stuck on "starting game..."

[mugencio]

Editing this post as per moderator request.

 

Since yesterday evening (before the A19 (b178) update) I am not able to join my own rented server, my client get stuck on the loading game screen, on the "starting game..." one.

 

I have just made a fresh install of A19 (b178), and before doing that, I have deleted every trace of the game from the SSD / registry, but unfortunately I am having the same issue, its stuck on the  "starting game..." status.

 

Please see here the client log https://pastebin.com/8PaL99NC and here the server log https://pastebin.com/JReK8XBh

 

- C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\7 Days To Die is whitelisted on the Windows Defender.

- The server has the EAC disabled and also the client

- I can hear the fire or the crickets when stuck on  "starting game...".

- when I hit alt+f4 to kill the game, I can see for 1 second the game and the last place I left the character.

- I tried to killall and teleport on the console with no luck

- I have restarted the server a couple of times with no luck

- Yesterday, when the issue started to happen, the server/client was on the 177, and with the recent 178 update is doing exactly the same.

- My other friends can play without issues, the can see me on the world when I am trying to log in, but my client is stuck on  "starting game...".

 

Many thanks in advance for having a look.

 

Quote

 

Hi,

 

Hope you are keeping well.

 

I am having huge desync issues on windows as below described:

 

• Zombies will stop really moving, they may stand up if shot/interacted with but then will only do the jerky standing animation.
• Sound effects stops occuring, such as reloading and footsteps.
• Lootable containers stop being able to be opened.
• All other players look to be walking in place.

 

The workaround for this is to press alt+F4 and re-join the server.

 

I am playing with another 3 - 4 friends and they do not have this kind of issue, we are currently playing on a rented Nitrado server and not on a local server.

 

I am living in Ireland and I went to Spain for holidays and incredibly I was having the same issue on a different country / different ISP / Different computer!!! The only thing that remains the same is my Steam account, which I did a fresh installation on the spanish pc. Also this has been happening on the A19 B177 and also on the 18.4 Stable.

 

This is very annoying as I have to hit alt+f4 literally every five minutes...

 

The above has been happening to me since I bough the game a good while ago, and now, since yesterday evening it has been stuck on "Loading Game".  I have uninstalled the game, deleted all the game traces I've found and all the folders related to the fun pimps, reinstalled it, restarted the server with, no luck at all...

 

Hope you can help me with this issue.

 

Thanks in advance!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SylenThunder]

Going to need you to read the Sticky thread that tells you to read it before posting, and follow the instructions.

 

You might also want to take a look at the Sticky FAQ thread, and it has some tips in particular to excluding your client from security software, and network latency.

[mugencio]

7 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

Going to need you to read the Sticky thread that tells you to read it before posting, and follow the instructions.

 

You might also want to take a look at the Sticky FAQ thread, and it has some tips in particular to excluding your client from security software, and network latency.

Thanks @SylenThunder and sorry, I have amended now the original post with more info.

[mugencio]

so I have been looking at this and it seems to be something on the server's player profile, I have deleted my profile from /sevendaysexperimental/Saves/PREGEN01/ServerName/Player and uploaded a profile from a backup I did last 5th and it worked straightaway, I can play again but I have lost  3 days of intensive looting.... Is there any way to check what happened to see if I can play with yesterdays profile instead with the 5th one?

 

Thanks!

[mugencio]

Quote

 

so so I have been looking at this and it seems to be something on the server's player profile, I have deleted my profile from /sevendaysexperimental/Saves/PREGEN01/ServerName/Player and uploaded a profile from a backup I did last 5th and it worked straightaway, I can play again but I have lost  3 days of intensive looting.... Is there any way to check what happened to see if I can play with yesterdays profile instead with the 5th one?

 

Thanks!

 

to this has happened today AGAIN... fresh new player server profile, fresh client installation and again stuck on the loading screen.... This has happened just after hitting alt+f4 for the desync issues I am constantly having, when  I tried to rejoin the server, boom, stuck again on the loading screen.

 

Please see attached the logs for today....

 

Hope you can help as this is very annoying, we are playing 3 ppl on the same server and I am the only one who is having tons of issues.

 

Thanks in advance.

SERVER output_log__2020-08-08__21-11-02.txt client logs.rar

[SylenThunder]

3 hours ago, mugencio said:

to this has happened today AGAIN... fresh new player server profile, fresh client installation and again stuck on the loading screen.... This has happened just after hitting alt+f4 for the desync issues I am constantly having, when  I tried to rejoin the server, boom, stuck again on the loading screen.

 

Please see attached the logs for today....

 

Hope you can help as this is very annoying, we are playing 3 ppl on the same server and I am the only one who is having tons of issues.

 

Thanks in advance.

SERVER output_log__2020-08-08__21-11-02.txt 690.32 kB · 2 downloads client logs.rar 93.75 kB · 1 download

Aside from your laptop CPU scraping the bottom-end of the hardware requirements, your player logs show no errors or issues.

 

Server log is showing a number of socket errors indicating blockage or incorrect port configuration.

This could be caused by security software, multiple programs using the same port, the port being flooded with too much traffic, or hardware errors causing data corruption.

It could also be caused by the client being unable to write the data to the hard drive due to being blocked by security software, lack of permissions, lack of free space, or because the disk isn't able to keep up with the demand of the dedi client.

 

 

[mugencio]

Hi @SylenThunder, thanks for your reply.

 

For the socket errors, you mean the telnet connection? that should be the automated server task trying to run something there, like the saveworld, I cannot see relation with my issue.

 

- I am only using Windows Defender and I have the folder "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\7 Days To Die" whitelisted on it.

- Both .EXE launcher and client are allowed on Windows Firewall

- I have the DMZ option enabled on my router for my IP so no further port forwarding is needed.

- My ISP changed the modem last week, and with the new modem is doing exactly the same.

- The other two lads with I am playing with are based on the same city with same ISP+Modem and they are not having any issues.

- I cannot see the CPU more than the 40% of its utilisation. ( I am constantly monitoring the hardware with Rivatuner )

- I have a NVME SSD with good specs with ~200gb free space

- I have another tower with slightly diff specs and its doing exactly the same (desync and now stuck on the loading screen).

- I went to spain a couple of weeks ago, and I have there another computer + diff ISP + diff country and it was acting exactly the same (desync issues)

 

Is there any shared (cloud) configuration between Steam and the 7dtd client? That is the only thing that I can think of which remains the same (same issue in 3 diff computers in 2 diff countries).

 

Thanks.

 

[SylenThunder]

No, DMZ is bad, and half the routers at the consumer level don't even manage it properly. Turn that off, and do proper port forwarding.  Most likely that is your issue right there.

[mugencio]

thanks @SylenThunder, I've now disabled the DMZ and forwarded all the required ports:

 

I will delete my current player profile on the server and create a new one and I will give another try....

 

Thanks.
 

[SylenThunder]

10 hours ago, mugencio said:

thanks @SylenThunder, I've now disabled the DMZ and forwarded all the required ports:

 

I will delete my current player profile on the server and create a new one and I will give another try....

 

Thanks.
 

You left out 26900 TCP

[mugencio]

good catch! Hopefully I will have time this afternoon to check this out. Thanks!

[mugencio]

So I have just tested this and same desync issues after 5 minutes, I am not able to interact with the world...

 

[Beelzybub]

On 8/8/2020 at 3:46 AM, mugencio said:

when I hit alt+f4 to kill the game

 

On 8/8/2020 at 3:46 AM, mugencio said:

The workaround for this is to press alt+F4 and re-join the server.

 

On 8/9/2020 at 11:45 AM, mugencio said:

This has happened just after hitting alt+f4 for the desync issues I am constantly having

 

On 8/8/2020 at 3:46 AM, mugencio said:

This is very annoying as I have to hit alt+f4 literally every five minutes...

 

Every time you use Alt-f4 to end a game, you risk corrupting your saved world, especially if on a remote server.

So my first suggestion is to stop doing that. When you "desync", use "esc - quit" instead.

 

If you do end a game with alt-f4, you should delete the local save of your game before reconnecting to the server.

(because the local copy is probably corrupted)

 

The local copy of that game is at: C:\Users\Mugen\AppData\Roaming/7DaysToDie/SavesLocal/109775240998576425

Delete that folder.

 

When you experience the "desync" press "i" and make a note of your ping number.

 

[Beelzybub]

On 8/8/2020 at 3:46 AM, mugencio said:

I am not able to join my own rented server

 

On 8/10/2020 at 6:21 AM, mugencio said:

I have the DMZ option enabled on my router

 

On 8/10/2020 at 8:31 PM, SylenThunder said:

Turn that off, and do proper port forwarding.

 

I think the port forwarding advice may have been a red herring.

 

@mugencioDid you make those router changes on your local router, or on the rented server's router?

If other's connect to your rented server without an issue, then the port forwarding is ok on the server.

 

You shouldn't have any port forwarding on your local router unless you are running a server from your LAN.

So if you made those changes locally, I would remove them.

 

 

[mugencio]

Hi @Beelzybub many thanks for stepping in and for your advise, this is much appreciated!

 

Please see my responses in line:

 

16 hours ago, Beelzybub said:

Every time you use Alt-f4 to end a game, you risk corrupting your saved world, especially if on a remote server.

So my first suggestion is to stop doing that. When you "desync", use "esc - quit" instead.

 

If you do end a game with alt-f4, you should delete the local save of your game before reconnecting to the server.

(because the local copy is probably corrupted)

 

 

I ended hitting alt+f4 as if I was leaving the game on a regular way (esc - quit) I was having exactly the same issues when re-joining, with the frustration I had, I hit alt+f4 and it did the trick for me and I have been using that till now.

 

16 hours ago, Beelzybub said:

If you do end a game with alt-f4, you should delete the local save of your game before reconnecting to the server.

(because the local copy is probably corrupted)

 

The local copy of that game is at: C:\Users\Mugen\AppData\Roaming/7DaysToDie/SavesLocal/109775240998576425

Delete that folder.

I will delete the SavesLocal as advised, and I will retest. I did a fresh installation of everything at that time

 

and it remained behaving the same (I also deleted my char profile on the server)

 

16 hours ago, Beelzybub said:

When you experience the "desync" press "i" and make a note of your ping number.

I will make note of this next time it happens and will share this information on this thread.

 

16 hours ago, Beelzybub said:

I think the port forwarding advice may have been a red herring.

 

@mugencioDid you make those router changes on your local router, or on the rented server's router?

If other's connect to your rented server without an issue, then the port forwarding is ok on the server.

 

You shouldn't have any port forwarding on your local router unless you are running a server from your LAN.

So if you made those changes locally, I would remove them.

All the changes were made on my ISP provided modem, We have a rented server (Nitrado) which does not allow us to do those changes at their end.

I will revert back all the changes made and I will retest again.

My other two friends are on the same city with the same ISP provider and they do not have this kind of issues.

 

Another thing I observed yesterday was the issue seems to be more frequent when in party with my other two friends, if I am not in party (even if my two friends are connected) the issue seems to delay more to appear. Maybe this is only by chance (as I realized this only yesterday), but best to mention.

 

Many thanks again for your time!

[mugencio]

So I did all the above and that happened again 😭

The ping seems to be ok.

 

Thanks!

[Beelzybub]

@mugencioI guess the next thing I would try would be disabling LiteNetLib and enabling Steamnetworking on the server to see if behavior improves.

Also I would reduce view distance from "12" to "6" to see if that improves things.

And new logs since your changes may be helpful.

[SylenThunder]

54 minutes ago, Beelzybub said:

@mugencioI guess the next thing I would try would be disabling LiteNetLib and enabling Steamnetworking on the server to see if behavior improves.

Also I would reduce view distance from "12" to "6" to see if that improves things.

And new logs since your changes may be helpful.

Just a note here...
Steamnetworking is mostly for managing the server list. Enabling it or disabling it is done based on NAT configuration, and whether you've forwarded the ports or not. It basically is just used to trigger the UPnP protocol on networking devices.
LiteNetLib manages data traffic of the server. Disabling it will have a large negative impact on the network performance of the server, and should only be done in extreme troubleshooting.

[Beelzybub]

14 minutes ago, SylenThunder said:

and should only be done in extreme troubleshooting.

What would you suggest for next steps in this case?

[SylenThunder]

5 minutes ago, Beelzybub said:

What would you suggest for next steps in this case?

I'm not sure yet. All the issues point to a sync problem. Sync issues are usually because either host, client, or network capabilities are impaired.

I haven't really had time to look into the latest video post today with b180 going live.

[Jugginator]

Honestly I'd run Ping plotter or something similar to get a good detailed report of your connection to/from the server. I'd say try logging into the server when none of your friends are on, but if it was the server not able to handle one more person it wouldn't just do this to you. Try a couple other random servers/run ping plotter to isolate the issue a bit more. A good ping doesn't mean it's a good connection, you could be dropping packets like hot potatoes.

[mugencio]

Thanks @Jugginator for you advice, I run the ping plotter asap and I will let you all know, thanks again!