Is this a normal level of trouble for Empyrion Servers on Nitrado?

Nitrado now has an official Discord server to bring communities, friends and other gamers together!
Join the Nitrado Community Discord now and share your experiences and knowledge with others!

Click here to go to the Discord Server!

    I have just started my first server of any sort with Nitrado. Empyrion worked well for about a week, then trouble started last week and has not been playable for about 5 days.


    The issues are those that many here seem to be experiencing. First the server would fail to appear on the list - would take a a few restarts then all was well. Then inifinite loading screens. Finally - the server became completely uncontactable. Weirdly - the server started presenting different IP addresses - it's on it's 3rd at the moment. Still can't connect to it. Raised a ticket on the 3rd July but no response yet.


    So my question is basically what is the normal experience with Empyrion? Have I joined at a time when something really unusual has happened - or is this level of performance and support fairly typical?


    If It's the latter. I'll not waste any more time and effort and go elsewhere. If however this is some bizarre spike of technical issues I'll stick with it. Trouble is I feel like I am letting my friends down. We are a group of 3 - the other 2 pay for other game servers (that work! - one of them being Avorion on Nitrado). I want to provide my 3rd server but it's not going well!


    Is the communication level - or lack thereof - always this bad? I worked in Server and then Network support for years. Some really squirrely technical issues could come up out of nowhere; but one part of the job was always keeping the user base informed, broadly, of what was going on. I haven't seen that here. Apologies if I am not looking in the right places!


    Fingers crossed for an encouraging response! Thanks.

    Hi Dhansak,


    At the moment it looks like the game server software itself is experiencing some issues, especially with the infinite loading screens as detailed in this thread.

    Regarding the server not showing up in-game server list, I'm not able to reproduce on my test server, is there any particular settings you're changing or log files you're able to share when this occurs? (Preferably in a spoiler)


    Some actions you take on the server (For smaller slot count servers) can change the IP address as load balancing is completed to ensure machines do not become overpopulated. Reinstalling and restoring backups are good examples.


    I'm not sure how we could communicate better to server owners that there's currently issues with loading into the game, we have a big yellow box on the dashboard with a link to the thread linked above. If you have any constructive suggestions please do share, we're happy to implement something if it makes sense!

    Hi Mekki


    Many thanks for your response - much appreciated!


    We've had a series of issues that gradually have got to the stage where the server is now uncontactable via a client at all. Given it's current condition the earlier problems don't come up as we can't get that far unfortunately.


    Chronologically:


    Server not showing up on the list-

    We worked round that with server restarts - not ideal but it would do the trick. As you mentioned, we have indeed changed some parameters via the web interface (e..g hunger rate of effect) . I would guess 4 changes in total. However they were made infrequently in the first week when the server was working, but at a guess I would say we had the listing issue about 80% of the time. I didn't raise a ticket as the restart (usually 2 or 3) workaround functioned and it wasn't a showstopper. If this was the problem at the moment it would be interesting to give you logs to see if there was something that could help, but it is moot at this point!


    Infinite Loading Screen-

    This was never a problem for us up until the point Eleon put out a tiny update on the morning of 2nd July. This lead to the infinite loading screen that Nitrado had pointed out in the yellow box i.e. the devs were aware and investigating. That was helpful - thank you! So at this point, we could see the server on a list (possible after restarts) and the client could talk to the server and app, so the game client could connect and try to load - but infinitely! In any case this looked to be clearly an application issue, not a server problem. As it persisted, I checked out the Empyrion website forums and asked a question there. Eleon suggested that it was problem with Planet data and that we should try a restore. This was done (twice from different backups) - and led to the final current problem.


    Currently: Cannot connect to the server-

    After the restores this is as far as we can get. On trying to connect to the server (via direct ip as restarts no longer cause the server to show as online) we get "Error. Cannot connect to server: cannot retrieve server information". We have never got past this point since the restore attempts. I interpreted the error message as a server problem. At this point I raised a ticket.

    Also of note is the fact that the game and version number no longer appears on the dashboard.


    Phew!


    Thinking about this I realise that we are at the mercy of the accuracy of the team who wrote the error message that is triggered by the original error trap. Can the client really not get to the server? Does it actually connect and not get what it is expecting? In other words I have no clue as to whether this is a server or application issue. However if it is on the application side, would it not have hit all the servers trying to run the app? Or is there a server blade type that doesn't sit well with the latest client? etc. etc. I don't envy the troubleshooter!


    Re suggestions over what could be improved communications-wise for server owners....


    You have already covered the playfield loading problem with your yellow alert box

    Perhaps do the same for can't connect to server problems. If you know it's an application problem, presumably Eleon are aware and working on it. If it is a server issue, it would be good to know that you are on the case. Whichever is the scenario, it would be good to know it is on someone's radar and being worked on.

    For both of the above, a brief update - even if it is only a "work is still in progress" message with an ongoing (daily?) timestamp would perhaps help relieve a little the feeling of frustraton in affected users.

    Lastly - do similar for the raised tickets. I have had no update since logging my problem - even a hint that someone had been assigned to the case would help morale!



    By the way thank you very much for explaining that load balancing and a new IP could kick in on restore of backups or reinstalls - hadn't realised that! My limited exposure to LB always had the backend change IP - not the client facing side, so I was unjustifiably put out that the IP had changed. However the absence of a game name and version number associated with the "new" servers is interesting. "Empyrion 12.2" always appeared on the dashboard for the initial working server.


    To be clear I mean no offence when I ask "is this normal?" It's just that things seem to go awry so quickly for us as new users. On looking at the forums everything seems very normal and fine till sometime in June when things started to balloon with issues similar to mine.


    Meanwhile - I will do a server reinstall (was trying to avoid that). If that doesn't work will ask to be put on a different server when my ticket is eventually picked up. I did try and use the web site to transfer the server from London to Frankfurt but it wanted to charge money (only a trivial amount to top up the unused part of the 30 days) so I declined.


    Anyway, thank you for your time and attention Mekki - as I said it is appreciated. It's not easy being on the frontline when things are going not-so-smoothly!

    Update: game reinstalled - same error - still can't connect.

    Hi Dhansak,


    I'm not a member of the support team, but it's my weekend so thought I would look into this for you in some spare time :P

    I've responded to your ticket with an explanation of what I've done and what's fixed it.


    Sidenote: I don't want to set any level of expectation from anybody that they're able to skip the ticket queue by going to the forums. Dhansak's post peaked my personal interest and had really well documented explanations of the issues, was worded great and respectfully. I'm not a member of the support team and do not normally deal with tickets, phones or livechat. The forum is a community forum, support isn't offered here by Nitrado Staff. (The support in this case was done also via the Ticket also so there's no exemptions)

    Dhansak, Empyrion has been terrible on here for me also. Ive had my server for close to a month and it seems like nearly half that time its been unuseable. Ive used nitrado to play 7 Days To Die with no major issues in the past, so my opinion is that its probably more on the server software. That said, Nitrado is not a very user friendly company to deal with. “Keep resetting” is not a proper approach to fixing issues either. Its pretty plain and clear from my log files the server software can’t load all the necessary files. Why is it so hard to simply put somebody on interpretting what the logs are saying is the issue.
    Also, as near as i can tell, the server failing to show on the servers lists is because the software is failing to laod properly even though the server says its running (back to the failed files loading). Seems to me if they havent got this figured out yet they need to find competent tech guys or just admit it isnt important enough to devote the resources to figuring out right now.

    It really feels like you didn't read the whole thread before responding, or chose to ignore my posts.

    Quote from Ispose

    Its pretty plain and clear from my log files the server software can’t load all the necessary files. Why is it so hard to simply put somebody on interpretting what the logs are saying is the issue.

    If you had read my response and followed the link you would have found the screenshot (with source link to the developer's forum) where someone had asked the developers (with log file snippet from a Nitrado server, showing the plugins failing to load) what was happening. Please do take a look at that thread, the developers also updated the thread saying 12.3 should come with a fix for this.

    Quote from Mekki

    At the moment it looks like the game server software itself is experiencing some issues, especially with the infinite loading screens as detailed in this thread.



    Quote from Ispose

    Also, as near as i can tell, the server failing to show on the servers lists is because the software is failing to laod properly even though the server says its running (back to the failed files loading).

    This is wrong, the plugins failing to load have nothing to do with the server querying or being able to connect to it, this log file entry about failing to load plugins occurs along with the unlimited loading screen. That (the server not querying/being able to connect) has been resolved for Dhansak already.



    Additionally:

    Quote from Ispose

    “Keep resetting” is not a proper approach to fixing issues either.

    This is literally the instructions from the game's developers that know far more about it than we do and are actively working to fix it, who are we to tell you differently? Are you confusing Nitrado with the developers of the game or?

    Hi Mekki


    Thanks for your interest and help with this - brilliant!


    First things first it's working now! However I mailed back to the support ticket email about 1am to say it wasn't - so a quick synopsis:


    1) New server created by you - worked fine (hurrah!) but default config required EAC, so my connection was refused as i don't have that enabled. This was a success!

    2) Changed config settings via web interface to disable EAC (and set other stuff). Saved and restarted (about 0100). Could no longer establish connection. Emailed support with the update.

    3) Tried again this morning - it had done it's scheduled 24hr cycled restart. Everything worked now - excellent.


    No idea why they 0827 restart worked whereas the 0100 didn't. In any case I will not make any more config changes so hopefully things will stay stable now!


    Will email the support ticket address with this update so the system can log it is ok now.


    Thanks again for your help - so happy that my friends and I can enjoy getting our butts kicked by the Zirax again! I do realise that infinite loading could come up again but we will have to wait for Eleon to solve that one.


    Cheers for the assistance and fix (especially in your weekend time!) - it really is much appreciated :)

    As someone who owns their own company that works directly with many millions of fans, I don't think I can adequately express how much I loved seeing this answer.

    For the record, the game devs themselves know of a lot of these issues: New - Transition To Moons Outside Home System Disconnect Players. | Empyrion – Galactic Survival - Community Forums.

    The error linked to above shows failure to load files and playfields in the logs.