Stuck at black screen when joining server
LeoPhone
Join Date: 2012-11-16 Member: 171797Members
Hello,
Since one or two patches ago I started having a problem when connecting to any server.
After loading the map, my game will be infinitely stuck in a black screen. I can still move my mouse around and open the console but that's it.
my net log stuck at black screen: http://pastebin.com/WBgHHpMi
I have sent a mail to tech-support@unknownworlds.com with my tech_support.zip file
Occasionally I will get through the black screen after a long wait. Here is a net log recorded of this happening: http://pastebin.com/4Lz5a9s5
Especially after a server changes map I seem to be able to connect with more success.
Please help, I love this game and I'd like to keep playing it without this problem.
Since one or two patches ago I started having a problem when connecting to any server.
After loading the map, my game will be infinitely stuck in a black screen. I can still move my mouse around and open the console but that's it.
my net log stuck at black screen: http://pastebin.com/WBgHHpMi
I have sent a mail to tech-support@unknownworlds.com with my tech_support.zip file
Occasionally I will get through the black screen after a long wait. Here is a net log recorded of this happening: http://pastebin.com/4Lz5a9s5
Especially after a server changes map I seem to be able to connect with more success.
Please help, I love this game and I'd like to keep playing it without this problem.
Comments
They don't come here and ask for help, even if advised to do so. ~:>
the log was too big for one paste.
Part 1- http://pastebin.com/uQqv8zMT
Part 2- http://pastebin.com/kUVh986j
I played on woozas playground for a bit, then randomly lost connection(idk what that is, only started doing that today), then got black screen when attempting to reconnect twice.
Regarding the disconnects:
In your log it says:
[1948.591] 85.6.202.192 Client: System packet sent (PacketType_Disconnect)
Connection attempt discarded (host isn't accepting connections)
On the server all of them are:
Client disconnected (x.x.x.x) Quit
This is what it always looks like when you manually and regularly disconnect from a server.
Can you please check if you have a key bound to disconnect or something funny like that?
Can you type f_log into console when you have a blackscreen again?
@LeoPhone
So it would be interesting for us to know if this only happens after a direct reconnect.
Overall please also try some other servers out. Just to validate that this is a overall issue and not bound to certain mods or servers.
Anyhow I am able to reproduce the black screen on reconnect (not the black screen on normal connect) most of the time by simply typing reconnect (tested on playground and scc).
I ran a f_log:
It logs up to this then stops. Sometimes it will, after a while, continue and finish loading. But mostly it will be stuck on this: after going quickly through a page full of these:
I saved the log.
I also noticed there's high CPU load with black screen, indicating some piece of code keeps looping.
Got a screenshot with net_stats, says 100% choke and predicted frames count to infinity.
Also got a plog after many attempts (keeps crashing if you start it too early) of the part where it says precaching to about 15 seconds of the blackscreen. It's short.
And as a cherry on top I also captured a memory dump of the black screen.
All of that can be found here for download (350 mb, .7z)
That can't be it as there's no ghost remaining on the server. It's a proper disconnect, not a timeout.
Your game files do not match the server's. Try verifying your game cache in Steam, or maybe an update just came out.
I've managed to contact one of them and he says it's on all servers and sometimes crashes his ns2.
These disconnects, with that error message, happen -mid round- OR on connecting OR ~10 seconds after connecting successfully !!!
I've asked him to please post in tech support forum. "for sure" he said.
That is what is meant with "Ghost". Not any actual player model. Just a server client ent of a not anymore connected client.
Anyway this issue is known since the ns2 beta days. Also Max did investigate once into it but couldn't find a solution so I'm not expecting this to get fixed any time soon.( maybe if matso gets the time it can be done for something like 272)
The issue above with client getting the message of "Your game files do not match the server's. Try verifying your game cache in Steam, or maybe an update just came out." out of sudden or at a map-change is known to be caused by some sort of memory leaks of the "io stream" ( mainly happening at win xp 32bit ).
Upon connecting again through server browser, auth will fail because the ghost has yet to time out.
At least that is what this particular trello card seems to address.
I'll try asking that guy with game files do not match error if he's running xp. I keep forgetting about that possibility.
Here is another log.txt stuck at black screen connecting to wooza's hamster wheel server. I joined quite a few other servers before it so it's a long log.
Part1: http://pastebin.com/g0eevcuV
Part2: http://pastebin.com/pSecQK1i
The black screen connecting problem also happens when directly connecting to a server through in-game server browser. I have had the problem occur on at least 4 unique servers.
When trying to join a server without mods there don't seem to be any issues. I can't say that for sure though because it can happen the servers I have problems with joining also work fine. I did not even notice a black screen when joining the un-modded server though, while when joining a modded server I always see a black screen for at least a few seconds.
I received a reply from Max McGuire on the issue:
Thanks all for your help so far.
I can join your server fine. Don't notice anything wrong. It was 1/19 players when I joined it though. The blacks screen problem I experience only seems to occur when joining a server with 15+ players in it and has an in-progress match.
Hmm i would say there is something wrong with the given servers and used mods. Also have in mind most popular servers are actually not really good (have a look at net_stats )
We will address the "red-plug issue" beside optimizing some other stuff with the next update which will help with some of the current performance issues.
Please have in mind that we as cdt can't support all kind of mods and also can't magically make servers which perform bad generally, magically perform perfect ( just use perfbrowser in the console to enable our beta server rating in the server browser, which will show you which server have constant performance issues)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/36046461/NS2/perf_russia1.jpg
Loaded = This server probably can't handle the late game for the given max players amount. Have in mind those ratings are given for the complete "server runtime".
Skimming over those logs, I see you managed to get two connect timeouts to the wheel. Do you know what happened there?
That extra entity mod is clearly not causing this. But yes, for testing, do connect to the most unaltered server you can find. The wheel is not such a server. :-j
I just tried to reproduce the issue on Survival of the Fattest and got it on the 2nd time typing reconnect. Server was empty at the time. Sometimes it finishes loading if you wait (seconds to minutes) and prints this in console:
I don't know, as far as I remember I simply joined the wheel server trough server browser once.
Then we need you to join other non modified / vanilla servers that have players in them, even if they have a higher latency.
Wow, this might be it! I use Dxtory software to limit my game's FPS. When I am stuck in a black screen and I disable the FPS limiter, a few seconds later I will get past the black screen and load in fine.
my log file (line 217 is where I got stuck at black screen, 218 after I disabled FPS limiter): http://pastebin.com/VzRpG464
Sigh.. well at least you can play now hehe
Thanks for all the helps.