OK, good to know you got it sorted.

It seems strange, if the antivirus blocked the installation, that it did not inform you of this.

Something tells me it could be antivirus software. Every time we do an update there are several reports about issues with antivirus. I wish people would report the problem to the antivirus software developers, instead of us, as the bug is not in LFS but the antivirus software.

Anyway, maybe that's not what's happening in your case. Do you have antivirus software?

Do you see something like the attached image when you run the installer?

EDIT: If you have the correct LFS.exe in your folder, it will have date: 18 June 2024

Hi,

1) I don't know why the auto updater doesn't seem to have worked on your computer. That's the first I've heard of that (after a few thousand downloads) so I assume it has been working for most people. Can you see the install file LFS_PATCH_7A_TO_7E13_setup.exe in your LFS folder?

2) If you don't update to E13, no servers are shown in the list due to a change we have made.

You do need E13, so if the auto updater doesn't work then I suggest you get E13 from the first post of this thread and manually run the installer.

I can't reproduce that issue. I can start a host in Brazil with no problem.

Your host "TEAM AMERICA®INDYCAR" is set to E13. It is intentionally not possible to start a host in version E13.

After setting to E14, remember to click "Submit changes" at the bottom of the page, before you start the host, or it will certainly not start (because it will still be E13 which is no longer supported).

EDIT: I've added a duplicate "Submit changes" button at the top of the page. It was easy to miss as you would have to scroll down to see it.

Last edited by Scawen, Thu 20 Jun 2024, 08:11.

That is a feature to allow sidecar outfits to be driven by only one wheel. I haven't heard of another type of vehicle with drive wheels not aligned, but would be interested to know about it.

I can see that the E13 update makes your local servers harder to find.

Maybe I can add a text quick filter to compensate for that, similar to the one on the mods page but probably will not implement favourites at this time as it's more complicated.

Maybe it should be possible to sort by the location column too, to finish off this change for now.

I would recommend the 7zip software from the official site: https://7-zip.org/

It's very small and efficient and seems to be able to unzip everything including rar, zip, 7z, etc.

Sorry for the disruption.

Of course it wouldn't have been done if it wasn't necessary.

E14 has some more improvements and is now the only supported version.

Please restart your hosts in E14.

In LFS you must put the car into gear before it can move (even if you have automatic gear shift enabled).

With some changes in Test Patch E13, you should now be able to join hosts even if UDP packets cannot get from your computer to the host.
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/2077190#post2077190

With test patch E13, you should now be able to join hosts online even if UDP packets cannot get from you to the host.
https://www.lfs.net/forum/post/2077190#post2077190

No, I don't believe there is anything so easy for games with custom TCP and UDP protocols. There are solutions that you can pay for but also you must integrate your game into such systems. You can't just send your money across the internet and suddenly you are immune to DDoS.

I think any such complex solutions involving large amounts of development would be a bad idea while there are two separate branches of LFS. Also the 'old' version (that everyone uses) is built in such an old compiler that it is impossible to incorporate modern software into it. So one part of the solution could be to just stop spending 100% of my time working on server issues, and get back to finishing the version we are all waiting for. But that's not really a great idea if for a few more days work the current system can be made more robust.

Just to answer a couple of points.

1) DDoS was common before we did the hosting, so developing a new solution for self-hosting would not miraculously solve DDoS issues.

2) It's not just about developers earning a bit less money due to piracy. I don't think you understand the severity, when an illegal master server was able to replicate our services (allegedly 'free' although that wasn't quite true) we didn't earn enough money to live on. This isn't about asking for sympathy, it's a simple statement of fact that if you can't earn enough to pay the bills, you have to get another job.

There are still more things to try, of course I don't know if they'll do much good. The trouble with DDoS these days, for everyone, not just LFS developers, is that every time you increase your defences, the attackers just come back with a bigger attack.

We're on the same side here, I'm working long days on this.

Quote from d_cury :

I know there have been problems, but our SV TAM®INDYCAR is not working...

Quote from manolixsvouros :

Mine has a similar issue, can't restart the server at all...

The Brazilian host controller stopped working for some reason, possibly a rare bug. I'll see if I can find a fix.

I have restarted the controller so hopefully you can start your hosts now.

We are under attack again so various things will not work.

Apparently someone's hobby is to destroy the online activity of LFS.

I don't know why that is. The only insight I can give is there are various types of DDoS attack.

Last edited by Scawen, Sun 16 Jun 2024, 17:02.

UDP is better, faster, definitely preferable unless you have a problem.

Sometimes TCP packets get through when an ISP or router fails to pass UDP packets correctly.

It's possible that problem is at your end, you may need to select TCP instead of UDP for position packets.

Dear Hosters,

For security reasons we have closed all hosts that are not 0.7E13 version.

Please select version E13 and restart your host when convenient.

Sorry for the disruption.

EDIT: Now E14 is the only supported version.

Last edited by Scawen, Tue 18 Jun 2024, 16:59.

Thanks for the suggestion but:

1) If we release the host code in any way, the well-known pirates will soon get their hands on it, start their own master server and our sales will drop back near zero, and we will have to seek alternative employment and LFS development will stop.

2) It is no use to all use the Netherlands servers because:
a) Bad ping all around the world.
b) Today the NL servers have been attacked successfully too.

I have some ideas that may reduce the effect of these attacks. LFS development is paused again while I work on the updates.

Thanks for the information.

I would like to correct your terminology. This is not a 'crash'.
It looks to me like:
1) Something (maybe an attack, maybe an internet issue) caused Lapper to disconnect.
2) After that it was unable to connect.

As a programmer, the word "crash" means something quite specific, and this is not it. So let's just say "lost connection" or "failed to connect" then it will be easier to communicate.

I have no information about last night. I don't see any evidence of an attack. Maybe there were internet troubles, at the data centre or something, I don't know. Although the Turkish server is running a lot better, it may still be possible to improve it and we are asking our provider about that.

About today, there were attacks. This is something completely different. Someone wants to stop Turkish people playing LFS, or maybe it's just your server, I don't know. Vandalism and attacks are not something I can understand or explain as I am not that type of person.

This time, I will answer you, but in future I will ignore any posts that have my name in it. I am not the server guy and I have work to do, that I can never do this year, because the whole year I am dealing with website and server troubles, that were never my job.


Information:

There was a DDoS attack this morning, between around 10:10 and 10:20 UTC. It was ongoing while you wrote your post above.

I can see no problems with the server last night, from looking at our graphs.

Adam, there is a problem with your post. It is no information to me, to say that connection problems started and there was a crash.

You need to describe, step by step, what symptoms you experienced. Don't try to theorise what the problem is. There are attacks and there have been server problems. Just describe what happens and let one of us try to figure out what is actually going wrong.

If you can describe what symptoms you experienced, and what UTC time that occurred then we can try to relate your experience with what we see on our activity graphs.

Last edited by Scawen, Fri 14 Jun 2024, 10:42.

You don't need this "@scawen".

1) I am not the 'server guy'
2) There is no notification by @name system on tthis forum.

All you achieve by writing @scawen is to annoy me, and make me less willing to help you.

Please, in future, let us know the problem and one of us will have a look to see if we can help. Do not try to suggest which one of us should stop our development to come and help you.

The Turkish server has been restarted by our provider after they made some adjustments.

We hope the connection will be improved but we will see about that.

EDIT: Hosts that were running before the restart have been restarted.

I recommend host version E12.

Last edited by Scawen, Tue 11 Jun 2024, 13:19.

I don't know much about the relay service but I could see it was running (not crashed or stopped).

I've tried restarting it, in case that may help.

EDIT: Do please let me know if it works, and if not, when was the last time you know of that it did work? So I can try to find out if any changes were made around the time it stopped working.

Last edited by Scawen, Fri 7 Jun 2024, 11:52.