I wanted to pass on the news that we believe we have identified the cause of the steam auth timeouts that cause groups of players to all get disconnected drop at once. (No, we had not forgotten about it!)
The details of the bug are pretty complicated, but essentially if a client dropped from Steam under the right circumstances, and then later reconnected and presented a previously claimed ticket to the authentication system, the authentication would not properly receive the ticket, and it would keep waiting for a claimed ticket to be presented. No such ticket would appear, since the client properly assumed that he had already sent it. Eventually the auth system gives up, and sends a timeout. While the problem essentially happens on an individual player basis, it can happen in batches because multiple clients are often connected to the same front-facing server (the CM), and those servers (by design) are in the most hostile environment and are the most subject to bouncing. If one of those servers goes down, then from Steam's perspective, all of those players will get disconnected simultaneously. The fix should make its way to public within the next week or two. Thanks for everybody's patience in enduring this really irritating bug. And especially to those who submitted the bug reports that enabled us to track this down. Your humble servant, Fletch _______________________________________________ To unsubscribe, edit your list preferences, or view the list archives, please visit: https://list.valvesoftware.com/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/hlds_linux
