Description
There are two distinct bugs expressed in this report that I wish to be addressed; I will refer to them separately as "Loading Screen Stuck" and "T-minus30 Hang"
[Related Notable Bugs] Another group of bugs contains a third notable bug expressed under certain conditions which may worsen overall client/app hanging time. I will not go much further on this, but will refer to it now as "First Initiated Voice Comm Hang". This third bug can possibly (unknown) be triggered during the total lag period of the Loading Screen Stuck expression, and can regularly worsen T-minus30 Hang where Loading Screen Stuck is not expressed or resolves before the trigger of T-minus30 Hang. When two or more of these bugs express simultaneously it may cause a longer period of client/app hang than the sum of time each individual bug expression causes independently. Likely relates to #3682
[Unrelated Known Issues] #1237 #1012 #9995 #600 #13272
Included to reduce confusion and possibly condition Search Engine results, and to aid navigation here.
[Similar and Possibly Related] #367 #1430
This current thread may help in understanding part of these possibly related issues.
[Ability Draft] Stuck "Ability Draft Loading..." Screen persistence, intermittent hangs, failure to reveal draft, temporary loss of capability to choose.
I primarily play Ability Draft, and have played Dota since about somewhere between versions 6.49 and 6.55. I am very passionate about this game. It is joyous and elating to use my extensive knowledge and experience in drafting heroes out of this board of abilities we call Ability Draft. It is unfortunate, however, when I am forced to take whatever the personified embodiment of RNG decides due to certain bugs. It can present me with some fun and interesting challenges, but most of the time it leaves me devastated, and our draft outcome is negatively impacted. These issues used to only crop up here and there every so often. Now a days, this occurs at least once or more per session in Dota. These days the moments between pressing "Accept" and choosing an ability are filled with anxiety as I helplessly watch this black screen waiting to see what comes. I hope there is an amicable solution to these current issues that does not boil down to "git gud, upgrade potato". Now, on with the show!
Both of these bugs can result in the player gaining picking functionality and vision of choices seconds before their turn or in the middle of their turn of the draft phase; This forces a player who wishes to make an informed choice to analyze the entire board in a matter of fractions of a second to then make a selection, which greatly increases the likelihood of missed potential or failure to identify key mechanical capabilities presented by combinations on the board. Sometimes it almost feels like taking the random selection is advantageous over exercising the most panicked pick of all time.
T-minus30 Hang
- A long standing issue for the last 7+ years
- Basically always occurs, and always at this same specific moment
- Happens in Ability Draft when Ability Board is visible and Draft Timer is at 30 seconds until drafting begins
- A client/app hang occurs
- Length of hang varies widely, can be as short as less than 1 second.
- Has technically improved over time, in the past could take over 45 seconds to resolve.
- For a time before the implementation of the current loading interface this issue seemed to not occur at all (dormant?)
- Before the period of possible dormancy the hang could cause players to miss their first drafting opportunity
- Possibly due to calling assets, specifically from Hard Disk Device (slow seeking bottleneck)
- Possibly due to other various cache functions and pre-allocations (I'm spitballing)
- Sometimes players will become disconnected from the game at this point (useful for distinguishing between rage or issue)
- If a player disconnects at this point they will likely return before their first or their second drafting opportunity
It is due to this issue that I usually try to wait until after the 30 second mark to attempt to use Voice Comms, so to avoid worsening the hang. I suspect the T-minus30 Hang is an unavoidable issue that can only be mitigated unless some lateral change were to be made to loading orders and loading periods. A band-aid solution could be to automagically extend the draft timer by 15 seconds if a player disconnects before T-minusZero, and to only ever extend once per game in this manner as an additional low-impact safety net.
Loading Screen Stuck
When the bug occurs:
- Bug started occurring upon implementation of the new loading interface (2+ years?)
- Usually occurs during the first game of client session
- Can randomly occur during any game after the first game of client session (irrespective to total session time and inactivity)
- There is no other identifiable pattern in occurrences of the bug expressing
- Increased system 'load' (re:performance) on User PC may increase likelihood of bug expressing
- Prior Dota 2 Arcade play during current session greatly increases likelihood of bug expressing
Client behavior during bug expressing:
- Occurs on "Ability Draft Loading..." screen (shown above)
- Sometimes there are client/app hangs, usually only for brief moments (1-5 seconds)
- Game state is active but the screen is still stuck on "Ability Draft Loading..."
-- "Ability Draft Loading..." screen does not fade out, it persists and sometimes the circle spinning animation plays.
- Usually the first DrumBeat sound queue plays
- After the second DrumBeat sound plays, (when the bug does not express) the Field then Board should fade in, but...
-- Sometimes the first DrumBeat sound plays but the second DrumBeat sound does not play
-- Sometimes neither DrumBeat sound plays, usually accompanied by severe client/app hangs
-- There is a small number of occurrences where the game hangs after the Field and blank Board appear but before, during, or after the reveal of the ability icons and/or hero portrait reveal (possibly unrelated), some instances of this express similarly to how the game state acts during the "Ability Draft Loading..." screen, where the game is active, but the graphical elements have not properly populated. This group of 'flavors' usually resolve before draft begins
- Usually PlayerSelfHeroAbility1 sound plays but the screen is still stuck
-- Sometimes PlayerSelfHeroAbility1 sound does not play until the screen is 'unstuck' and the Field and Board are revealed
During the screen stuck period (If a hang is not currently occurring):
- Player can interact with some elements and utilize some functions
- Player can click on the chat Text Enter box and send messages, whispers, and possibly /slash commands
-- Upon hover the mouse cursor will change into a text bar cursor
-- Pressing Escape after activating the chat Text Enter box will play the ChatUnfocus sound
-- The Emoticon panel and Chat Box Info panel buttons can be pressed, but nothing will show, when the screen is 'unstuck' these will be active and in focus
-- Any text entered will not be visible, but upon being 'unstuck' the messages can be seen with appropriate timestamps (whispers can be verified as being sent using alt+tab to bring up the Steam chat window though this may invite more lag)
-- Any characters inputted to an active text box that weren't sent [by pressing enter/return] will be visible in the text box upon unstuck.
- Voice Comms from other players can be heard
-- It is unknown whether or not player can broadcast their own voice (in client) successfully during this period (For instance voice can still be broadcast in Discord)
- When another player makes a draft selection the PlayerDraftSelection sound can be heard
- When player's draft opportunity occurs PromptPlayerSelfDraft sound plays, usually with a voiced countdown.
- Pressing the 'back to menu' Up-Arrow in the upper left corner of the screen causes the game to do go back to menu only after the screen becomes 'unstuck', BackToMenu sound does not play until screen becomes 'unstuck'
- Unknown outcome when attempting to access Settings by clicking the icon
- Sometimes when the screen becomes 'unstuck' some or all of the relevant latent sounds will play simultaneously.
I have heard numerous reports from other players of these things occurring, it would seem these issues have possibly come to affect more players over time, or more players have become vocal in reporting.
I have done various things to improve system performance, but there seems to be no real impact on the likelihood of Loading Screen Stuck occurring. Running Discord and being in an active Voice Broadcast does seem to significantly increase the likelihood of the bug expressing, or at least the bug still happens even if never having opened Discord; this is basically the only thing I can ever identify as actually having any impact. I don't want to be running any other programs in the background as is, and have made extensive sweeps of my system to reduce unused background processes.
During a client/app hang it is possible to accidentally reposition the app window while running in Borderless Windowed mode due to the OS gui applying over a hanging program. It requires a relaunch of the app to regain the original position. I've played entire games with the window slightly misaligned (so having lost the ability to edge-pan on two edges of the screen) then toggled output modes with the misalignment remaining after returning to desired output settings.
During previous iterations of the expression of Loading Screen Stuck it was possible to interact with ability tiles during the period where "Ability Draft Loading..." is still visible after it should normally have been culled. Using the Ctrl/Shift+Lmb Click feature to send a message of suggestion or wanting to pick a selected ability will still function, granted user has managed to click an ability blind. This could then obfuscate identification of the "Stuck Pinging Abilities" bug expression requiring another set of inputs to jog it back into normal function to regain picking functionality.
I will try to give an update as I gain more confidence if any of the various tweak's performed to the settings below resulted in a diminishing of the bug expressions impact, or frequency.
System/Client Settings, Options, and Specifications
- I run with the -novid launch option.
- I have the OpenGL support for Windows and Reborn Beta DLC's installed
- Everything else related to my system is in this text document... GL HF!
GitHubKraifwraithSpec2.txt
Example Match ID (and possibly Timestamp)
Not required
Description
There are two distinct bugs expressed in this report that I wish to be addressed; I will refer to them separately as "Loading Screen Stuck" and "T-minus30 Hang"
[Related Notable Bugs] Another group of bugs contains a third notable bug expressed under certain conditions which may worsen overall client/app hanging time. I will not go much further on this, but will refer to it now as "First Initiated Voice Comm Hang". This third bug can possibly (unknown) be triggered during the total lag period of the Loading Screen Stuck expression, and can regularly worsen T-minus30 Hang where Loading Screen Stuck is not expressed or resolves before the trigger of T-minus30 Hang. When two or more of these bugs express simultaneously it may cause a longer period of client/app hang than the sum of time each individual bug expression causes independently. Likely relates to #3682
[Unrelated Known Issues] #1237 #1012 #9995 #600 #13272
Included to reduce confusion and possibly condition Search Engine results, and to aid navigation here.
[Similar and Possibly Related] #367 #1430
This current thread may help in understanding part of these possibly related issues.
[Ability Draft] Stuck "Ability Draft Loading..." Screen persistence, intermittent hangs, failure to reveal draft, temporary loss of capability to choose.
I primarily play Ability Draft, and have played Dota since about somewhere between versions 6.49 and 6.55. I am very passionate about this game. It is joyous and elating to use my extensive knowledge and experience in drafting heroes out of this board of abilities we call Ability Draft. It is unfortunate, however, when I am forced to take whatever the personified embodiment of RNG decides due to certain bugs. It can present me with some fun and interesting challenges, but most of the time it leaves me devastated, and our draft outcome is negatively impacted. These issues used to only crop up here and there every so often. Now a days, this occurs at least once or more per session in Dota. These days the moments between pressing "Accept" and choosing an ability are filled with anxiety as I helplessly watch this black screen waiting to see what comes. I hope there is an amicable solution to these current issues that does not boil down to "git gud, upgrade potato". Now, on with the show!
Both of these bugs can result in the player gaining picking functionality and vision of choices seconds before their turn or in the middle of their turn of the draft phase; This forces a player who wishes to make an informed choice to analyze the entire board in a matter of fractions of a second to then make a selection, which greatly increases the likelihood of missed potential or failure to identify key mechanical capabilities presented by combinations on the board. Sometimes it almost feels like taking the random selection is advantageous over exercising the most panicked pick of all time.
T-minus30 Hang
It is due to this issue that I usually try to wait until after the 30 second mark to attempt to use Voice Comms, so to avoid worsening the hang. I suspect the T-minus30 Hang is an unavoidable issue that can only be mitigated unless some lateral change were to be made to loading orders and loading periods. A band-aid solution could be to automagically extend the draft timer by 15 seconds if a player disconnects before T-minusZero, and to only ever extend once per game in this manner as an additional low-impact safety net.
Loading Screen Stuck
When the bug occurs:
Client behavior during bug expressing:
-- "Ability Draft Loading..." screen does not fade out, it persists and sometimes the circle spinning animation plays.
-- Sometimes the first DrumBeat sound plays but the second DrumBeat sound does not play
-- Sometimes neither DrumBeat sound plays, usually accompanied by severe client/app hangs
-- There is a small number of occurrences where the game hangs after the Field and blank Board appear but before, during, or after the reveal of the ability icons and/or hero portrait reveal (possibly unrelated), some instances of this express similarly to how the game state acts during the "Ability Draft Loading..." screen, where the game is active, but the graphical elements have not properly populated. This group of 'flavors' usually resolve before draft begins
-- Sometimes PlayerSelfHeroAbility1 sound does not play until the screen is 'unstuck' and the Field and Board are revealed
During the screen stuck period (If a hang is not currently occurring):
-- Upon hover the mouse cursor will change into a text bar cursor
-- Pressing Escape after activating the chat Text Enter box will play the ChatUnfocus sound
-- The Emoticon panel and Chat Box Info panel buttons can be pressed, but nothing will show, when the screen is 'unstuck' these will be active and in focus
-- Any text entered will not be visible, but upon being 'unstuck' the messages can be seen with appropriate timestamps (whispers can be verified as being sent using alt+tab to bring up the Steam chat window though this may invite more lag)
-- Any characters inputted to an active text box that weren't sent [by pressing enter/return] will be visible in the text box upon unstuck.
-- It is unknown whether or not player can broadcast their own voice (in client) successfully during this period (For instance voice can still be broadcast in Discord)
I have heard numerous reports from other players of these things occurring, it would seem these issues have possibly come to affect more players over time, or more players have become vocal in reporting.
I have done various things to improve system performance, but there seems to be no real impact on the likelihood of Loading Screen Stuck occurring. Running Discord and being in an active Voice Broadcast does seem to significantly increase the likelihood of the bug expressing, or at least the bug still happens even if never having opened Discord; this is basically the only thing I can ever identify as actually having any impact. I don't want to be running any other programs in the background as is, and have made extensive sweeps of my system to reduce unused background processes.
During a client/app hang it is possible to accidentally reposition the app window while running in Borderless Windowed mode due to the OS gui applying over a hanging program. It requires a relaunch of the app to regain the original position. I've played entire games with the window slightly misaligned (so having lost the ability to edge-pan on two edges of the screen) then toggled output modes with the misalignment remaining after returning to desired output settings.
During previous iterations of the expression of Loading Screen Stuck it was possible to interact with ability tiles during the period where "Ability Draft Loading..." is still visible after it should normally have been culled. Using the Ctrl/Shift+Lmb Click feature to send a message of suggestion or wanting to pick a selected ability will still function, granted user has managed to click an ability blind. This could then obfuscate identification of the "Stuck Pinging Abilities" bug expression requiring another set of inputs to jog it back into normal function to regain picking functionality.
I will try to give an update as I gain more confidence if any of the various tweak's performed to the settings below resulted in a diminishing of the bug expressions impact, or frequency.
System/Client Settings, Options, and Specifications
GitHubKraifwraithSpec2.txt
Example Match ID (and possibly Timestamp)
Not required