Apps AC_TrackCycle 2.8.3

[ThomasGocke]

lol sorry, when struggeling to upload the dll (as only some extensions are allowed) I played around with the file extension. Actually what I uploaded was a zip, so please try to rename it to zip and then extract it, it should contain the AC_ServerStarter.dll.

 

[drifttony]

Thank you so much Thomas! (sorry for the late reaction)

It works perfectly!

 

[ThomasGocke]

ok, thanks for letting me know. The change (minimized additional exes) will probably be contained in the next version.

 

[HazardNZL]

Hi Thomas, first of all, thanks so much for this tool, it's brilliant!
I run a small LAN league with some mates and this is the perfect tool for the task.

Not sure if you are still developing it or not, or taking feature requests...but 2 features I'd love to add to the wish list would be:

1) In drivers tab, have the drivers best lap time and number of laps completed.
2) In session control tab, have some info about the current session (I know it's up the top, but maybe display live info rather than what's set). For example, If I set practice to 15 mins, up the top it always says 15 mins practice, but would be handy to see from the server that there's 3 mins left.

Thanks again for your work!

 

[ThomasGocke]

Hi Thomas, first of all, thanks so much for this tool, it's brilliant!
I run a small LAN league with some mates and this is the perfect tool for the task.

Not sure if you are still developing it or not, or taking feature requests...but 2 features I'd love to add to the wish list would be:

1) In drivers tab, have the drivers best lap time and number of laps completed.
2) In session control tab, have some info about the current session (I know it's up the top, but maybe display live info rather than what's set). For example, If I set practice to 15 mins, up the top it always says 15 mins practice, but would be handy to see from the server that there's 3 mins left.

Thanks again for your work!

Hi HazardNZL,

I like both ideas, and already implemented the first one. But I'm not sure how I will solve the second one: Although the SessionInfo message contains the elapsed time, I currently only get/request this info once. So to show the elapsed time in a meaningful way, I would have to request this info frequently, or use my own timer.
We'll see, I currently don't have plans for a new release, but of course you are always welcome to compile the tool yourself, or even implement stuff yourself. You can find the source code here:
https://github.com/flitzi/AC_SERVER_APPS

Cheers

 

[HazardNZL]

Wow, thanks for that! Really awesome!

I'll have a go at compiling it, I've not done anything like that previously, what application will I need?

Thanks again

 

[ThomasGocke]

You will need Visual Studio, https://www.visualstudio.com/vs/community/

If you have never done any coding before, this will be quite a steep learning curve (although it will be very rewarding imho) and I'm not sure I'm the right person to assist you during that time.

I'll release a new version later today or tomorrow, then you can skip that. Unless, of course, you really want to have a shot at it, yourself

Cheers

 

[ThomasGocke]

ThomasGocke updated AC_TrackCycle with a new update entry:

AC_TrackCycle

2.7.5 (2017/12/18)
- added BestLap and LapCount columns to Drivers tab
- added elapsed time textbox

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[ThomasGocke]

ThomasGocke updated AC_TrackCycle with a new update entry:

AC_TrackCycle

2.7.6 (2017/12/18)
- (re)starting other processes in background

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[HazardNZL]

You sir, are a legend!! Thanks so much for that!

 

[gijs007]

I'm currently working on implementing this at Elite Game Servers.

We're having one strange problem, when the mod is installed there are no cars in the available car section.
Seems like the entry_list.ini is not being read.

I couldn't find anything about this problem in the readme, but I suppose it's a configuration issue. Any suggestions to resolve this?

------------------------------------ Question 2------------------------------------
What would be the best way to combine AC Trackcycle with Stracker and Minorating? We currently have Stracker as proxy for Minorating and a batch file which first starts the AC server, then Stracker and finally Minorating.

I suppose we have to redo the entire configuration and make AC Trackcycle the proxy for Stracker and Minorating?

 

[ThomasGocke]

Hi gijs007,

AC_TrackCycle doesn't read the entry_list.ini intself, so nothing to configure here. But AC_TrackCycle relies on using the default paths for server_cfg.ini and entry_list.ini, so next to the acserver.exe in a cfg directory. Everything else will (currently) not work.
If you extract all the AC_TrackCycle files in the same folder as acserver.exe then it should work out of the box, assumed the UDP ports are set in server_cfg.ini and no other tool is using those ports.
The [TRACK_CYCLE] block is not needed in the server_cfg.ini, of course there won't be any track changes, which obviously is the main purpose of the tool, but the server should run correctly without it, and there should be some messages from AC_TrackCycle (mainly the best lap and incident count) at the end of the session. Could you verify that this is working?

Q2: Yes, it would be best to use AC_TrackCycle as proxy for the other two. Some people seem to prefer to use TrackCycle as proxy for sTracker und then sTracker as proxy for MinoRating, but I see no logical reason for this.
If for some reason one of the other mods is having trouble with a track change, you could specify them (the path to the exe) in the trackcycle config under additional_exes, separated with a ;
AC_TrackCycle will then always start and restart those exes, no need for the batch file anymore
(the acserver.exe is always started by AC_TrackCycle anyway, do not start this yourself, and make sure acserver.exe is not running when starting AC_TrackCycle)

May I ask, are you using Windows or Linux?

Cheers,
Tom

 

[ThomasGocke]

p.s.: Actually you can specify where the server_cfg.ini and entry_list.ini are looked for,
ac_cfg_directory key in trackcycle config,
I completely forgot about this option. I haven't tried this for a long time, maybe this isn't working...
Are you trying to use use a different path than cfg next to acserver.exe for server_cfg.ini and entry_list.ini?

 

[gijs007]

Thanks for the fast reply.

I'm using the out of the box configuration. The entry_list.ini and server_cfg.ini are both located in the default CFG directory.
I can't test the lap/incident count since we can't join the server when there are no vehicles to chose from.

The server is running on Windows.

 

[ThomasGocke]

So if you start acserver.exe from the same folder directly, everything is working (cars available) and if you start AC_TrackCycle.exe (without having acserver.exe running, it gets started from TrackCycle) the server has no cars?
Then there must be some firewall issue or something (I think I have seen this missing cars issue before in a LAN session with the windows firewall blocking stuff), because AC_TrackCycle does nothing except starting acserver.exe as background process. You could try setting create_server_window to 1 and see if that makes a difference, but symptoms for the need of this option have been different.
If you send me the config and the inis I can take a look, but I doubt this is the problem, if acserver.exe alone is working correctly.

 

[gijs007]

Maybe it's not correctly detecting the config directory when started try the control panel we use.
Just noticed the acServer.exe using less than 1 MB of ram.

Update: even when the directory's are set (with backslashes) in the AC_TrackCycle_Console.exe.config the problem persists.

Is it possible to make trackcycle_console.exe output the acserver.exe console to a log file?

 

[ThomasGocke]

Please check the logs directory next to the exe for the logs, they should always be created.

 

[ThomasGocke]

As I said, I think your best bet is to change create_server_window to 1 in TrackCycle config (maybe if acserver.exe is not a background process the firewall lets it through) and/or check the firewall settings.

 

[gijs007]

Already tried that, it doesn't help and it also doesn't create a extra window.

I've checked the log and it reports:
15:31:21.367609 [System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host]
at System.Net.Sockets.Socket.ReceiveFrom(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, SocketFlags socketFlags, EndPoint& remoteEP)
at System.Net.Sockets.UdpClient.Receive(IPEndPoint& remoteEP)
at acPlugins4net.helpers.DuplexUDPClient.ReceiveMessages()

This happens both when I start ac_track_cycle console manually and trough our control panel.

What I did notice is when it's started manually and we type exit then a 2nd log file is added:

15:33:00.577117 UDP_PLUGIN: Realtime pos interval now set to: 1000 ms
15:33:00.624615 acServer.exe process could not be killed
15:33:00.820140 PAGE: /JSON|76561197985394116
15:33:00.836118 Serve JSON took 17 ms
15:33:01.527604 Registering to AC central server
15:33:01.527604 CALLING http://93.57.10.21/lobby.ashx/regis...ixed_setup=0&timed=0&extra=0&pit=0&inverted=0
15:33:01.689109 RESPONSE: OK,0,11018
15:33:01.689109 CONNECTED TO LOBBY
15:33:01.692116 RESTARTING FROM SESSION 0
15:33:01.692116 Session has 0 laps, will not save json
15:33:01.692116 NextSession
15:33:01.692116 SESSION: Practice
15:33:01.692116 TYPE=PRACTICE
15:33:01.692116 TIME=10
15:33:01.692116 LAPS=0
15:33:01.692116 OPEN=1
15:33:01.692116 WAIT TIME=0
15:33:01.692116 DynamicTrack: first session, resetting grip
15:33:01.692116 Weather update. Ambient: 24.674482 Road: 29.845102 Graphics: sunny_heavy_clouds
15:33:01.692116 Wind update. Speed: 0 Direction: 0
15:33:01.692116 SENDING session name : Practice
15:33:01.692116 SENDING session index : 0
15:33:01.692116 SENDING session type : 1
15:33:01.692116 SENDING session time : 10
15:33:01.692116 SENDING session laps : 0
15:33:01.692116 SENDING http://93.57.10.21/lobby.ashx/ping?session=1&timeleft=600&port=12376&clients=0&track=monza&pickup=1
15:33:01.734115 OK

Seems like the server only starts after we tell ac_cycle_console to exit? What's also odd is that the ac_cycle_console stays open after the exit command.

 

[ThomasGocke]

"acServer.exe process could not be killed" is the message that indicates you need to set create_server_window to 1. (Note that there are two config files, one for the gui version of AC_TrackCycle and one for console version). I haven't figured out what the problem here is (some kind of rights management it seems) but you are not the first one to have this problem, and setting create_server_window to 1 solved this.
In the end this message says, that the server could not be stopped (which is needed foremost during track change, but also of course on shut down). If this happens you need to kill the acserver.exe process manually with the task manager (or restart the computer) before trying again. This probably also explains the SocketException, as you might have serveral instances of acserver running already.