server maintanance Kicked Out of Creating a Mission by Server Maintanence?

[Rex]

I saw the red banner about system maintenance, but I had no idea that I could not do anything locally during this time.  I was in the middle of creating a mission, and got booted without warning with a "Session Expired" message ... losing all of my unsaved changes in the process.  Ouch.

Now, when I try to log back in, DCS tells me "bad username/password"?

It's 9pm Sunday where I am, I had no idea that DCS was going to be completely unusable during this "Server Maintenance".

Was this anticipated?

I've been a user for nearly 4 years, and have never personally seen this behavior before.  Furthermore, had I not visited the DCS website recently, I would have had no clue whatsoever as to what was going on.  And there's no indication of when this maintenance is scheduled to be over.

It doesn't feel quite right.  It's also a bit of a wakeup call.  I've got thousands of dollars of content wholly dependent on a third-party server being up.  Talk about an insecure feeling.

It says "All of the following modules are unauthorized and will be disabled", and it lists every module I've purchased.  I cannot do anything whatsoever with DCS.  It feels like someone just came and swiped a ton of stuff you've paid for.

Damn, fellas, this is not good.  This is not good at all.

I'm just assuming this is all related to the server maintenance, but I don't know this for a fact.  Has anyone else experience this?

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Rex

[Dangerzone]

1 hour ago, Rex said:

I saw the red banner about system maintenance, but I had no idea that I could not do anything locally during this time.  I was in the middle of creating a mission, and got booted without warning with a "Session Expired" message ... losing all of my unsaved changes in the process.  Ouch.

Now, when I try to log back in, DCS tells me "bad username/password"?

It's 9pm Sunday where I am, I had no idea that DCS was going to be completely unusable during this "Server Maintenance".

Was this anticipated?

I've been a user for nearly 4 years, and have never personally seen this behavior before.  Furthermore, had I not visited the DCS website recently, I would have had no clue whatsoever as to what was going on.  And there's no indication of when this maintenance is scheduled to be over.

It doesn't feel quite right.  It's also a bit of a wakeup call.  I've got thousands of dollars of content wholly dependent on a third-party server being up.  Talk about an insecure feeling.

It says "All of the following modules are unauthorized and will be disabled", and it lists every module I've purchased.  I cannot do anything whatsoever with DCS.  It feels like someone just came and swiped a ton of stuff you've paid for.

Damn, fellas, this is not good.  This is not good at all.

I'm just assuming this is all related to the server maintenance, but I don't know this for a fact.  Has anyone else experience this?

 

 

I thought if the server was down, it gave us a 2 day 'grace period' from when we last authenticated correctly. 

I'm not sure, but my first 'guess' is that maybe because you were already in the game when the server went down, the 'kick' it gave you has trashed the grace period somehow.

If this is indeed the case, and users already logged in are unable to use their product if they're kicked like this - I would like to see this 'tweaked' so that in future, once you're authorised and in-game there's no kicking out. Or - if you are kicked out and attempt to get back in, you get the standard 2 day grace period like we normally do if the internet connection is down, etc. 

[carraro0127]

1小时前，Rex说：

I saw the red banner about system maintenance, but I had no idea that I could not do anything locally during this time.  I was in the middle of creating a mission, and got booted without warning with a "Session Expired" message ... losing all of my unsaved changes in the process.  Ouch.

Now, when I try to log back in, DCS tells me "bad username/password"?

It's 9pm Sunday where I am, I had no idea that DCS was going to be completely unusable during this "Server Maintenance".

Was this anticipated?

I've been a user for nearly 4 years, and have never personally seen this behavior before.  Furthermore, had I not visited the DCS website recently, I would have had no clue whatsoever as to what was going on.  And there's no indication of when this maintenance is scheduled to be over.

It doesn't feel quite right.  It's also a bit of a wakeup call.  I've got thousands of dollars of content wholly dependent on a third-party server being up.  Talk about an insecure feeling.

It says "All of the following modules are unauthorized and will be disabled", and it lists every module I've purchased.  I cannot do anything whatsoever with DCS.  It feels like someone just came and swiped a ton of stuff you've paid for.

Damn, fellas, this is not good.  This is not good at all.

I'm just assuming this is all related to the server maintenance, but I don't know this for a fact.  Has anyone else experience this?

 

 

I had the same problem when I just logged in at now. Is this problem related to the current maintenance of the server? Or is there a doubt that the account has been stolen issue?

[Rex]

It looks like I'm back in.  I'm pretty sure it's a server maintenance effect.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Rex

[Rex]

38 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

I thought if the server was down, it gave us a 2 day 'grace period' from when we last authenticated correctly. 

I'm not sure, but my first 'guess' is that maybe because you were already in the game when the server went down, the 'kick' it gave you has trashed the grace period somehow.

If this is indeed the case, and users already logged in are unable to use their product if they're kicked like this - I would like to see this 'tweaked' so that in future, once you're authorised and in-game there's no kicking out. Or - if you are kicked out and attempt to get back in, you get the standard 2 day grace period like we normally do if the internet connection is down, etc. 

That's what I thought too.  A few hours earlier I was on a multiplayer server, so I had logged in with a working  internet connection earlier today.  Then, a bit later, I was in the Mission Editor, placing a flight of P51s, and suddenly .... Desktop.  It looked like it had crashed, but the popup said "Session Expired", and subsequent attempts to log in were futile.  

Then, a couple minutes later, I tried again, and I got the following popup (attached below).

Yikes, as I bought most of those.

 

I've had almost no trouble over the years, and it's lulled me into a false sense of security about the stuff I "buy".    I like DCS a lot, and it's a primary hobby at this point.  I have put a lot of time and money into it, well over a G by this point ... and it's money I consider well-spent.  I'm not rich, and I avail myself of sales from time-to-time,  but not once have I quibbled over the price of anything or regretted spending it.    In my view they've earned every penny of it by what they've put together.

What I forget, however, is how quickly it could all go away, leaving me with nothing but my cat as an audience as I wave my fist and scream "but I bought it!"

Nobody is going to care.

It's a historically weird time to be a consumer.  Be it from Amazon, or Apple, or whomever, we buy stuff that the seller can take back from us at any time, leaving us without our money and our purchase.  I mean, when you really think about it, it's not a matter of "if" it's going to happen, it's a matter of "when" it's going to happen. The guy who sold you your sofa won't take it back.  Ditto for your microwave.  But anything digital will, at some point, cease to exist.  Chances are, when it does happen, it's going to take a whole lot of us by complete surprise.

Being forced to think about it, like I was today, is a real bummer.

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by Rex

[Dangerzone]

7 minutes ago, Rex said:

That's what I thought too.  A few hours earlier I was on a multiplayer server, so I had logged in with a working  internet connection earlier today.  Then, a bit later, I was in the Mission Editor, placing a flight of P51s, and suddenly .... Desktop.  It looked like it had crashed, but the popup said "Session Expired", and subsequent attempts to log in were futile.  

Then, a couple minutes later, I tried again, and I got the following popup (attached below).

Yikes, as I bought most of those.

Yeah, that second part isn't cool. I would be expecting a message along the lines of "Authorization is valid for xxxx. Multiplayer is not available" or similar. 

I guess even so, you should still be able to access the mission editor if that's what you were working on (maybe). I reckon I had the same problem as you though another time. Was working in ME, and then was booted out because the authentication servers went offline. 

I'm suspicious that:

1) DCS continually calls home after activation/logging on to reauthenticate periodically (hence you getting kicked in the first place), and

2) There's some trigger that once you're kicked, your authentication cache is deleted.

I don't understand enough how their anti-pirating stuff works behind the scene. I would have hoped that if the server could no longer be contacted it would give a grace period, or that there could be a secondary DCS server up that would advise 'under maintenance' and that DCS could check in with that server and if the under maintenance flag was up, it would allow DCS to continue (without mutiplayer). But I'm also aware that depending on how they've coded this, it may not be a simple 'we'll just whack this in', and such options could create more problems in other areas. It'd be good to have some official feedback on this.

[Nealius]

The joys of investing hundreds or thousands of dollars into a hobby that has a single point of failure. Would be nice if there was a backup server we could use during these maintenance periods or when the main server goes down for whatever reason.

[BIGNEWY]

3 hours ago, Rex said:

Was this anticipated?

From our recent news 

Quote

Please note, we are upgrading our database and our services will be temporarily unavailable from 4:00 to 6:00 UTC on the 28th of August, 2023.

Servers are back online now. 

thank you for your patience while the upgrade was in progress. 

[Rex]

I'm back to not being able to log in.  Unfortunately, it is not fixed for me.

[BIGNEWY]

2 minutes ago, Rex said:

I'm back to not being able to log in.  Unfortunately, it is not fixed for me.

What is not working for you? 

You should be able to login now, but the server list will take some time to populate as servers will need to reboot and be added to the list. 

[Rex]

Thesis what I get now, 12:45am Seattle Time

 

 

Maybe the server is repopulating as you mentioned.  I'll try again in a bit.

[Rex]

"Please note, we are upgrading our database and our services will be temporarily unavailable from 4:00 to 6:00 UTC on the 28th of August, 2023."

18 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

From our recent news 

Servers are back online now. 

thank you for your patience while the upgrade was in progress. 

 

Yeah, I understood that, my question related to whether it was anticipated, was getting punted from a local ME session.  I didn't know if that was anticipated because it's not happened to me for any previous server maintanance.

 

[BIGNEWY]

Just now, Rex said:

"Please note, we are upgrading our database and our services will be temporarily unavailable from 4:00 to 6:00 UTC on the 28th of August, 2023."

 

Yeah, I understood that, my question related to whether it was anticipated, was getting punted from a local ME session.  I didn't know if that was anticipated because it's not happened to me for any previous server maintanance.

 

Hi, yes it was anticipated as all services would be down. 

[Rex]

I'm back in now, thank you for your help.

3 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Hi, yes it was anticipated as all services would be down. 

got it. thanks!

[Hoirtel]

It's the digital age we live in. I mean if you buy a digital product it only exist digitally so that relies on equipment to have any existence. It's all just electricity...

[kotor633]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb Rex:

It looks like I'm back in.  I'm pretty sure it's a server maintenance effect.

 

Yes it was, when I wanted to go to the DCS website at around 8 a.m. this morning, I was told that the website was in maintenance mode.

[Ripcord03]

i encountered this too, i hadnt checked the forums in a while so had no clue it was going to happen, got booted out right towards the end of a campaign mission. It made it impossible for me to play the modules i bought  and killed the game, super jarring when the game just freezes in VR mid combat then goes black screen. Have to replay that mission, which isnt a big deal, but being having the authentication wiped which unloaded all my modules due to the maintenance was not cool.

[BIGNEWY]

Please note we will have a second downtime. 

The scheduled maintenance of our primary server, the DCS website, Module Manager, and Multiplayer (master server) services will occur on Tuesday the 29th of August at 04:00 UTC and will last for two hours.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

[ColinM9991]

I wonder what's included in the maintenance. Is ED finally moving into the 21st century by having a scalable AuthN and AuthZ solution so that pre-orders and updates don't knock the game offline?

[Rex]

8 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Please note we will have a second downtime. 

The scheduled maintenance of our primary server, the DCS website, Module Manager, and Multiplayer (master server) services will occur on Tuesday the 29th of August at 04:00 UTC and will last for two hours.

Our apologies for the inconvenience.

Thanks for the heads-up!  I'll be better prepared this time.

[MAXsenna]

Thanks for the heads-up!  I'll be better prepared this time.

Have you checked "save username and password" or similar?
If not, I guess you won't be able to access your modules when the server goes down. You can double check and verify by disabling your network adapter before starting DCS.

Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[DragonSoulkin]

I've always been a firm believer in if I buy something outright, I own it and all its contents. You pay cash for a car, nobody can take that car outside of you doing specific illegal things with it. I buy a burger, I eat the burger. It's the same thing, but in the realm of purchasing digital things it seems the sellers hide behind long winded disclaimers masked behind legal jargon that the average person isn't going to read and/or understand.

 

My first experience that opened my eyes on this was when the first Destiny released and I had purchased the disc copy. There was a lot of content that was "locked out" but still on the disc yet when players found ways to access this content before its "official release" they were punished. So I bought the disc, but wasn't allowed to access all the content I had purchased on said disc? It doesn't make any sense.

 

Here on DCS it seems it's no different. We can pay hundreds for all these digital aircraft but god forbid you end up without internet for any extended period of time, or the servers go down, or this or that, bam you can't play with the digital planes you paid more than the cover price of an entire game for. It's absolute and completely total BS. So instead of actually buying a module, what you're paying for is the temporary permission to use a module that can be taken away at any time, without notice or reason, at no fault to you.

[MAXsenna]

@DragonSoulkin
Yeah, that's a bummer. But why wasn't all users locked out?

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk

[DragonSoulkin]

1 hour ago, MAXsenna said:

@DragonSoulkin
Yeah, that's a bummer. But why wasn't all users locked out?

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk
 

I don't know. I was also completely locked out of all "my" paid modules.

[Rex]

7 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

Have you checked "save username and password" or similar?
If not, I guess you won't be able to access your modules when the server goes down. You can double check and verify by disabling your network adapter before starting DCS.

Cheers!

Sent from my MAR-LX1A using Tapatalk
 

I do have the "Save Password" box checked.  Since I'm the only person who uses this machine, it's always been checked.

I'm getting the invalid username/password right now, even as we speak, and I can't access any part of DCS (Except the forums), but I know why.

I remember being to access my modules locally before when the server was down, but apparently this is no longer the case.  At least not for me.