Dedicated Server Error - Players kicked for sending unencrypted message(s)

[whit3fir3]

Hello,

 

I just stood up a new 7 Days dedicated server and am running into an error that I've never seen before.  When the client attempts to connect everything gets to the EAC verification and the EAC verification completes successfully (as you can see from the server logs), but then the game client just crashes to desktop.  Judging from the error message in the server logs "Client logged in but sent unencrypted message, dropping!" it  looks like the game client isn't SSL encryption is packets with the server and the server doesn't like this.  Only problem is going through all the game options and additional parameters that can be passed at run time for the game client I see nothing about enabling encryption. 

 

Is there a way to force encryption on the client or is this problem as simple as the Game Server and Game Client version don't match?

 

2022-05-30T20:53:35 728.329 INF [EOS] Verifying token for **redacted**
2022-05-30T20:53:35 728.380 INF [EOS] Device=, Platform=other, AccType=Steam, AccId=**redacted**, PUID=**redacted**
2022-05-30T20:53:35 728.380 INF [Auth] CrossplatformAuth authorization successful: EntityID=-1, PltfmId='**redacted**', CrossId='**redacted**', OwnerID='**redacted**', PlayerName='**redacted**'
2022-05-30T20:53:35 728.380 INF [Auth] BansAndWhitelist authorization successful: EntityID=-1, PltfmId='**redacted**', CrossId='**redacted**', OwnerID='**redacted**', PlayerName='**redacted**'
2022-05-30T20:53:35 728.380 INF [EOS-ACS] Registering user: EntityID=-1, PltfmId='**redacted**', CrossId='**redacted**', OwnerID='**redacted**', PlayerName='**redacted**'
2022-05-30T20:53:35 728.682 INF Time: 11.87m FPS: 20.00 Heap: 1551.0MB Max: 1576.9MB Chunks: 9 CGO: 0 Ply: 0 Zom: 0 Ent: 0 (0) Items: 0 CO: 0 RSS: 2539.8MB
2022-05-30T20:53:38 731.333 INF [Auth] EAC authorization successful: EntityID=-1, PltfmId='**redacted**', CrossId='**redacted**', OwnerID='**redacted**', PlayerName='**redacted**'
2022-05-30T20:53:38 731.338 INF Allowing player with id **redacted**
2022-05-30T20:53:38 731.642 ERR [NET] Client logged in but sent unencrypted message, dropping! EntityID=-1, PltfmId='**redacted**', CrossId='**redacted**', OwnerID='**redacted**', PlayerName='**redacted**'
2022-05-30T20:53:38 731.642 INF Kicking player (Encryption failure): EntityID=-1, PltfmId='**redacted**', CrossId='**redacted**', OwnerID='**redacted**', PlayerName='**redacted**'

 

Edit:

Just as an update I've verified both server and client versions, both are Alpha 20.5.  I was hoping the problem would be something that simple, but guess not.

 

Thanks,

 

whit3ifr3

Edited May 30, 2022 by whit3fir3 (see edit history)

[Star69]

Any chance you could post the entire server log using pastebin? Sometimes there are other errors that may give someone a clue as to what is going on.

[whit3fir3]

Yes absolutely I can but something interesting happened this evening when generating the logs for you.  So this server runs on an AWS EC2 instance.  After I was unable to get things working earlier I powered the server down (you know to avoid being charged for it).  Anyway after I saw your message this evening I go and power the EC2 instance back on (mind you that I had rebooted the server several times during the course of me testing) and I have the server software setup to run automatically.  I load the game up and attempt to connect and imagine my surprise when I load into game for the first time.  I spend about 90 second running around punching things just to make the server is behaving as expecting then I disconnect and try and reconnect.  On my second attempt to connect I get the same error that I originally posted about that you will see on line 1144 of the logs.  As a side note no settings have been changes (client or server) between when I posted the message asking for help and  when I turned the EC2 instance back on.  Also no setting changes between when the connection worked on the first attempt and when it didn't on the second attempt.  I'm really confused as to what could be going on here and would log any insight you can provide.

 

https://pastebin.com/SE5iRd1B

[Star69]

There are some errors that I see that I’m not sure are a problem as I’m not comfortable reading linux logs. However, there are some EOS errors and those are usually fixed by creating an exclusion for your game and saves folder in your antivirus/antimalware software. Remember it isn’t enough to shut off the software as some functions may still run in the background. If you don’t have that software loaded, the next thing I would do is verify the proper ports are open using an online port checker.

 

Someone with more linux experience will comment on the rest of the log.

[Beelzybub]

On 5/30/2022 at 9:20 PM, whit3fir3 said:

I'm really confused as to what could be going on here and would log any insight you can provide.

For linux with this game you need at least an 8 Gb swap file. For your Ubuntu install I think the default is 2 Gb. So I'd start by increasing that.

[whit3fir3]

Beelzybub,

 

So I got the issue figured out and it had nothing to do with swap space.  So I have a network level VPN in place that forces all traffic on the network I was on at the time over the VPN.  My guess is due to packet latency is why I got that message.  However I have to admit that an error message say "Client logged in but sent unencrypted message, dropping!" is a VERY bad message to display is the problem is latency.  Anyway soon as I changed networks and the VPN was no longer in the routing path the game fired right up and working like a champ.  Thanks again for the help and suggestion.