FTB Server - Be mindful of what you leave running!

[Obsi]

A few of us have just spent an incredibly frustrating few hours trying to deal with an extreme lag situation caused by too much stuff happening in someone's plot of land.

So a general reminder to everyone - Please be aware that leaving machines running and having large amounts of running water does contribute greatly to server lag.

In this particular incident anyone loading the chunks where that house lot was, were effectively frozen with lag and unable to move. They needed to be teleported out of the area by an admin. This was a very serious case of lag - far more than a mere inconvenience.

While it's convenient for you to leave quarries and things running while you are offline - leaving those things running is keeping chunks loaded which can cause lag on the server for everyone else. Please turn anything off that is not needed while you are not on the server - be kind to your fellow players!

Also be mindful of what your machinery set up is, so that you are not causing too much lag in your area. Remember that we've got a lot of people's stuff going all the time. Try to keep your impact on the server as small as you can.

And a note on water in quarries. While it's useful to turn any lava into cobble/stone/obsidian - only one water source is needed (as the quarry digs further down, the water will spread) - and you'll only need it further down the quarry where lava is likely to be. The further water falls, the more lag it creates, so if you can place it lower down, please do so.

[DaedalusAlpha]

Is there some system in place to tell the user that construction changes are required?

I mean this is a pretty general post and if for example my constructions are to blame, I must be made aware of it so I can make appropriate changes. I would not like (for example) some admin going in heavy handed and flattening everything I've worked for just because they don't understand the intricacies of a construction flaw that could be easily fixed. Although I can understand the need for getting a problematic machine to stop as soon as possible.

Additionally, it would be beneficial for all builders to know what it was that did lock up the server, so it can be avoided in new constructions. Was this a case of a quarry full of water?

[Sorontar]

The individual concerned has been sent a PM, as is normal practise, outlining what changes had to be made with the permission of the Admin team and why. This incident resulted in players being barely able to move at all within sight of the relevant chunk. This severely hampered the playing of others. In such a case, the Admin team will take whatever steps are required to restore the world and/or server to a state where people can participate. In this case, this meant modifying someone's constructions. In others, it may mean returning to a backup from the previous day or disabling a mod. This may mean that some things are lost by the players' affected. Where judged reasonable by the Admin team, players are compensated.

The OP was very general because we believe many things may have contributed to the lag and believe it best to advise all players what not to do so that we won't have a repeat of tonight. The players who assisted us did not enjoy having to spend a couple of hours creeping forward so as to solve the problem. There was no such thing as an easy fix tonight for anyone.

So yes, there was a quarry full of water, but there were also problems with various machinery, as stipulated in the OP. We understand that players are setting up in the FTB city as their base of operations, but they must remember that others play nearby. We ask players to please consider this when constructing on your plot. You may wish to have a ongoing, self-sufficient plot of land, but that may not be reasonable in such a location or within a multi-player environment.

Sorontar

[DaedalusAlpha]

Can we get some info on exactly what was wrong other than the quarry or is it hard to pinpoint? I mean if it's for example a case of pipe overflowing or such, then there are steps the rest of us can take to prevent that from happening in our own bases.

My base is not always that easy to turn off, much of it is event controlled with no central command (a cart coming in with materials from my off-site quarry will start a sorting and smelting operation which in turn might trigger a lava fuel retrieval operation from the nether which will start a pump over there and so on). Sometimes a lot of stuff will happen, sometimes it will be idle for hours. It's simply hard to know if some unfortunate series of events might create a bad scenario (like programming in a multithreaded environment).

Although I do of course do my best to limit the requirements it has on the server, trying to avoid repeated unnecessary operations and adding watchdogs which will stop operation in case of overflow. Though in such a high level scenario as this it's hard to tell what eats a lot of CPU cycles and what doesn't. For example, who knows how CPU intensive it is for a cart to travel through a myst portal? I don't think it's too bad, but I still try to limit it as much as possible.

Edit: I'm not trying to be difficult here, I just want to be as sure as possible that my base doesn't act up when I'm not there.

[Deweyoxberg]

I believe the quarry was my fault, in the desert if it's what is referred to. I hadn't thought of that until just now, thank you. I will need to look at it ASAP.

I did turn off the quarry itself when I wasn't on, for several reasons (one being the chunk load for one, two being waste of power, three being the waste of blocks as they spat out with a full chest anyways).

Since I'm on the topic of chests, do we know if the lag regarding crystal chests from Tekkit is also present in FTB? I don't have source quotes, but I know several Tekkit servers I play on have Crystal Chests disabled. I'm not sure on the exact specs.

Getting back to the water thing... two questions:

1) What tips can folks offer to prevent water from natural sources flooding a quarry and causing problems?

2) Does stationary water have the same impact, say, if I mined a 64x64 quarry then filled it to the top of stationary water? (NOT flowing water).

[Deweyoxberg]

Yep, I think this was me... I cannot login at all; I get to loading the local chunk/scenery and then crash out. Can I be TP'd to spawn please?

[Deweyoxberg]

I've managed to login and successfully drained all running water from my quarry, assuming it was me.

[DarkDuck]

It was not you Dewey.

The individual has been PM'd, if you don't have as PM then it's not you.

Just reemember to put only 1 bucket of watter in the quarry's corner nowhere else (this prevents stuffs). Also if your are experiencing lag then this might be something you need to look at.

[DaedalusAlpha]

Honestly, in my opinion, it's not that bad if your quarry happens to find lava. As long as you visit it form time to time you will notice when it happens and you can throw a bucket of water at it then. As soon as it's obsidian the quarry will go there and mine that part as well, so you don't really lose anything on it.

Although you probably have to find any other water springs it run into and take them out in a timely fasion.

[Deweyoxberg]

All good Ducky, I figured I would drain it anyways just in case. Besides, it can only help in the long run. And I'm a helpful kinda guy, though short fused. :P