Subj : Re: InterBBS Last Callers
To   : apam
From : slacker
Date : Sat Dec 14 2024 09:47 pm



> I *think* it was an error with a packet in FSX_DAT that caused the
> official last callers mod (by xqtr for mystic only) to hiccup and the
> resolution was to wipe the entire FSX_DAT message base.
Oof, that's sort of a bummer to have to nuke the whole set of data from a bad packet but I guess if that's the way it's fixed, that's what you have to do.



> Or it could be something else.. I've written a few interbbs last callers
> mods for various systems it's good to try and be fairly fault tolerant -
> i don't know that xqtr's mod is, so also try and make sure you're out put
> is as correct as you can be.

I did a bit more digging and I think it's caused by the Quantum Wormhole messages. It's not all of them, but some of them are missing the LOCATION line (not OS like I originally thought). This makes their encoded posts 1 line less than the usual expected number of lines. I jumped on Wrong Number ][ and grabbed the error message:

PYTHON ERROR (/mystic/themes/default/scripts/xq-ilc.mpy)
  File "/mystic/themes/default/scripts/xq-ilc.mpy", line 479, in <module> 
    processbase()
  File "/mystic/themes/default/scripts/xq-ilc.mpy", line 279, in processbase
    luser = rot47(msgtext[i+1])
IndexError: list index out of range

So yeah, it looks like it's blowing up because the message is missing the expected number of lines. (luser I'm assuming is location for user). A simple hack fix would be just to check that i + 1 isn't out of bounds and if so, move on to the next message and log the error... or just throw a try/catch around the whole thing.
I wasn't able to hunt down the actual code though to take a look.. it would be nice to be able to patch the mod so it doesn't blow up.


> Regarding the time / date.. I don't think it matters too much, I only use
> the date in my mods, and it's always a mixture of european / US date
> formats - xqtr's mod just uses what ever is local to the BBS. (of course
> I fill in the time field, i just don't use it locally)

Yeah I noticed that too. The dates seem to be an assortment of formats. I ended up going with the most common US format I saw from the prev messages.


> The way I see it though, if it's posted on fsx_dat and it unintentioally
> breaks a mod, really that's the mod's problem - it should be fault
> tolerant, or at least skip over messages it can't process correctly.

Agreed. I was a bit surprised to see it 'hard down' on those boards. I woudl have expected bad data to just be skipped.


--- NE BBS v0.73 (linux; x64)
 * Origin: NE BBS - nebbs.servehttp.com:9223  (21:3/193)

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