1.3.B.86 Bug - Player's PC blue screens of death on connect

[zackteach]

We're both playing on Maptools 1.3 B86 version. I've been hosting games for awhile. This is my only player who has this issue.

For whatever reason, whenever he successfully would connect to my server, his computer freaks out, blue screens of death's him, and he has to restart.

My computer is a Windows 7 and his currently is a Windows 7 as well, but this also occurred when he had Windows XP on a much older machine.

He has a brand new machine now and it STILL gives him the error. He has a i5 2500K processor, 8 GB Ram, Windows 7 Ultimate/Pro, 1TB HD, ATI Radeon 6870 Video Card.

I have players on Macs, older PC's, current PC's connecting to me. Yet he is the only one who has this error. His Java is up to date (I've had players with Java 7 successfully connect, they just take longer to load) so I don't know what it could be.

I'll also note that when I had my port forwarding wrong, he was able to hang there and eventually get "Server timed out" message. So it appears that it only happens when he would successfully connect. So I'm thinking it MIGHT have something to do with his connection, router, modem, whatever. He says he has UPNP active, but I don't think my other players do, and I wouldn't see how that'd affect anything.

EDIT: We tried in B87 version as well, same prob. He got blue-screened. I had him open up port 51234 under his router's settings for both outgoing/incoming, but it doesn't seem to have helped any either.

[aliasmask]

I haven't run across the BSOD, but has he gone through these steps:

Attention: Windows Users using JAVA 7 with MapTool

[zackteach]

no but this has happened regardless of what Java version he has, and on both B87 and B86

[aliasmask]

Well, you can have 10 versions of java installed, but MT picks one, usually the latest version. If you run b87 and goto Help | Gather System Info it will tell you what version is being loaded. Using the config file in the link and opening with MT with the launcher will guaranty the correct one is being opened.

Since it's a new computer and the same exact thing is happening tell me it may not be related to your config or computer but how his network is setup, but I haven't run in to BSOD because of funky networks. Either it connects or it doesn't. If he can post the System Info I may be able to know more about the problem. Are any components from the old computer on the new computer.. like a CD drive?

[tiorthan]

I think it rather unlikely that this is a MT problem although MT might trigger some broken driver or hardware problem in his case.

Is there any version of MT that works?

[zackteach]

No, we've only tried B87 and B86.

But we do agree that it is actually more likely something to do with his Network Setup and not the computer itself.

He has a Netgear router, though he hasn't told me what specific model yet. He says his roommate has had troubles connecting to games before, but he knows better how to work that router, so hopefully his roommate will be able to double-check his work and see if we can get it working right.

I may have to tell him to buy a new router

But I figure, it's something worth noting that Netgear routers may not like connecting to MapTools.

[aliasmask]

I use Netgear WPN824v2 without a problem. If there is an actual BSOD does it show the code? You can google "BSOD codes" to see what I'm talking about. The code will point you to the device causing the issue. Is he using the same USB mouse? Is any of the hardware the same? Can he start his own server and then connect to himself? I'm really suspect of the router being the actual problem.

[zackteach]

I'll try all of those suggestions when I talk to him next. It can be slow to do this stuff :\ Schedules, you know

[Lee]

You might as well inquire about his network card/NIC too. A good # of BSODs occur from driver issues; especially those drivers that are "semi" compatible, in other words, not meant for the device but shares some accessible functionality that moves things along for a while until something trips it up. Also, aliasMask's suggestion is helpful too. What you're looking for is a stop code, it's the one that starts with 0x0000000...the actual code is the last 2 to 3 characters (e.g. 0A, 121, 5F).

[dorpond]

Zackteach, Maptool itself isn't causing the BSOD. In all my years, I have never heard of MT causing a BSOD.

So taking that out of the equation and taking the computer out of the equation (since this happened on old PC too), that leads me to believe that there could be software on the PC's that is causing this failure.

Let me ask if I may, and please don't take this the wrong way. Does this user install cracked software or illegal wares at all? Does this user install P2P software to download music, videos, or other stuff?

The reason why I ask is this: Many cracked apps or apps that have a keycode generator are infected. Much stolen content off the web can be infected.

Maybe the users habits are the common factor here?

As an IT guy, I have found that Blue Screens are mainly caused by:
- Hardware failure: Did the users use old hardware from the old PC to the new? Perhaps that old hardware is broken (video cards and hard disks seem to be reused a lot in upgrades).
- Bad RAM.
- Driver failure: Bad or unsupported drivers.
- Bad sectors: A bad hard drive can corrupt files.
- Virus/Malware activity.

What you need to do here is this: Find out what was common between the old system and the new. The cause of the BSOD is there.

Whew, you have an interesting dilemma, but I would bet my left big toe that the issue isn't Maptool or Java.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[zackteach]

I agree that it's probably not MapTools at this point either.

It may not even be his router, you could be right about the software. At this point, I have no idea, and I think he's given up on playing. I haven't heard back from him in awhile. I have no idea if he downloads cracked software or not, but I feel like he probably doesn't if he doesn't even know how to port forward without me helping him.


Who knows anymore. :\

[Bone White]

I've had ram which operated perfectly for 99.999% of the time, but doing a certain operation with a certain program would cause a crash. It took over three days of stress testing to find the fault with the strip of ram, but it was there, and it just happened to always manifest when using this program. Upon removing and eventually replacing the ram I had no problems.

While there are plenty of ways to troubleshoot blue screens, I always start with ram. Remove all strips except one. If there is still a problem, replace the remaining strip with a removed one. If there is still a fault, I then progress to other pieces of hardware.

[Azhrei]

I agree with the above posts. My order in checking things would be:

1. RAM. Boot into Knoppix or some other Linux live CD and run the memtest86+ for a couple hours.

2. Drivers. Load an older ATI driver and see if it works. Load an older network driver and see if it works. The latest releases of Java can push the envelope in regards to what it asks the video card to do so if the ATI drivers aren't careful they can easily BSOD. (In their infinite wisdom MS decided that video cards should run in Ring0 along with the rest of the kernel. They did that to make video drivers as fast as possible, but it also means there is no protection provided by the rest of the OS like there would be if they ran in Ring1 or Ring2. Normal user applications run in Ring3 under Windows.)

3. Router. This is very unlikely. But it's also fairly easy to test: take the router out of the equation and plug the computer directly into the cablemodem/DSL/whatever.

I believe it'll be either RAM or a buggy driver. I wish you/him luck while trying these options...