Units not loading in with mission? (very strange non-reproducible server issue)

[XCNuse]

This is going to sound wild, and the worst part is, I literally have no way to provide proof that this happened other than a first hand account.

 

Has ANYONE, ever seen or had this happen to them before?

Where a mission loads into your server, you run it, and even things as simple as static units don't appear?

 

To keep it simple; it was a group mission, loaded in, some triggers seemed to be wonky, we continued anyway.

Map view was limited to our plane only, so we had no way to know there was a major issue off the bat (not that us players knew what we were looking for anyway, and why would the mission maker check anyway, seems pretty abnormal right?)

Make it to the AO of targets... only some objects seem to be there.

Majority of ground vehicles and infantry units did not spawn in; but some other units like manpads and non-vehicle statics did.

 

And no, these were not even late activation groups or anything based on triggers; just plain units set on Syria.

 

 

Here's the kicker:

Load the track file in the mission editor, and everything is there.

Server was restarted, mission restarted (after we called it quits by then), and everything loaded in just fine.

 

So the mission file itself wasn't broken in any way, the server loading assets apparently was?

This is my only assumption.

 

Anyways, searched the forum, never came across this. Thought it was very unusual, and as mentioned, appears to not be reproducible in any way shape or form, but seems to have been tied to the server I guess just needing a reboot?

 

(As for a finalizing addition, if it were somehow the wrong mission, it means the units wouldn't have been in there in the track file. Additionally I loaded the mission into a personal server and it ran fine. And after the main host rebooted their server, everything was fine)

 

I guess the takeaway is.. reminder to reboot your servers!

[Flappie]

Hi @XCNuse. I've read about this before, but I couldn't reproduce this issue.

Next time it happens, please attach both track and log files.

Edited July 18, 2022 by Flappie

[XCNuse]

Oh so it has happened before!

Wild.

 

Unfortunately like I said, nothing can be done to reproduce it because they ARE in the mission file as apparent in the track.

So like I said, we loaded into and ran this mission, and realized some ground unit groups didn't spawn in; but I could take the track, and run it, and suddenly they were there. I could also take the track, save it as a miz, load it up into SP and on my server, and they'd appear.

 

Sadly the server that ran it had been restarted and missions reloaded since then, so... no log.

(kind of wish logs were saved like tracks)

 

This has been a first for myself, like I said, out of the many years I've been on DCS, this is definitely not something I have ever seen once before!

But like other weird things, seems to be tied to dediservers' differences.

Edited July 18, 2022 by XCNuse

[PravusJSB]

If you can try this for me and let me know;

Close the server.

Go to <WIN>\Users\<YOU>\App Data\Local\...

Delete all 'DCS' directories you find.

Then go into ...\Temp, and do the same again. Anything DCS, delete.

Restart the server.

[wadaxiyo]

I have also encountered this problem. It appeared when the server was crowded and manually changed the task, the ground units did not appear.

[Tomy10]

Hi @Flappie @PravusJSB, I experienced the same issue twice in the past weeks. Almost all unit did not appeared. Some did, can't figure why them (trigger GROUP ACTIVATE?).

- kinda big mission : thousand units, triggers, Moose scripts etc...
- few mods : French pack, High digit sam,etc.
- 10 clients connected/conntecting
- there was a server restart/mission swap

Here is what happened on that second time:

1- 10~clients are connecting to the server to play the mission

• About the server specs : i7 7700k, 32Gb of RAM, SSD, 1G/S Download, 400Mb/S upload, cable connection

2- we see that we have to change F10 map option ( All units visible -> Allies only )

3- I shut down the server completly

4- copy/paste and replace the mission.miz with the new one

• The mission file IRANCHESS_V3.3.4m9.mizIRANCHESS_V3.3.4m9.miz

5- I launch the DCS Server back again

6- we play the mission and realise after a while that NO ground unit are present.

• Tacview here : units did not spawned (BUG)BUG Tacview-20230209-213137-DCS-IRANCHESS_V3.3.4m9.zip.acmi

7- I cryied a little bit because we briefed 10 people for an hour for nothing

8- We restart the server and see that unit correctly spawned.

• Here is the dcs.log of the mission where unit did spawn correctly : dcs.log.old
• one with units spawned (NO BUG) NO BUG Tacview-20230209-213017-DCS-IRANCHESS_V3.3.4m9.zip.acmi

 

Unfortenatly the dcs.log got erase since we reboot again the mission to make unit spawn. If there is a way to get it back, TELL ME

I'll try to reproduce the bug to get that .log !

Edited February 10, 2023 by Tomy10

[Maverick87Shaka]

On 2/10/2023 at 5:27 PM, Tomy10 said:

Unfortenatly the dcs.log got erase since we reboot again the mission to make unit spawn. If there is a way to get it back, TELL ME

I'll try to reproduce the bug to get that .log !

 

If the server made just one (1) reboot you'll find the correct log in dcs.log.old, when creating new one the old will be renamed.
Of course it will works just for one reboot, if more than one reboot occurs you can't recover the dcs.log