Ah another web dev =). You working on .NET? I can't imagine why a partition would matter, either.

I did miss the %% to tw2002, but that brings up a question... why would zoc be locking up your tw2002.exe? Speedstep or no, 95+% is huge. Makes me wonder what zoc could be doing that would directly influence tw2002. Have you tried newer versions of zoc? Swath?

Are you running revhelper on zoc or any kind of rexx scripts?

If I had to guess... what's your segmentation set at within TW? Max CPS? Desqview and stuff off? Maybe the exe isn't handling something very well.

On a lark... if you have a seperate PC, can you run zoc from it and get the same problem?

Now thats an idea Sing, could be something to do with the zoc and thet twgs n the same maching, try as sing suggests and see if it does change things. If you have another puter available.

I have had a problem that is close to this happen with XP telnet SP2. When I type a command in a game and push enter, it seems like it hangs and the CPU on the server hits 99%. When I hit enter again the command executes and the CPU drops to normal. This has happened several times in the past and I can not get it to duplicate with any regularity. I was told by JP that this had something to do with the twmail.dat problem. But I see you are in a small game with a very small twmail.dat file.

Alright, this may be a related issue if not the entire issue itself, seems viable though:

Ok, read through several forums and it may have to do w/ a corrupted ZOC database, and/or an enabled ZOC Logging problem, from what I read states to create a new database all together and try running with the Logging off. If you are running certain scripts they may also cause freezing, (mainly having to do with world trading type scripts.)Perhaps, try uninstalling and then reinstalling altogether along with ensuring the old database/game files are replaced. There was a little mention of ZOC and XP telnet problems as well... here are some links, if you are planning to use it for scripting go with 4.15 as it permits the use RevHelper scripts otherwise you may consider upgrading to 5.07.


ZOC 4.15 for use with RevHelp:
http://www.grimytrader.com/GrimyScriptSearch.cfm

ZOC 5.07
http://www.emtec.com/cgi-local/download ... 20(English)&link=zoc/zoc_win_english.exe&ext=html

ZOC TWX scripting related freeze issue:
http://twxproxy.com/support.php?show=488&start=106

ZOC 5b support forums, thread discussing a keyboard freeze:
http://service.emtec.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=347

Wow. Thank you all for the responses. I obviously have some testing to do and I'll post again after I do it.

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

Ah another web dev =). You working on .NET? I can't imagine why a partition would matter, either.
Indeed, I do .Net. I started on Perl, converted to ASP and then ASP.Net. I work for myself and I pad my income with some on-the-side PC and Network support for small offices.

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

I did miss the %% to tw2002, but that brings up a question... why would zoc be locking up your tw2002.exe? Speedstep or no, 95+% is huge. Makes me wonder what zoc could be doing that would directly influence tw2002. Have you tried newer versions of zoc? Swath?
Not yet, but I plan to. Haven't heard of Swath. I generally use ZOC or Mtelnet or the standard windows telnet client.

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

Are you running revhelper on zoc or any kind of rexx scripts?
No. No scripting, basic F-key macros at the most.

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

If I had to guess... what's your segmentation set at within TW? Max CPS? Desqview and stuff off? Maybe the exe isn't handling something very well.
Forgive my newbie-ness, but I have no idea what you mean by segmentation, etc. The last bang I did was with default values and Gold features disabled.

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

On a lark... if you have a seperate PC, can you run zoc from it and get the same problem?
I do have several, but none of them have ZOC. I will install ZOC on a desktop and try it out.

quote:Originally posted by Darkstarbase

I have had a problem that is close to this happen with XP telnet SP2. When I type a command in a game and push enter, it seems like it hangs and the CPU on the server hits 99%. When I hit enter again the command executes and the CPU drops to normal. This has happened several times in the past and I can not get it to duplicate with any regularity. I was told by JP that this had something to do with the twmail.dat problem. But I see you are in a small game with a very small twmail.dat file.
That does sound remarkably similar. My CPU utilization always returns to normal unless I keep at it for a while, and then the game totally stops responding. I am able to duplicate it, however, but not consistently ... I had to set my daily turns to 700 to get it to happen consistently in a single batch of turns. It usually seems to happen after about 400-500 turns, regardless of actual time.

quote:Originally posted by RexxCrow

Alright, this may be a related issue if not the entire issue itself, seems viable though:

Ok, read through several forums and it may have to do w/ a corrupted ZOC database, and/or an enabled ZOC Logging problem [...]
You could definitely be on to something there - thanks a lot for researching this. I'll check it out.

Thanks again for all your responses here - greatly appreciated.

Okay, so ... I put ZOC 5.07 (couldn't find 5.06) on a desktop that I just finished building and I have the same symptoms. I tried it with Mtelnet from this box, first, and that seemed to work fine. It also happens whether or not logging is enabled in ZOC.

So, it doesn't seem to be specific to the version of ZOC5 or the network loopback or logging.

I'm going to uninstall ZOC5 and install ZOC4 (4.15) and see if it happens there. After that, I'm going to put TWGS on this box and attach to it with ZOC and see if it spikes this CPU, too. I don't plan to keep this on my laptop forever (would create a few connection issues when I fly to DC with it next month), so if it's limited to my laptop, it's not the end of the world, or if it's limited to ZOC, I think I can live with that - though it's a little depressing to see my CPU pegged at 100% by Trade Wars. Didn't people run this on 8086s? Anyway ... I'll post again after the next round of tests.

-----
Edit: ZOC 4.15 is no better. Worse, if anything - problem happened right away.

Edit again: Checked the twmail.dat file, just for kicks - it's still 5kb (actual size is 4,422 bytes). I'm putting TWGS on this box right now and we'll see how that works.

And again: ZOC 4.15 to TWGS via telnet on the second computer seems to work fine. I'm going to copy my SBBS setup from the laptop to this box and set up TWGS for rlogin and see if that works.

I would try to delete the twmail file first before moving the twgs then check the game, cause if the twmail file is corupt it will still cause all kinds of havoc, you have to stop the twgs to delete the file, don't worry, the game will create a new one when it is restarted.

I didn't move the TWGS - I installed a new copy on a new computer. The old data all stayed on the laptop, while the desktop was a brand new install. I did move my SBBS config from the laptop to my desktop, so it might be something in that.

I thought it was working on the new machine, but so much for that, it just took longer (almost 1500 turns) to materialize. I duplicated it a second time in under 200 turns. So, problem replicated on an entirely new machine. So here's what I know: It only happens when accessing TWGS via rlogin (and may also be limited to SBBS); It seems to be tied to ZOC, but not to any specific version of ZOC (known to occur in 4.15, 5.06 and 5.07); It is not hardware dependent and does not seem to have anything to do with the setup of my system, as far as I can tell - I even enabled my page file just to cove that base. In case anyone cares, here are the specs for the desktop: AMD Athlon 64 3500+, 2 GB physical RAM, 250 GB hard drive (single partition), Windows XP Pro SP2 (fully patched).

So it's only when zoc is running on the same computer as twgs. Go thru the general settings for the twgs... there's a whole list of things there. Like segments and stuff. If the load isn't spiking zoc as you said then something in zoc is causing tw to spike. Might be an XP thing, have you tried other OSes?

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

So it's only when zoc is running on the same computer as twgs.
No - it happens when I telnet to SBBS on my laptop from my desktop, as well (from machine b to machine a). That made me think maybe it was something with the laptop, specifically, so I moved TWGS to the desktop and that seems to work directly (via telnet), but not when I try to do it through SBBS, so the problem is only with ZOC when SBBS is an intermediary between ZOC and TWGS (i.e. ZOC --telnet--> TWGS works; ZOC --telnet--> SBBS --rlogin--> TWGS does not).

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

Go thru the general settings for the twgs... there's a whole list of things there. Like segments and stuff.
Where do I find those settings? I've looked through the server configuration screens in TWGS and I don't see anything in there about segments. If it matters, I'm using TWGS Lite.

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

If the load isn't spiking zoc as you said then something in zoc is causing tw to spike. Might be an XP thing, have you tried other OSes?
I don't really have any other OSes to test with. I have a Windows Server 2003 R2 box that I could use, but a) i'd rather avoid mucking that one up, since he's rather important and b) the core OS of Win2K3 and WinXP are very similar. I was thinking about throwing a Vista beta on here but I can't really do that right now.

To eliminate my SBBS setup, I removed SBBS from the desktop, installed a fresh copy and configured it to connect to the TWGS rlogin again ... problem still happens, so I don't think I misconfigured anything in SBBS on the laptop.

OK, to me it sounds like is just a plain and simple ZOC vs. SBBS incompatibility issue. Your TWGS settings I am assuming are currently all on default, so there should be no issues with them at this point as causing an issue. Everything else is now running on a fresh install, so I doubt it is a database or corruption issue, either. Perhaps you might consider using another helper such as SWATH or ATTAC, of which you could still use REXX scripts with anyways.

or uninstall sbbs and try connecting with ZOC on its own, and if the new version still gives problems, try the older one and see if it helps, You said you are running twgs lite right. So you will be limited on what you can do with the games you create. basically no gold features.

So the problem is something that zoc is doing to SBBS which is causing something to TW2002. What if you just rlogin (not telnet) directly to TW2002 w/o SBBS? Maybe it's something in the rlogin code for TW that zoc isn't friendly to.

Seg... It's general editor #2 (H) from the dos tedit. But I don't think that's it.

also to rule out the twgs as well set it to telnet in if it is a new enough version to run independent of the sbbs. and see if any connections spike the twgs then as well. this way we can rule out either the twgs or the sbbs as the problem.

quote:Originally posted by RexxCrow

OK, to me it sounds like is just a plain and simple ZOC vs. SBBS incompatibility issue.
The problem with this theory is that everything else on SBBS works, including the DOS (3.09) version of TW. The problem only comes in when connecting to the TWGS server version of TW.

Edit: Additionally, it is not ZOC or SBBS (or even TWGS) showing 95% CPU utilization, it is tw2002.exe, which is what I find most odd about all of this.

quote:Originally posted by RexxCrow

Your TWGS settings I am assuming are currently all on default, so there should be no issues with them at this point as causing an issue. Everything else is now running on a fresh install, so I doubt it is a database or corruption issue, either. Perhaps you might consider using another helper such as SWATH or ATTAC, of which you could still use REXX scripts with anyways.
I don't use ZOC for rexx scripts or anything else, really - it's ANSI support was better for some things than the windows telnet client or the version of MTelnet I was using. I upgraded to a newer version of MTelnet and it seems to have the best ANSI support, now, so I don't really need ZOC, but I am still miffed by what's going on here.

quote:Originally posted by Vulcan

or uninstall sbbs and try connecting with ZOC on its own, and if the new version still gives problems, try the older one and see if it helps, You said you are running twgs lite right. So you will be limited on what you can do with the games you create. basically no gold features.
Actually - I have TW Gold. TWGS Lite just limits me to 4 nodes. But ZOC directly to TWGS via telnet works (see my previous posts). I have not tried ZOC directly to TWGS via rlogin.

quote:Originally posted by Singularity

So the problem is something that zoc is doing to SBBS which is causing something to TW2002. What if you just rlogin (not telnet) directly to TW2002 w/o SBBS? Maybe it's something in the rlogin code for TW that zoc isn't friendly to.
Dead on. Trying ZOC directly against TWGS rlogin is a good idea - I will do so shortly.

quote:Originally posted by Vulcan

also to rule out the twgs as well set it to telnet in if it is a new enough version to run independent of the sbbs. and see if any connections spike the twgs then as well. this way we can rule out either the twgs or the sbbs as the problem.
I have already tried that test and it seems to work fine.