What causes the white lightmap bug?

[ckx_]

I'm sure we're all familiar with the bug in the attached screenshot; in which your client's lightmap rendering has some catastrophic failure and turns all map textures into a pure white flash bang.

The common workaround for this is to type /lightmap to disable lightmaps, then live with no lighting until you can do a client restart. But do we know what triggers this state? Are there any known workarounds to mitigate it (perhaps to a map's shadow or lighting data)?

Are we forever forsaken to /lightmap eating a macro slot and needing to find a moment to restart the client?

 

[Gidz Cross]

That usually happens if you open another program with admin priviledge requirements while you are playing your ragnarok. and too much alt tabbing.

[Rynbef]

Have u tried @refresh ?

 

Rynbef~

[ckx_]

On 1/27/2024 at 5:50 AM, Gidz Cross said:

That usually happens if you open another program with admin priviledge requirements while you are playing your ragnarok. and too much alt tabbing.

Thanks for the anecdote, but I play via Proton on Fedora without any special privileges involved. I'm not convinced process privileges are a factor, and it can occur even on a fresh client without having alt tabbed. Fullscreen vs Windowed might be a relevant thing, I'm not sure, but I want mitigation techniques that aren't tied to user behavior.

On 1/27/2024 at 11:28 AM, Rynbef said:

Have u tried @refresh ?

Rynbef~

@refresh is a server-side command for synchronization of client view data with the server-side source of truth; it doesn't have anything to do with the purely client-side lightmap rendering (and doesn't help).

I'm more wondering about solutions/workarounds that might be a part of the map lighting, or if we understand the trigger criteria. I notice that I can tell when the lightmap glitch will occur because I get some 3D artifacting right before it happens, but beyond that I don't have much insight into it myself.

Edited January 30, 2024 by ckx_
clarity

[Gidz Cross]

2 hours ago, ckx_ said:

Thanks for the anecdote, but I play via Proton on Fedora without any special privileges involved. I'm not convinced process privileges are a factor, and it can occur even on a fresh client without having alt tabbed. Fullscreen vs Windowed might be a relevant thing, I'm not sure, but I want mitigation techniques that aren't tied to user behavior.

In windows, this does happen with the things I said. 2018 clients and below have this. Not sure for the new clients.

[ckx_]

22 hours ago, Gidz Cross said:

In windows, this does happen with the things I said. 2018 clients and below have this. Not sure for the new clients.

Interesting... So you can confirm with 100% certainty that the bug doesn't occur when running without other applications in Admin mode & never alt tabbing?

When you run another process as admin, does it trigger even if you don't alt-tab? And vice versa, does it occur if you alt-tab with no other admin processes open? The client I play with is 2020-07-15bRagexe.

Thanks for your input.

 

EDIT: Hmm, I booted into Windows and did some playtesting. I got this bug on Payon Dungeon F1 without ever having lost focus, on a fresh boot with nothing else open. For me I feel like it happens sometimes when effects get spammy, but it's like.... really inconsistent... I just don't know...

Edited January 31, 2024 by ckx_