Test Game problems?

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TMC
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Test Game problems?

Post by TMC »

I'm investigating a complaint from BlastedEarth that since a while ago when using the Test Game option in custom.exe, it always fails with an error like "Error communicating with game.exe (couldn't connect)". After studying the code for a while, I've determined it's seriously wrong and Test Game never should have worked reliably - although I'd never seen this problem.

I'm wondering, has anyone else seen Test Game fail, probably just very rarely or once? I feel like I dimly remember hearing it mentioned.

Separately, a known problem is that you get the same error if Game takes a really long to start, which is possible if it takes a long time to load from your hard disk or you run low on RAM - currently Custom only waits 3 seconds before timing out. Do I need to adjust the timeout? (Ideally I would add a way to manually interrupt the timeout early...)

More importantly! Wobbler reported some really weird problems which I can't do anything about without more leads.
Wobbler wrote:...while testing my game, I went into a shop to sell some items and every option was blank. It still showed the correct sell price and I could sell stuff, but I couldn't see any of the item names. I closed the game, opened it again, and everything was back to normal
Wobbler wrote:I just got a crash when I tried to exit a game that I was running through Custom's Test function
Has anyone seen either crashes when exiting a game (under any circumstances!) or data weirdly and temporarily corrupt or missing while using Test Game?
Last edited by TMC on Wed Aug 01, 2018 1:40 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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SwordPlay
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Post by SwordPlay »

I've had a few of those issues rarely.

when i was messing around in CUSTOM at the same time as trying to run Test Game, that caused it to fail to more often.

I'm not sure but I think navigating menus in CUSTOM at the same time as changing, saving and writing data might be the culprit. maybe.

weird data during test game?

I had missing data during test game, like, once or twice. I think that was recent.
I closed it and ran it again and it worked fine.

More often, Test Game hangs, stops responding, and doesn't let me close CUSTOM. I'm not really sure why.

Do you want me to post my c_debug files?
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TMC
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Post by TMC »

What kind of missing data did you see? Did it happen while you were, or just had been, in an editor for that type of data?
I have idea about what the reason for missing data might be, although your report is only the 2nd only I've received.

When does the game hang? Randomly at any time? When trying to quit? I doubt that c_debug.txt would help with that, but if you have a copy of g_debug.txt from when it happens, that could be useful.
TMC
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Post by TMC »

I've been reviewing all bug reports made since Etheldreme, and discovered three to five people reported Game sometimes freezing when quitting, if launched through Test Game.
I filed the bug here: https://sourceforge.net/p/ohrrpgce/bugs/2033/
I still don't have any idea what's causing it.

I also filed a bug for the corrupt/missing data problem Wobbler saw: https://sourceforge.net/p/ohrrpgce/bugs/2035/
I think that it's probably possible to see similar problems not just with shop items, but with other things too. I think I know what's wrong, and each such problem would have to be fixed separately. So any reports would be useful. Unfortunately I don't see anything wrong with shops...
Last edited by TMC on Tue Aug 28, 2018 10:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Nathan Karr
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Re: Test Game problems?

Post by Nathan Karr »

TMC wrote:I'm wondering, has anyone else seen Test Game fail, probably just very rarely or once? I feel like I dimly remember hearing it mentioned.
I get that "could not connect" error message about 40% of the time I use Test Game. Was about 60% before the last time I downloaded a nightly, but just attempting multiple times in a row usually works eventually and Test Game is so convenient that it's how I usually work on my games now.
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TMC
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Post by TMC »

Oh yes, although I know what's wrong and can fix that problem, I haven't gotten around to it yet. Definitely will.
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