WideFS Illegal Operation on FS Exit

[Jamie Fox]

When exiting FS (both 2002 and 2004), sometimes FS will fail to shut down properly and will cause an 'error' (the box offering to send an error report to MS). This behaviour occurs in both Wide FS 5.50 and 6.02, and across both versions of FS. It never occurs when Wideserver.dll has been renamed or deleted. It intermittently occurs when Wideserver is running. It tends to be more likely if WideClient has, at some point during the session, been connected to WideServer. Sometimes it is prevented if a multiplayer session is manually disconnected prior to exiting (and other times it will still happen even if no multiplayer session was ever used).

I'm using TCP/IP networking for WideFS. This problem occurs with FS being hosted on either of two PCs:

Compaq Presario Notebook: Celeron 2GHz, 192MB RAM, Windows XP Home.

Advent Desktop: Athlon 1GHz, 128MB RAM, Windows ME.

(Wide FS 6.02, FSUIPC 3.04)

Wideserver.log doesn't seem to pick up any errors:

...

2013242 Client socket disconnected at Client: removing (skt=1104)

2078027 Closing down now ...

Memory managed: Offset records: 37 alloc, 37 free

Throughput maximum achieved: 32 frames/sec, 1584 bytes/sec

Throughput average achieved for complete session: 5 frames/sec, 386 bytes/sec

********* Log file closed *********

I'd love to get to the bottom of this, but even the logic and reproducability seems to be non-existent! Any ideas anyone?

[Pete Dowson]

When exiting FS (both 2002 and 2004), sometimes FS will fail to shut down properly and will cause an 'error' (the box offering to send an error report to MS). This behaviour occurs in both Wide FS 5.50 and 6.02, and across both versions of FS. It never occurs when Wideserver.dll has been renamed or deleted. It intermittently occurs when Wideserver is running.

I've not had any other such reports. Sounds like some problem either with your network drivers, or possibly something else interacting with WideServer? If you've no other add-ons or add-ins running when it occurs, the main suspicion falls on the network card drivers or the card itself. Check also that it isn't sharing an IRQ with anything else. And try re-installing it and its drivers. If you have another, try a swap, maybe into a different PCI slot.

Since no errors are seen by WideServer it seems likely that things at a lower level, i.e. in the drivers or card, are getting snarled up.

Regards,

Pete

[Jamie Fox]

Pete,

I think I agree it has something to do with the network. I haven't really tried this enough times to be a proper scientific test, but it seems that if I unplug the network and then exit FS it will prevent the problem. I get the feeling this might have nothing to do with WideFS and is triggered only because WideServer accesses the network.

I can't remove the cards because both are on-board Ethernet cards. Both the video card and the network card have an IRQ in the Device Manager of 5? I know absolutely nothing on this subject unfortunately

[Pete Dowson]

I can't remove the cards because both are on-board Ethernet cards.

Ugh. Of course you could disabled them and instal a PCI card. But that's annoying.

Both the video card and the network card have an IRQ in the Device Manager of 5? I know absolutely nothing on this subject unfortunately

I don't know much, but I do know that until I got an arrangement whereby the Network card had its own separate IRQ I had loads of weird problems. Sharing an IRQ with the video card seems to be the worst possible scenario. Is the video on-board too?

If you cannot change things and the only symptom is a crash on termination I'd be inclined to leave it be, quite honestly. It's a nightmare world sorting those sorts of conflicts out.

Regards,

Pete

[Jamie Fox]

I think I might just leave it be ;)

[Jamie Fox]

I've just reformatted the hard drive of the offending computer (not purely because of this!). I visited the Windows Update site and found some updated drivers for the network card that I don't think were installed before. For one, both, or neither of these reasons, the problem seems to have gone away!

Thanks Pete for your help in this.

Best wishes,

Jamie.

[Pete Dowson]

the problem seems to have gone away!

Thanks for telling us. It's nice to have some good news now and then!

Pete