Issues Creating / Joining / Starting Multiplayer Games, AI Skirmish or 1v1 Ranked?

If you have issues with creating / joining / starting multiplayer games in the server browser or 1v1 ranked matches then check the following...

Login Accepted

1. Try with mods disabled
2. Check your name does not have special characters outside of UTF-8.
   Your logs will show lots of: Error decoding message from server: malformed UTF-16 sequence
   https://wiki.palobby.com/wiki/Special_Characters_in_Display_Name

Requesting Permission

This can happen in two scenarios:

• when there is an issue resolving the game lobbyId to a server instance
  eg instance terminated while you tried to join
• when there is contention for remaining slots typically the last slot

Either wait for the timeout or restart PA.

Incompatible Windows Software

Check this list:

• https://wiki.palobby.com/wiki/Windows_Incompatible_Software

Reporting Issues

• https://wiki.palobby.com/wiki/Reporting_Issues

Sim Performance / Time Dilation, RAM Usage, Planets and CSG

A high spec dedicated server will always out perform an Uber public shared server:

• https://wiki.palobby.com/wiki/Planetary_Annihilation_Custom_/_Dedicated_/_LAN_/_Local_Servers

Games with large systems containing many big planets with lots of CSG and many players that horde thousands of units are not going to perform well on any server:

• https://wiki.palobby.com/wiki/Plane...r_Sim_Performance_/_Time_Dilation_/_RAM_Usage

Client Stalls or Units Jump During Game

This is normally a network issue.

https://wiki.palobby.com/wiki/Unit_Freezes_/_Unit_Jumps_/_Stuttering

mtr is the simplest way to see packet loss and network issues:

• https://www.linode.com/docs/networking/diagnostics/diagnosing-network-issues-with-mtr

You have a couple of options on windows:

• linux virtual machine
• winmtr: http://winmtr.net/ (shows less information)

You can test your network connection to a server with the following:

• create a a private game
• check your most recent logs for the last Connect to [host : port] worked eg 174.37.76.35:9003
• run mtr or another tool against that ip address eg mtr 174.37.76.35

The game has to be active to make sure the server instance is not reclaimed.

You'll get something like this from mtr on linux: (I've removed my local network data)

Code:

Host                                           Loss%   Snt   Last   Avg  Best  Wrst StDev
<snip>
3. ae-0-942.cr1.mdr.vygr.net                    0.0%   253    5.1   7.9   4.3  91.6  10.2
4. 203.97.9.97                                  0.0%   253    5.1   7.4   4.4  72.7   8.0
5. unknown.telstraglobal.net                    0.0%   253    8.3   8.8   5.7  48.5   4.4
6. i-0-6-4-1.tlot-core01.bx.telstraglobal.net   0.0%   253  132.4 132.7 130.3 137.5   1.3
7. i-0-4-0-8.eqnx-core01.bi.telstraglobal.net   0.0%   253  162.7 163.8 160.9 183.4   2.3
8. i-0-5-0-0.eqnx03.bi.telstraglobal.net        0.0%   253  162.0 163.4 161.3 257.0   8.0
9. te1-7.bbr01.eq01.sjc01.networklayer.com      0.0%   253  161.9 162.6 161.1 186.0   3.3
10. ae7.bbr02.eq01.sjc02.networklayer.com        0.0%   253  162.5 162.7 161.2 248.7   5.9
11. ae0.bbr02.cs01.lax01.networklayer.com        0.0%   253  169.6 170.1 168.7 213.6   3.8
12. ae7.bbr01.cs01.lax01.networklayer.com        0.0%   252  169.1 170.3 168.4 332.7  11.4
13. ae19.bbr01.eq01.dal03.networklayer.com       0.0%   252  196.8 196.9 195.8 221.2   1.8
14. ae0.dar01.sr01.dal01.networklayer.com        0.0%   252  200.3 200.5 199.5 221.3   2.2
15. po1.fcr04.sr05.dal01.networklayer.com        0.0%   252  199.4 201.0 198.8 248.8   5.9
16. 174.37.76.35-static.reverse.softlayer.com    0.0%   252  196.5 196.5 196.2 198.3   0.2

Changed to include both creating and joining multiplayer games.

Added replay loading issue.

Added 1v1 ranked matches.

I'll add automatic optimising of the user tag map next week.

This should be stickied

Oddly enough, my very first 1v1 ranked game worked just fine despite having PAMM mods active. All my problems seemed to start after a failure to connect to a 1v1 ranked, forcing me to abandon game for a 20 minutes timeout penalty (despite multiple attempts to reconnect to my game), followed by being unable to join any multiplayer games (ranked or custom) due to the "Requesting Permission" screen. The "Requesting Permission" screen sometimes times out after a minute, but sometimes it stays there past 5 minutes forcing a PA restart.

I tried uninstalling PAMM and PA classic to no avail, I'll try reinstalling PA Titans next.

EDIT: Reinstalled PA:T. Apparently I'm still "Assigned to a game" which I can't "reconnect" to and don't want to "abandon" because of the 20 minute penalty. Meanwhile, I can't connect to Galactic War, much less replays, due to the "Requesting Permission" -> "Failed to Connect" screens. At least the "Requesting Permission" screen only lasts a few minutes now.

I think atm there is a general server problem. Probably just need to wait a bit for it to resolve.

I just upgraded to Titans and it seems like the "Requesting permission" bug is even more prevalent than it was before. This may be due to increased activity with the game. More people have come back since the expansion was released.

Hmm, could be. Still, I find it odd that I get the "You are already assigned to a game. Reconnect/Abandon?" screen even though I've been logged out of PA for over 5 hours.

The server issues are a real shame, as I really love the expansion.

I finally figured out the cause of most of my problems. I tried to uninstall PAMM with the "uninstall/remove programs" tool, but that only got rid of the PAMM shortcut. Despite having "uninstalled" PAMM the mods were still active, and breaking the game on me. I had to go into %appdata% and delete PAMM manually. This solved my problems.

To disable all mods just open PAMM and select disable all for UI and server mods.

https://forums.uberent.com/threads/requesting-permission-and-slot-contention.70135/

I just got "Loading Replay" forever when joining 1v1 Ranked

Updated yesterday for Titans builds with addition of requesting permission info.

Also see: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/requesting-permission-and-slot-contention.70135/

Added login accepted with broken mods and UTF-16 glyphs in display name.

The issue also appears when no mods are used, or special characters in name...
2 me this smells more of a network (timeout-pending) issue 2 me..

The game launches, i even 1 time heard the sound when u enter the 'galaxy', and then , where ussually my processor goes in overdrive... now its waiting and idling ...

Still frezzing on the loading screens.

OMG they still have the problem that needs a mod to fix it? Optimize user map? Wow. Just wow

Hotfix 89528 has been released to fix 1v1 ranked and the loading replay issue is hopefully resolved now.