Dirtsand on a VPS

[Surta]

Well, this is a bit odd... there are three Windows 10 computers in the house and I only can get it to work on one. Uru Live is installed on all of them, so all I did was copy the complete Dirtsand folder from my working computer to a USB stick and copied them to a folder on the other machines, then added the shortcut with the -LocalData bit.
I don't get any errors, but as soon as the login screen comes up and before I can even type anything, it vanishes again without any errors. Any ideas what might be wrong?

As always, help is appreciated

[Tsar Hoikas]

I've never heard of that before. The only thing I can think of is that you might be missing something like the VC++ runtime on those computers.

[Surta]

Alas.. I had such good hope, but still the same issue

I installed the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2017 - then the same for v2013 just to be sure. Rebooted, still the same issue. I also tried to run the client in administrator mode and every compatibility setting under the sun, but it keeps behaving the same: it will briefly show the login screen, then just vanish without a trace. I'm quickly running out of options here...

Yet it's working flawlessly on my main computer. Mind you, I have installed boatloads of packages on that one, because I thought I had to compile the client from scratch. I abandoned that project when I found there is a perfectly good client around already. Sadly it's not much use if it doesn't work on any computer but my own - what's the point in having a server then eh

I'm currently installing the Gehn shard on one of the computers, see how that behaves. Will report back on that.

(some time later):

GREAT news!!!! Installing the Gehn shard installed SOMETHING vital - now Surta's Shard works too on that computer All that is left now is to find out what that "something" is, but for now, I'm happy! Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Of course now I assume you guys know everything, so I'll definitely be picking your brain soon about a full blown data server - but I respect your being busy. Will let the dust settle first

[Surta]

Yeah. So. you guys knew you'd unleash the beast, right? I noticed that many locations such as the city are mostly blocked, features missing etc. Apparently I need a full blown dataserver to open things up.

I have started to do some homework in that regard. What I have come up with so far:

- I would like to place the files on a separate web server, since space will be more an issue on the VPS than some cheap web server. I have a domain I can use.
- I know I need to "prepare" the files beforehand. I have uploaded the complete Uru client folder (the one I'm using to access the shard) to the VPS and cloned https://github.com/Hoikas/moul-utils.

Now here is where is where I'm stuck already... I tried to run the manifest.py file but I'm getting the following:

Show Spoiler

dirtsand@Uru:~/moul-utils$ ./manifest.py
from: can't read /var/mail/__future__
./manifest.py: line 18: import: command not found
./manifest.py: line 19: import: command not found
./manifest.py: line 20: import: command not found
./manifest.py: line 21: import: command not found
./manifest.py: line 22: import: command not found
from: can't read /var/mail/PyHSPlasma
./manifest.py: line 24: import: command not found
./manifest.py: line 25: import: command not found
./manifest.py: line 28: syntax error near unexpected token `('
./manifest.py: line 28: `parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="CyanWorlds.com Engine Manifest Generator")'

Of course I'm not even sure if I'm doing things the right way - the above error seems to indicate probably not

[Deledrius]

Yeah. So. you guys knew you'd unleash the beast, right? I noticed that many locations such as the city are mostly blocked, features missing etc. Apparently I need a full blown dataserver to open things up.

You will want to set your self up with a dataserver if you're going to want to host other players, but you can save yourself a lot of time by editing the SDL files to the initial state you want your instance of the game to be in. The ones we use on Gehn have been pared down a lot and reset back to Version 1 where ever possible to make things easier on us (and legacy SDL blobs don't matter on a fresh server!). These should have the city opened up by default, IIRC.

[Surta]

Thanks, Deledrius! The server will be shared with perhaps 2 or 3 players max. There are no plans to go public Setting up a dataserver is definitely not a priority - but it would be a future goal for sure, for learning purposes (and bragging rights) if nothing else.

For now though I'm happy to save a lot of time, as you put it and just explore the city as it's meant to... but I'm afraid some of what you said is above my head. In layman's terms, how would I go about opening up the city and hood, put back missing linking stones/pages etc? Also I can't lower the water level in Teledahn (underneath the trap door) even though everything else seems to work fine (managed to get the power up, got the elevator working etc), is that related?
Is it is as simple as downloading those SDL files and replacing the current ones in the client?

New to all this

Answering my own questions to some degree here After reading some more threads, I learned that I had to 1) copy the Gehn moul-scripts files to both the client and the server (replacing the Destiny ones). Then of course I crashed altogether, so I rebuilt the database part of the server. As a result, the city is now OPEN!

[Surta]

Well, except for a lot of missing sounds on one computer and no sound at all on another, things are pretty much perfect. Thanks again for all all the hard work you guys have done, the tutorials you have written and the help you have given!

Edit: all set, full dataserver works now!

[Tsar Hoikas]

Edit: all set, full dataserver works now!

And here I was getting my britches ready to explain how all that crazy stuff works... Good job!

[Surta]

Thank you Tsar Hoikas, I appreciate it.

I noticed that not all files are downloaded, such as the two movies in the avi folder and some of the text files (the translations mostly) even though they are added to the server and the manifest file, but I just included those in the installer. Yes, I found that too in the GitHub repository!

Also, I started playing through the ages and found that Gahreesen seems broken, the whole top level is missing where you switch on the power. Any idea what that might be?

But all in all, everything went pretty smooth... Well, after a lot of trial and error... But I just didn't want to give up once I got going with it.

I would imagine things will be downhill from now on!

[Surta]

Ok, I spoke a little too soon, the dataserver is definitely not flawless yet. As a test I temporarily disabled the Uru Live folder import, and now my game crashes after downloading about 170MB worth of files. It doesn't show any errors on the server, but the client will close saying it experienced a serious error.

Maybe if I tell you what I did so far, you can see where I went wrong

- Converted the complete URU folder with the manifest.py script, then uploaded the .mfs files, plus the folders it created (Client, ClientPreload, GameAudio, Gamedata etc) to /opt/dirtsand/data

- Uploaded the original URU folders (avi, dat, Python, SDL and sfx) to /opt/dirtsand/data as well.

- Created three files in /opt/dirtsand/authdata: AGES_ages.list, Python_pak.list and SDL_sdl.list. In those I pasted the file names and sizes, for example:
ages\ACADutch.loc,24014
ages\ACAEnglish.loc,23532
ages\ACAEnglishUK.loc,24668
ages\ACAFinnish.loc,24326
etc

I guess I'm on the right track, because at least SOME files downloaded correctly