HI, There is a thread on audiogames.net talking about this. the URL is http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=6341&p=185
Aprone wrote the following yesterday in message#4,551: The server was taken down because windows needs to install the new updates. Many Swamp players know that my laptop has been slowly dying due to its overuse, haha. Well after windows did its updates I was only able to get a black screen instead of windows loading up. I tried using the last working configuration, safe mode, but still no luck. I was just about convinced that the laptop had met its end, when one final restart was able to bring up the startup recovery tool. It's been scanning for a long time now, so we'll see if that gets things working again. If the laptop ends up being dead, and Swamp along with it, I'll let everyone know. LOL! Aprone wrote the following message earlier today in messsage#4,622 : As you can probably imagine, I'm currently being bombarded by a ton of emails and messages lately and it takes forever to explain to everyone why the server is down. I'm also getting a lot of suggestions for things to try, and writing the responses takes time so I'm really really behind on it. The network driver is actually something I've tried in the past and it didn't help. Forgive me for shortening this as much as possible, lol. The server software has been tried on several computers with operating systems of XP service pack 1, XP service pack 2, XP service pack 3, Windows 7 32 bit and Windows 7 64 bit. The OS doesn't affect this behavior at all, so it's been ruled out. I've tried the network drivers from windows as well as those from the manufaccturer. It's been tried on systems with no firewall or antivirus running to rule those out. It's been tried on systems with hardware that exactly matched the laptop and still no luck. It was tried on computers outside of my local network to eliminate my router as the cause, also tried on computers receiving internet from a different ISP than myself and still no luck. The code has been checked and rechecked but I can't find anything that would cause the bottleneck, plus if it was in code then it should have done it on the laptop as well, which it didn't. By checking the code as it runs each line, it shows that the program actually does send the outgoing messages correctly. The layers between the program sending the command and the network card actually sending the packets seems to be where the problem lies. That's about all I know. I have several others asking for basically this same information so I think I'll paste that into an audiogames thread. Once again I apologize for being as quick as possible and then seeming to vanish again. I used to get a ton of messages on a normal day, so you can only imagine what it's like when 2000 swamp players from around the world think I either don't know the server is down, think there's just an update and want to ask questions about it, or are trying to understand why I don't just do "this and this" to start Swamp up again. ROFL, it's a tad bit overwhelming, but I'm sure it will calm down as word spreads. The big thing is that people don't know what's already been tried, and it takes a while to tell them if their suggestion has already been tried. :P I am still super behind on my emails but I have noticed some titled "Donation received" in there. I will send out personal thank you's once I get to them, but I wanted to take a moment here to thank everyone for rallying together with the goal of helping! :D That being said, I don't want anyone to be misled and donate believing that it will guarantee Swamp's return. money isn't actually what's holding Swamp back right now. In some yet unknown way, the laptop's old configuration was preventing the bottle neck bug. I have the laptop back up and running 100%, but even though the hardware, anti virus, and firewall are identical to what they were before, Swamp now has the bottle neck bug that it had on all other computers. I've been working on it with all of my free time, but I still feel like I'm grasping at straws. Every theory that pops into my head is plagued with this 1 gaping hole... the software ran perfect on 1 computer but fails on all the rest. That fact right there destroys every theory that passes through my mind. Could it be something in the Swamp server code? Well possibly but that doesn't make sense if it runs just fine on 1 computer. Could it be an issue with windows 7? Doesn't make sense because it still doesn't work on XP machines. Could it be due to the language used? Also doesn't make sense because I've tried it on machines that are plucked right out of the time when VB programs were everywhere. I keep checking things but the entire time, in the back of my mind, I don't expect them to work because they don't make sense based on what I've already tested and tried. To all those who have skyped or emailed me and haven't gotten replies, you have my apologies. You're buried in a sea of messages. As you can imagine, I'm dedicating more time to working on the laptop than I am with replying to messages, haha! :D If Swamp truly has died, it will be sad but at least it had a good long run. I'll go back to making new games, but honestly I'd probably avoid doing any more massively multiplayer ones until I figure out what's wrong with this. I wouldn't want to risk doing whatever it is I did with Swamp, and have the same situation all over again down the road. We would always have the memory of the places in Swamp. It's weird but they start to seem like real places after a while. A lot of sound editing work from Kai will be lost, but if you played a sound file from Swamp it would be hard to find someone in the audiogames community that couldn't immediately recognize its source. For that I thank Kai, because he seriously put a lot of care and quality into his work as he did the sounds for Swamp. The maps and stuff were obviously important to the game, but the sounds were the means by which the game imprinted itself into our brains forever. Well done Mr. Kai! :D Well I'm off to try a few dozen more things.[/quote] --- Gamers mailing list __ [email protected] If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [email protected]. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://mail.audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]. 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