Page 1 of 2

Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:30 pm
by Lord_HarvestA
I've been trying to get some friends in to play Factorio for the last 6 hours now. We've done everything, but cannot seem to keep 3 people on the server at any given time.

When the 2nd player connects, everything is fine and working as intended (and its glorious fun) but when the third (3rd) player connects, it desyncs the 2nd player instantly when the 3rd finishes downloading the map. The 3rd player then desyncs and has to redownload the map. but then everything works fine. Should the 2nd player re-join, the same thing happens -> Map downloads -> player 3 drops -> player 2 desyncs -> player 2 re-downloads map -> game works fine again.

We're not connecting at the same time, at times (with some extreme patience on our part) we've waited 10mins between connection attempts from the 3rd player, still the same result.

I've removed offline players when they desync in a hope that they might be able to re-connect without dropping the other player, but that hasn't seemed to work either.

We've tried hosting the game on each of our computers 1, 2 and 3, the exact same thing happens.

I REALLY hope theres some simple solution to this problem. I'd also like to know if We're the only ones experiencing this problem.

(P.S. i've managed to change players 1-3 colours, so its keeping that info)

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:45 pm
by omegasrevenge
Thank you god, me and my friends are not the only ones with this problem!

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 12:52 pm
by Boogieman14
It would probably be helpful to the devs if you posted about this in the bug reports forum. Also include information like system specs and OS version and whether you're using a 32- or 64 bit OS (and, in case of 64-bit OS, which Factorio version). And include logfiles from all systems involved.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 3:29 pm
by n9103
I've found a few cases of this myself.
I've found that it's related to when a specific person joins the server.
For instance (in order):
I'm hosting, I can connect to most people without problems.
Player 1 comes in. (This will be the one with the problem)
Player 2 joins, and Player 1 is dropped.
Player 1 rejoins, Player 2 is dropped.
Player 3 joins, Player 1 is dropped.
Player 2 rejoins, no problem.
Player 1 joins, Player 2 & 3 are dropped.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 6:56 pm
by GewaltSam
Maybe check who is running which version (32 / 64 bit). There seem to be some problems when people with different versions play with each other.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Sun Nov 02, 2014 8:27 pm
by Zequez
I played with 2 other friends over the Internet with Hamachi with the 64bit Windows 7 Factorio version, and didn't have any issue. We payed for 4 hours.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 4:49 am
by n9103
It would seem there is no difference in the way the 32&64 versions communicate, though this is based on my own observations, and thus suffers a convenience bias. (casual observation, not testing)

Also, in my example, all Players were connecting to Host(me), and I never changed versions.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 7:27 am
by slpwnd
I have moved this to the bug sections. In theory it should work just fine for multiple people (we tested with up to 4 people allright). What could be a problem is that if those two people who are "kicking out" each other would have a same IP address. Could anyone provide a log file from that session?

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 2:17 pm
by Menoxz
Same issue

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 2:23 pm
by noisy
tryed to get in one game 3 of my friends.. 1 of them had no issues.. and other 2 kept canceling and booting each other... the thinп i am suspecting is that 2 of those people were in different hamachi networks.. so they all had connection with me and not with each other... so ive got a question: do all players have to be synched with all party members? or do they need to be synched only with server?

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 3:05 pm
by n9103
I'm 90% certain that Factorio is using a peer to peer networking approach.
Even on a brand new map, the initial delay grows quickly, leading me to believe I'm not the only one sending, or they're not the only one receiving.
This is even more apparent when someone with a sub-par connection is involved, and both the send times and overall lag take a huge hit.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 3:26 pm
by knightrath
We had a similar issue last night while playing but one of us was on a 64bit version. When he downgraded to 32bit, the problem 'vanished'. I know it 'shouldnt' happen but that is just our results.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 3:48 pm
by slpwnd
noisy wrote:tryed to get in one game 3 of my friends.. 1 of them had no issues.. and other 2 kept canceling and booting each other... the thinп i am suspecting is that 2 of those people were in different hamachi networks.. so they all had connection with me and not with each other... so ive got a question: do all players have to be synched with all party members? or do they need to be synched only with server?
There is not really any "server". All peers need to be in sync with all the other ones. If some of the peers cannot communicate with others than one of the sides is disconnected. This could explain the behavior you guys are seeing.

There is a difference between a desync and a drop from the game. In the first game it writes into the console that there was a desync in the second one it says that a specified player was dropped from the game. Which case have you experienced then?

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 5:21 pm
by Menoxz
If some of the peers cannot communicate with others than one of the sides is disconnected.
Does it mean everyone needs to have the port open, firewalls off etc etc?

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 7:13 pm
by PalllaX
Hey devs,

I tried with drs many situations now.
Situation:
server, me and another person is in one network (at home). we can even connect over 192.168.0.x local addresses. Logical.
When now a person outside of the network try to join both of us BUT NOT THE SERVER droped out of the game and the player from outside connects normally.

I tried to change my windows hosts file so I'm technical from outside too - but of course i share the same public ip and port with the server so same problem like mentioned above.
Then I tried different private and public ports in my router. Same result.

But logical when I connect via VPN (hide.me) and get a new ip and geo then it's working.

Conclusion:
Localy (evolve, hamachi) you can play with many people.
Mixing public and private ips causes problems.

Please see my attached logfile of my words.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 7:25 pm
by PalllaX
The log from post above was from me, trying to connect as player. And this log is from the server from Ubuntu Server.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Mon Nov 03, 2014 9:58 pm
by noisy
slpwnd wrote:
noisy wrote:tryed to get in one game 3 of my friends.. 1 of them had no issues.. and other 2 kept canceling and booting each other... the thinп i am suspecting is that 2 of those people were in different hamachi networks.. so they all had connection with me and not with each other... so ive got a question: do all players have to be synched with all party members? or do they need to be synched only with server?
There is not really any "server". All peers need to be in sync with all the other ones. If some of the peers cannot communicate with others than one of the sides is disconnected. This could explain the behavior you guys are seeing.

There is a difference between a desync and a drop from the game. In the first game it writes into the console that there was a desync in the second one it says that a specified player was dropped from the game. Which case have you experienced then?
in our case player 3 was booted when player 4 was connecting, and other way around, player 4 was booted when player 3 connected.. so now im sure it was happening because they were in different hamachi networks

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 1:56 pm
by cube
Menoxz wrote:Does it mean everyone needs to have the port open, firewalls off etc etc?
No, only one player needs public IP, all the others should be able to punch through the nat. Theoretically.

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Tue Nov 04, 2014 4:42 pm
by Ric
Had exactly the same problem last night with a couple of mates. I've already posted this in another topic so sorry if i'm duplicating but this seems to have more traffic.

Server messages as the third person tried to join. Hope this helps Devs.
Server messages

Re: Cannot Have 3+ Players connected at the same time.

Posted: Sat Nov 08, 2014 9:58 am
by slpwnd
So the conclustion here is following:

The problem appears if the new connecting peer cannot establish connection to some other peer already in the game (and not the one he is connecting to as "the server"). It hasn't been explicitly mentioned but it IS necessary that all the peers can communicate with each other (it is however in theory not necessary that all the peers have public IP address - one should be enough as BlueCube said above).

The problem was that this situation hasn't been properly handled by the game. It should report the problem when the new peer is connecting. That is exactly what it does now. It will say "cannot establish connection to __ip_address__" for the new peer, but the people in the game remain in the game.

Moving to resolved for the next release.