Alright, I been working on fixing glitch + modding some stuff from the old map "Custom Hero Wars 5.c" since, by playing it, I noticed couple issue.

Overall, I running into 1 problem that I haven't found any reason yet.

Simple explaination: Somehow, mostly during a "duel period" where Team1 has to fight Team2 (obviously), some people drop out instantly.

At first, I expected some kind of "loaded hacks" since I've been myself dropping sometime while using Drophack Protection OR Location hack.
At second, possible sprite/doodad/EUDs Drop issue.
At third, some invalid trigger.

Here the fact that I do know:
There is no sprite/doodad in the map
There is no EUDs either
Drophack protection might be a possible answer, but I've met people dropping without loading it.
I've checked every trigger, 1 by 1, multiple times... I haven't found anything wrong.

So has a lost of cause... I asked Roy to check it out. For what I know, he pretty much have no clue why it would Drop people, beside the "Hack loaded".

Any ideas, any comment ?

I take any advice/help on that problem.

For clarity, the players drop from each other, but nobody actually crashes.

Do you know if the game splits into only two game states? If this was the case, the people dropping would still be in the game with each other (i.e., if Player 1 and Player 2 dropped from the other players, they can still play and talk to each other). Or does each dropping player get completely separated from all other players (including other players that drop)?

A brute-force way of getting down to the source of the problem is to start disabling triggers until the drops stop. That way, you can narrow it down to what event is causing some players to drop. If you have the time and resources, this would be the best option.

Unless that's a modified version of CHW 5.c, it shouldn't be doing that. If it is a true original, then people are drop hacking.

Sadly, drophack at this point isn't even a possibility. I also used the CHW 5.c original file + so far I overwrote a rigged version with my edits.


I hope my answer gonna help, the people that get randomly dropped end alone... it can drop 1 to 3 players... it change alot, usually 1 or 2

I have found that some of my maps, after certain things I do to it, will drop Mac users for no reason.
till this day, I have not found the reason behind it. It could very well be this weird glitch again.

@Roy: I have never experienced a game splitting into two game states, where more than 1 player can enter the second state together when multiple players are dropped. Is that really possible?

Question for you, do you use starforge?

Answering for Roy. It happened to me multiple time... it's usually a 6 player game turning into 4 players and 2 players games... 3 drop instantly and 1 open lagbox
(That's a thing I did see)

Yes I do use Starforge, I actually mix SCMD2 (8.0 & 7.3), Starforge (2.2) and xtra(2.6 i think)... but for some reason, i have the "bad thing happened" with SCMD2 (8.0 & 7.3) on pretty much all game and Xtra have some issue with the installation.

Yes, I experience the same drop problem occasionally when I work with both Starforge and SCMD2 on the same map.
I have yet been able to pinpoint what it is, but through experimental testing (i.e. delete something, see if it crashes people) It should be SOMETHING to do with preplaced units.

The only advice I can give you right now is first save a backup map (always)
then Open the map in Xtra editor and let the editor delete all the things that are "invalid".
Then redo all the things that were invalid in either Starforge/SCMDraft2 but not with both.

Sound fun to me... Alright thanks for the tips I'll try to work on xtra editor to make it work I guess

Thanks for the quick reply ^-^

EDIT:
I don't Get it, I install Xtra editor, and it load nothing... Any mode I click doesn't work.

I install 2.5, no problem, load the map, it say 814 unit cannot be placed "ok / cancel" then it crash

I install 2.6, launcher as no problem, i try to start any "editor" it minimize the launcher and do absolutely nothing.

I using Toshiba Laptop with Windows Vista... let me know if vista is the problem.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jan 18 2012, 11:15 pm by sakuckoinvius.

More thoughts:

Map corruption may be an issue. Starforge is known to cause these kinds of things. I haven't heard of it before though

Additionally, are you running windows?

The best Windows there is... Vista... 32bits if it help.

So far, I saving to buy a desktop, so I can turn this laptop to Linux... Gawd I can't stand Vista XD

Well we know that it's not Starcraft glitching. I'm putting my money on map corruption for now, but I can't help but think this is a bit odd.

Yeah, i even re-installed Starcraft to see if it could fix Xtra and SCMD2 problem... seems like it did absolutely nothing... Good thing Starcraft is a quick installation XD

For now, I thinking to release it with that drop issue on... it kinda blow but it seem to be unfixable. If knowledge get this problem solved, I might as well make a patch to fix it up.

Try reconstructing the map from scratch with SCM Draft. You can copy and paste the terrain, triggers, and units. But do not use the original map, it must be completely new.

For a while there was an apparent drop glitch in DS Night Fixed, where if you selected the mineral rate "too fast" at the start of the game, a player could drop. So sometimes you see people fly the scout around before selecting the speed: that's why. It seems to have gone away in more recent versions and I have never seen it myself when hosting. I've only seen it a couple of times when joining other games - one time I was the player that dropped. No idea what would cause it, why there would be a time component to it, or why it would suddenly go away. I use only scmdraft 2.

Unfortunately because you can't copy locations, and triggers rely on locations, this is quite tedious/difficult in practice.

Use http://www.staredit.net/files/460/ for that.

I know that the original 5c doesn't have hyper triggers, and instead uses wait actions in place of death counts. If you added any wait actions to the abilities or other weird stuff that map does, you could be creating wait blocks for certain players and causing the game to de-sync and drop.

original 5.c already have the drop problem... I trying to fix it. Although, there are no "extra wait trigger", I do use DC at 2 spot, cuz I didn't feel like remaking all the "wait" into DC... would be a pain to do without SCMD2.

Even though i didn't add any "wait", I'm not so familiar with "wait blocks causing de-sync", if there is already a topic, care to link it to me ?

This is nonfactual. c(O.Oc) is likely thinking about wait blocks in conjunction with what would otherwise be considered stable EUDs, but since your map does not contain EUDs, this is not the case. A description on EUD synchronization can be found here.

In short, wait blocks are not causing drops in your map.

I've seen this in a few maps before. Some unstable factor within StarCraft is causing the game state to split under rare circumstances. This is a bug within StarCraft, not the fault of a map editor, so using a different map editor shouldn't do anything. All map editors write to the same format, which is very simple and straightforward.

What I've noticed is that it happened most likely in maps with a lot of units, particularly if they're moving around. A very primitive hypothesis I made is that the cause is some subtle overlooked detail within the A* pathfinding algorithm, which isn't the easiest thing to implement, and is executed in mass with a lot of units moving.

For example if some part of the algorithm relies on system clock timing, clock granularity disparaties could cause some parameter in one host to execute a frame later or before than other hosts.


This specific example is probably wrong, but illustrates the nature of the possible cause of this. Only Heinermann could tell you exactly why it happens, e.g. breakpointing/hooking the drop subroutines in Storm.

Anyway it's a bug in a dead development game, only solution for now is to remove units at random and test ad nauseum, which is how it was solved in other maps I saw.