Tekkit server

[Guardian]

I'll edit my power grid to get rid of some of the loops I haven't gotten rid of yet. Although I should note that my power grid is inactive since I'm done with super quarries for a while and thus I'm concluding that my lava power isn't the cause of crashing (although it might be causing some strain). Maybe we should make a list of things known to crash the server like:

-Using a diamond axe on a huge tree in a huge tree age (you had to test that potato)

-Loading several dimensional new world data at once. (my experience with ages is that lag is the worst when your moving around new territory in an age and thus making new chunks, it's probably best to stick to a few common ages or at least don't explore in new ones too much while everyone is on).

-draining a quarry that has water flowing in it

-going nuts with animal breeders

What am I missing?

[Cody The Wolf]

We're doing our best to sort out the crashing issue... enough different things can (but don't always) cause it, that it's hard to pin down.

Just from past experience, I'd say be very careful with anything that involves loops or cross-wiring. Too many crossed power lines or or looped item feeds can cause instability or crashes - best to keep everything going in a single straight line. Server was running very slowly tonight, for several hours, and resetting didn't help. Something is grinding it; whether it's loops, or keeping several dimensions simultaneously loaded and teleportation stuff working, or something else I don't know.

...um, my quarry is auto-smelting right now. I've made it loop any unsmeltable thing back into a chest.

[ADevilishPotato]

wait a minute, I am just now registering that I've caused the server to crash in like half of these instances....I think that means that I have achieved my lifelong goal...I have become GLITCH MAN!

[ADevilishPotato]

Oh, and don't use wrenches on glacticraft stuff, that crashes the server too

[Guardian]

Thanks Potato for finding all these unique ways of crashing the server.... you really have a talent for this..

[ADevilishPotato]

Thanks Potato for finding all these unique ways of crashing the server.... you really have a talent for this..

What can I say, I take pride in my work and enjoy being thorough.

[Guardian]

New one recently found by our favorite bug tester:

-Don't mine oxygen gear while there's stuff in it four times ever

[Boss Llama]

Here's a quick image regarding the "loops" I'm talking about, just for clarity.

VIEW CONTENT:

In the upper example, the "Good" model powers all the things needed, and has no loops. In the bad example, the same things are powered, but there are dozens of possible loops - more than I can count. At every intersection, the server has to calculate what direction to send power to reach something that can use or hold it. When squares and rectangles exist in the grid, every direction is viable, even though some directions will take power farther from the destination. The power can end up going in circles infinitely, causing additional calculations every tick, and never reaching a destination. As long as power is being fed in to the system, more and more of it will become trapped in an infinite loop. The positions of the source and the storage/use can be reversed on the "Bad" map without changing it. When you lay power cabling, ensure that every possible path either ends in consumption/storage, or *must* take it closer to that end. Any looping in any dimension (left, right, up, down) is bad.

In the lower example, the "good" model shows how to make an item loop that is ok, while the "bad" example shows how to grind the server and possibly lose stuff. In the good example, everything goes in to a chest, and then is drawn out by the pipes to take for (in this case) processing. Anything the machine can't process will head back to the chest. This ensures the pipeline never has more than it can handle in it. In the bad example, the return connects back in to the pipe itself. This can cause a pipeline overflow, because the pipe may already be drawing at its maximum capacity from the chest, and the other pipe is trying to force additional things in to it. This can cause items to pop out of the pipes, causing lots of entity lag (remember the chicken farm at spawn? That issue), meaning you lose stuff, and the server slows down. With a fast feed system, it could be hundreds, even thousands of entities before they started despawning. This one is less critical than the power one, from what I understand, but it's still important.

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In regards to the many dimensions, I don't think it's the simple existance of the dimensions that's causing problems, it's keeping so many of them loaded at once. Having numerous outlying dimensions constantly loaded with quarries or world anchors to allow interdimensional item/liquid/power teleportation systems to constantly function seems likely to me to one of the issues. I can't prove it, but this grind has really picked up in the last couple days, which coincides with when I heard folks talking about doing those sorts of things. I'm not faulting them - I love the idea and was looking at doing it myself - I'm just worried that it may be murdering the server to have to keep 6-8 dimensions loaded at once, with constant modifications occuring from automated machinery, instead of 3-4 with just generation and exploration. Take it for what you will - may be something different entirely.

[Guardian]

I'll get rid of my inactive quarries in ages then (apparently they keep chunks loaded regardless). I'll also de-activate the chunk loader in the lava world to see if it improves the server's condition. I still think though that loading new world chunks in new worlds is more unstable then keeping old ones loaded as the times the servers have crashed, I've noticed someone loading a new world including one instance of someone using the randomizer door which led me to sealing it.

[Boss Llama]

Any inactive quarry should be disassembled for chunk-loading reasons, regardless of where it is. In the past, even with just the overworld and nether, Dog had to put a limit on how many extra chunks each player could keep loaded with blocks because server performance was hurting so badly. We don't want to risk getting limited again! If it's actively doing something productive, by all means let's keep it if we can, but reducing the load as much as possible would be good. We can scale back slowly and see if it helps.

I think you're right that dimension spawning/dimension doors can cause problems as well - I did have it go down once as I passed through a door, though it worked fine the other 50+ times. It's like involuntary Russian roulette.

[Cody The Wolf]

okay, seeing alizee_fan's diagram, my quarry shouldn't be causing the crashing, but I do know it does cause a bit of lag if anything.

[ADevilishPotato]

New one recently found by our favorite bug tester:

-Don't mine oxygen gear while there's stuff in it four times ever

Probably why people had not had problems mining it in the past but why I did. I'll make sure to double check machines are empty before removing them next time.

[Cody The Wolf]

the server crashed and i think it was me this time...

[ADevilishPotato]

were you doing anything crazy? I quazi crashed it twice last night when I was doing nothing but jumping around and mining.

[Boss Llama]

Things should be running much more smoothly and lag-free now - we found a chicken farm run amok and liquidated it, putting an end to the poulty-based reign of terror.

Still avoid all those activities we know cause crashes, 'cause those will happen regardless, but at least things should be moving full speed again!