[Potential] Fix for initial-joining-game PB disconnection

[Psyrus]

Hey guys,

After months of reading reports about punkbuster [henceforth PB] causing an issue where people join a server for the first time in a play-session and are disconnected, and then can connect fine after that... I put together a new PC and had PB cause this issue. My laptop was fine though, so what I did was experimented with the various PB files that would relate to PB itself (pbstrA/B) and the game-specific files (dlls and HTM files) - Eventually I found out it is related to the
/Battlefield 2/pb/ folder

I copied this folder over from my laptop (which has been playing PR no issues) and it loaded without that initial-join failure. I did eventually get kicked from the server due to it not being updated or something, but I've since played about 10 hours of PR (mostly on CIA) and have had no subsequent kicks. I did use pb_sleep 500 though, so I would suggest anyone trying this fix to do the same.

Steps to try solution:

1. Backup your /Battlefield 2/pb/ folder then remove the original /pb/ folder (we'll be putting my one in there)
2. Download the file [Here]
3. Unzip the file to /Battlefield 2/pb/
4. Try to join a PR game, see if it does the initial-join disconnect
5. If not, once in-game... open the console (~) and type:
   • pb_sleep 500 and pb_writecfg

Please test for a few hours and let me know if it works for you. Hope it helps other people!!!

[BigLouieG]

Initial joining working good so far. Gotta test a couple of hours for packets lost.

Well done.

[brezmans]

Confirmed here, initial disconnect fixed as soon as I replaced my PB folder.

Very nice find!

[AfterDune]

I guess it's back as soon as you update pb manually / through that pb updater?

[Mineral]

psyrus, can I make love to you plox?

thank you very much!

[Psyrus]

I guess it's back as soon as you update pb manually / through that pb updater?

Yeah... but why would you manually update when you have a working PB version that doesn't suffer the issue?

[AfterDune]

I didn't say that . But the PR installer for example automatically updates your PB and it's annoying to then fix the PB thing again. But it's better than always suffer from the bug.

[LITOralis.nMd]

Yeah, so fix the PR installer for the next release.

Also, are we sure there isn't unique identifiers in this folder?
We'll never find out, but Psyrus will find out when he gets a global ban for a leaked unique ID.

[Psyrus]

LITOralis.nMd;1861486']Yeah, so fix the PR installer for the next release.

Also, are we sure there isn't unique identifiers in this folder?
We'll never find out, but Psyrus will find out when he gets a global ban for a leaked unique ID.

Haha I hope there isn't, but if it does happen, I have 3 more BF2 Cdkeys that I can use

[AfterDune]

Yeah, so fix the PR installer for the next release.

Why? PR is not at fault here, PB is.

[Psyrus]

Why? PR is not at fault here, PB is.

Yeah but what he's saying is PB clearly has no interest in fixing it, so we can fix things on our end rather than dooming everyone to the double-join bug.

[AfterDune]

I get what he's saying, but it's not the PR installer that needs fixing as it's not broken, that what I meant .

If this fix works, perhaps we can apply it in a future version, but we'll see I suppose. Mostly AM's call though.

[Psyrus]

Yeah, for sure ^_^

I just hope it helps people!

>_>
...
<_<
...

And my cdkey doesn't get banned for some reason~

[fillsson]

Awesome! Works so far

[Hunterman0101]

Ouch it works for me. THX

[ukVandal]

I just keep getting - "pb_zip could not be downloaded"

Any ideas?

[Psyrus]

I just keep getting - "pb_zip could not be downloaded"

Any ideas?

Works fine for me... at what point does it conk out? Can you get to the dropbox page?

[notmyingamename]

any chance this helps the key packet plague? because i think these (double join and packet loss) cropped up around the same time for myself

[DonDOOM]

Tested it out, and the initial join is fixed. The PB kick for packet loss is still an issue though, with the console commands it might not happen as frequently, (<- not sure about this ) but it still happens.

[Psyrus]

Tested it out, and the initial join is fixed. The PB kick for packet loss is still an issue though, with the console commands it might not happen as frequently, (<- not sure about this ) but it still happens.

Is this packet loss kicks that you were experiencing before trying my fix, or did they start after applying it?