you using the auto save? Do you play online or time games in between opening the campaign save?

Something has to casue the game to think it is being played in online mode. It could be detecting another computer attempting to connect (port scans are common)and thinking you mean to be playing that way?

Has anyone had it happen when not connected to the internet?

How destructive is it? Is it just a case of going back a few turns, or does it skip whole games?

Are you doing anything like downloading in the background behind the game?

Please post here with these details if you have run accros this.
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Post by Warhorse »

I've had this happen also, not on-line either, happens during the AI turn.I'll try to see if I can get it to do this again.The campaign I'm playing, that it does this on is a Chinese Communist one.
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Ross Moorhouse
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Post by Ross Moorhouse »

Same here. Not on-line but I had 'alt-tab' to go to the Desktop and when I 'alt-tab' back into the game it started to do the sync thing. It has only happened once so far.

[ December 14, 2001: Message edited by: Ross Moorhouse FUTURE ]</p>
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timc
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Post by timc »

Paul: I didn't do anything before this message showed up; I was in continuous battles in the campaign. HOWEVER: I think there's the possibility that my PC started one of those funky and highly irritating Hewlett-Packard update things while I was playing. That might make the game it was connected to the Internet. That theory doesn't explain why it went away when I restarted the game, but it's not a bad theory. I'm also intrigued by the ALT+TAB theory. I don't specifically remember doing that either time, but I suppose it's possible. If I did, that contradicts my first sentence. "I am large, I contain multitudes."
timc
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Post by timc »

Apparently my lasst reply didn't post so I'll try again.
Paul: No. I'm not online or hooked into a network. I have an internal modem and it didn't make any noise. Nor did I leave the campaign between the second battle and the third (when the problem showed up the first time.) I don't use auto-save (I think. At least not on purpose) I manually save at the end of my turn in save slot 4, which I call "Current Turn."
I think there's a possibility that my PC may have started one of those highly irritating Hewlett-Packard Update things while I was playing. Maybe that caused the game to think it was online. It wouldn't explaing very well why SPWAW behaved normally (for a while) after I killed it and restarted. But's it not a bad theory for all that.
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Post by Warrior »

This event happened twice when I tried to let my new scenario run through AI vs AI. Both times at approximately the same turn. I was online with Outlook Express set to check for new messages every 10 minutes. I'll bet that's what did it. I'll try to auto-play again offline and report back here.
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Warrior
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Post by Warrior »

It seems this happens even without being online. I just ran AI vs AI again - offline with Outlook Express off. The game ran 11 turns, 45 minutes, and then locked with the "out of synch" message. This is the exact same point it did this the other two times, as I now recall.
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john g
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Post by john g »

Originally posted by Paul Vebber:
We are trying to get more info on this bug and when it occurs.

Are you hooked to a network when it happens (ie LAN, cabale modem, DSL).

When are you saving the game, or are you using the auto save? Do you play online or time games in between opening the campaign save?

Something has to casue the game to think it is being played in online mode. It could be detecting another computer attempting to connect (port scans are common)and thinking you mean to be playing that way?

Has anyone had it happen when not connected to the internet?

How destructive is it? Is it just a case of going back a few turns, or does it skip whole games?

Are you doing anything like downloading in the background behind the game?

Please post here with these details if you have run accros this.


Paul I ran into it when I was running ai vs ai fights with different tanks, but only on the second battle each time after firing up the game.

My setup is win98se.
Online 24/7 with cable modem hooked up via network card, no local net.
Zone alarm firewall running with the beta mech.exe allowed access, but the new version has not attempted access yet, which leads me to believe the game wasn't actually seeing a connect attempt.
I was running Agent in the background downloading binary newsgroups. I have never had any problem with running anything in the background before. I even run Agent while playing Halflife tfc, my system is stable enough to do that.
No saves were being done since I was just comparing against results that I got with v4 with the same tests.
I never had the problem when using 7.0b6, it started with the v7 general release. If you need any other info just let me know.
thanks, John.
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Post by Supervisor »

The same thing happened to me, I was connected online, but ZA's internet lock was activated, so no action. Really really weird too. I was just starting to win too!
Oh well....
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Warrior
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Post by Warrior »

For what it's worth, I've never had this problem when playing normally, whether online or off.
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Redleg
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Post by Redleg »

I have seen the synch message several times but only in AI vs AI testing.
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Post by jekomi »

Got the same bug. Playing MCNA. My computers always on the net (SDSL)but haven't played any games online. The bug appears in the second scenario, (and always then I'm being lucky) during the AI's turn.

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Jompa
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Post by Jompa »

It have happened to me too.

I was playing i campaign-mode (vs AI)and got the sync-message. I have a LAN-connection to the internet and am connected all the time.

Another little feature... I play a hotseat game against a friend (german vs russian sept '41) and
in when I check his draws in vcr his busted BT-7-tanks appear as some US carrierplane (hard to see which one...)
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Post by rrgraham »

For me, the 'synch' bug first appeared in ver7 and has made large scenarios in SPWAW, including large scenarios in MC:NA, totally unplayable. The bug causes a unrecoverable failure... the only solution is to crash out to the desktop.

The bug recurs very predictably... I have tried to complete at least 5 times the scenario in MC:NA around El Agiela (sic?) in which Jerry retreats through a pass -- each time, on or around the 5th or 6th turn, players become 'out of synch.' Note that the bug always occurs after a kill of an AFV in OpFire.

Please note that I also suffered from the 'Yugo' bug... my machine is always connected to the Internet by way of a cable modem.

Thanks.
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Post by SJRhino8 »

I, too, encountered the "sync" bug playing MCNA (now that I can without becoming a Yugo after the first scenario--thank you 7.0!). Well into the second scenario, not online, not connected, taskbar items shut down (but not ctrl-alt-del explorer/systray shutdown), not saved (alas!), I got the missing "sync" message, as reported above, and the hourglass cursor, from which there was no escape--not even "esc"--I was locked up. When I replayed the scenario everything went just fine, with autosave, and it has not reappeared, yet, into battle #4.
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Paul Vebber
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Post by Paul Vebber »

Does it every happen to anyone with "Opfire confirm" turned off?
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