Dedicated servers randomly fail to start - appear to be stuck on login

[fargo007]

I am seeing an issue with dedicated servers where they randomly fail to start up.  

The failure is consistent. It is very early in the loading process, seemingly related to, or right before the login sequence.

This is the entire log from such an occurrence: 

Quote

=== Log opened UTC 2023-02-08 15:15:35
2023-02-08 15:15:34.541 INFO    APP (Main): Command line: "C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World OpenBeta Server\bin\dcs.exe"  --server --norender -w server2
2023-02-08 15:15:34.541 INFO    APP (Main): DCS/2.8.2.35759 (x86_64; Windows NT 10.0.19045)
2023-02-08 15:15:34.541 INFO    APP (Main): Application revision: 215759
2023-02-08 15:15:34.541 INFO    APP (Main): Renderer revision: 23817
2023-02-08 15:15:34.541 INFO    APP (Main): Terrain revision: 23783
2023-02-08 15:15:34.541 INFO    APP (Main): Build number: 278
2023-02-08 15:15:34.541 INFO    APP (Main): CPU cores: 4, threads: 4, System RAM: 49151 MB, Pagefile: 7168 MB
2023-02-08 15:15:34.733 INFO    APP (Main): Device hotplug disabled!
2023-02-08 15:15:34.733 INFO    EDCORE (Main): (dDispatcher)enterToState_:0
2023-02-08 15:15:34.733 INFO    Dispatcher (Main): 2023/2/8 10:15 V1803061700
2023-02-08 15:15:34.759 INFO    ASYNCNET (Main): ProtocolVersion: 314
2023-02-08 15:15:34.760 INFO    ED_SOUND (Main): Using driver: dummy
2023-02-08 15:15:34.760 INFO    ED_SOUND (Main): Found 0 available audio device(s):
2023-02-08 15:15:34.760 INFO    Dispatcher (Main): InitLow
2023-02-08 15:15:34.932 INFO    EDCORE (Main): Loaded C:/Program Files/Eagle Dynamics/DCS World OpenBeta Server/bin/CockpitBase.dll

(That's where the log ends when this occurs.)

 

When a server loads successfully, the very next lines after this are the login sequence:

Quote

2023-02-08 15:15:35.598 INFO    ASYNCNET (8796): Login success.
2023-02-08 15:15:36.243 INFO    ASYNCNET (8796): Got auth data.
2023-02-08 15:15:36.683 INFO    APP (Main): Successfully got authorization data.
2023-02-08 15:15:36.687 INFO    Dispatcher (Main): Loading installed modules...
2023-02-08 15:15:37.068 INFO    SECURITYCONTROL (Main): Loaded mods/tech/wwii units/dcs_module.pak.crypt
2023-02-08 15:15:41.141 INFO    Scripting (Main): OBSOLETE mount_vfs_sound_path() used in ./CoreMods/aircraft/AJS37/entry.lua
2023-02-08 15:15:42.186 INFO    Scripting (Main): PLUGINS START-------------------------------------------------
2023-02-08 15:15:43.722 INFO    Scripting (Main): PLUGINS DONE--------------------------------------------------

This is not reproducible on demand.  There are four DCS servers that are started from the same installation, each with its own write path.

The issue will occur with each of them randomly as the servers are started.  Today #2 and #4, but other days one or two of the others, or sometimes none of them.

It would seem that since the issue occurs so consistently right before the login sequence, that this might have something to do with that.

If there's any advice on how to keep them from getting stuck here, I am thankful for the counsel. 

Thanks!

/Fargo

 

 

[Maverick87Shaka]

My servers are not affected, but our friends squadron have similar issue on their instances.

Since you've mentioned, now I've looked to their log and stops in the same exact point.

You'll be able, just for test, to replace the server DNS? rather than use the ISP DNS servers, try to use third parties DNS, like primary from google ( 8.8.8.8 ) and  Cloudflare ( 1.1.1.1 ) for example? (  or any other not related to your ISP )

Because so far it's seams related to specific ISP congestion, or ED server unreachable, but just for some ISP/host provider.

Let me know if it's help to solve.

I'll ask to do the same also to our friends to understand if they have benefits or not.

Fly Safe!

[fargo007]

Thanks for the response and the extra investigation here. That's certainly easy enough to try. 

[MarcosR]

Hey Fargo! has been a long time....  Good to see you..  Have the same issue in my servers too, comes and goes, there was another post saying something to remove some debugging tool... I haven't tried yet, since at least for me is only happens a few time most of them during the night,  

 

 

[fargo007]

On 2/15/2023 at 9:55 AM, MarcosR said:

Hey Fargo! has been a long time....  Good to see you..  Have the same issue in my servers too, comes and goes, there was another post saying something to remove some debugging tool... I haven't tried yet, since at least for me is only happens a few time most of them during the night,  

 

 

 

Hey!  Long time no see brother! 

Yeah this is a crazy one.  I'm gonna try the DNS switch, but honestly I can restart them a couple times and get this to reproduce.

I wonder why a dedicated server even NEEDS to log in with a username/pw each time?  Unless you are trying to manage it via the website which to my knowledge is almost never done.

For dedicated servers, it might be a lot simpler to at least cache the login, or furnish an option where it can be bypassed if web management isn't desired. 

A few of us flew on Rotorheads last night actually. It was fun! 

Thanks for the pointer to the other thread. Exactly the same issue.