Multiplayer save broken due to desyncs

[Svonn]

Hi folks,

We had a lot of fun re-exploring the game with the new patch yesterday - I read lots of criticism about the lack of polishing, but I don't mind encountering minor bugs.

However, about 60 years in we ran into a desync. Since those have been a common thing for the past, well, two years or so, we didn't really care too much an just rehosted the game.
When everyone connected again and we started playing, after one day it immediately went out of sync again (RANDOM_COUNT). We attempted any combinations of players and hosts, we tried reloading autosaves from up to 5 years earlier - yet it was impossible to start the game without immediately desyncing again.

Since everyone is redownloading the savegame from the host, there has to be some issue with the save game that happened before the oldest autosave.

I hope some devs read the forum here frequently and can use the savegame to replicate and find the issue, so I attached the save file.
We were using the 2.2.3 test_branch and Glavius AI mod - He said there's no way this mod can affect that desync. Also, since the mod is savegame compatible, it should be possible to replicate the bug without it.

Best regards
Svonn

PS: Having a button/menu option for resyncing would be great until the desyncing issues are sorted out.

 

[Fletz]

We had the same problem (and the very same situation,using same game version combined with glavius AI mod) with our save yesterday and found a solution.

Do the following:
-) deactive mod(s)
-) delete user-data (via stellaris launcher)
-) load the game - right now the "(RANDOM_COUNT)"-Error at the very first day should not disappear anymore.
-) play for some time (i dont know how long it is actually necessary, we always played until the next war declaration happened to us)*
-) now save the game
-) end stellaris

-) start stellaris - now with Glavius Mod
-) load the saved game
-) now no desync-error should happen and you can continue having fun with Glavius AI Mod

And dont even try to ignore the "random_count"-error if it happens, even when it seems you can continue the game and everything is alright, after some time you will see that weird stuff is going on and every player playing his own game even when the diplomacy is kinda working between each other.

this solution path worked twice (yesterday and the day before), I wish you good luck!

*: we once tried to create a non-mod save just after few ingame-days and that actually didnt fix it - thats why we continued playing without mod, after 1-3 ingame-years an empire declared war on us, thats why we tried it once again to reload with mods activated and it worked this time. thats how we got this solution.

 

[Svonn]

Very nice, thanks for that. We'll probably try that and report back. I wonder if deleting user-data is enough to fix the issue? Theoretically, deactivating the mod shouldn't affect it, but who knows if it's some weird edge case indirectly caused by it.

 

[Fletz]

Very nice, thanks for that. We'll probably try that and report back. I wonder if deleting user-data is enough to fix the issue? Theoretically, deactivating the mod shouldn't affect it, but who knows if it's some weird edge case indirectly caused by it.

We tried many other path solutions too...

But i think it could also work without deleting the user-data, unfortunately it never worked without deactivating the mod.

I guess the problem is somewhere connected between the save file and the mod, because it never was a problem to start a game with mod(s). The problem seems to occur only if you try to continue a saved game with mods.

 

[UltimateTobi]

@Glavius mentioned that desyncs can be pronounced due to the increased code and load on PDX's backend. It's not the mod directly causing the desync.

 

[Svonn]

Aaaaalright, here are our results:

1. Loading the savegame without mods, forwarding a few days, saving, and then reloading with Glavius mod did not work - we still ran into the same desync.
2. The same thing + "Clear user directory" did not work either
3. Clearing user directory, loading without mods, forwarding a few months, saving, and then reloading with Glavius mod did finally work.

I'm also not sure if clearing the user directory is necessary, but playing without mods before reloading with the mod is certainly necessary. We might do a small experiment on how long the minimum wait time is later. It's somewhere between a month and multiple months, it did not work when starting at the 2nd and forwarding till the 20th - maybe one month could be enough, however.

Thanks for saving our game!

 

[Svonn]

Loading the save works without clearing the user directory.
Waiting one month is not enough for it to work again - we had to deactivate the mod for our save since we still got desyncs every few months.
Let's hope this doesn't drown in the mass of required fixes.

 

[TheDeadlyShoe]

Same experience as Svonn. Purging your userdata and disabling mods appears to be unnecessary, also giving up on Glavius for now. Unsure how that could be causing desyncs, but...

 

[Fletz]

Loading the save works without clearing the user directory.
Waiting one month is not enough for it to work again - we had to deactivate the mod for our save since we still got desyncs every few months.
Let's hope this doesn't drown in the mass of required fixes.

I am not sure if this desyncs are also related to glavius mod. Beside the "RANDOM_COUNT()"-desync at the start of a saved game we got only one desync during approximately 20h MP playtime (some "RESOURCE_COUNT"-desync if i remember correctly) with the mod.

 

[stenver]

We also had similar problem yesterday. Disabled mods 1-by-1. Found out it was Glavius mod.

After disabling that, with heavy hearth, we could continue playing normally.

Currently, Glavius breaks loading a save-game

 

[Fletz]

We also had similar problem yesterday. Disabled mods 1-by-1. Found out it was Glavius mod.

After disabling that, with heavy hearth, we could continue playing normally.

Currently, Glavius breaks loading a save-game

Have you already tried my posted solution path?

If you disable the mod, continue the save game in vanilla mode and create a new save (after approximately 2-3 ingame years) you should be able to continue with glavius mod. Better this way than without mod, or?

 

[stenver]

No we haven't tried that yet. Will try next time we continue. Or hopefully Glavius has released a fix by then

 

[UltimateTobi]

No we haven't tried that yet. Will try next time we continue. Or hopefully Glavius has released a fix by then

Couple posts above: "@Glavius mentioned that desyncs can be pronounceddue to the increased code and load on PDX's backend. It's not the mod directly causing the desync."

He most likely can't fix. The mod only makes issues being more pronounced.
It's up to PDX to fix desyncs.

 

[Scorpio_Shirica]

I had an odd desync issue with the beta that would occur whenever a megastructure finished in the beta patch in a semi-large multiplayer game I'm hosting. However, rehosting made the game stable again. No mods. I think PDX just has a bit more performance tinkering to do.

 

[Svonn]

I am not sure if this desyncs are also related to glavius mod. Beside the "RANDOM_COUNT()"-desync at the start of a saved game we got only one desync during approximately 20h MP playtime (some "RESOURCE_COUNT"-desync if i remember correctly) with the mod.

What was your map size, player & AI count? We run into "regular" desyncs every few years when playing on a medium map with 4 human players and 8 AIs - I'd guess increasing sizes will significantly increase the desync rate

 

[Fletz]

What was your map size, player & AI count? We run into "regular" desyncs every few years when playing on a medium map with 4 human players and 8 AIs - I'd guess increasing sizes will significantly increase the desync rate

We are only 2 human play and around 12-14 (dont know the maximum possible now) AI empires on a small map (400 stars?). Playing "Slow".

 

[samz812]

thats strange me and 2 of my friends had a game thats gone for over 400 years and we have had no desynch issues at all

 

[Svonn]

thats strange me and 2 of my friends had a game thats gone for over 400 years and we have had no desynch issues at all

With Glavius mod? Also, how fast were you playing and what map size are you using?

 

[Svonn]

Glavius:

Update:
Fixed random_count desync error caused by pop_jobs (Everyone, say thank you to The Professor)
..

Oh god please yes

 

[Svonn]

Still not fixed ~