Chips on table lost on crash.

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arigorn
Posts: 43
Joined: Tue Jul 01, 2008 2:20 am

Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by arigorn »

Server lost power temporarily... Everyone that was at a table (ring table) lost all the chips they'd had available on table... The ones they bought in for, and the ones they'd won through playing.. Not sure how that can be fixed, if at all... Perhaps more active updates to file?

Anyway, thanks.
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
Posts: 5878
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by Kent Briggs »

arigorn wrote:Server lost power temporarily... Everyone that was at a table (ring table) lost all the chips they'd had available on table... The ones they bought in for, and the ones they'd won through playing.. Not sure how that can be fixed, if at all... Perhaps more active updates to file?Anyway, thanks.
Yeah I've already got crash protection on my to-do list. I haven't thought it all out yet but what I'll likely do is write the table state (or at least the stack amounts) to a temp file before each hand. Those files will be deleted when the server closes normally. Otherwise they will still be there the next time the server starts and it can ask the administrator to add those amounts back to the player accounts. Or in the case of a tournament, refund the buyins or divvy up the prizepool among the remaining players. Something like that. In the mean time, you can look through the logs and restore chips manually.
CanadaWest
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Joined: Wed May 06, 2009 12:59 pm
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Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by CanadaWest »

Kent,

we suffered our first crash yesterday in the middle of our first sponsored cash tournament. Whole bunch of very angry players, naturally.

Isn't there some way to continuously backup the tournament data so that it can be restored after a crash?

I'm not having a good day.
George
(CanadaWest)
www.playersclub.ca
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
Posts: 5878
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by Kent Briggs »

CanadaWest wrote:Kent,
we suffered our first crash yesterday in the middle of our first sponsored cash tournament. Whole bunch of very angry players, naturally.
Isn't there some way to continuously backup the tournament data so that it can be restored after a crash?
I'm not having a good day.
If "Crash Recovery" is set to "Yes" in the Account Settings, the prize pool will be evenly dispersed among the remaining players when you restart the server program. Or in a ring game, each player recovers their stack. You cannot restore the game itself, however. Players may not know when an administrator may be around to restart the server and thus it's simpler to just refund their chips.
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
Posts: 5878
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by Kent Briggs »

By the way, here's the full blurb from the help on how the chip recovery thing works:

Crash recovery - Select Yes to automatically refund player accounts after a server crash or power outage. A system of data files is created in the CrashProtect subfolder of the data folder while tables are active. They are normally deleted automatically when the tables are emptied. If any of these files still exist when the program restarts, that indicates an improper shutdown from the previous session and player accounts were not credited.

A file of chip counts is maintained for each ring game and is updated at the end of each hand and also when players join or leave the table, or add more chips. Two files are maintained for tournments, one for registration lists and another for running tournaments. For registrations, the buy-in amounts are recorded each time a player registers or unregisters from the tournament. For running tournaments, an equal share of the remaining prize pool is recorded for the remaining entrants and is updated each time a player gets knocked out of the tournament.
CanadaWest
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Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by CanadaWest »

I see. The problem is that this particular tournament included a cash prize to be awarded by the sponsor directly.

I know what you mean though, it would be wrong to just resume the crashed tourney at some random time when the server comes back online.

What about back-up data so that admin could resume the crashed tourney at a later date after notifying all the players?
George
(CanadaWest)
www.playersclub.ca
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
Posts: 5878
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by Kent Briggs »

CanadaWest wrote:What about back-up data so that admin could resume the crashed tourney at a later date after notifying all the players?
That would take quite a bit of tournament code rewriting. It's something I'll consider in a future version, though. By the way, what were the symptoms of the crash? Was anything recorded in the error log?
CanadaWest
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Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by CanadaWest »

I'm not certain the exact symptoms. The first I noticed a problem, a couple dozen players were frantically chatting in the lobby. All the games and tourneys were empty.

I suspect the server machine restarted for some reason. Pretty certain it wasn't gameserver related. There were only about 60 players logged on.

George
George
(CanadaWest)
www.playersclub.ca
CanadaWest
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Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by CanadaWest »

Oh! One thing I did notice is that the Crash Recovery split the pot between all registered players. Not just the ones who were still in.

Thought you should know.

g
George
(CanadaWest)
www.playersclub.ca
Kent Briggs
Site Admin
Posts: 5878
Joined: Wed Mar 19, 2008 8:47 pm

Re: Chips on table lost on crash.

Post by Kent Briggs »

CanadaWest wrote:Oh! One thing I did notice is that the Crash Recovery split the pot between all registered players. Not just the ones who were still in.
I'll have to check my code. Players already knocked out shouldn't get any chips back.
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