[Question/suggestion] Is it possible to query the server for connected players without knocking?

[Tonkari]

I am using PAUSE_IF_NO_PLAYERS, but on the minecraft server I enabled AUTOPAUSE to save on resources. Everytime the backup container checks for active players, the server gets knocked and spins up the java process, resulting in flooded logs and unnecessary resource consumption.
I don't really know RCON, but would it be possible to avoid knocking the actual server or constructing a mechanism that filters knocks from the backup-container?

[itzg]

Agreed, it doesn't seem good to wake up the server just to check the player count. I'll work on a pair of fixes to this and itzg/docker-minecraft-server#1113

[itzg]

I think it'll hit this current error log

docker-mc-backup/backup-loop.sh

Line 360 in 542adc9

log ERROR "Error querying the server, waiting ${PLAYERS_ONLINE_CHECK_INTERVAL}..."

Every 5 minutes, by default. I wonder if I should just have that log the first time and debug log the others.

[itzg]

Actually, this is trickier than I originally thought since the mc-monitor status here is contacting the regular 25565 port. (The "RCON" in RCON_HOST is confusingly not applicable.)

docker-mc-backup/backup-loop.sh

Line 361 in feeecee

if ! PLAYERS_ONLINE=$(mc-monitor status --host "${RCON_HOST}" --port "${SERVER_PORT}" --show-player-count 2>&1); then

[urwrstkn8mare]

Hi is there any update on this?

[itzg]

After re-reading the original question the answer is a solid no. Of course you can't ask the minecraft server for a player count if the server is not active. I'm not sure why I thought rcon could violate the laws of physics.

[urwrstkn8mare]

Is there a way it could detect if the server is paused or not? If the server is paused then you know there aren't players on it. Maybe the minecraft-server autopause can create an empty file in the server file named something like .paused. And then when the mc-backup sees that file in the server folder it'll stop until it detects the file is no longer there.

[hrolofs]

I'm in the same situation. I'm using docker-minecraft-server with AUTOPAUSE and docker-mc-backup with PAUSE_IF_NO_PLAYERS.

Every 5 minutes the server are pausing and some minutes later the server are knocked by the backup check.

minecraft-0 | [Autopause loop] No client connected since startup / knocked - pausing
minecraft-0 | [19:52:21] [RCON Listener #1/INFO]: Thread RCON Client /127.0.0.1 started
minecraft-0 | [19:52:21] [Server thread/INFO]: [Rcon: Saved the game]
minecraft-0 | [19:52:21] [RCON Client /127.0.0.1 #46/INFO]: Thread RCON Client /127.0.0.1 shutting down
minecraft-0 | [2022-08-18T19:52:21+02:00] [Autopause] Pausing Java process
minecraft-0 | [19:55:21] [Server thread/WARN]: Can't keep up! Is the server overloaded? Running 179432ms or 3588 ticks behind
minecraft-0 | [Autopause loop] Server was knocked - waiting for clients or timeout
minecraft-0 | [Autopause loop] No client connected since startup / knocked - pausing
minecraft-0 | [19:57:22] [RCON Listener #1/INFO]: Thread RCON Client /127.0.0.1 started
minecraft-0 | [19:57:22] [Server thread/INFO]: [Rcon: Saved the game]
minecraft-0 | [19:57:22] [RCON Client /127.0.0.1 #47/INFO]: Thread RCON Client /127.0.0.1 shutting down
minecraft-0 | [2022-08-18T19:57:22+02:00] [Autopause] Pausing Java process
minecraft-0 | [20:00:21] [Server thread/WARN]: Can't keep up! Is the server overloaded? Running 178750ms or 3575 ticks behind
minecraft-0 | [Autopause loop] Server was knocked - waiting for clients or timeout

Is there any idea how i can use both (AUTOPAUSE and PAUSE_IF_NO_PLAYERS) togehter?

[itzg]

Thanks for commenting on this @hrolofs -- I had totally missed the suggestion from @samit43 , which sounds quite doable.