Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

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FerretDave
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Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by FerretDave »

Greetings,
Can anyone advise on a possible java issue?

We have recently started having a lot of 'server has disconnected' messages, and our client machine has lost it's connection to the host server.
Both machines are win 7 (64bit), running on a local (wireless) LAN, using the '1g' .bat file to start maptool version b89.
GM hosts using his laptop, and we have a client PC running a flat screen TV for all the players to view.

This setup has been working fine for months, until the last 3 or 4 weeks, and we now disconnect every few minutes.
After some thorough testing (running server on another machine, changing wifi channel), we figured out that we had java differences:

Host was running the 64 bit version of java, client was on 32 bit - downgraded host to 32 bit and all the problems went away, it remained connected for a few hours.

A couple of days later, we come back to the game again, and get the same 'server disconnected' messages after a few minutes... ended up having to run two instances - host & client - on the same pc (the normal host) and running the TV as an external monitor for the laptop (running host & client instances both on the client pc also works fine)

Is there an issue with java 1.7.0_60 and .b89? Do we have to down the route of having a separate java version just for maptool, as we did for .b88 and earlier?
Is there any way to identify *why* the server has disconnected?

Cheers
Dave

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aliasmask
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by aliasmask »

Running the 1G version may be the problem. It has a default stack of 512K which is way too small for most campaigns. I recommend something like this:

Code: Select all

"C:\Program Files\Java\jre7\bin\javaw.exe" -Xmx1024M -Xss3M -jar maptool-1.3.b89.jar
The javaw.exe path should be to your 64bit version of java and Xmx is your max mem. 1024 works for most. Xss is the stack of 3000K or 3M. The -jar is the name of the maptool jar file.

wolf1040
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by wolf1040 »

I seem to be having similar issues using version .b89 and Java 6 on a 64-bit iMac.

Error messages are as follows:

could not load campaign
java.net.ConnectException: Operation timed out.

Has something changed over the last 2 weeks?

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wolph42
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by wolph42 »

Has your Ethernet card had an update recently? Windows tend to do that quite sneakily. No clue how Mac does this.

But it can introduce issues

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aliasmask
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by aliasmask »

wolf1040 wrote:I seem to be having similar issues using version .b89 and Java 6 on a 64-bit iMac.

Error messages are as follows:

could not load campaign
java.net.ConnectException: Operation timed out.

Has something changed over the last 2 weeks?
That suggests you're trying to connect to someone else's computer that doesn't have their network setup properly. I think they may need to update to java7 with b89, but I'm not sure if that'll change the connection problem, but at least they'll be up to date.


wolf1040
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by wolf1040 »

The error messages were the ones my players were getting. I'll try the solutions you suggest.

It's an older mac - mid 2007, but it's been reliably hosting our maptools games since then.

Thanks for the suggestions.

Tom

wolf1040
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by wolf1040 »

Still trying to get this sorted. I'm the DM and my players, starting last week, can't log in to my server. I've checked that the port is still forwarded (it is) but the error messages my players were getting seem to suggest a Java error. I'm using Java 6SE (1.6.0_65-b14-462)

My question is - is this version of Java too old? My OS is 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard)

The program connections were working a week 2 weeks ago. Has something changed in Java-world hat would affect our game?

Thanks in advance.

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wolph42
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by wolph42 »

As you're working with java 6 and maptool which both havent changed for 1.5 years Now it automatically means that the issue lies somewhere else. Usually its an OS upgrade, next in line faulty hardware.

yorick
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by yorick »

>>
could not load campaign
java.net.ConnectException: Operation timed out
>>

This error just means "we couldn't connect to your your maptool port because we didn't get a response at all." When this happens, it's not an issue with Java or maptool, it's an issue with basic connectivity. I understand that you say "nothing changed", but something must have.

I'd check:
- Can you connect to the maptool server from another machine on the LAN? (this tests firewalling on the Mac itself, and that maptool is up and running and taking connections)
- Can the maptool server reach "the Internet", say Google? (this tests routing)
- Lastly, take another look at that port-forward on the router. Did the internal IP of the maptool server change? Anything else that might keep it from working?

If the first test fails, it's quite possible there's some sort of firewall on that Mac that's blocking the connection.

FerretDave
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Re: Server has disconnected - .b89 / java ?

Post by FerretDave »

Thanks for the responses folks.
Xss - make maptool start quicker, but didn't fix.
B90 - didn't make any noticeable difference, but it's newer, so we'll stick with it (set stacksize to 3, to incorporate the above xss fix)

I've now upgraded both versions to the latest java, and made them both 64 bit, and the problems gone... for now anyway.

Originally we had one machine at 64 bit, and one at 32 bit (java that is, both are 64 bit windows), and it worked for months, then stopped, downgrading java to 32 bit on the one machine fixed the issue, but only temporarily, upgrading both back to 64 bit has fixed it (again). Fingers crossed this continues to work.
Windows updates are the only candidate really for whatever has changed in the meanwhile.

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