Most of us who roll on PvP servers do so willingly and strongly believe that world PvP is a core part of Classic WoW experience. But when a player created addon that thousands on your server use starts to ruin the game experience by clogging up the WoW chat servers during peak hours to sync peoples honor estimates, something needs to be done. Clogged and crashing chat servers have been an issue on Gehennas-EU for weeks now and Blizzard basically responding with “We don’t know what to do about it” when players submit Support Tickets, we decided to take action.
Introducing: Operation #SaveGehennas-EU
We ended up diving into the HonorSpy addon and noticing that the addon joins three servers to periodically sync honor data between players. It also resets the password of the main sync channel if the current channel owner is running the HonorSpy addon to prevent players attempting to lock down the channel via a password. However, once the player logs off the channel ownership is transferred to another player and if this player is running the addon they then reset the channel password again, opening it back up for other players.
However, one could gain the ownership of all of the three HonorSpy sync channels, password protect it and ban everyone in the channel, breaking the add ons functionality and preventing the massive strain it puts on the chat server. And that’s what we did.
We developed a script that basically gets all the players from the main HonorSpy Sync channel and bans everyone by just one button press. And Voila! The Gehennas-EU chat is yet again buttery smooth during peak hours and we all can enjoy a functioning core mechanic of an MMO - the chat.
Best regards, EU Mexe, Terru and DNA.
Intrested in joining Tantrum? Apply at (( Tantrum.one ))
ps. The addon is now broken for the time being. But the chat is working.
If possible, get someone to do this for the horde side aswell so that we can work towards a lag-free server. The lag will come back as soon as everyone update the Addon im afraid!
not sure if I follow - if they update the addon to fix your locked channels (and select a new channel), the chat would break for all of us again. even if horde has it blocked.
good news is that the addon have reduced the number of broadcasts with the latest patch.
so if anyone wants to update to fix their addon after your locked channels, they will update to a version that has this reduction in broadcasting as well!
Hey! thanks for your interest towards our project!
There was no lag indeed, however in full scale this is not an final solution since it requires someone to take over these channels - and if you end up logging out they are open again.
So more of an proof of concept that the cause really is an addon and an temporary relief. I am hopeful that on Wednesday’s maintenance blizzard will do some restrictions on wow API and message sending, until that I do not feel comfortable sharing the script.
However if you want to chat more about it, feel free to join tantrum discord that can be found from tantrum.one and throw me an message.
For the addon to pick completely new channels requires the addon to be updated publicly on Github (or just download and check it) so its rather easy to follow which channel it uses.
It seems that blocking half of the traffic (alliance side) on Gehennas was indeed enough to help on the chat issues.
Again not a solution, but more of an proof of concept about the problem! … and we just wanted to chat with the guildies!
I feel your pain - sucks to not have a functioning chat in an MMO.
Thing is, I’m afraid if it would be posted, it could be modified to cause havoc on other chat channels as well (Example /world) and we don’t want to be responsible for it. There are so many addons that sync data via public chat channels. HonorSpy just happened to do so A LOT.
We’ll think about it.
We’d love to help ‘fix’ other servers chat lag issues too, but in the end it would only be a temporary-ish fix. As the addon gets updated, there is a chance over time the chat will become clogged once again when the channel that the addon gets updated to something else. It’s just silly that addons even have the capability to cause such issues in the first place. Even if you didn’t have the addon installed you’d still experience major chat lag and disconnects from Blizzards chat servers during peak hours.
This is not really the addon authors fault - no one could have expected the chat servers to crash. Ensure your HonorSpy addon is up to date to make sure it functions as intended, as we have spoken with the addon author and he has told us he fixed it. Our intention wasn’t to screw over the people who want to use it for ranking, but instead be able to use the chat.
Blizzard just needs to realize their chat servers limits and actually do something about it themselves, instead of leaving the issue to fester for two weeks.
Our efforts were purely the result of pure annoyment - we just wanted to chat with our guildies and party up for dungeons and raids.
I really hope someone takes onto this on horde side. It’s been a joke for like 2-3 weeks now? Definitely not fixed on horde side, earlier tonight there was 2-3minutes delay on messages, some of my group of people I play with that’s been looking forward for vanilla a long long time are on the edge of quitting the game.
tldr: Honorspy addon creator asked our help in <Tantrum> to spread the knowledge of the latest fixes on the addon. Update the addon to minimize the data sent by it and to transform the chat back to its normal state.
Thanks guys! I understand you guys didn’t want to release your script but it’s no longer necessary since it seems the creator of the addon has incorporated your idea in the newest version of his addon.
“This is done by the addon. New version (1.5.10) kicks everyone with older versions (prior to 1.5.6) that cause chat lags on the server. Upgrade to not be kicked and to not cause chat delays.”
So newer versions are effectively breaking older versions.
