MG 3.5.0 Cannot start network game due to AllowDownloadDataSynch=true

[tomreyn]

In some cases when i host a game, others can connect fine to the lobby but when I press the button to start the game nothing happens. It just makes the 'click' sound and that's it, the game does not start. All users are 'ready' at this point. I had this on two 3.5.0 (release, using the Linux x86_64 installer) games with only one network player connected, and those were different people. So far only I seem to have this issue, not sure...

I was able to collect debug + network debug logs, as well as --verbose output (stdouterr.log) while this happened.

[tomreyn]

This seems to have only happened to me so far, and it did not occur since I deleted glestuser.ini which I had previously manually edited.
As such, I assume that I may have put some value into glestuser.ini which was unexpected and caused this situation, but I can't tell which setting and value it may have been. glestuser.ini is included in the archive file I uploaded (see above).

[tomreyn]

Okay I just singled it out... The option which prevents me to press the Play now! button is:
AllowDownloadDataSynch=true

If you have this set on a game server then starting games fails without any error message.

[softcoder]

In this case you should see a messagebox stating:

Code: [Select]

You cannot start the game because one or more clients do not have the same game data!
This may be fixed in svn now.

[tomreyn]

I'm afraid not. I just tried on r2164 and with AllowDownloadDataSynch=true I neither get an error/warning window/message box nor can I start the game (exactly the same as before).

[tomreyn]

I just realized that the AllowDownloadDataSynch option is marked as...

Do not use. Untested download of network game content.

...on the INI documentation. So I should maybe not have reported this issue in the first place. It's just that this INI option is contained with a different description (which may entice users to enable it) in the MG Configurator:

Code: (configuration.xml) [Select]

                <field-group name="Network">
                ...
                        <field type="Enum">
                                <name value="Client and Server data file transfer support"/>
                                <variable-name value="AllowDownloadDataSynch"/>
                                <description value=""/>
                                <default value="false"/>
                                <enums>
                                        <enum value="true"/>
                                        <enum value="false"/>
                                </enums>
                        </field>
                ...
                </field-group>

It may be a good idea to remove this option off configuration.xml and to think of a strategy which will allow us to ensure that:
a) all but only fully supported options are contained in both (Linux and Windows) configuration.xml files
b) descriptions for these options are in kept synch between the INI configuration on the wiki and both configuration.xml files.