NAPVP seed delay due to the sign bug

Grandpa Minion

Grandpa Minion

Hunter
  1. NAPVP — New 3.0 unstable Seed Delay: TFP's V3.0 Sign Bug (and the two weeks we spent trying to get it fixed) The short version: we're pushing the new seed back [ untill the tfp patch it]. The reason is a vanilla V3.0 bug that TFP has known about — in detail — for two weeks and still hasn't patched. Here's the full story with receipts, because people deserve better than "technical issues."

    The bug (vanilla — not our mods, not our server)​

    V3.0's new Sign-Tech system shipped with broken sign data. When your game loads certain POI signs — especially the distant "imposter" view of buildings — your client throws an error, and 7 Days' error handling force-opens your F1 console and steals your controls until you close it. On a PvE server that's an annoyance. On a PvP server, that's you frozen mid-firefight while the other guy isn't. That's not a launch experience we're willing to put players first-day fights through.Every V3.0 server in the world has this bug. Most admins just haven't traced it yet.

    What we've done about it — for two weeks​

    • Found it, reproduced it, root-caused it. The crash comes from invalid (empty) sign library IDs in game data hitting the client's sign renderer. The game even has a validity check for exactly this case — the broken code path just never calls it. The fix on TFP's side is small.
    • Reported it to TFP with full technical detail — including the fix — , with follow-ups since. As of July 9: no patch shipped, no ETA announced.
    • Built and deployed our own server-side fixes for every part of this bug family a server can legally touch (the sign network/data paths). Those are live on our boxes right now.
    • Why we can't just fix the last piece ourselves
  2. The remaining crash trigger lives inside the vanilla game files on your own machine. Fixing it there requires a client-side code mod — and EAC blocks client code mods. We will not run a PvP server with EAC off, full stop. So the final piece is TFP's to ship, and only TFP's.

    The call
    Grandpa Minion​

    Launching a PvP wipe where fights get decided by console popups isn't a launch — it's a bad first impression we can't take back, and So: new start date TBD. If TFP ships the patch sooner, we may move it up — We'd rather be the server that delayed for quality than the one that told you to "just deal with it."
 
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This bug is very annoying, it causes the console menu to pop up and prevent us from doing things in the game until you close it out, you may think it is a minor issue that we can just deal with but in certain towns we get these issues constantly, it happens alot when rendering the big cities and is very annoying and interuptive to gameplay
 
strongheart

Thread 'Dedicated Server: ArgumentNullException @ Smorgasbord Square (commercial_strip_04)'

I get an ArgumentNullException when I go to the Smorgasbord Square POI (commercial_strip_04). This is for dedicated server only. When I try on a local game I do get some warnings about null renderers, but no errors.

I've tested with both Linux and Windows servers and a Windows client. The logs and video are for Windows on both sides.

I don't see any gameplay impact other than the console window coming up and requiring dismissal.

Code: 
ArgumentNullException: Value cannot be null.
Parameter name: key
  at System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[TKey,TValue].FindEntry (TKey key) [0x00008] in...
 

✅ UPDATE — FIXED. Seed is back on schedule.​


TFP shipped the fix today in V3.0.1 Experimental: patch notes — the headline fix is the exact ArgumentNullException / Sign-Tech bug this thread is about.


We've already updated our server to 3.0.1 and tested it: no more console popups on join. the fix is additional hardening of the sign rendering paths. It's a real fix, not a band-aid.


So: the delay is over. NAPVP's new seed launches tomorrow, July 10, as originally planned — on the experimental branch (Steam → 7 Days to Die → Properties → Game Versions & Betas → latest_experimental). Full switch instructions are pinned in our Discord. When 3.0.1 goes stable we'll follow it.
 
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