Unkle Nuke

It's been several years, so please forgive the cobwebs and dust as I dredge up lost knowledge, but here's my thought:

Since this server crash occurs at shutdown and it involves keys created by ACE, my money is on this error having something to do with the server logging. It seems something has gotten mixed up during the cleanup/shutdown process, possibly an incorrect value being returned to ACE by mangosd.

Before ACE 6.3.0 was committed by Foereaper last month, the previous change was 6.1.7 committed in August. With this error not being reported until December, I'd say that points to something having changed with the server code. The other possibility could be the complications and pitfalls that arise when working with submodules in Git leading to source corruption.

Has anyone tried compiling ACE with the Dump macros enabled or run MaNGOS in debug mode? Either or both would give more information than the console errors.

Assuming the server crash doesn't completely prevent logging, try setting the logging level to verbose in the mangosd config. That would at least give an overview of what's happening during the shutdown process.

Valgrind hasn't been used in years, since nearly all of our devs are Windows programmers, and I know of no comparable replacement for Windows that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Antz may be able to demonstrate how to use Visual Studio to trace and debug MaNGOS with similar results.

I agree with Olion's assessment. ACE has been regarded much as a plug-in module you simply add and then forget about it. This library is at the very heart of the server so it is wise for everyone who touches core functions to become familiar with it.

By the way... When you're reporting a bug, it's status should not be set to "Confirmed" until there is at least one other user replying with a similar experience.

Incorrect or missing target flag in the script would be the first thing to examine.

You should also be able to adjust respawn times in the server config file, unless some wingnut removed that feature.