The master will now send back 2048 servers max. that should ‘fix’ it for now. Obviously the ET client would need to handle more servers. At this point the third party browsers will be affected as well, servers will find themselves out of the master list every now and then.
For third party browsers, in order to get a full list with no size restriction, send ‘protocol + 100’. i.e. to get more that 2048 ET 2.56 servers, send a request claiming protocol 183
TTimo, a suggestion (one you might have implemented already, but I’ll post it just to be sure): Obviously a “hard” limit on the number of servers in the master list will prevent triggering the client brower bug in 2.56.
However, as shown in the posts on page 2 of this thread, the vast majority of the server entries were generated from a small number of IP addresses. The systems at these addresses claimed to have hundreds of servers running. Whether this was done intentionally or accidentally is anyone’s guess.
In light of this it might be a better strategy to limit the number of master list entries per IP address as well. That way, it will be more difficult for these bogus servers to push the real ET servers off the list by spamming hundreds of entries. A limit of, for instance, 10 servers per IP address would be more than enough to retain all “real” servers and filter out most erroneous ones.
Just my 0.02.
it’s not uncommon for commercial hosters to run 16 servers per IP.
if individual IPs were DOS’ing the master with bogus servers, it should be simple enough to permanently blacklist those IPs from ever being listed in the master again.
Since we’re on the subject of ET crashing, which I must admit I am also experiencing the same thing…click on Play online and game crashes…I am also seeing this in the screen that loads when ET icon dclicked: check_com crashed
This is showing up under almost every heading…does anyone know what this is?
That means that ET is eating your settings because it detected a crash on the previous run.
Delete all the servercache.dat files within your ET directory (as mentioned previously in this thread) and the crashing problem should go away now.
There are far too many zombied hosts to really make that feasible/worthwhile… It looks like the hosts used to send all the crap entries to the masters were probably zombie hosts as it is.
Unless I’m doing something wrong protocol 183 doesn’t return any servers. 
(Protocol 83 currently returning 2046 servers, which I assume is the limit.)
You’re not doing something wrong. I’m getting the same thing (0 servers on protocol 183).
It looks like the length may be getting truncated to 2 characters, amongst other things…
protocol 10 - - 2046 servers
protocol 71 - ET 2.32 (MP test) - 1 server
protocol 82 - ET 2.55 - 66 servers
protocol 83 - ET 2.56 - 2046 servers
protocol 101 - - 2046 servers
protocol 102 - - 2046 servers
...
protocol 109 - - 2046 servers
Both protocol 82 and protocol 83 servers were returned for protocol 10 and protocol 10x.
Rain…thanks, that makes sense. Cleared it out, and it was still crashing. Uninstalled and reinstalled, and updated some Nvidia Soundstorm drivers and GF drivers, did what you said after that and BINGO!
Thanks again for the assist.
:drink:
I think ET truncates to 2 characters. It doesn’t matter atm cause this hack is intended for 3rd party browsers, which craft their own getInfo request
“ÿÿÿÿgetservers 83 empty full” returns 2046 servers.
“ÿÿÿÿgetservers 183 empty full” returns 0 servers.
That has nothing to do with the ET client.
The master server has been messed up for that last three days again. Cleary SD/ID has no intention of fixing it.
Right, only about 350 of the returned 2046 servers are valid, which is why (as Lek pointed out) this is a bad fix. :weird:
Damn, it sucks being right all the time… 
Anyway, note that we’ve got some recurring offenders:
Server # of ports
24.158.222.88 446
67.149.8.227 387
212.159.62.149 172
62.58.237.31 152
213.73.184.126 63
200.252.112.6 49
193.170.124.123 41
198.145.28.33 38
83.25.227.179 25
81.108.24.96 18
157.181.161.14 15
217.211.11.67 14
217.236.102.241 14
217.236.97.215 13
217.236.103.215 11
202.12.147.113 10
I’m now positive that this is a deliberate DoS attack. I hope the folks at id come to the same conclusion. I’m going to run these addresses through whois to find some abuse contacts for them, which might prove useful.
Cheers.
Added the host names to the somewhat extended list, where available. Note that I have not checked yet if each and every of these addresses host bogus servers. Obviously the ones with 30+ ports are, but the smaller ones could be legit.
Also note the large number of hosts from the dip0.t-ipconnect.de and dip.t-dialin.net domains. These are bogus.
#ports IP address Host
446 24.158.222.88 ---
387 67.149.8.227 d149-67-227-8.clv.wideopenwest.com
172 212.159.62.149 zubel.plus.com
152 62.58.237.31 dslam31-237-58-62.adsl.zonnet.nl
63 213.73.184.126 qn-213-73-184-126.quicknet.nl
49 200.252.112.6 ---
41 193.170.124.123 ---
38 198.145.28.33 cerebus.immunix.com
25 83.25.227.179 acp179.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl
18 81.108.24.96 cpc1-gran1-5-0-cust96.nott.cable.ntl.com
15 157.181.161.14 proxy.inf.elte.hu
14 217.211.11.67 h67n2fls35o989.telia.com
14 217.236.102.241 pD9EC66F1.dip.t-dialin.net
13 217.236.97.215 pD9EC61D7.dip.t-dialin.net
11 217.236.103.215 pD9EC67D7.dip.t-dialin.net
10 202.12.147.113 ---
9 217.239.2.174 pD9EF02AE.dip.t-dialin.net
8 80.136.223.52 p5088DF34.dip.t-dialin.net
7 213.250.82.111 au111.netikka.fi
7 213.243.141.159 cs141159.pp.htv.fi
7 62.105.80.93 62.105.80.93.as15758.net
6 217.236.102.6 pD9EC6606.dip.t-dialin.net
6 66.250.23.60 23-60.wispertel.net
5 80.133.171.199 p5085ABC7.dip0.t-ipconnect.de
4 217.229.217.168 pD9E5D9A8.dip.t-dialin.net
3 200.24.227.202 www.yany.cl
3 217.229.120.59 pD9E5783B.dip.t-dialin.net
3 200.69.208.1 customer.iplannetworks.net
3 212.180.2.133 maggie.gamez.easyconnect.fr
3 202.12.147.119 ---
3 212.97.59.13 ---
3 62.243.96.211 0x3ef360d3.boanxx7.adsl.tele.dk
Protocol 83
Servers: 2046
(Responding servers: 1937)
Protocol 183
Servers: 2212
(Responding servers: 2101)
I did notice the master server resetting the list a couple of times, but now it seems stable.
hmm think my problem is Relativly the same but slightly differant - i can connect to any sever without Any problems but about 1-20 mins into the game ET crashes - it has been working fine for months without this problem - now after i wiped my machine i always seem to crash about 20 mins into a game its infurating only being able to play in 1 map before i crash & have to restart ET, has anyone else come up with a problem like this & any idea how to solve it
Application Error -
the instruction at “0x0947e32b” referanced memory at “0x000005a0”. the memory could not b written
im running Win 2000
with All service packs on
any idea what could b screwing the game up ? and how to fix it ?
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i know its 2 years later from this post…but i seem to having this problem now…
i connect to the server and like 5 sec. .later it crashes.
ive re-installed like 4-5 times and same thing happnes each time…ive updated everything that needs to be updated etc…still does the same thing.
any idea wut the problem could be?
this was the first thread google showed up so i thought i just post here…sorry but i know its a dead thread…but this is starting to really piss me off…