server crash debugging

n30n

L4: Comfortable Member
Jul 13, 2009
154
14
So how does one debug map that crashes server? My map crashed server for no apparent reason. What do?:( I tried searching the forum but didnt find anything too helpful.
What can potentially cause this?
 

Geit

💜 I probably broke it 💜
aa
May 28, 2009
598
1,161
  • model entities or sound entities with no models or sounds specified
  • invalid brushes (that somehow got past hammer, vbsp and vrad)
  • too many of a certain kind of thing (eg entities) in your map
  • too long or invalid filenames/paths
  • intersecting brushes
  • intersecting entities
  • the use of infinites (including zero) in any entitiy
  • path entities linking to themselves
  • entities triggering themselves (infinite loop)
  • physics anomalies (including too complex stuff), like towers or constraintsystems that hang onto themselves
  • bad models
  • bad collisions
  • bad entity naming (only use 0-9, a-z, A-Z, and '_'. for special occasions, you may use '*' or '!'. Not avoiding curly brackets or quotes will make your map crash, and become unreopenable.
  • linking to non-existant entities
  • using bad textures or other resources
  • normals in a funky direction
  • bad map (BSP structure, or a bit messed up)
  • hardware anomalies
  • software anomalies
  • making unexpected constructions (non-geometric, mean I/O's and physics)

That's from the interlopers error checker, you may also want to check the server log in the tf/logs dir.

If you run a Linux Server, I'd recommend adding -debug to the command line for more verbose logging that doesn't cut off a few moments before the server crashes.
 

n30n

L4: Comfortable Member
Jul 13, 2009
154
14
Thats quite a list. The server in question is eu tf2maps server and i sadly dont have logs. Do i need anything else then tf2 dedicated server to make proper local server?
 

Geit

💜 I probably broke it 💜
aa
May 28, 2009
598
1,161
If you wish to emulate a proper dedicated server, then I would recommend that you download srcds by following the guide here and then connecting to it via console.
To simulate a large amount of players, you could also add some bots with bot_mimic 1

If the server crashes with an error along the lines of "The memory could not be 'read' at 0x000000..." then you have one of the errors I posted above
 

n30n

L4: Comfortable Member
Jul 13, 2009
154
14
Which map? and when did it crash the server? (day and approximate time/zone)

It crashed EU server on todays game test, that would be about 1920 bst and on friday twice about 1900 bst. Map would be koth_giza. That list is nice but well, it doesnt really help. I try to follow mapping 'rules'. I dont have anything fancy in my map, game rules and what not copied from ABS and environment gallery. Maybe its something obvious that im missing but i dunno. I can upload vmf if needed.
 

n30n

L4: Comfortable Member
Jul 13, 2009
154
14
Come on throw me a bone :( I can try removing my gold texture but it would crash faster it it was the cause i guess ;/
 

Geit

💜 I probably broke it 💜
aa
May 28, 2009
598
1,161
I'll download the map and put it through a quick stress test shortly, I don't have a linux server, so it's likely that I won't be much help.

It's a long shot, but does ALT+P Return any type of errors, such as incorrect I/O etc etc.

I'll Post/Edit this shortly.

EDIT:

Couldn't get it to crash in TF2 after 30 mins of testing, crashes Crafty without any effort though.

Was the map PakRatted on a 64 bit system, and like I said above, were there any I/O errors?
 
Last edited:

n30n

L4: Comfortable Member
Jul 13, 2009
154
14
There are no I/O errors in hammer, ingame console and everything apears to be working as intended. Ive went thru that list and didnt find anything. Only custom thing i have is gold texture, which is pretty much copy/pasted from goldground texture. It was pakratted on windows 7 64bit. Can this be real issue?
 

Geit

💜 I probably broke it 💜
aa
May 28, 2009
598
1,161
I've heard of cases when pakrat would consistently fail with the packing process under 64-bit, which makes me think that your texture, or the map, has been corrupted by Pakrat.

If you can, try pakratting it under a 32 bit machine, or if you can't do that, replace the texture for an alpha for two to see if pakratting is the true issue here.
 

n30n

L4: Comfortable Member
Jul 13, 2009
154
14
I have second machine with 32 bit system that i can pakrat with. Im not really sure what you ment with that texture? Replace alpha channel with what?
 

Geit

💜 I probably broke it 💜
aa
May 28, 2009
598
1,161
I didn't mean the alpha channel, I meant 2 Alpha Versions of the map, but as you can pakrat under a 32 bit machine, it shouldn't be necessary. (Although it could still be worth a try, just in case the texture has a problem - unlikely.)
 

n30n

L4: Comfortable Member
Jul 13, 2009
154
14
Ah i see. Silly me. I will fix new version tomorrow and see how it goes. Thanks for help!