Avast and the Multiverse #2

[RPC]

Just saw this on IRC:

<The_Shrike> Yeah.....it's possibly an Avast bug.
<The_Shrike> Still blocking it even if it's told not to.
<PKodon> The_Shrike: Okay, I shut off the Avast service, in Task Manager, and it works.
<The_Shrike> Wait, it let you do that?
<PKodon> Yeah, but it asked me if I really wanted to.
<The_Shrike> Hmm. My version just flat out refuses if you try that.
<PKodon> In Task Manager, under Services?
<The_Shrike> Yeah, Avast by default has a system where you can't just turn it off. There's a setting that needs changing first.
<PKodon> The_Shrike: And, are you logged into Windows as an Administrator?
<The_Shrike> Probably.
<The_Shrike> Since this is the only account.
<PKodon> Hm.
<The_Shrike> I'll mess around with it some time when it's not 11PM
<PKodon> Heh, it's nearly 5 am here.
<PKodon> But, anyway, that's where the problem lies.
<PKodon> At least I know for sure, now.
<The_Shrike> Yeah. Something in Avast is blocking the game as a potentially unwanted whatever.
<The_Shrike> OR there's a bug somewhere.

Can't say much more since I need sleep but this is interesting to note and I didn't want it to get lost.

[george moromisato]

Very helpful.

There is a bug in the engine which causes problems going through a proxy/firewall like Avast (even if the proxy is not trying to block it). I've fixed this in the next beta, so we'll see whether that takes care of the problem.

Thanks!

[Song]

Very helpful.

There is a bug in the engine which causes problems going through a proxy/firewall like Avast (even if the proxy is not trying to block it). I've fixed this in the next beta, so we'll see whether that takes care of the problem.

Thanks!

That sounds like it's the issue.

What we've established before is:

Avast doesn't provide a warning about Transcendence as a PUP, and does not indicate Transcendence is doing anything potentially harmful.
No firewall warnings pop up when a multiverse connection is attempted.
The error message is a consistant "cannot send command to server", indicating that the connection isn't being established in the first place.
Making an exception to Transcendence in the filewall settings doesn't work.
Making an exception to transcendence in the antivirus settings doesn't work.
Universal exceptions for transcendence don't work.
Turning off Avast entirely *does* work.

This implies that it's not Avast intentionally shutting down the program, as it would log the occurrence. Therefore, it's likely a bug in either Transcendence or Avast.....most probably Transcendence, since a bug that's a year old in Avast would probably have affected other programs, and thus been noted and fixed. So with luck, that patch should fix it. Otherwise there's still some good avenues to look into.

[george moromisato]

Very helpful.

There is a bug in the engine which causes problems going through a proxy/firewall like Avast (even if the proxy is not trying to block it). I've fixed this in the next beta, so we'll see whether that takes care of the problem.

Thanks!

That sounds like it's the issue.

What we've established before is:

Avast doesn't provide a warning about Transcendence as a PHP.
No firewall warnings pop up when a multiverse connection is attempted.
The error message is a consistant "cannot send command to server", indicating that the connection isn't being established in the first place.
Making an exception to Transcendence in the filewall settings doesn't work.
Making an exception to transcendence in the antivirus settings doesn't work.
Universal exceptions for transcendence don't work.
Turning off Avast entirely *does* work.

This implies that it's not Avast intentionally shutting down the program, as it would log the occurrence. Therefore, it's likely a bug in either Transcendence or Avast.....most probably Transcendence, since a bug that's a year old in Avast would probably have affected other programs, and thus been noted and fixed. So with luck, that patch should fix it. Otherwise there's still some good avenues to look into.

Excellent analysis. Another clue is that people can usually connect with a browser.

For those of you who know HTTP, my current theory is that the game is (inadvertently) including a "Connection: Close" header when talking to the Multiverse server. But the game then continues trying to send on the same socket. The Multiverse server ignores the "Connection: Close" header and just keeps responding. But I suspect that firewalls and proxies drop the connection when they see that header.

[Ttech]

Very helpful.

There is a bug in the engine which causes problems going through a proxy/firewall like Avast (even if the proxy is not trying to block it). I've fixed this in the next beta, so we'll see whether that takes care of the problem.

Thanks!

That sounds like it's the issue.

What we've established before is:

Avast doesn't provide a warning about Transcendence as a PHP.
No firewall warnings pop up when a multiverse connection is attempted.
The error message is a consistant "cannot send command to server", indicating that the connection isn't being established in the first place.
Making an exception to Transcendence in the filewall settings doesn't work.
Making an exception to transcendence in the antivirus settings doesn't work.
Universal exceptions for transcendence don't work.
Turning off Avast entirely *does* work.

This implies that it's not Avast intentionally shutting down the program, as it would log the occurrence. Therefore, it's likely a bug in either Transcendence or Avast.....most probably Transcendence, since a bug that's a year old in Avast would probably have affected other programs, and thus been noted and fixed. So with luck, that patch should fix it. Otherwise there's still some good avenues to look into.

Excellent analysis. Another clue is that people can usually connect with a browser.

For those of you who know HTTP, my current theory is that the game is (inadvertently) including a "Connection: Close" header when talking to the Multiverse server. But the game then continues trying to send on the same socket. The Multiverse server ignores the "Connection: Close" header and just keeps responding. But I suspect that firewalls and proxies drop the connection when they see that header.

Best best would be to open up connections again and seeing if it works.
Also perhaps a debug tool with steps to connection.
Maybe something like:

ping gateway
dns resolve mutliverse
ping multiverse
attempt to connect to multiverse
attempt to authenticate to multiverse

[erik dela cruz]

glad that somethings being done for this issue. thx George.

[george moromisato]

Best best would be to open up connections again and seeing if it works.
Also perhaps a debug tool with steps to connection.
Maybe something like:

ping gateway
dns resolve mutliverse
ping multiverse
attempt to connect to multiverse
attempt to authenticate to multiverse

I'm pretty close to releasing a new beta, so I figure I'll just take out the extraneous "Connection: Close" and see if that works.

From the existing output I can tell that the initial connection works, but the second send from the client fails, implying that the connection was closed.

[Jay2Jay]

I'm pretty close to releasing a new beta

Finally some good news! SPECULATION TIME!