Debugging the bots, How too ? Options

[My Time]

Ok I am having somewhat of a puzzling Problem with my Dedi DOD:S server. I have been having a crashing problem for a while now. I am sure it is something between the bots and a sourcemod plugin but sourcemod does not have a error log of the crashes. I tried to use the rcbot .076 build but it will crash about every hour so again with no log to see why. Sometimes it will freeze up and my server software( seDirector ) will not restart the server. Sometimes it will out right crash and the software will restart but with out bots until I see it and add the bots to the server. Sourcemod never has a error log so I do not know why it crashed. So I switched to rcbot .075r2 build. It still crashes but not near as much(about 1 or 2 times a day). My question is how can I add a command that will make the bot program leave a error log of sorts ? I seen the post about the vision ticks http://rcbot.bots-united.com/forums/index....amp;#entry11636 and that is not the problem. All my bots have it at 60 or under (again using .075r2). Anything to help me get the server a whole bunch more stable. As a test I removed the bots and the server will not crash so I am sure its something with them and maybe sourcemod. Also on one of my servers I have just sniper maps so I made all the bots use just sniper guns and now they will not get a flag. Something in profiles I can change to help that ? And just one more thing (lol) it there a way to get the server to add bots automatically when the server restarts with out me having to type in "rcbot config max_bots 19 " everytime ? Tried to put it in the autoexe.cfg but that don't work. Again as always "Thanks !"

[madmax2]

Hey MyTime,

You probably already know this, but here is my uninformed thinking on the crash problem, how I would troubleshoot it...

I don't think running the server without rcbots for 2 days proves rcbot2 alone is the cause? RCbot2 is a "stand alone" separate program, not a plugin for either sourcemod or metamod:s. There may be compatibility/conflicts with one or more of those plugins causing a crash. The only way to prove rcbot2 has a crash problem, would be to run it for a while without sourcemod or metamod:s. If you can run it that way for a day or two without crashing, then it is a conflict/compatibility issue with something (hopefully not sm or mm:s). Do genmac's suggestion, try running with minimal plugins, then add or remove a few at a time until you find the plugin(s) conflicting with rcbot2.

I seem to remember cheeseh mention if other programs use the same hooking method as rcbot2, there could be crashes.

Is there any pattern to the maps it crashes on? Back with rcbot .73, there was a crash problem that seemed to only effect some custom maps! One was dod_sora_b3. When cheeseh released .74r2 the crash was gone. With the crashes only occuring 1 or 2 times a day, i'd likely never see them on my listen server...

As for crash logs, steam client puts crash logs in a separate folder (dumps), but I'm not sure what the server software does?

And please continue to give feedback, good or bad. I'd like to hear how it turns out, sometimes these server threads end unresolved, not knowing the outcome. btw, are you using windows or linux?

Good luck man,
max

[edit]

Also on one of my servers I have just sniper maps so I made all the bots use just sniper guns and now they will not get a flag. Something in profiles I can change to help that ?

I think I have seen this too, and I don't think there is anything you can do in profiles to fix it. Snipers may be ignoring capture wpts? Unless there is a sniper wpt within the capture area. I've seen them run right by me many times, when I was trying to cap. I'll look for that today...

[edit2]

Okay, I ran snipers only for a while on 4 different maps. With RCbot .76 they will cap, "capture only" waypoints (no sniper or defend wpts within the capture area). I saw them calling for backup on 2 man caps too. But they may give higher or equal priority to sniper waypoints. A lot of sniper wpts may lower the chance they will select a capture wpt as a goal? Snipers & mg's occasionally use defend wpts too. For your sniper maps, you could try adding defend tags to the capture wpts or adding sniper wpts within the capture areas (with proper area tags too). That might help? In my tests, axis snipers won every time, they seemed to capture much better than the allies! Perhaps it was the waypoints, but I don't think it was?

It doe's make sense that snipers would give higher priority to sniping over capturing for normal games. Maybe there needs to be a snipper only config setting?

I do think the bots are a bit slow to respond to calls for backup on 2 man caps, they often will run right by you. This is not limited to snipers, but it seems more common with snipers. I also see them run past single flag caps to go to another goal on the other side of the map... I'd like to see them put more priority on nearby captures, especially single flag captures, that are just a few feet away...