FOSS gamedev and creative worlds

I used the suggested script (http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=53120#p53120) to install Minetest on my Debian laptop. The game starts up, and I can create a world, but when I go to play it gets stuck at the connecting to server phase.

I was going to get the debug.txt but there is only an example conf file in the minetest folder..? I am assuming I should not have to go through it and uncomment it line by line to have a functional conf file.

Anyhow, point being I can't get 'er up and running. Running Debian 6.0.7 if that helps anything.

Any help appreciated. Sorry to start out on the wrong foot right off the bat!

shaneroach wrote:I used the suggested script (http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=53120#p53120) to install Minetest on my Debian laptop. The game starts up, and I can create a world, but when I go to play it gets stuck at the connecting to server phase.

I was going to get the debug.txt but there is only an example conf file in the minetest folder..? I am assuming I should not have to go through it and uncomment it line by line to have a functional conf file.

Anyhow, point being I can't get 'er up and running. Running Debian 6.0.7 if that helps anything.

Any help appreciated. Sorry to start out on the wrong foot right off the bat!

A server will run without a conf file. If you create a minetest.conf, you can just put in the settings you want changed.

Minetest 4.6



This may not be the right logfile, but after adding the requested line to minetest.conf (and also uncommenting the line in minetest.conf.example and raising log level to 4), I still never got a file where the instructions on this forum say to look. The one above comes from the minetest dot file, and frankly I didn't even know it existed until I completely wiped my install and reinstalled only to see my previous world already available.

I am mystefied. The issue continues and a full reinstall does not seem to have fixed it.

If I start a server separately then I get an error indicating that that port is already in use, and I can see the separate server in my list of processes, but I never see a server at all just running Minetest from the single player tab in the menu.. Just makes me think for some reason single player mode is not firing up its server.

Just grasping at straws here. I can't imagine this being this difficult. I keep thinking i must be missing something painfully obvious.

Wow. Ok, so here is verbose.

Verbose continued

Final bit

Finally, this --

Also add output from debug.txt in the topic (use the code tags of BBCode for that):
Go to the bin/ directory of your Minetest copy and delete the existing debug.txt

-- appears to be wrong. All of this is now in the dot folder (.minetest) contained in the home folder if you install minetest to home, which apparently is the default. There is no bin folder in that dot file, so the instructions seem to be perhaps outdated?

It certainly does not seem to want to connect to the server, but I did not see any clue as to why in the debug.txt pasted above.

shaneroach wrote:Finally, this --

Also add output from debug.txt in the topic (use the code tags of BBCode for that):
Go to the bin/ directory of your Minetest copy and delete the existing debug.txt

-- appears to be wrong. All of this is now in the dot folder (.minetest) contained in the home folder if you install minetest to home, which apparently is the default. There is no bin folder in that dot file, so the instructions seem to be perhaps outdated?

It certainly does not seem to want to connect to the server, but I did not see any clue as to why in the debug.txt pasted above.

It usually takes some time, depending on the number of media files (textures, sounds) that the client has to load (more if you have "Preload item visuals" enabled in config tab).

Also, the instructions are apparently for the run-in-place Windows version. Actually, the log file is stored in the current working directory (which happens to be bin/ on Win if you double-click the file or create a shortcut to it).

Thanks Kaeza for the explanation on the file locations. That threw me. I am sad to report though that I do not think it is just a matter of it taking time. Here is an example of the end of the log after waiting for a couple or three minutes. It seems to just give up looking for a server response.



All the while the game window just reads "connecting to server... (Press escape to cancel)"

Checked file and folder permissions due to something I read on what appeared to be a related issue on the forums here. Owner has read and write, and the current user (my account I made on installation) is the owner....

Deleting and re-installing without using the script mentioned has not helped the issue, although I did manage to fubar the games folder for a bit making it appear as if I had a different problem.

It seems like you time out on your own computer. Do you have some really strange firewall setting that blocks connections to your own computer?

PilzAdam wrote:It seems like you time out on your own computer. Do you have some really strange firewall setting that blocks connections to your own computer?

I've been poking around for that. One would think if I had it I would be the one to know, but I am not finding anything like that.Just a standard Debian install.

You aware of a logfile I could go to on a Debian laptop that might have info on network connections?

It is extremly unlikely that you have something like that. I have no idea what might cause your problem.

PilzAdam wrote:It is extremly unlikely that you have something like that. I have no idea what might cause your problem.

Well.... THAT'S DEPRESSING!

lol

Ok thanks. I am going to visit linuxquestions and also possibly download Coffeemud and see if I have similar problems logging into its self contained server.

Weird weird weird.

A quick search in the forum brought some topics about this:
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=75207#p75207
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=60089#p60089
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=48391#p48391
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=36756#p36756

None of these seems to be fixed correctly. In one thread permission issues are mentioned, but you already said that that isnt the problem.

PilzAdam wrote:A quick search in the forum brought some topics about this:
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=75207#p75207
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=60089#p60089
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=48391#p48391
http://forum.minetest.net/viewtopic.php?pid=36756#p36756

None of these seems to be fixed correctly. In one thread permission issues are mentioned, but you already said that that isnt the problem.

It may be permission related if permissions are involved in connecting to localhost. I seem to have a lot of permission issues, and I am not familiar enough with all of this to know why, but just as a for example the www folder one might expect in /var is not there, and when I go to create it it seems I need to be root.

I don't know how all of that might interact with the server side of Minetest. And mostly I just do not know why my little install of Debian is this funky and everyone else's apparently is not. I haven't done a heck of a lot with it aside from junk I have had to do to keep Chrome happy.

I'm pretty sure I have seen all of those. There are only a handful of posts regarding connecting to the server, and I see them both when searching the forum and when searching Google for related issues. Thanks again for the college try!

This appears to be related to me futzing with network manager to get available wireless networks to show up.

http://wiki.debian.org/NetworkManager

I'll let you know if I actually fix this. My work around for now was to install Minetest on a different partition. I need to get this working correctly though.

I had forgotten I had left this half assed done. Indeed, until I went to update my other partition I forgot I had done it at all. I noticed my network manager wasn't working right and that reminded me of what I had had to do to get it working on my main partition to begin with.

Minetest itself went off without a hitch on the fresh partition. Thanks!

----EDIT----

Fixed. Minetest works too.

If you want NetworkManager to handle interfaces that are enabled in /etc/network/interfaces:

Set managed=true in /etc/NetworkManager/NetworkManager.conf.
Restart NetworkManager:
/etc/init.d/network-manager restart

Try this. Without Minetest running, in one terminal, run:

and in another terminal run:

And see if the message gets to the first terminal. If it doesn't, you probably have a firewall rule getting in the way (you can use "sudo iptables -L" to try to see what's going on).

EDIT: Oops. I see the issue WAS fixed as of the last post. Anyway, it might help anyone debug similar problems.

prestidigitator wrote:Try this. Without Minetest running, in one terminal, run:

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

nc -l 30000


and in another terminal run:

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

echo Hello >/dev/tcp/localhost/30000


And see if the message gets to the first terminal. If it doesn't, you probably have a firewall rule getting in the way (you can use "sudo iptables -L" to try to see what's going on).

EDIT: Oops. I see the issue WAS fixed as of the last post. Anyway, it might help anyone debug similar problems.

All debug tips appreciated!

prestidigitator wrote:Try this. Without Minetest running, in one terminal, run:

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

nc -l 30000


and in another terminal run:

Your phone or window isn't wide enough to display the code box. If it's a phone, try rotating it to landscape mode.

Code: Select all

echo Hello >/dev/tcp/localhost/30000


And see if the message gets to the first terminal. If it doesn't, you probably have a firewall rule getting in the way (you can use "sudo iptables -L" to try to see what's going on).

EDIT: Oops. I see the issue WAS fixed as of the last post. Anyway, it might help anyone debug similar problems.

Dome distros don't have /dev/tcp.
You may be able to achieve a behavior similar to /dev/tcp with NetFIFO

sfan5 wrote:Debian, Ubuntu and Linux Mint don't have /dev/tcp.
You may be able to achieve a behavior similar to /dev/tcp with NetFIFO

Hmm. Ubuntu certainly does. I guess it may be a bash-specific feature though, so you may need to start a bash shell if your user shell is different. It is documented in the bash man page:

Bash handles several filenames specially when they are used in redirections, as described in the following table:
...
/dev/tcp/host/port
If host is a valid hostname or Internet address, and port is an integer port number or service name, bash attempts to open a TCP connection to the corresponding socket.

prestidigitator wrote:

sfan5 wrote:Debian, Ubuntu and Linux Mint don't have /dev/tcp.
You may be able to achieve a behavior similar to /dev/tcp with NetFIFO

Hmm. Ubuntu certainly does. I guess it may be a bash-specific feature though, so you may need to start a bash shell if your user shell is different.

I expected /dev/tcp to be a physical file/directory/whatever, I didn't know it was a special bash feature

sfan5 wrote:I expected /dev/tcp to be a physical file/directory/whatever, I didn't know it was a special bash feature

Yeah, it is a little odd that they chose a special shell-specific file path for something like that instead of using a new syntax or...well, just creating a special file (system) that does the job in the usual *nux style; odd and annoying, but it is a useful feature nonetheless.

For whatever bizarre reason, Minetest runs but that test gives me a connection refused result in the second window.

root@debian:/home/shane# echo Hello >/dev/tcp/localhost/30000
bash: connect: Connection refused
bash: /dev/tcp/localhost/30000: Connection refused
root@debian:/home/shane#

root@debian:/home/shane# iptables -L
Chain INPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Chain FORWARD (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination

Huh. And that is while the first window is still running and waiting with "nc -l 30000"? It should give you connection refused when nothing is waiting on the port, but while the program is waiting in the first window the error shouldn't occur (for the first message sent anyway; after the first message the connection is closed and "nc -l 30000" should stop listening and return to a prompt).