OpenArena Message Boards

Hullo !

I've recently installed OpenArena. I successfuly patched it to 0.8.5. The solo runs smoothly and I didn't notice any problem.

However, anytime I try to join a server (yes, my firewall is disabled for OpenArena, yes auto-download is on) the game freezes. I can wait two, three, seven minutes and it's still frozen.

I reinstalled it twice. The problem is still here.

Halp ?

This may be due to your router which believes it is flooded by requests from the various servers from the list.
Can you run OA in windowed mode, and check your internet connection works after you clicked "multiplayer" ?

Someone already posted on that problem, check here: http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=3277.0

Note: I'm not sure this is exactly your problem, but worth checking.

No problem going on the web while being on the server list.

I play many other multiplayer games anyway, so I doubt it's the connection. Would it be the connection, it would at least say "failed to login" or something, but here, clicking on "Figh" result in a freeze.

I haven't read you well.
It is not when you click "multiplayer" but when you try to join a server it freezes.

This may be simply due to the fact the server you want to join is unavailable or has a problem for some reason.
Or indeed, this seems like a firewall issue.
What firewall are you using ? Did you try to close it completely then join a server ?

I'm using the default Windows XP firewall. Let me try to join a server while it's disabled

Edit : Disabling it doesn't change anything. The game freezes again and is not answering, only way to close it is to kill it.

Is there any message displayed just after you clicked to join a server ? Like "Awaiting Gamestate" with a countdown ? That should be the case when joining a server, even if it is unavailable. If it blocks prior to this, I fear not to understand what's going on.

Have you got an antivirus which would act as a firewall ? Any other active security tools ?

I highly doubt it would help, but you can connect to a server using the /connect command when opening the console (with SHIFT+ESC).
Here is a server list: http://dpmaster.deathmask.net/?game=openarena
For instance:
/connect 91.121.63.224:27962
... would connect you to ROFL Allrockets which is a vanilla server (no download of files expected)

Finally, can you clean your .PK3 files amongst ones you have autodownloaded ? Maybe one causes problems with your OA installation. You have to check into your Document And Settings\OpenArena files, and move the baseoa directory into another name, it will reset your configuration, then try to join a server. You will still be able to move back this directory to restore your configuration.

Where have you copied patch086 ? You have to copy it amongst other main pak[0-7].pk3 files of the game.

As I said before, I get no "Awaiting gamestate", the game freezes on the server list when I click on "Fight".

Using /connect froze the game too.

I disabled my antivirus, same problem.

As for patch086, I don't see what you're talking about. I just installed 0.8.1, overwriting all files with 0.8.5 and that's all.

Cacatoes meant patch 085, it's a mistype. Hell, I do worser mistypes on IRC day by day...

What's your Internet setting connection in the Options/Network setting? It defaults to 56.6 kbps modem, maybe that freezes OA.

Was a mistake as I'm confused with OA version numbers.

If you ovewrote files, then you did the right thing. In fact it only overwrote binary files, and added a .pk3.

Some way to analyze the problem would be to check logs, though I doubt anything is written in it when your game freezes.
These log files should be located in your Application Data\OpenArena folder. Could be named crashlog.txt, games.log or anything.

It happens every time when joining an internet server and never with single player game, right ?

I also thought of a virus or something which would cause such crash.
I was thinking of some library like the sound library which incorrectly initializes, except if it works in single player that can't be the case.
But let's be a bit less fantaisist, your symptom looks like a firewall issue.

Have you got another computer on which you can try OA ? Are you familiar with other OSes than windows which would allow you to test OA on Linux or such, even from a LiveCD ?

Can you try to reinstall OpenArena 081 (without applying the patch) and join an internet server (there are still some running 081, but even 085 ones should produce something else than a freeze) ?

Did you try to clean your pk3 files in the autodownloaded folder as I told ?

Solo play is fine and smooth. The problem comes when I try to join a server.

0.8.1 freezes too.

There is no crashlog.txt

I didn't find the autodownloaded folder - I think it's clean.

Are you sure it's a firewall issue ? I play to many other games online, and I never had this problem.

Never sure, but it looks like.
The internet traffic OpenArena generates uses UDP protocol, and it may be seen as malicious by some firewall system. Some firewalls like ZoneAlarm considered UDP traffic as particular and even if you did put some app on the white list, it stopped its UDP traffic anyway.

If it's not firewall related it may be due to the router.
Do you have a router and what's its model ? You may check its configuration too, OpenArena uses UDP ports around 27950-2796x, sometimes others.

Are you sure?
(DO NOT LINK) h t t p s : / / openarena . wikia . com/wiki/Homepath

Yeah, it's clean.

Very strange. If you are capable to play offline, a C:\Documents and settings\username\Application data\OpenArena\ folder should exist, and it should contain a q3config.cfg file. Without it, all your personal settings (like graphic options, player name, unlocked SP tiers) should be lost when you launch the game.

Anyway, have you tried to use the latest executable file? You can download it from this post (http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=1933.msg14941#msg14941).

Yeah this folder is here, I even deleted it so it could create a new one but the game still freezes

Freezes with latest executables.

Edit : In windowed mode, it un-freezes after a minute. I get this message : "No or bad challenge for your adress"

http://activision.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/activision.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=22253&p_created=1227562716

You didn't tell if you had a router nor its model.

If you can, try to connect directly to the internet (without the router) and check if things are better.

You could also go into Windows Security and turn off your Windows Firewall briefly just to debug this.

Currently it's a Livebox (Orange french stuff).

Tried with every antivirus stuff off again (Microsoft firewall&Microsoft security essentials) and it's still not working.

So you have no choice but to use it.
Other people succeed to play OpenArena with Orange/Livebox, so maybe yours is misconfigured.
Did you do anything special with it ? Ever been in its administration panel ?

It would be nice to be able to isolate if the problem comes from the livebox's configuration, or from your computer. Best way to do this is to play OA on another computer, or play OA from some LiveCD, I'm no aware of some LiveCD which would have OA preinstalled so that wouldn't be easy.

What is that? Some sort of router where you have no access to its configuration?

*boxes are routers rent by the ISP often with some multimedia features.

The Livebox is installed normaly, and I can't see any option that would disable OpenArena multiplayer. I am able to play to Tremulous, all Battlefields and a few other games online with no problem. Seems like Orange dislike OpenArena.

I notice that if I try to use Open arena from my Windows XP guest account, it freezes. From the administrators account, I have no problem. Try it under Administrator and if that works then it could simply be a user permissions problem.

Wait... is your problem that Windows freezes or that your router freezes? This thread is about router crash issues.
For the Windows problem, try to check OpenArena installation folder user permissions; if you need help, please open a specific thread, specifying if you have XP Home or XP Pro. And are you sure you are using a "guest" account, or do you simply mean a "user" (not with administrator priviledges) account?

UPDATE: Please ignore the first part of this post (while the part with small fonts is still valid!), since I erroneously confused this thread with the "OA kills my router? (http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=4149.0)" one.

"the game freezes." (quoted from the OP).


The threat title seems to be "Re: Multiplayer problem : joining server = game freezes"


I'm not asking for help, I'm trying to offer it. Thanks though.

I'm sorry, my fault.
I thought this was the "OA kills my router? (http://openarena.ws/board/index.php?topic=4149.0)" thread, that was active the last week. I didn't notice that you answered to another, previous thread.

My fault.

Anyway, Openarena should work without problem even if using a non-administrative account, if the user account has got the right folder/file permissions... so you (or Ormindo, if his issue is the same as yours) may want to check this anyway, to avoid the need to use an account with more priviledges just to play this game.

Bye!

The user account I'm currently using IS administrator, so I shouldn't get any problem from that.

A friend told me it might be my router that simply doesn't open the port when needed, though I know not so much about 'ems.
That's quite annoying, Openarena seems to be so awesome =(

If you are running Windows Vista or 7, you need to start programs via rightclick>run as administrator.
As Gig said, Openarena runs fine with restricted accounts (even guest accounts should work), but to be sure you could try.
Edit: Nevermind, read on the previous page you got XP. /edit.

What is the type and model of your router? Maybe we can look after it's documentation.

Another time I ran into an OA connection problem on an XP machine I fixed it by running either openarena_deprecated.exe or openarena-deprecated.exe instead of openarena.exe. Try one a few times and try the other a few times and see which one works. One of those also seems to intermittently fix the connection problem I sometimes get when trying to connect to xcm_tricks2 on Metalnet.