Campaign Game Cache - "Waiting For Host"

[Geekio]

I've been going crazy trying to troubleshoot this issue for almost a week, I would appreciate any clues to help narrow it down. I've almost given up hope for a solution, I just want to at least know if other users can reproduce this, or there's something wrong with my system. Here's what I'm doing:

I create a new Campaign file with two empty maps. I create a simple trigger to store some data into a game cache, set the next level, and end the scenario.
When I store just a Hero, and do nothing in the next map beyond Restoring that Hero, it generally works. Sometimes I can even store some other primitives in the cache and it will work.

However, the minute I start to add any additional complexity to the triggers, I start to see that data is not reliably transferred (running the map multiple times without making changes gives hit-or-miss results) and, even worse, upon launching the second map, a dialog appears that says "Waiting for host" and the game never recovers. On 2.0.1 the game completely froze up on some attempts, one time so bad that Task Manager istelf stopped responding.

I have tried just about everything I can think of. I've tried this in game versions 2.0.1, 1.31, 1.29.2, 1.27b - all of them have this issue. I'm certain this wasn't an issue before. I even have some old campaign files I created on 1.27b and 1.29.2 years ago, and when running them they run perfectly. I looked into the triggers and I used exactly the same method.

I have reinstalled the game, including manual wiping of the Documents, Saved Games, Program Data, Bnet app and its caches, and Windows Registry keys. I have created new campaign files, stripped them down to the bare minimum triggers to just move some data through the cache. I have added Warcraft 3 and its related files to my antivirus exception list. I've tried using natives instead of BJ functions. I turned off every other background app I could, even ones that I would never expect to make a difference.

Like I said, I know that this was not an issue before. I'm on the same PC, same OS (Win10) and I have no idea what's causing this. My next test will be to attempt to reproduce the issue on a different PC.

Attached is a Campaign file which I created during troubleshooting, if you'd like to try and reproduce the issue. It's pretty bare-bones. Play Map 1 and type "test" in chat, and it will save the Hero unit, the unit-type ID of the Golem, and some arbitrary values of each primitive type. The Hero and Primitives are instantly restored in the same map, then 1 second later the game moves to Map 2, where all the data is restored (the Golem is not a Stored Unit, but rather a new Unit created by retrieving the stored Unit-Type ID)

Thanks for your attention and help
-Geekio <3

 

[Geekio]

Update: I have tested on a separate PC running game version 1.27b on WinXP SP3, using the same Campaign file attached above. I also created a new test campaign locally. The issue persists.

 

[Chaosium]

I've had the "waiting for host" issue at random moments when transitioning from one map to another when testing my campaign, it tends to happen less when I wait a few more seconds during the loading screen instead of pressing any key immediately when load is over, but that can be just randomness

Being desynchronized from the host when you're playing locally is quite the achievement I must say

 

[Geekio]

I've had the "waiting for host" issue at random moments when transitioning from one map to another when testing my campaign, it tends to happen less when I wait a few more seconds during the loading screen instead of pressing any key immediately when load is over, but that can be just randomness

Being desynchronized from the host when you're playing locally is quite the achievement I must say

Hmm, I left the loading screen at default settings (starts map without waiting for user input) so that could be a factor. I'll test if it persists when I wait longer on the loading screen.

Any chance I could trouble you to try reproducing the issue with my uploaded file? That would help me narrow down if it's an issue with my client, or with the campaign file.

(Note - the file I uploaded was produced in 1.29.2, editor version 6060)

 

[Geekio]

Update: Simply waiting additional time in the loading screen appears to have resolved the "Waiting for Host" issue. In 1.29.2, everything works as intended when I allow that additional time. Thanks very much, I was getting so impatient trying to fix this that I never would have thought to pause like that, since I was just speedrunning all my tests to get them done fast. I've managed to get the whole thing squared away and my campaign functions as intended now!