[Bug] NS2 reports inaccurate player counts

Techercizer

After trying repeatedly to join Inversion #1 at 15/16 players, the server finally dropped down to 14/16 and let me in. Once inside, however, I noticed that there were only three other players present, despite a clearly contrary reading from the server browser.

<img src="http://img692.imageshack.us/img692/1401/2012030200002.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />
<img src="http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/8321/2012030200001.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" />

The incorrect player count also seemed to limit the ability of others to join the server, as nobody else entered while I spectated. The specific error I received on trying to connect initially was the standard "Server is full".

Kouji_San

Hmm, Inversion also runs Overmind right?

Techercizer

I believe so. It's possible this is a server-specific issue.

player

Well the browser-list uses NS2's query-responder, so that can't be the problem. Were there actually only 3 other players in there? Or was the scoreboard bugged? If it is the former, we may be dealing with our old friend Mr. Phantom-Client, a bug report in UWE's direction would be in order.

Techercizer

<!--quoteo(post=1909281:date=Mar 2 2012, 01:04 PM:name=player)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (player @ Mar 2 2012, 01:04 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1909281"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well the browser-list uses NS2's query-responder, so that can't be the problem. Were there actually only 3 other players in there? Or was the scoreboard bugged? If it is the former, we may be dealing with our old friend Mr. Phantom-Client, a bug report in UWE's direction would be in order.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There were actually 3 other players. All in game. The Ready Room was deserted as far as I can see, and no additional ghost clients were listed on the scoreboard.

Floodinator

That happens often in a map change, 15 players are connecting to the Servers but aren't shown on the Scoreboard but in the Serverlist.

I can see that everyday on Skulkrush. As soon as the map changes I sometimes get stuck on "Waiting for Server", then I disconnect and open the Server browser. I see the Server 15/16 join it and it's empty, after 3 or so seconds all the other players joins.

It seems to be a bug on Mapchange, that the Server won't connect you and has ages in waiting for server. But as soon as 1 player joins the Server that wasn't already on the Server or disconnected from the Server, all the others also are "allowed" from the Server to connect.

BVKnight

This has happened to me. Server showed close to full (14/16 or something), but there was only me and one other person once I joined. After waiting 10 minutes, no one else joined, even though refreshing the server list showed 15/16 players on the server.

I thought that it was the server op being sketchy and inflating the player count somehow :/

If it's a bug, it definitely needs to be fixed, especially if it keeps people from joining the server.

ScardyBob

If its during a map change, then it might be because people are timing out while the server is loading. Since it takes something like 30s for the server to kick timed out clients, you could certainly have a scenario where the server browser says a server is nearly full until it drops all of the timed out clients.