What'd I doooo???

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Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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This is gonna be tough to diagnose since I don't have a real mod list here, but 1.12.2 custom pack, all the cliches.

I'm in my underground bunker where all my main processing is. I'm running RS and have a decent amount of automation going on. While I was working on some tweaks this morning, it started getting super laggy and quickly escalated to something like 1 frame every 3-4 seconds. It wasn't instant, it took about 30-seconds or so to get super lagged out, telling me it's something compounding on itself exponentially somewhere, but I can't quite figure out where.

I spent like 20 minutes trying to break any blocks I had added recently and nothing fixed it. My first guess was the weirding machines, which is a block you can place that will chunkload a 3x3 area. I did add a second one that overlapped the one I had been using and it did kinda happen around that same time. But I went and removed both of them, rebooted the server and ported myself away from my base. When I flew back, as soon as I was in range, it got instantly choppy again.

Not sure if this is pertinent or not, but while the choppiness was escalating, I tried to pull up a lag goggles scan, and as soon as I hit scan, the lag doubled instantly and never stopped. But, I would run another scan after the reboot and it didn't change any. I did not see anything obvious in the report, either, obviously.

So, anyone have any ideas on what can cause something like this? And more importantly, how fix??

Edit: I do not believe it's an issue of too many machines running. I do have a bunch going on here, but nothing all that fancy. Not enough to even register yet.
 

rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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If it is a processing problem(not rendering) the oldschool way of figuring out what is causing it, is to slowly approach the area from different sides. When the lag starts the problem should be in the line of chunks at the edge of your chunkloading range(10 chunks on a server, view distance in singleplayer I believe. This is in addition to the one you are currently in). Doing that from a couple sides you can easily find which chunk it is.

Seen this issue a lot with dropped items or too many mobs. Do you have any animal farms in the area? Villagers? One of the numbers on the F3 screen will tell you the number of entities. If that goes through the roof, it is most likely mobs or dropped items.
 

Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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I'll check that. My server and view distance are both set to 12. I did notice that I could see the entrance of my base (directly vertical) before the lag kicks back in, but I'l use that basic idea to triangulate it. Good call.

One thing I noticed, though, is that it's equally laggy when facing any direction. IIRC, if I break a block that's holding thousands of items, it'll only lag me out like that when I'm looking at them. I don't think it's video.

I actually don't think there are a lot of entities in the area. I do have a mob grinder, but I've never seen more than 2-3 enemies in it at once.
 

ShneekeyTheLost

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Dec 8, 2012
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Lost as always
I'll check that. My server and view distance are both set to 12. I did notice that I could see the entrance of my base (directly vertical) before the lag kicks back in, but I'l use that basic idea to triangulate it. Good call.

One thing I noticed, though, is that it's equally laggy when facing any direction. IIRC, if I break a block that's holding thousands of items, it'll only lag me out like that when I'm looking at them. I don't think it's video.

I actually don't think there are a lot of entities in the area. I do have a mob grinder, but I've never seen more than 2-3 enemies in it at once.
Turn it to passive mode, if that solves your problem then it is definitely mobs that are your problem. Likely, you've got an accidental 'honey pot'

If it happens even in passive mode, then the next most likely culprit is one of the RS storage buses. I know that there's an upper limit to what they like to be individually connected to, and there are situations in which it can get extremely laggy as it tries to calculate everything. There's also some mod... the one that makes gigantic chests with nearly arbitrary storage capacity... that is pretty infamous for generating server-crashing lag when hooked up to an RS storage bus.
 

Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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I don't have the large chest mod, whatever it's called. I've been warned of that one before.

I will try the passive thing just to try it, but I don't *think* that's it just because of the omnidirectional thing. But I won't rule it out. It feels more like I shorted out something in RS or something. It just escalated so fast. And if that's the case, I would think that cutting power to it at least, that can confirm or deny that. It'll be easy enough to cut the power than it would be to actually test anything individually when I'm going at it at 1/4 a frame per second.

Thanks for the advice! I am stuck at work for another couple of hours, but I'll poke at it tonight during the World Series (during the commercials of course, I have a job to do as a fan :p)

edit: hmm, RS WAS autocrafting complicated things. I wonder if it's possible that I confused it and it's caught in a logic loop!

Edit 2: Oh, I think that really might be it! Specifically, I was crafting an octdactic cpacitor, and the two lower ones, IN that order, at the same time. If it tried to craft them all at once rather that one at a time, I can see that confusing the hell out of a robot...
 
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Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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Not RS :( I managed to spawn close enough to the RS controller unit, whatever it's called, and I broke it. I'm getting real good at controlling the game from 2 frames behind. Helps I run with an xbox controller. Anyway, I checked the crafting monitor on my way and it was already cleared, so theory busted.

Though, maybe it's a blessing it's not RS. Because the next step is to start disabling mods. If I disabled RS, I would lose my literal entire inventory. I don't just want it to go away, though, I want to know exactly what happened, so I'm still trying to think it out and I'm super appreciative of eveyone's input.

More info in case it triggers anything:

I pulled up journeymap. There are no more than 2 or 3 blazes at a time because there's a blaze spawner in the back filling my xp reserves. The whole area is pretty well lit up, so that seems right.

I don't see anything in the mob spawner, which is just a dark room, spikes and a vacuum hopper. Turned off the cobblestone generator (exu2 to rftools crafter to compress). Turned off the rftools mine. Nothing is processing and nothing appears to be behaving abnormally besides the frame rate.

No error messages or crash reports. Just the server running behind (did the time change or is the server running behind).


Ok, while typing this, it stopped.





This is Minecraft.





Anyway. Something I just broke fixed the problem. No idea what, and no idea if this is coming back later, lol....
 

Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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Aaaaand, it's back, lol.

I put everything back and a couple of minutes later, it's back. Well, I guess that solves my issue about never knowing!
 

Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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I might have found it. I'm using old school openblocks liquid xp, I just get a kick out of it. I call it mob juice. My whole floor is made up of tanks full of the stuff. As I mentioned, I've been juicing those blazes for days of playing time. I have an XP shower that pulls the xp out d d tirns it into xp orbs. It goes by a switch, the switch was left on! So, obviously I turned it off and am now picking up the dots.

I've been typing this since I started, with no xp to start with. Currently I am level 38 and it's still choppy. 39. 40. Will update, lol

Edit: up to 1 fps!

Edit: 2! 2 fps! And level 42

Edit: 35 fps @ 47

Edit: I wonder what it would have been if xp didn't despawn. I drained enough xp to go 1 to 30 about 45 times.

Edit: 120 fps at 58...

Edit: stilllll going. It's like the longest pee.

Edit: finally! Level 63. In case you're wondering how many levels worth of xp juice you can pour onto the floor before it spawns. It's 63.
 
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rhn

Too Much Free Time
Nov 11, 2013
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That will do it yeah :p

Remember back in the days of using huge Quarry+ quarries and some mod did the XP orb drops on ore break wrong, so the quarry caused them to drop. And the quarry did a rolling chunkload so they never got time to despawn. XP orbs over hundreds of chunks...
 

rhn

Too Much Free Time
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So basically you had the old 'Buildcraft pipes spewing thousands of items on the ground' issue, for the next generation?
Actually think this was before that. Back then BC pipes had infinite bandwidths, and you could just add loops for the items to go round and round if there was no space to deposit them :p
 

Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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I'm just so glad I don't have to destroy half my modpack mod fix it. This has been the most stable pack I've ever put together and I want to keep it that way.
 

Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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Did you by any chance try to use the mod Lag Goggles to see if that would have helped during this issue?

I did! It was my first time using it. I started using it as soon as it started getting choppy and it never found the xp orbs. I did it again when it got clear again, then once again while it was choppy again. Same results. It did not recognize the xp orbs at all. I'm a little disappointed, actually, but overall I still think that mod is a really cool tool.
 

Henry Link

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Dec 23, 2012
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Yeah it is better at TPS lag instead of FPS lag. I had an issue recently on one of my servers where we were getting TPS lag and it narrowed it down to RS causing the issue. Turned out to be someone that had connected a storage bus to a max size colossal chest that was receiving items from a loot bag opener. I guess the RS system couldn't handle the amount of inventory changes from the chest.
 

Drbretto

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Mar 5, 2016
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I love it just to see what things are actually doing. Now I can build with efficiency in mind so I can maintain high frame rates and stability for the long haul. Right now everything's still too small to worry about, but because I can see what some pipes are costing and whatnot, when I start rebuilding the base to make room to expand, I can make sure to build with the more efficient stuff first. It's a very useful tool.