Assorted Multiplayer issues have only been getting worse over the years. I'm done waiting for change
TModLoader has always, always struggled with Multiplayer over its now 10 year lifespan. I've been playing that whole time, suffering with it, and especially over the past two years it has started to come to a head. I'm a Linux user, for some reason that means I get more problems than everyone else. Most of the issues have been just barely tolerable, since they were inconsistent and/or avoidable. For example:
The "Found server" and "Connecting to " server join bugs. These are vanilla bugs. Much more common in TModLoader, but tolerable, and only affect the moment you join a server. They may happen up to 80% of the time for me in TML now, but it's not a big deal, since usually it's only a ~3 minute delay on me getting to play the game for like, 4-7 hours straight. Rates of occurrence have been dramatically rising in TML for a couple years now, worrying but again not terribly unforgiveable.
Then, about a year ago, Linux users like myself had started periodically encountering an issue where Steam would present you as playing Vanilla instead of TModLoader, making hosting multiplayer through steam nearly impossible, and occasionally preventing joining others' servers too. It's a bug that disappears now and again, and can be avoided if the Linux users don't host, so I believe it has gone critically underreported since it started showing up. It's still an active bug right now, and it's kind of a pain.
However, since the last time I played two months ago, there has appeared a new ruthlessly consistent and cataclysmically insufferable issue:
"Backing up player file"
Whenever I'm playing in a world, no matter what mods are being used, no matter if autosave or cloud saving is on or off. I will get removed from the world within 15 minutes of joining with this message, hanging over me forever or until I dismiss it. Like the ancient empty disconnect bug, but far, far more often. Sometimes I get 10 minutes to play. Sometimes I get 90 seconds. Sooner or later it will happen.
To reiterate: This affects all instances of multiplayer, with no mods loaded, and I've heard some friends say it affected their singleplayer a couple times, but I have not the patience or the motive to test this, as I do not play singleplayer at all. Autosave off, all cloud saving settings off, the bug will still happen.
No evidence has shown up in anyone's logs, either. It's just a random disconnect that happens on a simultaneously unpredictable and regularly scheduled basis, leaving no trace besides thoroughly crushed souls.
More than anything else I've ever personally experienced in TML, this is by no means a vanilla bug. Vanilla doesn't kick you out of the world to autosave your player file. It just saves the file without interruption. This bug is equivalent to a full game crash that occurs regularly roughly every 8-10 minutes. In other words, unplayable. This is where I draw the line. Stop breaking systems that worked fine in vanilla, hell, worked fine in older versions of TML, and make multiplayer tolerable again.
1 Reply
Well, we're definitely interested in resolving these sorts of issues for Linux players. Please post some log files from a session where you have experienced the saving bug