unable to join official server

[pirum]

First things first, I'm running Wesnoth 1.6.5 on Arch Linux. Up until yesterday I was using the 1.6.5-1 package (the first version of the Arch Linux package for Wesnoth 1.6.5) and everything was working fine. I have been regularly playing on the official server with no problems.

This was actually a bit strange, because most other Arch Linux users were having troubles with libsdl and Wesnoth 1.6.5, something to do with the mouse acting funny on the menu screens. I was and still am running libsdl 1.2.14 but was not experiencing said problems. Becaues of these issues, a second Arch Linux package was released (Wesnoth 1.6.5-2), which I upgraded to yesterday. A few hours later I tried to join the official server and was greeted with a black screen with a dialog titled "Reading from Server..." and a progress bar stuck at 0%. I can upload a screenshot if it would help. Thinking the new package to be the problem, I recompiled the original package that was working for me (Wesnoth 1.6.5-1) and installed it, with the exact same problem.

The following is output to stdout when running wesnoth from a terminal:

$ wesnoth
Battle for Wesnoth v1.6.5
Started on Fri Dec 11 12:52:18 2009


Data directory: /usr/share/wesnoth
User configuration directory: /home/chris/.wesnoth1.6

Checking video mode: 966x718x32...
setting mode to 966x718x32
ALSA lib pcm.c:7234:(snd_pcm_recover) underrun occured
20091211 12:52:19 error cache: cache /home/chris/.wesnoth1.6/cache/cache-v1.6.5-13d2b53b799ec7fc71c7291fde6d8c11cf5d0423.gz is corrupt. Loading from files: Unterminated closing tag, value '' at <unknown>:132414

This was all output immediately upon starting, before trying to join the official server. Nothing more is output to stdout when I try to join the server. The ALSA underrun messages seem to happen spontaniously; sometimes I get several and sometimes none.

Obviously that corrupt cache message is suspicious, so I clear it and try again...

$ rm -rf /home/chris/.wesnoth1.6/cache/*
$ wesnoth
Battle for Wesnoth v1.6.5
Started on Fri Dec 11 13:02:29 2009


Data directory: /usr/share/wesnoth
User configuration directory: /home/chris/.wesnoth1.6

Checking video mode: 966x718x32...
setting mode to 966x718x32

Even with a cleared cache the problem persists.

Also, I don't know if this is a related problem or not, but I am unable to join a private server my friend set up, running the Mac version of Wesnoth 1.6.5. When I join that server I get a popup dialog with the following message:

Undexpected characters after variable name (expected , or =), value " at <unknown>:12

If I click "ok" I return to the main menu. My friend reports that he sees me briefly join the lobby and then quit.

I am, however, able to host a server on a separate dedicated Arch Linux server and join it. My friend is unable to join but I think that's an issue related to the university network I'm on.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've only been playing Wesnoth for a bit over a month, but seriously, you guys have done an amazing job. I've been working on composing a post about my initial impressions of the game and the HttT campaign, but the gist of that post is that I'm very impressed. Please, help me get online again so I can continue enjoy this great game!

[SkeletonCrew]

Boost 1.41 seems to have a problem with the gzip filter [1].
Are you using boost 1.41 and if yes can you try to downgrade to 1.40?

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lib ... match=gzip

[pirum]

I am currently using boost 1.41. Arch never used 1.40, it went straight from 1.39 to 1.41. The newer Wesnoth package (1.6.5-2) forces the boost version to be greater than or equal to 1.41, a rare thing to do in Arch packages, so perhaps the issues with 1.40 have been fixed in 1.41?

It will truely be a pain to downgrade boost, as so many other packages depend on it, so I'd like to have some confidence that it'll work before I dive in. I'll try to get in contact with the people packaging Wesnoth for Arch. In the meantime, any other thoughts?

[SkeletonCrew]

I am currently using boost 1.41. Arch never used 1.40, it went straight from 1.39 to 1.41. The newer Wesnoth package (1.6.5-2) forces the boost version to be greater than or equal to 1.41, a rare thing to do in Arch packages, so perhaps the issues with 1.40 have been fixed in 1.41?

No idea why arch forces boost 1.41, wesnoth works with older versions.
The boost problem I posted is introduced with boost 1.41 so can't be fixed in 1.41

It will truely be a pain to downgrade boost, as so many other packages depend on it, so I'd like to have some confidence that it'll work before I dive in. I'll try to get in contact with the people packaging Wesnoth for Arch. In the meantime, any other thoughts?

At the moment I've no other ideas, but I've just got more reports on irc of people having problems
with boost 1.41 and Wesnoth.

[WildPenguin]

A patched version of boost-1.41 and a rebuilt wesnoth package have been uploaded for Arch. This fixes the issue for me.

[SkeletonCrew]

Ah that's good to hear.

[pirum]

The issue is fixed for me too There was a problem with zlib support in boost 1.41. A patch exists but has not yet been wrapped into a new boost release, so if anyone sees this and is having the same problem, you're going to have to patch and rebuild boost yourself.