Looking for some help...

[Mr. Monkey]

Hi all,

I'm new to this forum and KolMafia in general. I love the app and it works well but I'm having a few problems.

After about 30 or 40 turns, it locks up my network. All my network traffic slows to near zero and I have to quit the app and reboot my computer.

I was wondering if anyone else has run into this and could lend me some help.

I'm not a big network person, but I can give you details if needed. For starters, it's an iMac, Mac OS 10.6.8 ( I know but I like this OS), TimeWarner cable internet (through Road Runner I think ??) and KolMafia.

Any help would greatly be appreciated.

Thanks.

Mr. Monkey

 

[Ethelred]

I run Mac OSX 10.6.8, so that's probably not your problem. You don't say what version of Java you're using, but if you're not using java version "1.6.0_37" (or some later version of 1.6), you might give that a try. People running with java 1.7 have posted problems from time to time. But those may have been more Windows related. Are you using an up-to-date mafia .jar file?

 

[roippi]

If it's shutting down all network activity, the root problem is certainly not mafia. I'd suspect the router or perhaps ISP.

 

[xKiv]

If it's shutting down all network activity, the root problem is certainly not mafia. I'd suspect the router or perhaps ISP.

I have certainly seen a single java app (azureus/vuze) reliably screw up all network activity on my computer ... like a DoS attack from the inside, maybe. I don't know enough about networking and networking tools to debug the issue, though, and I can't say even whether mafia is capable of something like that at all.

 

[roippi]

I have certainly seen a single java app (azureus/vuze) reliably screw up all network activity on my computer ... like a DoS attack from the inside, maybe. I don't know enough about networking and networking tools to debug the issue, though, and I can't say even whether mafia is capable of something like that at all.

Yes, but it is the router that cannot handle what the program is giving it, which is ultimately the router's problem. Unless the program is doing some really degenerate things, I suppose.

This used to happen to me with refreshing server lists in steam apps - at some threshold of connections, it caused my router to hang/reset. The problem persisted until I acquired a non-terrible router. I don't think that that is the exact issue the OP is reporting, since that was caused by rapidly creating hundreds of simultaneous connections to ping stuff.

 

[Mr. Monkey]

Is there a non-terrible router that you would suggest?

btw - I think I have a Netgear RP614 wired router into an Airport Express

 

[roippi]

Well, I'd suggest you do more diagnostics before plunking down money on my educated guess.

 

[Mr. Monkey]

Will do. I just updated it's firmware so I'm hoping that helps. I'll surf the net for more info but if anyone else here has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

Thanks to everyone who's posted and offered their help.

 

[Catch-22]

There's 4 generations of RP614, the first generation has been discontinued for a long time now, so it might be worth looking to upgrade if you've got a really old version.

You should be able to tell if your modem or WiFi has died because you won't be able to ping the device (or the ping times will be much higher than usual) or access the admin pages.

 

[Mr. Monkey]

So if I understand this correctly (which I probably don't, but here goes), when I tell KolMafia to do a series of things, such as 100 adventures in a particular location, the app sends commands out in a very rapid succession in some format (which I don't know), and it's this burst of info that may freeze my router because the router has a threshold of connections it can handle.

So if this is true, or close to it, is there some measurement or rating that I should look for in a new router? And whatever that is, can you explain it to me like I don't understand networking, cuz I don't.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Veracity]

It sends one request, waits for the response, sends the next request, waits for the response, and so on. Used to be, each of those requests went on a different connection. I think Roippi changed it recently to allow the same underlying connection to be used.

 

[Mr. Monkey]

What is the mafia .jar file?

 

[Ethelred]

What is the mafia .jar file?

Mafia daily builds are released as .jar files. The current one, as of this post, is KoLmafia-12012.jar. On my Mac, I execute mafia by double-clicking on the .jar file for the version I want. I usually keep the latest 4 or so around for regression testing if I encounter a problem, but that's optional. You only need the most recent one. Update your mafia by downloading the most recent one frequently, as unannoucned server side changes can cause them to fail. As was the case with the recent changes affecting the Cosmic Kitchen et al.