Poor performance - is it becuase of the server or the mods?

[bulletbutter]

Hosted server (Survival Servers). My main concern is trying to figure out if it is a server issue, a mod issue or a hardware issue. I am having the following issues....

 

• Floating/Sinking zombies - sometimes zombies are a good 1 block above or below the ground the ground. 
• Freezing/Stuttering - when doing various things, mostly noticeable when opening storage chests and/or fighting more than 4-5 zombies.
• Zombies T-Posing? - When spotting zombies in sleeper volumes, they are suspended off the ground in a "stuck" jumping animation...but not always.

 

I am using the following mods...

Quote

 

Quartz
SCore

XNPCCore

Dark Zombiez

Gans Special Zombies

Gans Standard Zombies

khzmusik_Zombies

NPCXBirdPack

NPCXSpiderPack

Server Size Zombie Plus

GupA21 Zombies

MoreContainers

SMXUI

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by bulletbutter (see edit history)

[Jugginator]

Post a log file for analysis  

[bulletbutter]

Server Log

[Jugginator]

Hmmm. There are some signs the world isn't running very healthy, this one is pretty concerning:

2023-09-17T11:04:47 1227.681 WRN Spawned entity with wrong pos: [type=EntityLootContainer, name=?] id=6232 pos=(-1379.9, -19085.9, 1292.0)
2023-09-17T11:04:47 1228.214 WRN Spawned entity with wrong pos: [type=EntityLootContainer, name=?] id=6257 pos=(-1381.2, -19117.0, 1291.8)
2023-09-17T11:04:48 1228.600 WRN Spawned entity with wrong pos: [type=EntityLootContainer, name=?] id=6224 pos=(-1386.3, -19115.3, 1289.1)
2023-09-17T11:04:48 1228.600 WRN Spawned entity with wrong pos: [type=EntityLootContainer, name=?] id=6254 pos=(-1379.7, -19096.4, 1289.3)

 

I'm not sure what most of these mods are, but I know of a server manager one that removes region files, which in the old ways this was fine, but now deleting region files is not supported and will cause issues. Also I believe one of the vehicle mods (that spawns/positions a vehicle if it's lost?? not sure) can also cause issues with how it handles data). Hmm. What does the Quartz mod do, or do you have a link to it?

[Beelzybub]

On 9/20/2023 at 3:14 PM, bulletbutter said:

trying to figure out if it is a server issue, a mod issue or a hardware issue.

Remove the mods and test it. If it's not improved then you know it's a hosting issue. (or an issue on your computer if you're the only player with the issue)

Also, the LiteNetLib connection is failing, which will add lag from using Steam's servers as a VPN. LiteNetLib provides a

direct connection between the server and the the client. This is likely Survival Servers fault as the cause of the connection

failing is the server ports not being correctly configured.

[SylenThunder]

13 hours ago, Beelzybub said:

This is likely Survival Servers fault as the cause of the connection failing is the server ports not being correctly configured.

 

Survival Servers is one of the worst hosting services you can use. Not only are they sharing multiple systems on sub-standard hardware, but they constantly have issues with bandwidth limitations. 

 

 

19 hours ago, Jugginator said:

now deleting region files is not supported and will cause issues.

Can you clarify on this some?  The only issue I'm aware of offhand is when you have mods that affect things like tree and vehicle respawns. Not the lost vehicle commands, but the things that change the items so that they come back after being destroyed.

[Jugginator]

57 minutes ago, SylenThunder said:

Can you clarify on this some?  The only issue I'm aware of offhand is when you have mods that affect things like tree and vehicle respawns. Not the lost vehicle commands, but the things that change the items so that they come back after being destroyed.

 

Sure, I had some discussions with one of our devs who did work on game save data/the chunk reset system about a weird duplicating trees/decos issue. As of now, there are a lot of dependencies in save data manager handles that rely on everything working with the system; if one is deleted/changed manually without updating the others accordingly, there will be issues. So, calling the reset system to reset those regions instead updates everything related properly. 

 

I have personally seen the "lost vehicle commands" issues with the guy that runs Blewbarry farms, he had some issues that he messaged me about some issues, and I took some free time to help him debug some things. The tools he was using to reset region files (it just deletes them iirc) was indeed causing issues, and the vehicle one was causing corrupt data in the vehicle manager which were leading to game save breaking issues (hard nul refs, corrupting chunks, etc.). Removing them and cleaning everything up left a stable save after that and no issues as far as I know in like a month or so. I suppose the tools would need to be updated to work with the new system put in place. 

 

The storage box issue that I noted in the log file above was directly caused by the server manager tool that handles the region files in the Blewbarry Farms investigation (literally the same thing happened), which makes sense given what information I got from the dev, aforementioned. I believe there's a "invalid characters in names prevention" tool part of the set that was also causing issues with storage chests that I couldn't reproduce just adding the same weird characters to test names and placing test chests everywhere on his server live after removing that tool as well.

 

Hope that helps, I am on a severe lack of sleep mode, so do ping me if I need to clarify some things further 😅

[bulletbutter]

22 hours ago, Jugginator said:

What does the Quartz mod do, or do you have a link to it?

Quartz is a UI modding framework for 7 Days to Die. It adds new XUi Widgets and XUi Controllers that give modders more freedom on creating new and powerful UIs for 7 Days to Die. Pretty sure it has something to do with SMXUI

 

15 hours ago, Beelzybub said:

Also, the LiteNetLib connection is failing, which will add lag from using Steam's servers as a VPN. LiteNetLib provides a

direct connection between the server and the the client. This is likely Survival Servers fault as the cause of the connection

failing is the server ports not being correctly configured.

I had to change the connection type initially to LIteNetLib because I was having an issue with a certain player getting frequently disconnected. I should try to switch that back now since we have changed physical locations and the issue no longer occurs. 

 

57 minutes ago, Jugginator said:

The storage box issue that I noted in the log file above was directly caused by the server manager tool that handles the region files in the Blewbarry Farms investigation (literally the same thing happened), which makes sense given what information I got from the dev, aforementioned.

I am not quite sure what exactly the "server manager tool" is or does. Is that the hosting sites issue or should I be using some sort of server manager tool?
 

2 hours ago, SylenThunder said:

Survival Servers is one of the worst hosting services you can use. Not only are they sharing multiple systems on sub-standard hardware, but they constantly have issues with bandwidth limitations. 

This is very useful information. I haven't had the best of experiences with them so far...slow support and crazy issues when I started adding mods. They had some odd situation where I had to send them a ticket to allow me to actually edit the files on the server via ftp. Are there any other hosting services that work better than Survival Servers? I originally wanted to go with HostHavoc but they didn't have any spots closest to where we all play from.

Edited September 22, 2023 by bulletbutter (see edit history)

[Jugginator]

6 minutes ago, bulletbutter said:

I am not quite sure what exactly the "server manager tool" is or does. Is that the hosting sites issue or should I be using some sort of server manager tool?

 

If you're not running any and you're not deleting region files manually then you're fine there. 

 

If you are failing to connect to litenetlib, then your provider has not configured their network properly, so that's certainly not a good sign. I would suggest Bluefang, Ping perfect, Havok, as the top 3 picks (not in any order).

[Pichii]

On 9/20/2023 at 7:47 PM, bulletbutter said:

Server Log

1. 2023-09-17T10:44:41 21.290 WRN Ignoring unknown section in permissions file: apitokens
2. 2023-09-17T10:44:41 21.290 WRN Ignoring unknown section in permissions file: webmodules
3. 2023-09-17T10:44:41 21.290 WRN Ignoring unknown section in permissions file: webusers
   Permission file is broken and syntax are incorrect for one.
   
    
4. Line 1482: WindowsVideoMedia error unhandled Color Standard: 0 falling back to default this may result in rendering issues (A mod is changing color to a hex windows cant read?)
5. Line 1483: 2023-09-17T12:20:39 5779.996 INF Preparing quit
6. 
   Line 1493:  [ALLOC_TEMP_TLS] TLS Allocator
   line 1704: Failed Allocations. Bucket layout:
   
   Memory leak. Probably from a mod; CPU having issues threading and leaking.
   
   It appears a mod of yours is changing a color to a hex entry windows cannot recognize and it is causing a render crash that then causes a memory leak.

Edited October 4, 2023 by Pichii (see edit history)