TGNS servers need serious work

**Agamemnon** · 01-18-2008, 08:45 PM

Ok, so yet another server crash on a full server at 5:30 on 1/18. Once again, server 1 crashed and server 2 got unplayable amounts of lag immediately afterwards. Lately it seems like every time the server fills up it crashes shortly afterwards. Is there anyone who has both the server access and the time to try to fix this? One approach would be to remove all the plugins and then start adding them back until we've found the culprit. The only problem with that approach is it may be a cumulative problem, we may just have more going on then the server can handle. If that's the case, we may need to put some thought into which plugins we really want to keep, and which don't really add anything to the tgns experience.

In any case, the first step is to figure out who has the ability to add and remove plugins (or otherwise diagnose the problems) and is willing to spend some time trying to save the server?

**lush** · 01-19-2008, 06:22 AM

Just for fun, let's shutdown the second server for a bit, and see if that helps, that will immediately tell us if it's a load issue (which it shouldn't be, but it's an easy test)

**Agamemnon** · 01-19-2008, 01:41 PM

That's a good idea, can any admin do this? I can't remember the last time there were people on both servers, and if there's any chance it may fix the problem we should try this immediately, since it costs us nothing.

Originally Posted by lush

Just for fun, let's shutdown the second server for a bit, and see if that helps, that will immediately tell us if it's a load issue (which it shouldn't be, but it's an easy test)

**Pokerface** · 01-20-2008, 08:43 PM

I was thinking something similar.

Seed #1; #2 will be going down soon (tonight probably).

**Agamemnon** · 01-21-2008, 04:52 PM

So server 2 was down last night, and we had a full server on #1 without crashing (though running balance does still generate a large lag spike, and occasionally kicks half the server). Overall I'd call the experiment successful since we had a full server for a couple of hours with no crashes for the first time in recent memory. However, today server 2 is back up. Any particular reason for this?

**Morganan** · 01-21-2008, 07:10 PM

I thought the server was pretty laggy last night even though it didn't crash.

**Dr. Pepper PhD.** · 01-21-2008, 10:21 PM

Only thing that i remember being changed about the balance was Wyz making it so no two players could use balance at the same time or within a certain interval.

**Pokerface** · 01-21-2008, 11:40 PM

I stopped the serverdoc process; it probably came back up on a reboot. Since the experiment went well though, I'll remove the second server's process from startup.

**Dr. Pepper PhD.** · 01-26-2008, 03:53 AM

So I mentioned to agy about the possibilities of hardware problems and he said if so we are ****ed... why can't we just tell theplanet to fix it, aren't we paying them for that

Second question...

What are the specs on the server box being used to host TGNS???

I am looking into upgrading my line at my house for a personal business, and might be able to accommodate setting up a comp as a place for TGNS that would cost the community no moneys. All depends on the bandwidth/usage and the server specs, I might be able to throw a machine together that I could keep operational for an extended period of time.

Seeing as how I have come back to being a community player again this would make it so the interested players could still play. Also if there is any problem with the server I would be willing to give the other more active players a number to reach me at should I not be home for said problems. I used to run a CS server with what I believe to run at a 110 ping to a regular from denmark on my cable line so I cannot imagine that it would take that much more.

The line I am looking at would be about 128K up more than I will utilize and would be able to set up the company firewall behind a main router that the TG server would be off of. This is all a floating idea for now though seeing as how we cannot confirm a hardware problem yet.

EDIT: Also I would want in no way to change anything about TGNS, it would be for the community as the current server all changes are made by TG Admins, so only ideas from the community and changes that are made by admins would be done, like I said I would want it to be TGNS just in a diff server location

**Apophis** · 01-26-2008, 06:30 AM

The hardware tests clean. It's a software issue.

128k is a far cry from the bandwidth we need/require for TG servers. Thanks for the offer, but we're all set.

Originally Posted by Dr. Pepper PhD.

So I mentioned to agy about the possibilities of hardware problems and he said if so we are ****ed... why can't we just tell theplanet to fix it, aren't we paying them for that

Second question...

What are the specs on the server box being used to host TGNS???

I am looking into upgrading my line at my house for a personal business, and might be able to accommodate setting up a comp as a place for TGNS that would cost the community no moneys. All depends on the bandwidth/usage and the server specs, I might be able to throw a machine together that I could keep operational for an extended period of time.

Seeing as how I have come back to being a community player again this would make it so the interested players could still play. Also if there is any problem with the server I would be willing to give the other more active players a number to reach me at should I not be home for said problems. I used to run a CS server with what I believe to run at a 110 ping to a regular from denmark on my cable line so I cannot imagine that it would take that much more.

The line I am looking at would be about 128K up more than I will utilize and would be able to set up the company firewall behind a main router that the TG server would be off of. This is all a floating idea for now though seeing as how we cannot confirm a hardware problem yet.

EDIT: Also I would want in no way to change anything about TGNS, it would be for the community as the current server all changes are made by TG Admins, so only ideas from the community and changes that are made by admins would be done, like I said I would want it to be TGNS just in a diff server location

**Dr. Pepper PhD.** · 01-27-2008, 04:25 AM

Originally Posted by Apophis

The hardware tests clean. It's a software issue.

Great... that is really what I wanted to hear... its just easier this way honestly.

**Agamemnon** · 01-27-2008, 12:54 PM

Because shutting down server two eliminated the crashes and significantly reduced the frequency of the lag spikes, I think we can be fairly certain that the "software issue" is the total amount of load being placed on the server. Is there any way to find out what other games are being run on the same server, and in particular if something was added in late december? If something was added at that time, it's basically the cause of all our problems.

**Dr. Pepper PhD.** · 01-27-2008, 03:51 PM

Originally Posted by Pokerface

NS is its own box (for the time being).

From other thread

**Pokerface** · 01-28-2008, 07:17 PM

Originally Posted by Agamemnon

Because shutting down server two eliminated the crashes and significantly reduced the frequency of the lag spikes, I think we can be fairly certain that the "software issue" is the total amount of load being placed on the server. Is there any way to find out what other games are being run on the same server, and in particular if something was added in late december? If something was added at that time, it's basically the cause of all our problems.

Nothing changed. Two instances of NS eat maybe 30% of the box's CPU.

**Dr. Pepper PhD.** · 01-29-2008, 02:50 AM

Ok... so agy and I spoke for a while on the server tonight and came up with a couple ideas...

Does everyone remember the windows updates that shut the server down a couple months ago... well it seems that that is the only occurence of change that we can remember in that time frame... could you do a system restore back before that date to see if that helps... then disable whatever update came?

strip the server into a folder that has no directory related to the running server (for backup purposes) then reload hlds and the ns server files... just to check if we can get a steady unlaggy server going... as you go one step at a time add back the ban list... followed by the plugins one by one til you notice a jump in lag... or any lag at all... with all hopes a fresh clean install will fix whatever problem it was

lastly would be a full format... which i know would take a lot of admin time to accomplish and no one wants to see... but its a fool proof software test of cleaning out windows and redoing all the updates to date prior to loading the hlds... that would get us to a clean install with clean updates... (from time to time updates on long running systems can be a bit sloppy... depending on whats loaded and what the update affects)

as for that we did notice wyz there tonight and hope that we can find and fix the problem and get back to our beautiful community