Denied by server?

mzo · 2014-12-09 18:56:12

Been playing for hours and seen this come up about maybe 5 times. Can't identify any specific cause, but it seems to kill the game, forcing me to leave.

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-09 23:03:40

Sorry for the trouble! This should never happen...

Looking up your account in the server logs, it looks like the most recent time that this happened was at 2014-12-09 17:42:48 GMT (adjust for your timezone), about 10 minutes ago. From the log, it looks like maybe your client lost connection, because two of your messages never made it to the server. By the time your move (in this case, your second column choice) came through, on your client's third retry, the game had already timed out. Yes, the client enforces a timer on you (red number that shows up), but if you complete your move on time but your move doesn't make it through to the server, your client will retry after 16 seconds or so. By that time, if you cut it close, the server has likely timed you out and the game has ended. Your move is thus denied.

Do you recall seeing a red [!] box show up? That means the client cannot connect to the server and is retrying.

Sadly, there's no way to prevent this from happening during times of lost connection. I'll tweak the server a bit to loosen up the grace period though. Still, it WILL happen sometimes.

I'm not sure how this should be messaged client-side. DENIED BY SERVER is probably confusing here. Maybe GAME ENDED instead? Or CONNECTION LOST?

mzo · 2014-12-10 00:56:06

I saw red exclamations off and on quite a bit throughout my play time, usually lasting about 10 seconds or so. Knowing my setup here at home and the actual internet usage during the time I was playing, I don't see any reason why there would have been any trouble communicating to your server on my end. Not ruling that out as a possibility of course. Would be nice if there was a way to verify what was causing the issue. Hopefully I didn't lose out on any money from the timeouts, especially because of the rake

I think CONNECTION LOST or even CONNECTION TIMEOUT are better for being clear on what happened. DENIED BY SERVER makes it sound like i'm falling victim to some kind of misdirected anti-cheating algorithm.

.. · 2014-12-10 12:45:46

If you timeout during a game you lose it, otherwise you could just pull the plug to avoid a loss.

I notice that the TCD and CM servers have adjacent IP addresses. A number of times over the last months the TCD server has stopped responding to me for long periods up to a couple minutes, while my internet connection seemed perfectly fine (though I do use wifi). Do you use an uptime monitoring service?

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-10 18:45:27

Yes, I do have uptime monitoring. There were some major outages over the past few months, but many weeks ago at this point.

In this case, though, the other player was actively waiting, sending "Is the move ready yet?" messages, which is what finally made the game time out (the server is driven by the opponent who is waiting).

Thus, the server wasn't down. For some reason, MZO's messages didn't come through until it was too late.

MZO, I've never seen a red [!] in all of my testing of the live server (and I'm not on-site with the server or anything). Wonder if other people can chime in here about their experience.

jere · 2014-12-10 19:23:45

I've gotten the Denied error 2-3 times (emailed you once) and I'm fairly certain I've seen the [!] several times too. At least once, I tried checking the forums while this was happening and wasn't receiving a response there. I'll try to keep a closer eye on it.

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-10 19:26:23

Yeah, I think THAT Denied error (where there's no red [!]) has been fixed server-side.

I think the web server did go down one time, briefly, in the past two weeks now that I think about it.

jere · 2014-12-11 01:43:50

Just got a denied by server while waiting for a game. I was browsing the internet while waiting, so I don't think it was a connection problem on my side.

mzo · 2014-12-11 03:56:03

I had a lot of orange/red dots and occasional red ! as well as one Denied by server this morning sometime between 8-10am I think it was.

It's too bad you aren't on-site with the server as I'm over in Sacramento

jasonrohrer · 2014-12-11 16:16:29

Yeah, it looks like there was some kind of database overload (too many connections) on the server this morning.

Maybe one transaction got hung, locking the tables and blocking other transactions, though I didn't get any deadlock messages.

In your case, Jere, it looks like a ton of your waiting_game_start requests got backlogged, and in the mean time, the flush cleared out your game as stale, and then after that, all of those wait_game_start requests came through (with some dropped, too, it seems), and the final one (the one your client was still waiting for a response from, that it had not abandoned) was denied.

I did get some connection overload messages, but they happened 10 minutes later, so I don't know what was going on. Sadly, in my experience with PHP/MySQL, sometimes this kind of thing just happens.

mzo · 2015-01-01 00:07:51

Just got a denied by server a few min ago. It's the second time it's happened after winning with an all-in.

mzo · 2015-01-01 02:14:44

On the upside, both times I got my winnings fine.

Pox · 2015-01-01 03:57:22

I had this once a few days ago. If I remember correctly it was after an all-in win, and I received the payout.

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-01 04:32:13

Did it seem to be timing out around that time (failing to connect to server)? Like, red [!] showing up? Or just DENIED unexpectedly?

mzo · 2015-01-01 06:15:06

Denied unexpectedly. I went all in and then they would go all in too and almost right away denied by server. I dont know if all in is part of it but both times it happened recently were exactly that way. Id get worried, hit leave and see that I left with my profit at least. I have a screenshot from the first time I think if that helps.

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-01 12:24:35

Hmm... please send me your game recording right away next time it happens. Also, if you're on windows, you could send me your stdout.txt.

Pilam69 · 2015-01-13 00:48:19

Just had the same error. E-mailed you the stdout.txt file to review.

jere · 2015-01-13 01:40:42

Saw this error on the site today: Error: Unable to connect to MySQL and select database. MySQL reported: Too many connections.

Around that time was getting long time [!]

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-13 02:57:04

Yeah, MySQL was hosed today on the server. Affected The Castle Doctrine too around the same time.

Pilam's issue was a real bug and happened at a different time.

computermouth · 2015-01-13 03:42:12

Just out of curiosity, what happens to live games during such a hosing? Let's say I was in a second round pick and both players had already committed 10 chips.

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-13 18:00:14

Assuming that it lasts more than 60 seconds, whenever the database comes back, a flush will be triggered on the server, which will notice those games as timed out for both players, and whoever created the game gets kicked first, with the pot going to the other player.

This doesn't make too much sense, though, and I'll fix it to split the pot in that case.

There's also the chance that one player is able to connect again BEFORE the flush, and in that case, the request of that player will time the other player out, and the player that connected first will get the pot.

There's not a good way for the server to differentiate between this occurrence and the real deal where the other player has timed out. You know, if we've heard from A recently, but not from B, and the deadline is up, we assume B timed out, and give the pot to A.

computermouth · 2015-01-13 21:10:53

I suppose that's just the way it has to be. Otherwise, false disconnects could be abused.

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-13 22:25:55

Pilam's issue has been fixed on the server.

Also changed it to return pots to both players if both time out together.

.. · 2015-01-14 08:14:00

jasonrohrer wrote:

There's not a good way for the server to differentiate between this occurrence and the real deal where the other player has timed out. You know, if we've heard from A recently, but not from B, and the deadline is up, we assume B timed out, and give the pot to A.

Are you saying that the flush might not happen immediately, and if so, it's possible for a player to reconnect after they should have timed out, but before the server does a flush and notices that they've timed out? If so, can't this case be recognised and handled as a time out for both players?

Last edited by .. (2015-01-14 08:14:24)

jasonrohrer · 2015-01-14 19:56:29

Yeah, thinking about a way to fix this.

CORDIAL MINUET ENSEMBLE

#1 2014-12-09 18:56:12

Denied by server?

#2 2014-12-09 23:03:40

Re: Denied by server?

#3 2014-12-10 00:56:06

Re: Denied by server?

#4 2014-12-10 12:45:46

Re: Denied by server?

#5 2014-12-10 18:45:27

Re: Denied by server?

#6 2014-12-10 19:23:45

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#7 2014-12-10 19:26:23

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#8 2014-12-11 01:43:50

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#9 2014-12-11 03:56:03

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#10 2014-12-11 16:16:29

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#11 2015-01-01 00:07:51

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#12 2015-01-01 02:14:44

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#13 2015-01-01 03:57:22

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#14 2015-01-01 04:32:13

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#15 2015-01-01 06:15:06

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#16 2015-01-01 12:24:35

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#17 2015-01-13 00:48:19

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#18 2015-01-13 01:40:42

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#19 2015-01-13 02:57:04

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#20 2015-01-13 03:42:12

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#21 2015-01-13 18:00:14

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#22 2015-01-13 21:10:53

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#23 2015-01-13 22:25:55

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#24 2015-01-14 08:14:00

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#25 2015-01-14 19:56:29

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