Zugg Software :: View topic

Newbie Joined: 04 Aug 2011 Posts: 7

Okay gang. I have a really weird problem, and have been scouring the internet for about a week now looking for help.

I play on a MUD called Mozart. I have played there for 12+ years, and never had this problem before.

What is happening is if I idle for more than 2 mins (I "think" I am getting disconnected) I have to reconnect with username and password. now this ONLY happens in a room where nothing is happening. If I idle in a busy intersection, the Inn, or even a room with a random monster trigger like "The giant Lion peers around" .. it doesn't happen.

Now .. I have been a paid Zmud user for 10 years, and am thinking about purchasing Cmud. However..

This happens on:

- BOTH zmud, and Cmud trial version.
- I also use a cable internet provider at home, and a totally different DSL provider at work. (Happens with both.)
- I have contacted the owner of the MUD and had him go through the logs and it would seem that this disconnect is NOT happening MUD side. (They have it set up so you can idle for 2 hours before you autorent.)

- I have found a few articles that talk about my router perhaps being the culprit, or perhaps my provider..

The real kicker here is that (I like to consider myself relatively smart when it comes to computers..) but when it comes down to routers, and TCP packets, and all the other random numbers involved.. it becomes Chinese to me.. and I get lost very quickly ..

Now .. before everyone breaks out the pitchforks, and so on. I would like to say that I don't necessarily think that it's my client either. What I am hoping we can do here is start a discussion and talk about how to go about tracking down this issue and trying to fix it.

I MUD from work, and that requires me to get up and walk away for random periods of time.

I also MUD from home where I do all sorts of video editing, gaming, research, and writing.. and I would like to leave the MUD idle in the background and be able to tab back and not have to reconnect.

This also doesn't happen in other games or programs. I can leave Rift, or Wow idle and it will stay connected until the game kicks me for inactivity ..

I just can't figure this out.. and would LOVE some help from the mudding community.

Thank you in advance,
Oddwin.

GURU Joined: 23 Dec 2000 Posts: 4834 Location: USA

Imagine that the flow of information across the internet is a superhighway (you probably are already familiar with this Information Superhighway concept). Well, somehow each bit of information has to get on and off that superhighway and as it moves closer to its destination it will start getting into smaller (inbound) or bigger (outbound) branches. Sockets are basically the onramps/offramps leading to these bigger/smaller branches.

The analogy isn't quite perfect, as unlike a highway both the onramp and the offramp occupy the same space. This is where the OS comes into play, building sockets as necessary and shutting down ones not being used (this is often referred to as garbage collection). The OS doesn't tell the subordinate app that it's taking away the socket (even if Windows did have such a message, it'd probably be sent in the wrong order or encounter some other bug that prevents that message from being processed correctly), so it won't realize it's disconnected until it tries to use it. This is inherent to ALL telnet clients.

Web browsers and apps like them, treat sockets as one-time disposable entities. Every time you refresh a page, send data to the server, or initially go to a web address, a new socket is created. This means such apps don't have any missing-sockets problems.

Basically, you just have to build a keepalive trigger that does nothing but send traffic on a frequent enough basis as to fool the OS. A simple #CR should do the trick without causing spam, but perhaps there's a convenient game command you might wish to use instead.

Newbie Joined: 04 Aug 2011 Posts: 7

Ok, That is more or less what I thought needed to happen.

Thank you for your time.

If someone would like to help me set this up now.. that would be fantastic.

I am going to talk to the Imms on my mud first as Scripting, and triggers are HIGHLY against the rules. But perhaps they will make an exception.