Hawaii "Remote not available (timed out)" error?

Can anyone at Papyrus explain what the "Remote not available (timed out)" error (ie., when I switch to Nascar) means? To me this seems like a severe error, the kind of thing that might happen if one of the computers in a modem race crashed; the error seems to imply there's no communications happening at all. I don't understand how this can happen in the context of a multi-player Hawaii race, since Nascar is not initiating the modem communication, eterm is. And eterm communications works fine. Between Hawaii_Help and every hint on this forum I've tried everything I can think of. Hawaii is installed in the Nascar directory. I've tried it at both 9600 and 19200 baud, setting this both in the modem init string and the eterm comm rate, and I've tried all the init strings for turning off compression, error correction, variable connect rate, etc. I've tried the exact init strings other USR 28.8 Sportster users are using successfully. It just don't wanna go. Any suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated. Joe

>Can anyone at Papyrus explain what the "Remote not available (timed >out)" error (ie., when I switch to Nascar) means? >To me this seems like a severe error, the kind of thing that might >happen if one of the computers in a modem race crashed; the error >seems to imply there's no communications happening at all. Joe, it sounds like there is probably a problem with the telecomm connection on your international call. We pump data bidirectionally at pretty close to 9600 BPS, and with error correction disabled, it requires a very clean phone line to establish a good connection. My guess is the long distance link you're trying to establish with Boston from BC isn't up to the task. I'd like to be able to give you a better software diagnostic than that, but as a practical matter, I suspect you wouldn't be able to get any further if the message were more specific. Have you been able to establish a two-player modem connection with anyone else? It might be easier for you to work out your modem connection head to head rather than through Hawaii. You can also contact Charlie Heath Papyrus Design Group

>Joe, it sounds like there is probably a problem with the telecomm >connection on your international call. Bummer. When Hawaii is out of beta do you plan to resolve this issue? Will you allow a server in Canada, or will Hawaii be strictly a US-only thing? If you can't get access to the customers who want it, you should be prepared to lose those [loyal] customers to the competition. Maybe so, but I hate to be guessing when the problem is severe enough to prevent a customer from accessing the system. And for the problem you've described wouldn't I expect a "Slow latency" error? Unless the latency was so bad (like > 5 seconds) that it thinks there's no connection - but I can see in eterm that it's no where near this bad, when I make a keyboard selection the eterm server responds almost instantly. No, I'll see if I can find someone locally to try it. There's a local BBS where a bunch of racing fans hang out. >You can also contact I've done so, ever since the server opened. They don't know what's causing the error, and seem to have run out of ideas. I haven't heard from them for 2 days, and the last several days before that they had just been suggesting things I've already tried (like init strings and making sure Hawaii's in the Nascar directory). Looks like my Nascar racing days are coming to a premature end. I guess I'm back to reading threads about slippng FGPII release dates for e***ment. :-( Joe

> Bummer. When Hawaii is out of beta do you plan to resolve this issue? > Will you allow a server in Canada, or will Hawaii be strictly a > US-only thing? If you can't get access to the customers who want it, > you should be prepared to lose those [loyal] customers to the > competition. Joe,I was a tester in the closed beta and I live in Ontario, Canada! I have never had any problem connecting to Papyrus. I think I remember a closed beta tester from BC. But only raced him once or twice. I doubt this is the problem. Wish,I could help you! Hope you get it figured out! Pete

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>We pump data bidirectionally at pretty close to 9600 BPS, and with error >correction disabled, it requires a very clean phone line to establish a >good connection. My guess is the long distance link you're trying to >establish with Boston from BC isn't up to the task. I'd like to be able to >give you a better software diagnostic than that, but as a practical matter, >I suspect you wouldn't be able to get any further if the message were more >specific.

I've done some more testing, am I'm almost positive that the problem is NOT a bad phone line/connection. Yesterday I logged on and it downloaded the latest Hawaii.zip and multi.zip files (no, they didn't solve my problem - the only difference is that Nascar now crashes after the "remote not avail" message, it never makes it back to eterm). But the interesting thing was the download itself. I was able to easily sustain over 1000 CPS (at 19200) baud. What's more, the latency rate is clearly not a problem - I can see how fast the packets are arriving because of the numbers on the screen (i.e., X of X bytes). Mostly they were updating too fast too read. If I had to guess I'd estimate the latency at no more than 0.1 seconds. So what is it that's different about Nascar (as opposed to eterm) communications? Why would it work fine in eterm, but not at all when it switches to Nascar? Joe