Minkata Shard Update December 14th, 2015 (Build 82, updated to Build 88)

[Christian Walther]

what about the jumping explorers age list ?

[…] More will come.

If someone contributes it. To my knowledge nobody has contributed a fix for that issue.

[Treehugger]

Delighted to say that my problems have been fixed! Many thanks to Hoikas, who suggested disabling Avast and trying again. As a result I managed to update both Gehn and Minkata, and both are now working.

So sorry about all this , and grateful thanks especially to D'Lanor and Hoikas for their help.

Now for some testing! Phew!

[Treehugger]

Out of interest, when you deleted the avatar, did you find a short delay (a few seconds) after clicking the final "yes" before you got back to the avatar selection screen?

Yes, it took a while before you were returned to that selection screen, I had the time to ask myself 'Hmmm, did it work?' lol ...

Exactly. It's the temptation to click again that is a slight concern (not that it does any harm). We're not sure why there's a delay at all - maybe it's a MOSS thing. I don't think I ever deleted an avatar on Minkata before, so have nothing to compare against.

I like the new warning label but as you have both noted, there is quite a delay - 15 secs in my case. Afraid I can't remember whether I have previously deleted avvies on Minkata - I had a full complement, and usually create a new one when there is a new version to test, so I may well have done. I certainly don't remember this delay.

[rarified]

I like the new warning label but as you have both noted, there is quite a delay - 15 secs in my case. Afraid I can't remember whether I have previously deleted avvies on Minkata - I had a full complement, and usually create a new one when there is a new version to test, so I may well have done. I certainly don't remember this delay.

First, I'm glad Hoikas and D'Lanor were able to help, I've been diverted by some RL emergencies the last couple of days and couldn't get time to dig or suggest things to check!

Second, thanks for the quick report on the Avatar delete delay. I had a chance to glance at the server logs, and in fact MOSS is showing it took about 15 seconds from the arrival of the request to delete an Avatar until it replied to your client. I'm already working in the database on the Descent issue, and will see if I can find a reason for this. One of the indexes (that speed up lookups) may be out of date and need to be rebuilt (possible since there have been a couple of crashes since MInkata was created).

Happy exploring and testing!
_R

[Treehugger]

I've been diverted by some RL emergencies the last couple of days

yikes, I hope all is OK now

Second, thanks for the quick report on the Avatar delete delay. I had a chance to glance at the server logs, and in fact MOSS is showing it took about 15 seconds from the arrival of the request to delete an Avatar until it replied to your client. I'm already working in the database on the Descent issue, and will see if I can find a reason for this. One of the indexes (that speed up lookups) may be out of date and need to be rebuilt (possible since there have been a couple of crashes since MInkata was created).

good to know you're onto it, hope not too much work

Happy exploring and testing!
_R

Thanks ! So far, nearly everything I've tried is working well (apart from Descent for my new avvie of course); I'm so pleased not to get the scrolling cave scene at the start, it'll be marvellous when that gets ported to MOULa. However, as Tai' observed, I'm not sure that the fix so that visited public hoods jump to the top of the Nexus list is quite there yet, but I need to test a bit more to be sure.

Well done everyone for lots of hard work as usual!

[D'Lanor]

However, as Tai' observed, I'm not sure that the fix so that visited public hoods jump to the top of the Nexus list is quite there yet, but I need to test a bit more to be sure.

Glad to see that your problem is solved!

According to the links that Christian Walther posted the "visited public hood jump" should be there.
I also noticed that the visited hood does not go to the top of the Nexus list. If the list is really sorted by time stamp then this clearly is not working. However, manually toggling my own D'Lanor 2.0's Hood does not put it at the top of the list either (even after a re-link). So I guess there is no sorting by time stamp. But is there a filtering by time stamp?
I think what we need to test is if this protects visited public hoods from falling off the list. Or a somewhat easier test perhaps: Does it put a public hood that has already fallen off the list back on it?

[rarified]

On a possibly related note, I found an unexpected behavior in the Minkata shard client. The proper way to start the game is by running UruLauncher.exe. However, when a user accidentally starts up UruExplorer.exe it should correct this error by launching UruLauncher.exe and quitting itself. This no longer happens with the latest Minkata client. Instead I get an error message "Failed to launch patcher" while UruLauncher.exe exists in the same folder.

Ok, I've found this problem.

The pre-build patching process to customize the code files that tailor the game client for a particular shard (server names, keys, etc) have gotten out of alignment with the code with the most recent updates, and left a block of "INTERNAL" client code enabled.

You can verify this by renaming the patcher executable from "UruLauncher.exe" to "plUruLauncher.exe", executing UruExplorer.exe, and it will successfully hand off control to the patcher.

Working to freshen the patches now.
_R

[Hoikas]

According to the links that Christian Walther posted the "visited public hood jump" should be there.

Didn't Chogon ask that this be omitted due to a possible exploit?

[hhhenry]

Cannot get to Phil's relto
Because I cant reset the gates in Teladahn. I can get thru the gates to the end but when I return, they are numb. I can do it with my existing avie but not with the new one I built for testing. I flip the boards, nothing. I go around to the other side and shift stones, nothing. Logout and log back in, still nope.

[Christian Walther]

According to the links that Christian Walther posted the "visited public hood jump" should be there.

Didn't Chogon ask that this be omitted due to a possible exploit?

He did, but then made changes to the database (or at least said he would) to mitigate the exploit, which presumably implies that he’s OK with it now.

On another note, since we appear to be having multiple database-related problems (black Descent link, avatar deletion delay, neighborhoods not sorted), how about a vault wipe? On a testing shard like Minkata I wouldn’t consider that outrageous. If we’re only looking to patch the symptoms, that would probably be the easiest way to get rid of any database corruption. Or is there hope of finding and fixing what caused them?