I think this bug is that one of the other guests has some kind of strange issue, and when they try to download the skin, they get a "file not found" response.
This comes up occasionally, it's not because you installed the new patch, it's because you encountered one of these users with this issue, maybe it's some kind of firewall problem they have, I don't know yet... anyway it is other guests not finding the file which causes this message.
i could look into it, but i will need to know the name of the skin and the time it happened (approximately). Otherwise I've no idea why a file would not be found.
that happend to me twice in the last 6 weeks. I was on "Conedogers 1". After I exited the Setup screen the message appeared.
The first time I wondered, because I was sure I uploaded the skin sucessfully (I drove with that skin before online with no such message). I went to LFSW and saw the skin is up. Hmm. I uploaded the skin again (I don't remember if I deleted the old one first).
The message "skin uploaded successfully" or similar appeared.
Back at the server I left setup screen and NO message appeared.
Last time (5th of April, 10.00 pm (Berlin time) ) http://www.lfsworld.net/?win=races&racer=ksa_land
on Conedogers1 again the message appeared again. I asked the people if they see my skin. One said no, others said yes. Some others said they get this message too.
I chatted a bit with one of them (quarz) who said "yes, I see your skin".
He said he's just back to LFS after half a year of being off. My skin is probably not so old, so he auto downloaded my skin sucessfully but I'm not sure about that.
I went to LFSWorld and checked my skins. The skin was uploaded. I uploaded it again without deleting the "old" one. I don't know, but in this case should there come a message like "sucessfully UPDATED the skin" or something similar? Because it said "sucessfully UPLOADED" like I upload a skin the first time.
I went back on the server and I still got the "your skin was not found...upload it on LFSW" message.
Again back to LFSW and deleted the "old" one. Uploaded it. Back at server. Again the message.
So nothing helped. We thought it's something with the server. But (not absolute sure) I think the auto upload worked for me. At least I don't remember seeing any white car.
My LFS name : ksa_land
The skin: FZR_TICO79_PRIV
The day after I went on Conedogers1 again. No message!
Hmm.
I hope this helps a bit.
P.S. The skin is uploaded in resolution 1024x1024. I use ingame the skin in resolution 2048x2048 (with identical file name of course)
I know the skin is on LFS World. That is the whole thing about this bug. Otherwise it would not be a bug.
What I am trying to explain is there is a problem with some other guest (firewall / internet connection / something - we don't know because we don't have any information about these people) who receives a "file not found" message and so wrongly reports to your LFS that your skin is not on LFS World. I suppose it's a problem with some guests, I do not suppose that LFS World would just do this randomly.
We need information about firewall / internet connection / any relevant info from the person who cannot see your skin. Also is that person who cannot see your skin, using high res skins or low res skins - and do they see other people's skins - these are the questions we need answered.
This is nothing to do with the test patch, by the way.
[ EDIT - moved to website bugs section - though we don't know if it's LFS / computer / LFS World ]
To the two guys who stated a skin name : I could not find anything useful now.
To anyone : When you see it happen again, please report it as soon as possible (in this thread), so that i can look it up in my log files straight away. I have logfiles of 'today' and 'yesterday', so I can only do lookups in that time frame.
13:46 CET (11:46 GMT)
Server [CD] ConeDodgers 1
I just got the error message about my skins being not found on LFSW.
Skin names: XRR_Lotesdelere4_NG and FZR_Lotes04_NG4
For some reason it seems to happen more often when the server is populated.
EDIT:
14:00 CET (12:00 GMT)
No error message anymore
Thanks. I had a look and I could only see successful downloads. That means that whoever made a request to our webserver, also downloaded the skins.
So if there was someone on the host who failed to download your skin(s), his request to our webserver never got there.
Or at least, that's what i conclude from this so far.
Maybe it's a firewall problem for someone or a virus detection (i mean an anti-vir that thinks something is going on, while in fact there isn't) - hard to tell. It's also hard to tell who would be the person that failed to download a skin. Would be handy know that, because then we can debug straight at the source.
Just guessing into the blue now, but since I had this problem only a very few times after installing one of the current test patches... could that maybe be related?
That'll be because you are more likely to encounter a user with the download issue.
What would be great is if the person who cannot see your skin, could either make a post here or contact us. We need to know if they can never download any skins (so everyone who ever meets them online will get that error message) or if it's just specific skins they cannot download.
at clc alot of people including me get the message alot:
your skin was not found.....
its keeps coming up, but we can see eachothers skins.
its very strange, sometimes twice or 3 times per minute.
wich is very annoying, even with my skin i allways use it gives the message, time or so doesnt matter, and i had it at other servers too.
i think its a lfsworld problem
as said above, give us the skinnames that you got the message for, so I can look it up.
I really doubt it's an lfsworld problem though. When a skin is uploaded and you've seen it uploaded on lfsworld, it's there. And that's all there is to it as far as lfsworld goes. LFS just downloads the skin directly from our webserver. There's nothing fancy about that. When the webserver receives a request for the skin file, it will say "ok here it is" or, "sorry file not found". In my logs I only see "ok here it is" entries and no files not found (for the reported skins). To confirm this, I need you and everyone who posts about experiencing this problem to post the problem-skin filenames, so i can look it up.
I have explained in detail in two posts above how this can come up, and told you the information we need.
Victor has also said the information he needs.
We are trying to find out why it is that one of the users on the host cannot download the skin. If it happens to you a lot on one server, please ask for the requested information from the person who cannot see your skin. It's in my posts above.
Guys, please make sure the person you are asking has fully stopped driving and waits that their local LFS has had a chance to actually load the skin. I find it confusing when someone askes, "Hey, can you see my skin?" and 20 ppl say "no" and you can spectate those people answering and they are still driving. !??! They need to be told that wont see it until they stop their car for about 10 seconds and let LFS load the skin locally.
Otherwise it's like the blind leading the blind.
The annoying thing is that the people with these firewall issues or whetever usually don't care and wont even bother to check if they can see the skin. Solution is to kick those not helping, and retest, although the person you kick might have the issue then, you never find out. Catch 22 anyone?
If you ask me, somone-else's problem should not give you and everyone else a false message, "Skin not found on LFSWorld" but far-be-it-from-me to know how/why it operates like this, there must be some reason for this mode of operation. But at least I have a better idea why it's doing this now and might be able to investigate and get some suspects. Thanks V and S.
When this was first developed, I assumed (reasonably enough, I think) that it was impossible for someone to receive an actual "FILE NOT FOUND" error from a web server, unless the actual file was not there. So in theory this problem could never arise. And it never did arise until a few months ago. Maybe some new overactive firewall software has been released...
There is a 100% way round this, and that is that your computer would have to check LFS World itself to verify the existence of the skin before telling you it doesn't exist. But that demonstrates why I don't do that. I don't really want your computer to have to do HTTP queries to LFS World.
Maybe I will have to implement that undesirable solution (or something I haven't thought of yet) as somehow (we still don't know why, of course) LFS on the remote guest seems to be wrongly told that a file does not exist.
It would be nice to know the reason why really, instead of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
Scawen, You may have thought of this already..but, Could it be that the request is taking too long due to so many skins being on lfsw and then lfs is just assuming that the skin doesnt exist. It also could even be that peoples connections arnt that good, and the request is (as said above) taking too long. I have noticed massive groth in lfs and also, Massive groth in lfs skin useage. . I know its a long shot, but still a possibility surely?
No, there is no such assumption. That would be very bad coding. All errors like timing out / could not connect / file transfer error / everything, would never produce that warning message to be sent.
As I said before, it's an actual 404 FILE NOT FOUND error, returned from the server. That means the server is question has received our request, looked in its folder, discovered there is not file of that name and replied to LFS that is the case. All other web errors DO NOT cause this error. It can only be that something other than our server is returning "404" to LFS.
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Anyway I've found a way to recreate this by changing something in Windows, no modifications to LFS are required. I don't want to go into details because people could use this method to annoy others.
So I'll have to come up with a more failsafe method. I have various ideas of ways to do this and I am considering them, so no worries, I'll sort this out very soon.
Just an update on this, we now know what causes the problem.
It's when a person who is now licensed has previously used a certain crack. For some reason this crack disabled skin downloading in LFS and it is their modified exe that generates the file not found errors.
*sigh*, I dunno why people hack. Its great your working on a solution. (I also take it Vic told you about a certain something I sent him?:schwitz
On a side note, Shouldnt these people be disaplined in some way? they may have a licence now, but they still cracked back then which is against the rules. Its like, me doing a crime then becoming a police officer, I would still get in trouble.
I usually keep well out of Scawen's threads, but I thought I'd jump in and give the moderator perspective. I don't know if it correlates with the devs' in any way or not.
Yes, cracking is a bad thing and it doesn't help LFS on any level. Some people "see the light", though. Quite a few times people have been "busted" on the forum, then contacted us after buying a licence. We're glad to welcome them back to the community in these situations. It's nice to see people "come good" in the end. It gives us a feeling of hope, and I think they feel good about doing the right thing too. Hope so.
