So I have mentioned before how I have issues with staying connected to my BBS when I am telnetting in from work. If I leave my session to idle for to
long, it will disconnect me and leave a ghost session running on the BBS.
When I say that I am idle for too long, I mean it could be around 30 seconds
or less. It has been very frustrating. If I am doing some coding on a putty session and move to the telnet session to test it, I often find that my
session has become disconnected. It looks like I'm still connected, but I can't do anything, so essentially, I'm a ghost.

When that happens, I have to use my putty session to go to my root bbs dir,
and run nodespy to kick my session off the BBS. Then I log in again and
start the whole process over.

Well, I finally hit on a remedy for all this. I discovered that if I idled
in some MPL that is constantly moving and doing something, the connection
will not drop. I guess it is a form of keep-alive from the BBS side rather than the terminal side. I've tried and I can't cant find a keep-alive in syncterm nor netrunner.

So, on to my fix!

What I have done is add a timer menu item to each of my menus that reloads
the menu every 10 seconds.

In your menu command list:
Insert a new command. I put mine at the top of the list

Display Text: <empty>
LightBar Low: <empty>
Lightbar High: <empty>
Hot Key : TIMER
Timer : 10
Timer Type : Interval
Redraw : Yes
Command: (GO) Go to new menu
Data: <menu name>

So what will happen is that the menu will sit for 10 seconds, then it will
run the timer command to GO to itself. It essentially calls itself over and over again. Make sure you use GO and not GS (GOSUB).

I did this for my major menus. I made sure to use the ones where I or most users might find themselves idling. So Main, Messages, Files, Games, and
Sysop menus are all configured like this.

This will only work if you remain idle on one of these menus. If you are listing files or reading messages and walk way, then it is likely that it
will still hang. So it is imperative that you idle on a menu, not in some other BBS function.

LOL! For instance, I had my Menu Command Editor menu sitting in another
telnet window. As I wrote this, that session hung and disconnected on me.

So, remember to idle on your menus.

"No matter where you go, there you are!" - Buckaroo Bonzai

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Cyberia BBS | Cyberia.Darktech.Org | Kingwood, TX (21:1/120)

On 02/02/17, Gryphon pondered and said...

So, remember to idle on your menus.

That's a very interesting read - and thanks for sharing. I'm still perplexed
by the cause of your problem. And I wonder if there are others with the same issue as to be honest I have not heard of many cases like this... Like you I wish we could figure out why it was happening.. Hmm..

Best, Paul

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Windows)
* Origin: Agency BBS | telnet://agency.bbs.geek.nz (21:1/101)

On 02/02/17, Gryphon said the following...

So I have mentioned before how I have issues with staying connected to
my BBS when I am telnetting in from work. If I leave my session to idle for to long, it will disconnect me and leave a ghost session running on the BBS. When I say that I am idle for too long, I mean it could be
around 30 seconds or less. It has been very frustrating. If I am doing

Thats very strange. I have the inactivity set to 0 to disable and I can idle for hours on my system. I've minimized the session and forgotten about
it until the next day and its still connected when I come back. Sounds like some sort of network issue dropping the connection, not mystic. Unless of course you have your inactivity set to 30 seconds or something.

Immortal

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Linux)
* Origin: Lightning BBS -- lightningbbs.com:2400 (21:1/185)

Gryphon wrote to All <=-

So I have mentioned before how I have issues with staying connected to
my BBS when I am telnetting in from work. If I leave my session to
idle for to long, it will disconnect me and leave a ghost session
running on the BBS. When I say that I am idle for too long, I mean it could be around 30 seconds or less. It has been very frustrating. If
I am doing some coding on a putty session and move to the telnet
session to test it, I often find that my session has become
disconnected. It looks like I'm still connected, but I can't do
anything, so essentially, I'm a ghost.

Could be a NAT issue on the company firewall, requiring some form of keepalive to prevent the connection being dropped. The auto refreshing menu would serve this purpose. :)


... In fifty years, movies have progressed from silent to unspeakable!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
* Origin: Freeway BBS - freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)

On 02/02/17, Immortal said the following...

On 02/02/17, Gryphon said the following...

So I have mentioned before how I have issues with staying connected t my BBS when I am telnetting in from work. If I leave my session to i for to long, it will disconnect me and leave a ghost session running the BBS. When I say that I am idle for too long, I mean it could be around 30 seconds or less. It has been very frustrating. If I am do

Thats very strange. I have the inactivity set to 0 to disable and I can idle for hours on my system. I've minimized the session and forgotten about it until the next day and its still connected when I come back. Sounds like some sort of network issue dropping the connection, not mystic. Unless of course you have your inactivity set to 30 seconds or something.

I suspect that it is a router setting on my work network. They might drop internet connections that sit idle. It may be a way of curbing unnecessary traffic. You have to remember, I work at a major university where the
student body uses the local network to access the internet. I only have this problem when I can connecting from work. If I am on my home network, I don't have this same problem.

"No matter where you go, there you are!" - Buckaroo Bonzai

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Cyberia BBS | Cyberia.Darktech.Org | Kingwood, TX (21:1/120)

On 02/03/17, Avon said the following...

On 02/02/17, Gryphon pondered and said...

So, remember to idle on your menus.

That's a very interesting read - and thanks for sharing. I'm still perplexed by the cause of your problem. And I wonder if there are others with the same issue as to be honest I have not heard of many cases like this... Like you I wish we could figure out why it was happening.. Hmm..

Yes, I always had the problem no matter how long I set the normal time limit for after about 5 minutes it hangs and I have to kill the ghost. I'll put
that menu trick in a few places. I think the best would be the sysop menu so
if you enter that it will stay connected, but I can see that menus you're adding to might be good to do that with no matter which they are. I'm likely
to try the refresh at 120 seconds or more though. If a lot of people are on
and it's doing that every 10 seconds it's likely to make some delays on a Pi2 or worse yet a Pi version A.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Mystic Pi BBS bcw142.zapto.org (21:1/145)

On 02/02/2017 11:43 AM, Gryphon wrote:

So I have mentioned before how I have issues with staying connected to my BBS when I am telnetting in from work. If I leave my session to idle for to long, it will disconnect me and leave a ghost session running on the BBS.

<SNIP>

Well, I finally hit on a remedy for all this. I discovered that if I idled in some MPL that is constantly moving and doing something, the connection will not drop. I guess it is a form of keep-alive from the BBS side rather than the terminal side. I've tried and I can't cant find a keep-alive in syncterm nor netrunner.

So, on to my fix!

What I have done is add a timer menu item to each of my menus that reloads the menu every 10 seconds.

In your menu command list:
Insert a new command. I put mine at the top of the list

Display Text: <empty>
LightBar Low: <empty>
Lightbar High: <empty>
Hot Key : TIMER
Timer : 10
Timer Type : Interval
Redraw : Yes
Command: (GO) Go to new menu
Data: <menu name>

So what will happen is that the menu will sit for 10 seconds, then it will run the timer command to GO to itself. It essentially calls itself over and over again. Make sure you use GO and not GS (GOSUB).

I did this for my major menus. I made sure to use the ones where I or most users might find themselves idling. So Main, Messages, Files, Games, and Sysop menus are all configured like this.

I've had the bots make it in to the Main menu so I'd suggest not doing
that one unless you want endless bots tying up the system. They never
make it to any other menus, only Main.
I'll try other Menus and set mine to longer wait like 120 or 240 to see
how that works.

--- Mystic BBS/NNTP v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Mystic Pi BBS bcw142.zapto.org (21:1/145)

On 02/03/17, bcw142 said the following...

On 02/03/17, Avon said the following...

On 02/02/17, Gryphon pondered and said...

So, remember to idle on your menus.

That's a very interesting read - and thanks for sharing. I'm still perplexed by the cause of your problem. And I wonder if there are oth with the same issue as to be honest I have not heard of many cases li this... Like you I wish we could figure out why it was happening.. Hm

Yes, I always had the problem no matter how long I set the normal time limit for after about 5 minutes it hangs and I have to kill the ghost. I'll put that menu trick in a few places. I think the best would be the sysop menu so if you enter that it will stay connected, but I can see
that menus you're adding to might be good to do that with no matter
which they are. I'm likely to try the refresh at 120 seconds or more though. If a lot of people are on and it's doing that every 10 seconds it's likely to make some delays on a Pi2 or worse yet a Pi version A.

The timeout interval is certainly up to you. But I did notice one cool side benefit. On my main menu, I have a function that randomly displays an
article title to one of my many RSS feeds. This action has the effect of updating the title because the menu is redrawn every 10 seconds.

"No matter where you go, there you are!" - Buckaroo Bonzai

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Cyberia BBS | Cyberia.Darktech.Org | Kingwood, TX (21:1/120)

On 02/03/17, Gryphon said the following...

The timeout interval is certainly up to you. But I did notice one cool side benefit. On my main menu, I have a function that randomly displays an article title to one of my many RSS feeds. This action has the
effect of updating the title because the menu is redrawn every 10
seconds.

The only downside I can see to this is any system messages that pop up will possibly be dismissed when it "refreshes" automatically, and the user might
not ever see it/them.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Windows)
* Origin: throwbackbbs.com -\- meriden, ct -\- (21:1/114)

On 02/03/17, Avon said the following...

So, remember to idle on your menus.

That's a very interesting read - and thanks for sharing. I'm still perplexed by the cause of your problem. And I wonder if there are others with the same issue as to be honest I have not heard of many cases like this... Like you I wish we could figure out why it was happening.. Hmm..

Negative to your question over here. Mystic is working as expected with the issue of user inactivity. Tested this issue on my board with mtel/32, netrunner, synch and putty. My inactivity timeout=360 sec (6-minutes). ----------------------------------------
Feb 03 2017 14:41 Connect from 192.168.1.1 (Unknown)
Feb 03 2017 14:41 Skuz logged in
Feb 03 2017 14:41 Executed Door: c:\doors\runwav.bat
Feb 03 2017 14:48 Inactivity timeout 53320 52960
Feb 03 2017 14:48 Normal Exit (0)
----------------------------------------
ggggg. ggggg
,g&&$"` '$&&g,$$$$$: ggggg$$$$$: ggggg,g&&$"` '$&&g,$$$$$"` '$&&g,
$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: >>$$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$
$$$$$: $$$$ $$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$ $$$$$: $$$$$
::: $$$$$: ::$$$$y$$$$$: ::$$$$ $$$$$: ::$$$$$$$$$$: ::$$$$y$$$$$: ::$$$$$ :::
$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$y$$$$$: $$$$$ $$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$
$$$$$: >>$$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$u$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$
a aagggggaa aggggggggggaa aggggggggggaa aggggggggggaa aggggggggggaa agggggaa a
$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$$$$$$: $$$$$
$$$$$a,. ``''''""ý$$$$$``''''""ý$$$$$$$$$$ý""''''``
$$$$$ ACK
Automatic Disconnect: Inactivity.

When I edit the last page of mystic -cfg User Editor to read No Timeout | Yes The userg can stay connected forever (hours/unlimited) with no activity.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Windows)
* Origin: flupH | fluph.darktech.org (21:1/105)

On 02/02/2017 12:23 PM, Immortal wrote:

On 02/02/17, Gryphon said the following...

So I have mentioned before how I have issues with staying connected to my BBS when I am telneting in from work. If I leave my session to idle for to long, it will disconnect me and leave a ghost session running on the BBS. When I say that I am idle for too long, I mean it could be around 30 seconds or less. It has been very frustrating. If I am doing

Thats very strange. I have the inactivity set to 0 to disable and I can idle for hours on my system. I've minimized the session and forgotten about
it until the next day and its still connected when I come back. Sounds like some sort of network issue dropping the connection, not mystic. Unless of course you have your inactivity set to 30 seconds or something.

Immortal

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Linux)
* Origin: Lightning BBS -- lightningbbs.com:2400 (21:1/185)

I know the problem Gryphon has, I've had it all along too. I really
didn't want to disable the timeout because of the bots, I would just
have a BBS of bots hung there. I have the timeout set to 999 (~17
minutes) but it hangs after about 5. I setup my 'Xperimental' menu and released I had rumors loaded so set it to show one every minute till it
does time out. That works the same as what Gryphon was doing and I don't
hang anymore there. There is some bug in mystic that causes hangs every
5 minutes or so if you don't refresh the menu as Gryphon suggested.

--- Mystic BBS/NNTP v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Mystic Pi BBS bcw142.zapto.org (21:1/145)

On 02/03/2017 04:09 PM, Vk3jed wrote:

Gryphon wrote to All <=-

So I have mentioned before how I have issues with staying connected to my BBS when I am telnetting in from work. If I leave my session to
idle for to long, it will disconnect me and leave a ghost session running on the BBS. When I say that I am idle for too long, I mean it could be around 30 seconds or less. It has been very frustrating. If
I am doing some coding on a putty session and move to the telnet
session to test it, I often find that my session has become disconnected. It looks like I'm still connected, but I can't do anything, so essentially, I'm a ghost.

Could be a NAT issue on the company firewall, requiring some form of

keepalive

to prevent the connection being dropped. The auto refreshing menu would

serve

this purpose. :)

.. In fifty years, movies have progressed from silent to unspeakable!
--- MultiMail/Win32 v0.49
* Origin: Freeway BBS - freeway.apana.org.au (21:1/109)

I have no firewall internally and still have the problem. Even nodespy
running via ssh on the BBS machine to another Linux machine will hang as Gryphon described. Refreshing the menus as he described will keep it
from hanging. Running rumor every minute (using hotkey TIMER) or so will
do it too ;)

--- Mystic BBS/NNTP v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Mystic Pi BBS bcw142.zapto.org (21:1/145)

On 02/03/17, bcw142 pondered and said...

I know the problem Gryphon has, I've had it all along too. I really

I wonder if it's OS specific as both of you guys are running the Pi version?

Best, Paul

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Windows)
* Origin: Agency BBS | telnet://agency.bbs.geek.nz (21:1/101)

On 02/04/17, Avon said the following...

On 02/03/17, bcw142 pondered and said...

I know the problem Gryphon has, I've had it all along too. I really

I wonder if it's OS specific as both of you guys are running the Pi version?

I run the Pi version. I guess I haven't really tried it with the x86_x64
Linux version, but I mostly run Linux here. I guess I should try the x64
Linux and Windows versions which I don't think I've done (but can do).

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Mystic Pi BBS bcw142.zapto.org (21:1/145)

I know the problem Gryphon has, I've had it all along too. I really

I wonder if it's OS specific as both of you guys are running the Pi version?

I am running the Pi version - currently my timeout is set for 1500 seconds (I don't remember if that is the default or if I changed it. I do not have unexpected timeout issues from terminal, iterm, syncterm in OSX or from xterm or netrunner in Linux - The android app VXConnect does timeout rather quickly however I think that is due to the app as I get the same behavior if I am
ssh'd into another server using the same app.

Just wanted to provide some additional info to help eliminate the cause of
this problem. Has anyone tried using wireshark to capture the packets to
look for culprits?

--
Karl
The Search BBS

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: The Search BBS (21:1/161)

On 02/04/17, Avon said the following...

On 02/03/17, bcw142 pondered and said...

I know the problem Gryphon has, I've had it all along too. I really

I wonder if it's OS specific as both of you guys are running the Pi version?

Seem to be a Pi/ARM thing. Tried it here (x86_64 Linux point system) and it didn't time out after 7 minutes. I know I was hung around 5 minutes with the Pi. I have tried TIMED with refresh from 60-240 and all those numbers work. Decided to add a 60 second refresh with rumor to show 'rumors' every minute
to work as a keep alive. I figure it makes it less boring as well as working
as a keep alive.
So looks like the hang is a Pi/ARM thing and not on other versions.

...So easy, a child could do it. Child sold separately.

--- Mystic BBS v1.11 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Old Mystic Pi BBS bcw142.zapto.org:2324 (21:1/145.1)

What is likely happening (on all flavors of Linux) is you are hitting the kernel TCP timeout, as documented here :

http://www.sekuda.com/overriding_the_default_linux_kernel_20_second_tcp_socket_ connect_timeout

The default timeout is 20 seconds, and depending on the distribution your kernel may be tuned differently. You should be able to adjust it pretty
easily to keep Mystic and the OS closer to "in sync" with each other.

HTH, YMMV, HAND :)

-*- The Alchemist -*-
-*- Resistance Pride BBS -*-
-*- resistancepride.sytes.net -*

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A31 (Linux)
* Origin: Resistance Pride BBS (21:2/103)

On 02/02/2017 11:43 AM, Gryphon wrote:

So I have mentioned before how I have issues with staying connected to my BBS when I am telneting in from work. If I leave my session to idle for to
long, it will disconnect me and leave a ghost session running on the BBS. When I say that I am idle for too long, I mean it could be around 30 seconds or less. It has been very frustrating. If I am doing some coding on a putty session and move to the telnet session to test it, I often find that my session has become disconnected. It looks like I'm still connected, but I can't do anything, so essentially, I'm a ghost.

<SNIP>

Using putty to telnet connect to the BBS from my Mother's house it
times-out and hangs in 5 minutes or so. The same from work with
default setup putty or SyncTERM. If working internally (my network
is using 10.0.0.X) there is only the setup timeout from Configuration,
General Settings, Inactivity. Tried Mystic 1.11 & 1.12 A31 same problem
exists with Pi, Ubuntu x86_64 Mystic 1.12 A31 as well. If I call in
via the net (bcw142.zapto.org) it will hang after about 5 minutes and
stay hung till the Inactivity timeout (which drops connection).
Read through http://www.sekuda.com/overriding_the_default_linux_kernel_20_second_tcp_socket_ connect_timeout
and checked the default for the Pi:
pi@dmz:~ $ sudo sysctl net.ipv4.tcp_syn_retries
net.ipv4.tcp_syn_retries = 6
So 6 is giving me about 5 minutes and it doubles with each number, so
tried 8:
pi@dmz:~ $ sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.tcp_syn_retries=8
net.ipv4.tcp_syn_retries = 8
Tested for 17 minutes and it was hung and stayed hung for 40 minutes! That
made it much worse! Will try 7 and if no better than back to 6.
It should perhaps be noted that I have IP Blocking and Logging on and
DNSBL Lookup No (off), DNSCC Lookup Yes using DNSCC Host
zz.countries.nerd.dk
with Auto IP Ban 4 connections in 120 seconds. Perhaps one of those settings
is related?

--- Mystic BBS/NNTP v1.12 A31 (Raspberry Pi)
* Origin: Mystic Pi BBS bcw142.zapto.org (21:1/145)