BZflag freezes my system at random times

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Fri Jan 10, 2003 11:16 pm

Hi,

You're right. there are two types of freezes.

For now I am debugging the complete lockup. This is most annoying to me, since I can't save data of other apps etc. If that's resolved I'll see if I can find that other one.

I just had 3 freezes on a row, and this happend three times at probably the same spot in bzflag. The main thread stops. It is probably not sound related, since the sound thread is still happily spitting out my debug messages after the crash.

I'll have to put more messages to "zoom in" on the code. Let you know as soon as I have identified it.

Cheers,
Remco

some guy · Post by **some guy** » Sat Jan 11, 2003 2:58 am

as far as the game freezing when connecting to servers, i don't think it's a freeze. sometimes when i wait long enough (30 seconds), it'll come back with a "timed-out" message. so try being patient and see if it really is a freeze.

KnightMare · Post by **KnightMare** » Sat Jan 11, 2003 3:34 am

it happens while playing the game, or while playing on your own server...Not just waiting to connect.

some guy · Post by **some guy** » Sat Jan 11, 2003 3:41 am

my XMMS runs on OSS driver but i get no sound from bzflag when i play

DEATH[2-I] · Post by **DEATH[2-I]** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 8:06 pm

i just had the usual symptoms - total freeze, mouse still working IN WINDOZE!!!!!!!

first time in ...well - ever!
i really hate 'g0' !!!

usually you remove the bugs before adding new ones, tim riker must have forgotten this. :sniper:

2 good things to say though.

1 - turkey moongroups has fixed it's 'pause' problems & the new map is fantastic!

2 - KnightMare has a seriously cool avatar

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 8:43 pm

Hi,

Hmmmm this windows freeze is weird. I didn't expect that. Are you sure it is the complete lockup while playing, and not the freeze while connecting to a server?

we have some cases:
1. It's the same bzflag bug.
2. It's the same bug in the opengl implementation, if this is the same source, but I thought it was different.
3. It are two different bugs with similar symptons in opengl
4. and there is always a case you didn't anticipate with bugs.

I haven't had lockups lately in bzflag, so I can't zoom in much yet. But it is somewhere in the rendering code. While experimenting with vegastrike I had the same lockup symptons as with bzflag, so i thought it was mesa.

Btw, thanks for the sound tip. I now set xmms to output to /dev/dsp1. Works great for me.

Cheers,
Remco.

DEATH[2-I] · Post by **DEATH[2-I]** » Mon Jan 13, 2003 9:05 pm

there is no freeze when connecting to servers,
sometimes the server is too busy to respond. when this happens the request will eventually time-out and you can search for servers again.

i think the same problem is responsible for the ocasional error while trying to download the world-database (map) when joining a server.

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Sun Jan 19, 2003 9:51 pm

Hi,

No big news yet. Freezes seems to happen a different places in the rendering code. Not sure yet if this is caused by the same underlying function, or asynchronous behaviour. Or maybe a (flawed?) method of getting this text:

bzflag 1> main.debug 2> sound.debug

sound goes to cerr, main to cout. Since the shell should not freeze, I asume this method works.

Cheers,
Remco.

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 9:00 am

Hi,

Somebody at sourceforge said this:

My system started locking up about a week ago. Yesterday (01/19/03) my son's and my computer locked up at the same time while connected to the same server (xmission.bzflag.org). I beleive this problem may be a function of the server or the communications from the server. Ver 1.7g0.

And I had a freeze once in this section of the code in ControlPanel.cxx:

// how many characters will fit?
int n = lineLen;

if (n > lineCharWidth)
{
n = lineCharWidth;
}

// only draw message if inside message area
if (j + msgy < maxLines)
{
messageFont.draw(msg, n, fx, fy + msgy * lineHeight);
}

So, it might be triggered by some message sent from a player, induced by the opengl call (messageFont.draw).

Now I think of it, I always freeze up before or after official matches, when a lots of talking is done, and have never during one, when we just fight.

But... It happend at other places as well, and I am still not sure if this approach works at all.

Cheers,
Remco.

some guy · Post by **some guy** » Tue Jan 21, 2003 4:57 pm

remember, i've had it lock up on startup as the files were loading too.

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 4:15 am

Hi,

Just a small update, still busy on the issue. Just had a freeze here in HUDRenderer.cxx:

// draw heading strip
if (True /* always draw heading strip */) {
cout << "bzdbgcode:1380227 " << endl;
// first clip to area
glScissor(ox + centerx - maxMotionSize, oy + height - viewHeight + centery + maxMotionSize - 5,
2 * maxMotionSize, 15 + (int)(headingFont.getSpacing() + 0.5f));

// draw heading mark
cout << "bzdbgcode:1380228 " << endl;
glBegin(GL_LINES);

I got the 1380227 code, but nothing after. In about the 10 freezes until now, it doesn't appear to happen at the same spot, or same function. So I assume something asynchronous is causing this freeze.

I'll keep on doing this, to see if a pattern emerges, but I think I need to call in some help. I think this bug is in the xlibmesa3 package. Does everybody use that on this forum with the freeze bug? I'd like to be sure, before asking help about this somewhat hard to reproduce bug.

Cheers,
Remco

DEATH[2-I] · Post by **DEATH[2-I]** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 5:03 am

well i am just using the windows version for now,
waiting for the release soon of XFREE86 v4.3

hoping it will fix the problem!

it should be out soon, the 4.2.99 beta release candidate has been on cvs for ages

i personally suspect the problem is related to texture mapping,
maybe a quick compile with no textures, just wireframe mode would prove something?

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Sun Feb 02, 2003 3:42 pm

i personally suspect the problem is related to texture mapping,
maybe a quick compile with no textures, just wireframe mode would prove something?

How do you do that? I play with texturing off, and pretty much everything off in the options. But I don't know how to recompile without textures.... Can you give me a hint?

Cheers,
Remco

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Mon Feb 03, 2003 9:39 pm

Hi,

I reported the bug to the debian bug tracking system. Maybe somebody over there knows how to fix this.

it's on:
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=179660

Cheers,
Remco

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Wed Feb 19, 2003 1:09 am

Hi,

As you can see on
http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/pkgrepor ... rc=xfree86
there are a lot of bugs in X. Chances are it is not getting fixed by someone else soon. I am recompiling the whole X beast with mesa right now. If it works and I can install it, I might try some stuff myself......

This is turning out to be quite some quest....

Cheers,
Remco

Chestal · Post by **Chestal** » Wed Feb 19, 2003 3:45 pm

Good luck on your dangerous quest, rembo. I hope you will slay a few dragons along the way.

DEATH[2-I] · Post by **DEATH[2-I]** » Thu Feb 27, 2003 8:26 pm

here is something new, while playing with the settings on windows i managed to duplicate the fault.
(freezing, but with mouse movement)

i am pretty sure i got it localised to the 'anisotropic filtering' option.
if i enable it i get trouble.

NOW HOW DO I DISABLE THAT OPTION IN LINUX?????

system note,

this is using a TNT1 agp card.
(Diamond-VIPER 550)

KnightMare · Post by **KnightMare** » Thu Feb 27, 2003 11:51 pm

Does by chance ya'lls motherboards have the Via chipsets? Or that default built in Sound chip (cant remember the name) Mine quit doing that since i changed Motherboards. Have same video card though.

Old MB: Albatron KM266PRO
Onboard Sound and Via chipset

New MB: Asus A7N8X Deluxe
nForce 2 chipset

Same video card for both (nVidia GeForce 4 w/64), but now my problems all went away.
If i remeber correctly my old system quit hanging after i put in a real Sound Blaster Live card.

Tankless · Post by **Tankless** » Fri Feb 28, 2003 5:19 pm

"Does by chance ya'lls motherboards have the Via chipsets? Or that default built in Sound chip"
___________________________________________
Yes. I have the MSI K7T Pro-2A. It has Via chipsets with built in sound.

DEATH[2-I] · Post by **DEATH[2-I]** » Fri Feb 28, 2003 6:58 pm

VIA-APOLLO MVP3 chipset, but no onboard anything, i use a soundblaster AWE32.(ISA)

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 12:45 am

Intel AL440LX chipset
ES1371 soundcard. (not buildin)

Remco

KnightMare · Post by **KnightMare** » Sat Mar 01, 2003 2:37 am

Hmm, different chipsets. I guess that wasn't it. Odd though that mine quit after changing the MB.

I'll file this under "I dunno"

Rembo · Post by **Rembo** » Thu Mar 13, 2003 1:10 pm

Hi,

I haven't done anything with mesa so far. been busy with study.... Maybe I'll get to that some months later. In the meantime I'll test Xfree 4.3 as soon as in enters debian testing, or maybe unstable. (could take some while.)

One thing... I haven't had a single crash for the whole month. Maybe I didn't play enough

Cheers,
Remco

Zrith · Post by **Zrith** » Sun Mar 23, 2003 9:35 am

Hey, figured I might as well register and give my input in hopes of the problem being fixed-- I worked for a few weeks getting DRI to work properly *just* to play BZFlag again, after all.

Computer stats:
AMD Athlon 1GHz
Radeon 7200
Soundblaster PCI 128
ASUS K7 motherboard

Linux stats:
Debian Sid (unstable)
Kernel version 2.4.20-xfs compiled for i686
XFree86 version 4.3.0-ds3v1 (Daniel Stone's X 4.3.0 debs for sid; highly recommended)

Same general problems. Sometimes I lose any and all keyboard support, but can still move around with the mouse, fire, etc. Can't leave the screen, though. Other times, freezes on fullscreen but I can kill X; unfortunately, this locks my modem up as well as requiring a restart for X to start working properly. The freeze usually happens when I try to find servers; the same thing used to happen on Windows. Not only on the modem connection, but on broadband when I have it. I'll try the mem=nopentium bit when I next restart; should be sometime tomorrow.
Hope I didn't forget anything.

sussi · Post by **sussi** » Sun Mar 23, 2003 10:43 pm

i have also this freeze problem
for me seems it, that the GUI loos the Contact to the keyboard
during instll i red in nvidia's doco something about nvidia- AMG-AGP problems
so i reduced texture value in the BIOS (linux use BIOS values)
diable fast write - AGP
today i had a nice freeze : i could drive, arm ,fire, but not jump or use the chatboard
also not switch the console
it must be the keyboard

sys: debian unstable
kernel 2.5.61
nvidia 4191
nvidia 200 MX grafik
have fun
sussi

Official forums for BZFlag.org

BZflag freezes my system at random times

little update

Posted bug to the debian bug tracking system

No freezes