Connection timed out

[Yvon]

It seems the sever itself knocks you out after some time of not playing.
I think this is a rather annoying feature because it does so even when you are watching a match. (is watching a match considered "inactivity"?)
Is there a way to disable this feature, some command maybe?

[stog]

shout or whisper something to maintain conn

[diane]

The timeout was introduced to address a specific problem - namely there is a maximum number of users who can be in fibs at one time.  There are people logged in who dont need to be:

the mobile users who get disconnected but fibs doesn't know
people who used to stay logged in 24 hours a day even though they weren't at the keyboard

The disconnect is to remove those to make room for people who are actually playing.  So while it is a bit frustrating if you are trying to watch a match - if you are aware it is for a reason, hopefully you can accept it and as stog said, whisper or shout to keep yourself logged in.  [Any activity sending communication will keep you logged in, so you can just command 'time' now and then if you are watching a match]

[socksey]

I like to use Repbot, or TourneyBot to keep from timing out.  I just have a window up and do a "./enter" every once in a while.     I think the timeout feature is down to about 10 minutes now. 

socksey



"Handkerchief: cold storage." - Anonymous

[Yvon]

Thanks guys.
Diane I usually fall asleep everytime I try to watch a match.
I guess there is no cure for that.

[Patti]

Actually, the timeout has always been there.  However, it was reduced from 59 minutes to 19 minutes about a year ago.

The problem is that people who sit on FIBS all day doing nothing use server resources.  The FIBS server can get overloaded, especially during peak use, and having people sit around wasting server resources seemed like a bad idea.

It got complicated by the fact that some FIBS clients send a "keepalive" every ten minutes.  People who use that client effectively never time out, which puts me back in the boat of having people idle on the server all day.  For people whose clients do this, there is a special nine-minute timeout, as it's the only way for me to get around their keepalive.

In the near future, the timeout will drop to five minutes during periods of heavy usage. Heavy is defined as being at more than 80% capacity.

[Yvon]

Actually, the timeout has always been there.  However, it was reduced from 59 minutes to 19 minutes about a year ago.

The problem is that people who sit on FIBS all day doing nothing use server resources.  The FIBS server can get overloaded, especially during peak use, and having people sit around wasting server resources seemed like a bad idea.

It got complicated by the fact that some FIBS clients send a "keepalive" every ten minutes.  People who use that client effectively never time out, which puts me back in the boat of having people idle on the server all day.  For people whose clients do this, there is a special nine-minute timeout, as it's the only way for me to get around their keepalive.

In the near future, the timeout will drop to five minutes during periods of heavy usage. Heavy is defined as being at more than 80% capacity.

I don't think watching a game is "nothing". Of course I would agree with you in knocking out those who do nothing-nothing.
On the other hand though why knock out those who watch, and not knock out those who are just logged in for the shouts?

It's so irritating seeing so many players logged in WITHOUT accepting invitations to play.... And when you check they are all in the shouts, talking mumbo-jumbo. Why not just knock those out. There is IRC, there is MSN, all sorts of other servers for small talk...

[socksey]

Shouts is a feature designed for small talk.  There is a great feature on Fibs that allows you to silent shouts, if you consider the small talk inane.   

socksey



"Inflation: cutting money in half without damaging the paper." - Anonymous

[Yvon]

Of course there is, but this is not the point. The point is that the server has to knock out people who don't play. Imho is is reasonable for people who do absolutely nothing to be the first to be knocked out after the 10 minutes period, people who  just chat should be NEXT in the list, and THEN people who  watch.

[diane]

It's so irritating seeing so many players logged in WITHOUT accepting invitations to play.... And when you check they are all in the shouts, talking mumbo-jumbo. Why not just knock those out. There is IRC, there is MSN, all sorts of other servers for small talk...

Oh how true  

And some of them are not playing but chatting in fibs, whilst talking to the same people in msn...and skype...

[Zorba]

I think the server should kick people who play and shout a lot, they take up the most resources.

[sorrytigger]

While I agree to a lot, that has been said, I want to ask: "are resources an issue nowadays?" The limit in Fibs seems around 220 to me. I estimate 20 kB plenty for one single player ..... makes less than 5 MB for the whole bunch. That is no limit. Lets raise it by a factor of 100.....this all doesn't seem to make sense. I can't see where a CPU is really knocked out by 220 users, nor can I believe that they need a lot of IO.
Afterall I think it to be a good idea to either revise the architecture or the software in use. I would gladly assist.

Andreas

[adrian]

..... I would gladly assist.

Andreas

Well, if your last name is Schneider, we praise you to do even more..   , some improvements are due, but we can live on with fibs as it is.

[Yvon]

While I agree to a lot, that has been said, I want to ask: "are resources an issue nowadays?" The limit in Fibs seems around 220 to me. I estimate 20 kB plenty for one single player ..... makes less than 5 MB for the whole bunch. That is no limit. Lets raise it by a factor of 100.....this all doesn't seem to make sense. I can't see where a CPU is really knocked out by 220 users, nor can I believe that they need a lot of IO.
Afterall I think it to be a good idea to either revise the architecture or the software in use. I would gladly assist.

Andreas

Brilliant hit of the nail on the head

Chatting with someone last year he told me the server was a 486 architecture!!! Would you believe that?
At at time that today we have super fast quatro processors, GBs of memory etc etc...

[sorrytigger]

Well, if your last name is Schneider, we praise you to do even more..   , some improvements are due, but we can live on with fibs as it is.

 not "Schneider", unfortunately (thx). But I offered Patti some help already. And she seems not eager to touch things (which I can understand very well). I have no contacts to Andreas Schneider. Maybe I even tried (I am not quite sure), but he wouldn't show much interest. Well.........

"we can live on....", well, fibs would be the first community having a fiftieth anniversary with an unaltered software base. I don't believe in any longlasting sites, maybe apart from the big insurance companies, where you can meet 65 year old experts in Cobol.

I agree that the fibs community cannot be refactored in any way. I would pity any split into fibs.old_and_living_on_with_it and fibs.NG. But is that the alternative?

Andreas not.Schneider

[Yvon]

 not "Schneider", unfortunately (thx). But I offered Patti some help already. And she seems not eager to touch things (which I can understand very well). I have no contacts to Andreas Schneider. Maybe I even tried (I am not quite sure), but he wouldn't show much interest. Well.........

"we can live on....", well, fibs would be the first community having a fiftieth anniversary with an unaltered software base. I don't believe in any longlasting sites, maybe apart from the big insurance companies, where you can meet 65 year old experts in Cobol.

I agree that the fibs community cannot be refactored in any way. I would pity any split into fibs.old_and_living_on_with_it and fibs.NG. But is that the alternative?

Andreas not.Schneider

Maybe the author of Fibs actually wants it to die for some reason only HE KNOWS.
With 7 donations in 6 months it will surely die soon anyway...so time for new blood...

[stog]

With 7 donations in 6 months it will surely die soon anyway...so time for new blood..

the donations you mention are for this forum - fibsboard which is not an official support board for Fibs.

Please read "about Fibsboard" on the Front page.



If you appreciate Fibsboard and would like to contribute to its ongoing running costs, please click below and choose how much you would like to give. We appreciate any size of donation, and depending on amounts provided, we could then lessen our dependence on corporate advertisements, thx again.

to donate or advertise see here

[Patti]

Watching a match *is* nothing as far as the server is concerned.  Your client is sitting there passively accepting data from the server while sending nothing to the server.  It's the commands to the server that determine idleness.

Andreas isn't active with FIBS anymore, and hasn't been for years.

And yes, resources *are* an issue.  Have you been on the server when there are over 200 users?

The donation count you're seeing is not for FIBS-- FIBS gets very little in the way of donations, maybe $200-300/year.  I estimate that FIBS costs me around $150/month to operate, and I pay that out of pocket.

[Yvon]

Watching a match *is* nothing as far as the server is concerned.  Your client is sitting there passively accepting data from the server while sending nothing to the server.  It's the commands to the server that determine idleness.

Andreas isn't active with FIBS anymore, and hasn't been for years.

And yes, resources *are* an issue.  Have you been on the server when there are over 200 users?

The donation count you're seeing is not for FIBS-- FIBS gets very little in the way of donations, maybe $200-300/year.  I estimate that FIBS costs me around $150/month to operate, and I pay that out of pocket.

Has anybody of the active FIBS members ever seen this guy in person? Patti have you seen him when he passed on the software to you back in 1996 or was that done through correspondence? What were his conditions, did you sign an agreement or something, furthermore what are your commitments towards him? Could you give us more details about the transition period of the program, from what I read he was living somewhere between Germany England and Sweeden back then, and you .... in the USA.

[garp_02]

Maybe this is not the correct place to say this - but I would happily donate a small amount to support Fibs if I could rely on an open and honest management of the site.

Until then..............I'll say no more