[Crash] Desyncs on map start

[Woodenplank]

Hi - I recently released the alpha version of my new map - but people tend to desync on start.
This never happens in singleplayer, not even when playing it on Battle.net (with computer enemies).

Not everyone desyncs though. Yesterday I tested the map with 5 other people - 3 of whom desynced, the other two stayed.
This also appears to be independant of player slot. One game player 2 desynced, another player 2 stayed just fine.

I have no triggers running on initialization (the earliest is Elapsed Game Time = 1 second), so I have no idea what could cause this? It seems people are already gone before finishing loading.
But I must stress the fact that it's not EVERYONE, and it never happened to myself when playing the map. Roughly 50% of players drop when trying in multiplayer.

What causes pre-start crashes? Variables? Units already placed on the map? Any ideas?

Attached the map file to this post - But it's the "protected" version. Because I'd honestly not like to upload an unprotected version, while It's still in alpha... I'm paranoid like that.
But this way you can see whether it doesn't work just fine in singleplayer, or with 1-2 people, yet still causes desyncs with more players.

 

[~El]

Desyncs can't happen in single-player or with only one player by definition. A desync happens when players arrive at different "game states" either through trigger error (most often, incorrect/flawed usage of local player clauses) or a wc3 bug.

In your case, it looks like a WC3 bug that is the culprit. The last few patches have been rather disastrous in that regard.

You must also distinguish between desyncs (which in the current version usually manifest as the player being instantly booted to game end screen, sometimes with an accompanying message saying desync detected) and regular crashes, whereas WC3 simply closes with an error message.

Amongst other things that have been noted to cause desyncs:
- Widgetizers (your map doesn't use any though)
- Faulty custom imports (no way to check which ones in particular do that)
- Bad object data
- Certain spells and/or actions

Unfortunately, there's not really much we can do to help you. A lot of the information on the crashes and desyncs in the current patches is simply missing.

However, what you can do is describe your issue, make a post/thread about it in Patch Discussion, and ping Kam, our resident Blizzard developer who's part of the Classic team. Make sure to attach your map, too. That way, they may take a look at it, figure out the cause of the desync, and a fix may land in a future patch.

 

[Woodenplank]

>You must also distinguish between desyncs (which in the current version usually manifest as the player being instantly booted to game end screen, sometimes with an accompanying message saying desync detected) and regular crashes, whereas WC3 simply closes with an error message.

Oh yeah, I'm well aware. And indeed the game does actually say "Warning: Desync Detected" when those people dropped.

But going through all object data/imports sounds... horrifyingly troublesome...
It seems it must be imports or object data; why else would people drop in loading? Poorly designed spells crashing the game, or triggers going wrong I can fathom. But just 50% of people dropping out from loading screen I have no clue how to solve

Suppose I could send it to that Kam guy, and the Blizzard patches.
(Though to be honest... I think I also had desyncs when testing it with people before the latest patches)

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

[~El]

But going through all object data/imports sounds... horrifyingly troublesome...

Yep, I feel your pain, but that's really the only thing you can do. You have no egregious local player blocks that would cause a desync (at least not from what I've gleamed at the code), so that's unlikely to be a problem. The only other thing possible is just bad imports, as much as it sucks to hear that.

 

[coolyoshi1]

The sad thing is that only Blizzard has the ability to provide insight into the root causes of desyncs and debug them properly. But since only a few maps actuallly have problems with desyncs they probably don't care enough to help us out. Sadly all we can do is speculate whats wrong with our maps

 

[Woodenplank]

I did create some "custom models" myself for the map - that is; I copied regular Warcraft models and gave them a new texture, so I could have multiple footmen with different skins, etc.
I feel like maybe I might've messed up there.

If testing the map with all those few models still doesn't work, I'll delete all imported data, and try again. If people still disonnect then... I really don't know.

EDIT: Okay, so deleting imports did not help. Am I doomed to remaking all the object editor data? The imports were clearly not the problem... Still got desyncs even when I deleted all import data.