Derk

Is this the main BMS Server 'Crash Report' posting ? It crashed around 2200 EST with 5 online in flight. Others reported lag before it crashed. It was the blue "Pause" message. Unable to reconnect. Derk

The BMS Manual lists two different 'server' type settings: g_bServer This option when set to 1 (enable) puts Falcon BMS into Multiplayer Server mode. A server mode session can't enter the 3D world. Available options: 0/1. Default = 0. g_bServerHostAll This option should always be set to 1 (Enabled). When enabled the MP host technically owns ALL units. When set to 0 the client requesting a unit to deaggreate will own it, making it responsible for distributing it over the network. Previous experience showed that this can minimize bandwidth demand on the host, but that it will create many more problems and sync issues. Options: 0/1. *************** I've read various BMS postings about server and config settings enough to basically understand that trial and error may be the best method to solve a problem. I'm up for whatever you want to try. (Are we keeping a change log? lol) Also on a side note, for the past couple weeks the campaign has been void of Migs except for occasional pop-ups here and there. Blue force seems to knock them down soon as they get up from the few bases left. It is good for buddy lasing without interruption, but leaves missions a bit bland. The overall campaign seems pretty stable now (except for the performance issues noted), but supplies seem to run low once it gets close to the end of week 2. The human tanker squadrons have been fun - Thanks for the that addition. Derk.

Server is behaving well lately, and we had a good 5 ship human flight tonight, but the campaign is at Day 25. While air and ground targets do exist, they are few and mostly trucks or infantry units. There is also a supply issue at the bases I flew from (994th at Soesan and 14th at Taegu?) and most AA and AG weapons are 'OUT'. I noticed this started last week around Day 17. Tonight we ran a 4 ship strike about 100 miles in, to the big airbase near Pyongyang, and only had a couple Migs show up. That fight back, and the next shorter flight was quiet in the air even though it was mid-day on the campaign and we circled for over 15 minutes making smoke columns out of the little red boxes that 'were' on the 2d map. At this point, I'm ready for a restart to Day 1. (Brain second that). Thanks PS - your tip about setting the IP to the DMZ was the ticket to get 'AXE' (Dave) connected. He thanks you and had two good flights with us, and was looking forward to more.

DMS Down = switch from MFD to MFD DMS Right = Cycles RT MFD from page to page DMS Left = Cycles LT MFD from page to page DMS and TMS are the two for sure to map to something on the HOTAS.

Hi Blud, I don't have the X52, but know its popular in BMS based on the forums posts about it. Not sure how current you are with 4.33, but they completely re-worked the key commands to different keys to organize the layout. So older profiles would not work. There is a .pr0 file for the 4.33.1 version in the BMS folder "C:\Falcon BMS 4.33 U1\Docs\Key Files & Input\Device Setup Guides & Profiles\Saitek X52" that would be compatible with the new key layout. There's also a Guide pdf with information on setting it up in the same folder. You should be able to set most of the X52 buttons in the Setup inside BMS directly without setting a Saitek profile, including setting the mini-nipple as axis settings. If you still have trouble, you may have to do as I, and many others have, and figure out the .key file and how to enter your own key commands manually. I had issues with Saitek's profile software with my X55 so I don't use it at all and have mapped everything in the .key file manually from an Excel spreadsheet. Looking forward to seeing you back in the air and helping to create some smoke plums. If you need any pointers to get you back up to speed I'll offer my assistance when able. Good luck with the setup - Derk

BMS server down. 2030 EST. "Failed to connect to server" error.

BMS Server crashed around 1500 EST - "Server reply timed out". (confirmed by one other) Was up and running around 1400

Hey man......quit playin around here and get in BMS and practice those AGM65's. ?We've got serious work this weekend clearing out red boxes! ??(just messin with ya Static - see you in BMS this weekend I hope) Derk

SERVER ERROR (Crash?) Flew from 1900 to 2300 just fine in the campaign, but then in the middle of the flight my human wingman and I went into an uncontrolled death spin to the ground. After that all attempts at fragging a flight gave 'Bad Timing' error. We hi-jacked an HQ flight, but on take off, neither of us had control stick inputs to our acft. The ATO looked like a ghost town, and weapons stores were extremely low. Not sure this will sort out by itself, but I'd recommend a restart to day 1. Thanks.

I?ve been enjoying the ongoing edits to the campaign over the past months and want to thank those that are active with supplying their inputs, suggestions, and recommending changes. The campaign may still show oddities, but with the variety and availability of human flights available, and the fact that as of last night I still found AG and AA action at Day 24 should be a testament to the ongoing edits beyond my technical level. That being said, I do want to point out a few oddities I?ve seen in the past week. I realize these are issues with BMS which we need to work around, but I?ve not seen these before. So I wonder if they are an indication that a campaign restart may need to be considered soon. If not, at least others will be aware. 1. Last weekend and last night I noticed 3 to 4 different flights from different bases all using the Cowboy9 callsign when checking from the 2D map. Other names were also used like ?Avenger? or ?Serpent?, but all had a ?9? at the end. On one flight, I was assigned Cowboy9, which made for confusion when taxiing out when I heard Cowboy9 cleared to land. Last night, a human flight out of Kunsan had the same ?9? callsign as I did flying out of Seosan. I wonder if the campaign has run out of numbers and not reset due to being at Day 24. For humans in different packages, you can see the confusion this could cause. 2. Just after takeoff out of Seosan, AWACs called a Bandit with a bearing and distance. Turning to look I see the AD at Seosan launching into the bay to the south, right in the general area of the AWAC call. I saw nothing on the FCR or visually. I pressed on with my mission and on return, the Patriot and Hawk sites there were lit up red on the HAD. I assume they were still trying to launch on the phantom bandit, but they kept spiking me which made for a very noisy approach until I turned RWR off. 3. After launching HARMs on SA targets in the NW area with no FCR air targets or AWACs activity, I detect a Mig 29 symbol on my HAD just as you would see on the RWR, but in a dim grey color. It stayed in the same area on the HAD as I ran in burner to exit the area. Nothing ever showed on the RWR or identified by AWACs. After about a 50 mile run out it finally dropped off the HAD. Perhaps it was a false indication from a bug, but again, I?ve never seen that anywhere before and caused me to have to react. Everything else has been running fine from what I can tell over the past few months. I do not experience AI oddity at other times. My only observation is the reoccurrence of bad weather, which may be par for the area realism, but is a downer when you want to see AI targets or big fire balls from splashes. I would be happy if the ?Poor? and ?Fair? weather percentages were reduced. Thanks again for all your server support and providing for us an arena to enjoy BMS.

Thanks for offering for feedback on the recent changes. I?ve found them positive, though I only flew shortly Fri and Sun. morning and not enough time to really evaluate all of your questions. I enjoyed being able to frag an F18 early on from the carrier, though it seemed like a long flight until I got over land and found some Mig 29?s to tangle with. (They lost btw ? maybe since I had 10 AIM120?s loaded and was not sparing them?) I did mention to Sinu that the tower comms were not working from the 667th at the carrier. We were not sure why, but I was able to make the ?Remove chocks? call and get launched. So it didn?t interfere with the overall mission. On other flights I found the ground was highly immersive, with an element of surprise from lacking of Recon targets being detected on the 2D map. So a planned high alt JDAM run was met with unplanned AAA to give an interesting element to the flight. Not much activity with SAM?s at that time, but the 4.33.1 updates to smaller AD units seems more challenging now. The air to air activity was seemed a bit quiet on those flights, but the Sunday flight was at night and typically quiet. I?ve not seen anything one-sided enough to call to your attention, so the changes seemed well for the weekend flights when I was in. Thanks for keeping it interesting and for your support.

Kevin Pending message here too. I've never had it....ever.

Bandwidth, Dubious Connections, Upload/Download speeds. Ya need a PHD in networking to figure all of this out. According to the BMS Manual, Brain meets the minimum specs, and should be able to set his ?cap? at 1024, even though his network may only reach 960. That?s if you use the Upload speed calculation method from the manual, which seems to be written as a guide more for MP hosts of a handful of friends. The VG server hosting a continuous campaign for a constant flow of clients creates a different situation. For that, you can read threads in BMS such as this one???. http://www.bmsforum.org/forum/search.php?searchid=4830743 In particular is post #61 that says client download speed is more important, whereas upload speed is more important for the Host. I?m not sure we?ve tested enough yet to determine if these issues are client, host, campaign setting, or even network flow, so I wouldn?t give up yet Brain. I can see how the second campaigns can cause major issues for the server host and support measures to prevent this. I have recently watched youtube postings of a squadron who does weekly BMS flights with 12 clients on, and they seem to be working OK. Surely someone at BMS would be interested in helping an organization like Veterans Gaming so I?m hopefully Semler will find that in his contacts. Seems that for now, continued testing, trial and error may be needed. Perhaps there are some simple solutions such as altering to lower/higher BW settings, campaign settings, or server settings. We may ultimately find that the higher demand of this 4.33 upgrade will require more than we think. (anyone keeping a copy of 4.32 handy? ? lol) Keep digging Semler, and good luck.

Brain makes a good point about the "no secondary campaign" issue, which has existed well before the 4.33 update. Policing this will be an interesting issue the VG admin will have to figure out since the server is available to anyone that receives the IP addy, and may not be part of the VG community. This would make for a good threat by itself. Semler, would it also be helpful to have a separate thread just for server outage posts as Brain suggested? This would help keep this one tech related and maybe help you with monitoring outages.

Server is still down at the time of my post. @Sinu - I'm very appreciative of Semlers efforts in tweaking things to give us a stable and challenging campaign with the 4.33 upgrade. Though I have to support smaller steps in what is changed, and adequate time to test the change. To make a second change in HQ AI to affect the change made in difficulty level may tide the "wall of migs", but will also add more objects that could eat into bandwidth of the server and clients. This could result in more AI warping/spinning issues, which we still seem to be aggravated with. (even more so for me last night) This past week was very interesting as the campaign was left to runout and see how long it lasted. I was happy with how long it lasted even though it did result in a stale air war, and limited ground forces on the red side. I still had fun learning to buddy lase with a friend, and taking out radar units from atop the solid cloud ceiling since I got toasted by the AAA when flying under the weather on AGM65 runs. So there was still action to be found. From my experiences in the VG 4.32 campaign over the past year, I thought the Cadet difficulty level in the 4.33 campaign was close to what it was before. Sometimes I wished that it was more difficult, but I could also find a fun and challenging mission even if there weren't any AI bandits around, or SAMs firing at me. I'm hopeful that the shared interest of increasing the difficulty level can be balanced to take into account the typical users that will be logging into the server. I would also prefer stability over difficulty, especially since it seems that the server has been down again all evening. I wish Semler and the VG admin well in working through what has been a very challenging upgrade to BMS.

I've been unavailable this week to fly, but plan to be in this weekend to see how the changes are working. As for the VG host exiting to 2D, I found some information on a BMS posting here...... http://www.bmsforum.org/forum/showthread.php?14032-Server-reverts-to-2d-map-on-it-s-own&highlight=server+reverts Two points in this post is making sure host acft is in Startup with a cold cockpit, and a config setting for the "bump" time. I would offer to test the campaign file your using in offline mode on my pc to see if it gives the same behavior of exiting 2d.

As I researched specs to build my current pc this past June, I took specs from many of the regular users on the BMS forums to gauge what I wanted to build. (user specs were posted at the bottom of their posts). I formulated that I would go with a minimum of 8 GB RAM, and this was for BMS 4.32. Many users listed 16 GB RAM. I was successful running 4.32 with a system that had 4 GB, but now with the steeper system requirements of 4.33, and what I see as a much busier server, is only 4 GB of RAM on the server enough? Wouldn't the page faults on the server be an indication of a lack of RAM? As for missing objects and other similar anomalies, I've read post after post recommending 1024 BW connections during MP Campaigns during heavy use. (500 may work during slower times). Seems like quite a jump from 4.32 using only 300, but 4.33 is obviously passing more data back and forth in MP than before. This is tiresome reading, but the thread at BMS Forums is here >>>> http://www.bmsforum.org/forum/showthread.php?23781-Multiplayer-Campaign-Issues There is also info about 'dubious connections' that I don't understand totally, but has to do with those without correct ports set as described in the BMS Manual. (those with "CS" code behind their MP callsign instead of 'P2P'). These type users, and others with bad connections, can cause a number of object and AI issues, and possible host crash. I have seen this on the VG server recently and can be prevented with configuration settings to limit it. Info here >>> http://www.bmsforum.org/forum/showthread.php?24392-Multiplayer-Question-(P2P-CS-differences)&highlight=P2P So with the combination of server crashes, AI issues, and lost objects, are we experiencing multiple issues at the same time with BMS and the server? Has a VG thread been started with BMS Forums to explain these issues to see if the Devs can shed some light or point in a direction? Perhaps a non-forums PM to someone on the Dev team?

Brain.... I have to agree that the problems have been random and intermittent. For me this past weekend, my connections from the north east US have been fine. I have not had issues with missing objects, but I have noticed spinning AI acft and missing landing gear on other human led flights. I did experience a CTD with windows program error message. Two others had it on Sat. night. Reconnecting was fine for all, and the rest of the flt was fine. Was a 4 ship ( east US, Spain, UK, and Denmark). Campaign was early day 1. There were three other TEs running with 6 total users. At 35 MB/sec UL at the server, the 75% calculator puts you right on for the 25000 BW with the host. How we can run good with all of that running Sat. nigbt, but hear of issues with one user on is beyond my understanding. I'm leaning towards thinking that those with slower or more distant connections are having the issues most. (Australia goes thru Hong Kong? Whoa!). Looking towards that issue, maybe seeing samples of the users Speedtest a Kansas server may help shed some light. Perhaps a separate post just for these specs from users as I've seen on other server forums?

Your 4.32 with 70 fps is pretty good. This is still a great sim but you will most likely have to fly single player with it since I doubt you will find any active multiplayer servers using it. I assume you know the VG BMS server is using the 4.33 version.

I was in on that server crash too around 9:30 PM EST. Did not get the Blue text, but got the windows program has stopped message. Right before this happened I noticed there were two 'Vipers' on the pilot list. I asked in comms who the second Viper was, but no answer. I have concern that two callsigns the same may cause issues with the host. Any thought to giving the VG host a unique callsign.....like "VG Host", instead of using the default 'Viper' name? The VG Viper was in 3D the whole time. The only other thing I saw at the time is that the server was busy with many clients. I counted at least 8 human pilots on with 6 in flight at once. The server setting of 25,000 BW should have carried all of this with us set at 1024, as long as there is plenty of upload speed on the server side. (about 32 MB/sec upload Speedtest by my calculation) I did not experience any loss of objects as was reported by two others while in 3D. They said they were set with a BW of 1024, as was my wingman and I. Everything for us worked well up until the crash that most likely knocked everyone offline. Reconnection failed. Sorry to have to keep reporting issues. I appreciate your continued effort to provide us a fun/free multiplayer area.

@CobaltUK- I've unchecked the Config 'AWACS Required' and had success with it for two flights last night. This will be a suitable work around for me, even though I've never experience lost comms to awacs in years flying 4.32 with it checked. @Semler - everything was great last night except Viper was in 2d (10 est). Upon my return from a flt to Seosan two others had joined. Searching OOB showed 1 at Seosan, 1 at Osan, and 2 at 909th. The others confirmed they were in seats at Osan. When I moved to Osan, the counts changed to 3 at Osan...1 at 909th. @Sinu- many others and I experience low kill rates in the VG campaign. I assumed it was to allow units to regenerate from damaged state in order to keep up more red forces and lengthen the days of the campaign. If you see "damaged", then you hit it good. @Brain - Good testing and info. Thanks.

Thanks Semler. That explains why I see "Chalis 3" on 2d map before and after flight, and can even get a "buddy spike" call from him, but no "Q#" command response. I doubt a million bucks would find the answer, but if I find anything, I'll let you know for free - lol. A to A ops is already dicey without IFF. No AWACs make me shiver and run. Two flights last night at 1024 BW went fine. Just one odd issue with an AI wingman not following that coincided with a human log off. Possibly his exit burped something as he entered 2d and my wingman spot was all that was open. I have new concerns of these issues. Not sure the best way to hide VG Viper. I've seen others with the default Viper (Joe Pilot) name in the campaign in the past (4.32 ver). Always wondered what that could mess with.