I realised that there was never a formal announcement here to read up:
The Catara NWN server is offline for quite some time now, due to time constraints. I might revive it someday, but it is pretty unlikely. If anyone wants to use our custom classes or tools, ping me on twitter (@jollyorc) and we can see what we can do for you!
In the meantime, I do recommend The World of Avlis: https://avlis.org/
Bugged Chest
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I got a message whilst using the p-chest (#62) that something had gone wrong & i should try re-closing it or emptying it.
Well, i tried to open & close it a few times, still got the error msg, then i took the more valuable stuff out, & stupidly picked it up...
That fixed it.. sort of... the chest is now empty >.<
If it's possible to restore the contents, that'd be handy, but not essential. What was lost was a dozen or so collection-quest items, some 2 dozen dyes, a few gems, a +1 shortbow, +1AC bracers, mhm.. & a selection of miscellaneous junk. Less than two pages in all, & all replaceable stuff (except perhaps the bow).
Anyway. chest is currently empty, shall i just continue using it? -
a restore isn't possible, sorry.
I can't currently guarantee 100% correct working of the p-chests, I'll tackle that after the server move. -
That's ok ;-)
I've already found some more interesting loot :) hurrah for getting snowed in!
Would say that the best course of action upon any chest error msg is to remove everything? -
quite indeed, yes.
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Chest #62
No warning, no error msg, just wiped contents again :( -
I changed the chest-saving script a bit. Please watch your chests over the next few days.
(The error is enormously hard to catch, as it pops up only once in a while and probably only long after the point where the cause-event happened. There is a check if the chest was saved correctly, but it may very well be that this check isn't checking everything that needs to be checked.) -
I wondered - did anyone have problems with chests since I jiggled the chest-saving routine?
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I've tested the chest one of my PCs has, no problems today when opening/closing it a half dozen times.
I'll check the other PC tomorrow & report back -
Problems..
at 74 items got the error message.
Opened & closed twice, still getting error, so removed everything.
Replaced everything 20 items at a time, to get error message again at 74 items
Took 4 items out, replaced one at a time, & this time it saved ok at 74 items.
Opened & closed 5-6 times with no error.
The 74 items cover about 3 pages, which is about the number of items i had in the 2 previous times it ate everything.
On checking the contents, i discovered a selection of gloves/bolts/arrows/?? have now turned into Miscellaneous Smalls with 50 charges with a red cross as their image... 8 in all.
Something has corrupted it that's for sure! -
So there are still contents there, but they're different ones now? Which chest was that?
That's interesting, as until then, a bugged chest meant that everything was gone. I call that progress, of some sort :) -
Hehe.. yup i thought it was progress!
I think it's chest 62 still, currently located at Bridge's End inn in Gorneferry? The chest is in the first room on the right as you go upstairs.
*Note, this is from memory as not IG so may not be entire accurate there ;-) -
Yup, chest 62, in area tag: GornferryBridgesEndInnUpstairs
As well as the obviously corrupted icons, i've noticed that ALL items have lost their special properties: so, ale is not drinkable, dyes will not dye, student's ring adds no lore, etc etc.
The only time i have seem similar, is when my PC's .bic got corrupted after a Tairis - Avlis portal. -
"The only time i have seem similar, is when my PC's .bic got corrupted after a Tairis - Avlis portal."
Well, that is small wonder, since we're essentially saving the whole chest as a .bic into the database - the question is, why does it corrupt, and what to do against it?
(That's really a question, as I currently have no clue...) -
Please retest, I tweaked something (namely adjusting the wait period to the amount of stuff in the chest)
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Chest 67 (Ducal Outpost)
Closed it & received the error message. Removed 43 items & tried closing again, this time getting the successfully saved message. Tried picking up the chest (it still had 20 items in) then dropping it down again & opening it: worked ok no errors.
Next I replaced the items 10 at a time. Each time it claimed to have saved ok, & indeed it seemed to have done so. However, after replacing the final 10 items, for a total of 61, i found a number of items had been corrupted & lost their special properties:
Holy water & acid flasks put in with last batch, but not the CLWs replaced at same time (ie some of the 51-61 items)
All the items replaced in the previous batch of 10 items (items 41-51) clothing weapons & arrows.
Ale & spirits (had been left in) but not dyes (also left in)
Server conditions: glitchy. The server has been up a few days, & convo's for collection quests have been getting noticeably slower. My PC had previously noted a glitch were tho her AB was +6 & with a +4(dex) +1(bow) her total AB when equipping the bow dropped to +2 overall! This was fixed by resting.
Not really related, but i'll mention this here: due to the bugged AB my PC tried throwing a fireball at some deer (kill & cook in one blast!).. they were totally unaffected. Would that also be a glitch, or is the server set to easy? -
Did you find that the saving process were taking longer with the more items you put in? I think this is really an issue of the saving process taking too long - and there is alas no way to check if it has finished, properly or not. :(
I'll probably add in some mechanism to completely & automatically restart the server every day, would 3:00am GMT be an ok time for that? -
That's 9pm for me, which is a time I might actually be playing sometimes, but that hardly matters much, since I've barely been able to play. :(
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Perhaps set the re-boot for 0600? I don't think the time matter too much, as long as the server sends out a warning of impending re-boot if there are any players on :)
I'll try checking chest save-times compared to inventory size tomorrow. -
I haven't been able to find where i read this (I think maybe irc) but this may be relevant, so i'll record it as best i remember:
In the very recent re-linking of the world portals, there was some mention of the technicalities involved. Amongst this, was a bit of code to check whether the .bic had been written to vaultster, which was apparently pivotal in avoiding the occasional .bic corruption. I think Zebranky was the one who wrote this bit of code, but the list of those involved is:
# Themicles
# PlasmaJohn
# PsiOmegaDelta
# Zebranky
# MadK@
If this snippet of code, or something similar, can be used to check that the saved .bic & current .bic of the chest are equal, would this eliminate the problems of corrupted chest inventory? I know this may not be of relevance to the problem here, but i thought was worth mentioning! -
The idea is good, as I'm looking for just such a thing, alas, I fear no: The player PCs .bic files are saved as flat files in the servervault directory. The chest NP, while also being in .bic format is actually written as a BLOB of data into the database, not onto the filesystem.
Also, vaultster is an external dll which does the filehandling (and thus the checking) while the db-things are done by nwnx2. Would we want to include the same checking code, we'd have to basically completely rewrite nwnx2.
Short answer: Sorry, no :)
(Also: There is some semblance of .bic checking going on already. After saving the chest npc to the db, I try to re-fetch it again, testing if it looks ok. But there are not a lot of testing options that nwnscript offers here, so not all errors are being spotted.) -
As an aside: The server will now completely reboot every day at 6am GMT.
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Chest 67 (Ducal Outpost)
Got the error message yesterday with about 64 items in total. Removed & replaced items less a couple, got the saved ok msg. Checked a few times & items seem there & with no corruption.
Checked in today & chest totally empty (again).
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