Question Another crash bug

When hypothesizing about possible causes of this, Whisky has been thinking that it's tied to characters created after I put in Thomas's clan code. Noteably, one character named Ser seems to be the one that crashes us at login. This morning I went to take a look at when Ser was created so I could compare it to when I made that code change. It looks like Ser doesn't really exist anymore as a created character that is level 4.

[ 39] ( 4) Ser Thu Jan 25 19:30:22 2018 <-- I know he exists, and I've seen him in play.
[ 41] (102) Fizban Tue Jan 30 19:52:24 2018
[ 42] ( 1) Nauzhror Tue Jan 30 19:53:00 2018

---

25 players listed.

i1 510H 110M 92V >
stat file ser <-- Take a look at his file... interesting.
neutral PC '(null)' IDNum: [ 0], In room [ 0], Loadroom : [ 0]
Title: <None>
D-Des: <None>
Class: Channeler, Lev: [ 0], XP: [ 0], Align: [ 0]
Created: [Wed Dec 31 1969], Last Logon: [Wed Dec 31 1969]
Played: [0h 0m], Age: [1433], STL[0]/per[3]/NSTL[0]
Str: [0/0] Int: [0] Wis: [0] Dex: [0] Con: [0] Cha: [0]
Hit p.:[0/0+0] Mana p.:[0/0+4] Move p.:[0/0+2]
Gold: [ 0], Bank: [ 0] (Total: 0), Screen [80x22]
AC: [0+6/10], Hitroll: [ 0], Damroll: [ 0], Saving throws: [0/0/0/0/0]
Pos: Standing, Fighting: Nobody, Idle Timer (in tics) [0]
PLR: NOBITS
PRF: NOBITS
Quest Points: [ 0] Quests Completed: [ 0]
Carried: weight: 0, items: 0; Items in: inventory: 0, eq: 0
Clan: [] Rank: []
Hunger: 0, Thirst: 0, Drunk: 0
Master is: <none>, Followers are: <none>
AFF: NOBITS
Triggers:
None.

i1 510H 110M 92V >
stat file Ser <-- Just in case, checked with a capital S, you never know...
neutral PC '(null)' IDNum: [ 0], In room [ 0], Loadroom : [ 0]
Title: <None>
D-Des: <None>
Class: Channeler, Lev: [ 0], XP: [ 0], Align: [ 0]
Created: [Wed Dec 31 1969], Last Logon: [Wed Dec 31 1969]
Played: [0h 0m], Age: [1433], STL[0]/per[3]/NSTL[0]
Str: [0/0] Int: [0] Wis: [0] Dex: [0] Con: [0] Cha: [0]
Hit p.:[0/0+0] Mana p.:[0/0+4] Move p.:[0/0+2]
Gold: [ 0], Bank: [ 0] (Total: 0), Screen [80x22]
AC: [0+6/10], Hitroll: [ 0], Damroll: [ 0], Saving throws: [0/0/0/0/0]
Pos: Standing, Fighting: Nobody, Idle Timer (in tics) [0]
PLR: NOBITS
PRF: NOBITS
Quest Points: [ 0] Quests Completed: [ 0]
Carried: weight: 0, items: 0; Items in: inventory: 0, eq: 0
Clan: [] Rank: []
Hunger: 0, Thirst: 0, Drunk: 0
Master is: <none>, Followers are: <none>
AFF: NOBITS
Triggers:
None.

i1 510H 110M 92V >

Ok, the segfault at makes me think we're dealing with a NULL pointer issue.
It is likely that Ser's player file has become corrupted by the crashing. Check it out in the lib/plrfiles/P-T/ folder.

I think the problem is that GET_PASSWORD(d->character) returns NULL in this code: strncmp() really doesn't like NULL pointers.

I suggest trying to remove him from the index, until further notice. That means copying lib/plrfiles/P-T/ser.plr to somewhere else and removing the line with his name from lib/plrfiles/index.
An alternative would be "set file ser password something", but that is hard to communicate to him afterwards. At least if you move the file, he can make a new char and be reimbursed once he logs on as a level 1 again...

I have reproduced this locally now. I suspect lib/plrfiles/P-T/ser.plr is an empty file. That gives this exact behaviour.

This is all great stuff, I'm learning so much, thank you!

You're right, Ser's player file is zip-zero-nada-empty. I've followed your instructions to remove that character entirely. Alas, poor Ser, we knew him well...

Question - is this a result, but not the cause, of the crash most recently reported? As in, is something still in there to cause a crash and Ser's file was just a casualty from that?

Sascha wrote: Question - is this a result, but not the cause, of the crash most recently reported? As in, is something still in there to cause a crash and Ser's file was just a casualty from that?

We can't really tell. This particular bug is caused by him having an empty file. Why it was empty, noone currently knows.

Super, thank you! I truly appreciate your follow-up on this.

I deleted that file and so far so good. I tried editing the index and even though the index file itself shows as the character name removed, my plist still shows that character. I'm not sure why, but the important thing is that the corrupt file is gone, and there's nothing to stat.

Thanks again!

Quick update - looks like that was the fix.

i1 510H 110M 92V >
uptime
Up since Wed Jan 31 16:47:33 2018: 6 days, 20:07

Thanks again, you rock!