Running two mods on one Windows 2003 server?

Cannon: as promised - the updated zip for you, please double-check before taking it as gospel. I have included the runtime files in the zip and given a fuller explanation of how to install the patch. Many thanks for the patch, it’s great.

OK, now working on finding a Server controller that will work on 3 FLServer sessions…

Sorry, just saw your reply Cannon.

Having some problems at the moment, only 1 session shows in the Server List after I registered all 3 sessions at http://www.flserver.de/add_server.php

Not sure what to do, am contacting Crazy to see if it’s a problem he can fix and I’ll get back to you once we can see all 3 FL Server sessions?

Or do you have an idea what might be wrong?

Good idea about VMWare, it’s free and I’ll take a look - but I don’t know if our provider will allow us to install it on the server though.

Yes I did allocate different ports for each session, and I can direct connect to each of them, but only 1 session appears in the Server List - port 2306, I think it’s the last one I registered.

Whichever session I start on port 2306 shows, the others on ports 2302, 2304, 2308 do not show up.

I think it’s because the server registration php script probably overwrites the previous server IP and port if the IP is the same, instead of adding the new one?

I’ve sent a PM to Crazy here, hope he gets it soon.

EDIT: VMWare Server is free but they ask a whole ream of questions and I don’t want to give all that info.

But Sun’s latest release of VirtualBox 3.2.8 is free and looks great, and is small, and no quizzes! Nice.

Yep, Oracle bought Sun - amazing.

Hi guys.

OK our server is back again.

I removed the gls workaround patch leaving only Cazy’s gun.fllistserver.com patch in each session, as it should be automatic?

Each session’s name is different, starting with " RRJDS" and then the mod name and “- port 230x” in the server session name.

I started all 3 FL Server sessions simultaneously:
FL 1.1 on port 2304,
RRJDS 2.82r3 on port 2306 and
TNG 2.76 on port 2308.

Checked on our server - all ports are passed by the firewall OK (as seen with “netstat -an”).

Ran Freelancer client - only RRJDS 2.82r3 showed up in the server list.

Stopped it and tried each mod in turn on port 2306 - each one showed up alone.

Tried RRJDS 282r3 on each port 2302, 2304, 2306, 2308 - only shows when on port 2306.

Tried Plain FL and TNG on ports 2302, 2304, 2306, 2308 - each one only shows when on port 2306.

Any help please?

I have now also tried to re-register all the ports on http://www.flserver.de/add_server.php

Thanks guys.

Firewalled, see above - I used your tip on ‘netstat -an’ and all ports show open when all three sessions are running.

It just seems only port 2306 is getting onto the List Server?

But:-
When I use Direct connect (freelancer.exe -s209.25.178.120:230x) where x is the port, and keep the visible session running too, I can see only one entry in the Server List, and the name alternates between the two FL Server names!

When I put in all 3 of the server IPs and ports in (freelancer.exe -s209.25.178.120:2304 -s209.25.178.120:2306 -s209.25.178.120:2308 ), there is still only 1 entry in the Server List, but the name alternates between all 3 server names! Other servers show one entry per server.

???

AlphaWolf wrote:
We had a similar issue with a live server and test server running on separate physical hardware in separate physical data centres.

The person who tried copying the player account files across also copied the accounts.cfg file (if I recall correctly) over and the “last server loaded” of the two servers was the one shown in list server as far as I could tell, meaning that our live server was blocked from appearing.

Perhaps similar issue? Have you used the same accounts.cfg (or other cfg) file?

-Alpha

Thanks for the tip, Alpha…

I deleted the Accts folder and let FL Server make a new one - same problem.

I added all FL Server.exe’s manually to the exceptions, added all the UDP ports, same.

I disabled the firewall entirely - same.

I ran all FL Server sessions as administrator - same.

I changed all ports, to use 2302, 2312, 2322 - same.

I ran only 2 sessions in my 2 different user accounts - same.

So whatever I do I have the same problem: only 1 entry shows in the Server List, and the name alternates between any of the sessions. I don’t get a separate entry for each session name, which I am expecting. Isn’t this what should happen?

Any more ideas? :?

Incidentally now my original FL Server does not show in the Server List no matter what port I try! But that’s another problem.

I found the problem with the original FL Server - something in the old accounts, although I could direct connect, it would not show in the Server List until I renamed the Accts folder. Then it came up immediately.

So the gun.fllistserver.com is showing new servers immediately, thankfully.

I copied the player files into the Accts\MultiPlayer folder without changing the cfg files and all seemed OK.

After this I tried starting only two of the new FL Server sessions, and both showed up in the Server List immediately, and I was able to connect to each one of them and play a while.

“Great!”… I thought!

But when I stopped one session and restarted it, the problem came back - both sessions showed up in one entry only again!

I deleted both of the new sessions’ Accts folders, and started each session again - same problem.

So I can’t see what is the cause.

I am still trying…

Finally resolved!

Here is the solution for the record:-

Crazy told me the Server ID’s are the problem. These are in accounts.cfg for each FL Server session.

Alpha you pointed me in the right direction but I couldn’t see the problem nor that the files were being remade the same.

By creating them all in the same user account they become almost the same (the 1st 4 bytes are different only) and this is the cause of the conflict.

By recreating the accounts.cfg in different User accounts we get different accounts.cfg files, and this is the secret.

So - with Cannon’s acctpath_patch installed in each Freelancer folder and the path to the Freelancer root folder (parent folder to each Freelancer folder) correctly defined in acctpath_patch.ini, to create new files just delete the Accts folder for each FLServer session and then start each FLServer.exe session in a different User account. Simples! - www.comparethemeerkat.com !

Now we know how, it’s simple. Yesterday it was not so clear.

Thanks to everyone and especially Cannon & Crazy.

Note: if you want to keep old player files just copy them into the new Accts folder. But you need to keep the same Server ID (use the original accounts.cfg file). This may be very tricky if you have player files for more than one session and they use the same server ID. Your players will probably have to start new accounts and you will need to copy their characters into the new folder from the old folder. Tedious!

So now the only outstanding issue is which FL Server Operator to use for control and auto-restart of each of the three sessions without confusing one for the other. Need to do some tests.

Excellent info Helloween, many thanks.

As you say, Ioncross FL Server Op controls FLServer by the window name - but unfortunately it does not check the window name when it is checking to see if FLServer.exe is running, it checks to see is flserver.exe is running - so as long as any FLServer.exe session is running, it thinks its own one is ok too and does not restart it when it is stopped or crashed.

One thing I forgot to say above is that I am now successfully running all 3 sessions in one user account - it is a commercial server and additional user accounts are expensive.

I used my own laptop to create the different accounts.cfg files in different temporary new User accounts and then copied them up to the server.