Process times are usually paused for one hour or two at a time, until Kestas finds the problem.

The code which detects Dreamhost downtime and turns off game processing doesn't currently work with the latest live code update; although the gamemaster wouldn't process the game if a member of the game were to view the game after the processing period expired, or if the last member finalized, the game currently gets processed whether or not a downtime period has been detected
I'll be fixing this problem next update, sorry about that, and sorry on behalf of DH for the downtime (they say they've implemented extra measures etc etc)

Having said that I would recommend always entering your orders when you have a chance. The server was down for about an hour and a half, so I might have reenabled games with only an hour and a half extra time and you could have missed out anyway even if it had been functioning correctly

I'll do my best to resolve any problems caused by this by rolling back games if there's agreement within a game that things should get rolled back, and/or as tournament managers direct, but to an extent it is playing with fire to put off entering orders when the deadline is coming up/has passed

Hope you did well in your finals rlumley

> although the gamemaster wouldn't process the game if a member of the game were to
> view the game after the processing period expired, or if the last member finalized, the
> game currently gets processed whether or not a downtime period has been detected
That could be better worded: "if a member of the game were to view the game after the processing period expired, or if the last member finalized, the game currently gets processed whether or not a downtime period has been detected (although the 5-minute interval gamemaster script doesn't process games during these downtime detected periods)"

Kestas, the site had the error message up for far longer than an hour and a half. My recollection is that the message said the server stopped processing at 7:55am (I presume that to be GMT time). The message was still up at 2am local time (EST or GMT -5). So, that would put the server down message up on the site for nearly a 24 hour period.

It did one of those fast-switch things from 12:55 UTC to 7:55am (after the page loaded), so I assumed that was EST. I also noticed it was up even as late as 3am EST.

I didn't to that great. But thank's Kestas. :-P

Organic Chemistry is... not fun.

*do

I could read the error message last night before sleeping... It was still there half way through the day today and only dropped off soon after I posted about it (another thread) - in all, at least 12 hours and I believe longer.

The really annoying bit is that it not only stated that games were not being processed but also that time would be added.

I would like to re-iterate the key point that my games started processing while the error message was still up, so this is not just an argument about not getting extra time.

@rlumley, bleah organic chemistry :-(

@TMG, the server was down for an hour and a half, not that the message was only up for an hour and a half

@flashman; you can only really count on getting as much new time as there was downtime, and after the message was up for so long adding 1.5 hours or so to all games seemed pointless

Based on these replies the processing paused message could be clarified to tell people to still enter orders, and to save and display the amount of downtime which will be added to games, and also there is still the matter of games processing when they should have been paused, these are all problems that'll be fixed.
The only reason I point out the 1.5 hour thing is that regarding rlumley this same problem could happen in the future after the bug gets fixed (though I'm sure others had problems that were caused by a bug directly, and rlumleys problem was in part due to a somewhat vague status message, and these need to be and will be fixed and I'll fix cases which can be fixed)

http://www.webdiplomacy.net/board.php?gameID=16239

That's the only game it really made a problem in... I obviously would have taken Norway had I not NMRed.

Kestas:

I appreciate the reply but it does not alter the fact that games have been seriously affected by system problems rather than players errors of omission or commission. I have a very big problem with the continuing of any game affected by a system problem and have already resigned from all tournaments for this reason. The current problem involves a tournament game I was only playing out so as to provide a tidy withdrawal. I see no point whatsoever in continuing this game now that it has become spoiled nor do I feel any obligation to do so.

Such system based errors are not a part of normal Diplomacy and should not, in my opinion be allowed to disturb games. They have totally ruined my experience on here of late, with the League in particular providing a very bad example.

I realise that a lot of work goes into the site but, to be honest, I would rather we moved closer to face-to-face, with no system errors tolerated and written instructions allowing for human errors rather than pre-selected and pre-written menus than all the skin colours, whistles and bells in the world.

My position is perhaps extreme, but it is one born of a love for the original game and a strict intolerance of unfairness. I believe the appropriate line from the original game is that, 'Luck plays no part...'.

I understand your frustration flashman. This phenomenon of the bogus message at the top of the screen has happened a few times. I am surprised you have never noticed it before. Like you though I have seen it and thought "all games paused -- I'll check in later", luckily for me though when I logged back in it was in time for the end of phase.
This website has undergone some big changes - the last couple of upgrades were quite radical; so perhaps some bugs are too expected.
If the other players in your game, maybe Kestas will roll your games back? (Could be hard to get them to agree I suppose?)

If the other players in your games *agree...

Kestas,

How would we, the player base, know that the server was only down for 1.5 hours if the message was up for near 24 hours. Further, that the message itself indicated that games were not being processed?

Can i ask a question here?
What sort of system do you use to process these orders etc?
I am playing on other sites such as world leader.com, dipbounced.com, and another site i can't recall after 4 beers... but... those sites do not seem to have half the issues this site experiences and they are also free.
So money cannot be the issue

On the flip side, i saw the main message and entered orders for games and they processed immediately if i was last to enter.

I think maybe its the message itself thats causing the prob?
Cos if someone sees it they think "well no need to enter orders yet since it won't process"
If so, then perhaps that should be looked at

Happy hour at work by any chance masterninja? That's what I am doing.

Lol, Spyman, not quite... had half a day off paid in lieu of my Birthday on Monday... so decided to come home and escape the heat and have a few beers and see what's happening...
how about u lol?

@flashman: I totally understand your frustration, but I hope you understand that I'm not about making rash changes to the site that compromise the stability. The problem you experienced was 2 part:
1. Dreamhost went down, every server was unavailable in the datacenter we're hosted in, due to a network attack
2. A failsafe mechanism I wrote for 0.90, designed to detect downtime and adjust to it, wasn't updated for the recent live game process rule changes. This is a definite failure on my part, but the live game process rule changes and JavaScript order changes were not rash code updates which I rushed out just for the hell of it; I did all that stuff right in the middle of the semester because the server was constantly crashing due to live games overloading the server, I had no choice and it was a frantic series of updates that I would rather have done with a lot of time to bug test

It is a serious problem, I understand your frustration, and out of the majority of people for which the failsafe downtime-detection code worked fine you're obviously one of the people who got screwed over badly.
I'm going to fix the bug and am prepared to try and fix problems that have been caused by it, but without being a perfect coder with perfect foresight I cannot see all bugs that urgently written code will introduce (especially bugs introduced into rarely tested failsafe mechanisms)


@TMG; Im not sure what you're getting at.. I was just clarifying when you said the message was up for more than 1.5 hours, that I was talking about the server being down for 1.5 hours. I'm not trying to pick a fight here, if you want me to help with something or clarify something specifically let me know what it is and I'll do my best

@ninja; we are on shared hosting and have quite a few users, as far as I know other sites either have far fewer users or far more money to splash on hosting (either from premium accounts or by going in to huge debt, depending on who you believe), and as far as I know they aren't getting updated with the same frequency either

e.g. goondip.com, a webDip based server gilgatex is working on with various changes, uses the same hosting as here but as far as I know no users even mentioned the same downtime we've experienced and have had so many problems with recently. (It is actually getting updated at a faster frequency even than here, which is perfect because they have fewer users and so bugs in changes have less of an impact, making it a great experimental extension to what I try and do here)

The reality is that more users, more updates, less money -> more problems, but things are improving. Bear in mind this bug is in a feature that actively detects and works around the stability problems of our hosting provider, this isn't a bug in core order processing functionality as you say, but a bug with a stability/failsafe mechanism which as far as I know only webDip has at all

It's hard to keep on top of everything in your spare time when your hosting provider is going up and down and the number of users & live games are forcing optimization updates, but things are improving

Hope that answers your question ninja

Kestasjk, thank you. Yes i noticed that your site has faster updates and turns per game. Dipbounced generally has nothing less than 6 hrs. And usually is at least 24-72 hrs per turn.
So i suppose a lot more goes into this site for that reason alone!

Well done... i'd neglected to think of that part.

Kestas: Thanks again for your time here... Always appreciated.

We have a problem with the manual fixing of games as those that are in the Tournaments (League & Masters at least) are now bound by a rule change introduced after the current season started. I have resigned from both tournaments in part because of this rule change. It explicitly forces players to continue with games even when a turn has processed at an unexpected time because of a system problem.

More generally, the idea that players should decide within a game whether they should roll back is flawed because it gives the veto to anyone who has been advantaged; it is not a vote starting from a neutral position. This happened in one of my League games and although I was not the player directly affected in that case, I was disappointed to say the least at some refusals to roll-back. In my book, any system created problem stands outside the normal rules and working of the game and no game, especially one in a tournament that stretches over multiple seasons of play, should be decided by caprice.

My point here is that the games affected by the recent problem are unlikely to be corrected by the players themselves. This will mean that some games at least are destined to remain spoiled.

masterninja, yeah I was posting from happy our at work. Escaping from the heat hey? You must be in Queensland, I would guess?

happy hour (I am so dyslexic)

Kestas,

Sorry, I am not trying to pick a fight. I was merely pointing out that to the players, well myself in any case, if the message was up for 24 hours, then the added time to the games would be 24 hours. Thus, when someone briefly pops in to check things they may not submit moves as they feel they have plenty of time to do so, or perhaps they were in a hurry when they popped on.

@flashman; I'm not involved with running the tournament you're in, but feel bad for you and the person who has to make rules which go outside the system. I agree a fair solution for situations where there is a system problem isn't really possible, but I'm interested in any solution/better idea you have

Of course system problems just shouldn't happen, and that is the goal (that's why failsafes like these were introduced, but this is an example of a failsafe going wrong). I do believe that this system can reach a point where problems will simply never occur though, and soon.
e.g. I can't recall the last true adjudicator bug, but it must have been over a year ago, and all complaints about it since have been user-error and not adjudicator bugs, so I think we'll reach a point where game management code (and associated failsafes) are equally bug free and unchanging


@TMG: It sounds like I need to make it clearer/automated how much time will get added on in the event of downtime. When I fix this bug in the downtime failsafe, hopefully over the weekend, I'll make it 100% clear and automatic exactly whats going on, thanks for the feedback. Also let me know if you have any ideas for resolving flashman's problems in a way that's the most fair to everyone

The problem with rollbacks (Be it in a League game or not) is that if player A was unable to enter orders for a bug, and player B did enter orders, then player B's original (and allegedly better, or at least preferred) orders are disclosed to player A.

So a rollback isn't really a return to the state prior to the bug, but to a different state, where it's player A who has the advantage (he has information he didn't have before the phase processed.

That's why we (even though I wasn't a part of that decition, I agree with it, and I am part of both League managment and site mod team) ask for unanimity when rolling back a game.

It's not a matter of being benefitted by the NMR, but to not be punished for having entered your orders.

good luck with getting this sorted out everyone. i have to give you props kestas, every time there is criticism of the site of problems with it, you handle it all with aplomb and that is impressive to me. keep up the great work.

Actually Xapi, when it happened in our League game, it was Autumn 1901 and a player missed his builds for the first year thus seriously compromising the game from the very start. I asked for the game to be cancelled and replayed, not just rolled back. This was refused by some of those who benefitted from the error. One of those involved who not only benefitted directly but was actually culpable in the sense that he advised me to unpause (the action that triggered a jump forward on the clock to the next phase) was the Tournament Director. I still have difficulty with the fact that he didn't see anything wrong with playing on regardless and even changing the rules at that point to cover such matters. This was why I resigned from all the tournaments.

The idea of a unanimous vote was floated, and it was as flawed then as it is now. A vote requiring a 7-0 result after an event has already occurred is highly biased in favour of the status quo. A single player holds the power of veto to retain something that is patently unfair, should not have happened but which gives him a sizeable windfall. Absurd.

The game affected most by the current problem is one of the tournament games I said I would play out to keep everything moving along. This time I was the one caught by the system and whilst I have no real interest in the actual game/tournament I am nevertheless focused on the fact that we have this problem of games affected by outside influences.

Fair point flash. I agree that games can and are affected by outside influences. However I would challenge you to suggest a more suitable option than a unanimous decision? That is not me trying to get one over, if you can I would be very happy.
However, as someone famous once said in politics that democracy was the least worst solution, so I feel animous-ness (that is clearly a word!) is here.

I would suggest a majority rules on roll backs with an impartial judge regarding if anything unfair had occured to prompt it. This particular occassion sounds like the perfect situation where just the impartial judge should be sufficient and not even require a majority vote other than to decide if it would be a rollback or a complete cancel and restart. But that's just my opinion.

@kestas - please make certain your check your PMs on the site. Thanks!