Questions regarding mod management post QoL

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6 hours ago, myxal said:

When this QoL launched, I took a closer look at the full game's nullrenderer executables and found that they actually aren't the same (by md5sum), between the full game package and the dedicated server package.

I was actually using the DST dedicated server's dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe from steamcmd to run -only_update_server_mods -ugc_directory "../somefoldername" for plugin downloads / updates (so I wasn't doing it through the DST client's nullrenderer exe). Although, based on your mention of the two nullrenderer exe files actually being different (md5sums), I decided to try a few things:

1) I used a different PC to try a fresh steamcmd DST dedicated server setup, just purely to test the plugin downloading. After running steamcmd +login anonymous +app_update 343050 validate +quit to download and validate the DST dedicated server files, I updated the dedicated_server_mods_setup.lua as usual and ran dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe -only_update_server_mods -ugc_directory "../somefoldername", and it did actually successfully download both the V1 and V2 mods. It also automatically extracted the V1 mod to the ./mods folder.

2) I went back to the regular PC host (with the setup that wasn't working). I specifically ran dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe -only_update_server_mods -ugc_directory "../somefoldername" there, and it still had the same results as before, where the V1 mod failed to download. I ran this a few times and they all failed to download the V1 mod.

3) On the regular PC host, I specifically re-ran steamcmd +login anonymous +app_update 343050 validate +quit, with the validate option, specifically to ensure that all the files for the dedicated server were correct / reset again (like on the other PC's setup where it worked). I also updated dedicated_server_mods_setup.lua again to include my V1 and V2 mods, because every time you validate, this file will be reset to default.

4) I re-ran dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe -only_update_server_mods -ugc_directory "../somefoldername" and it was actually able to download the V1 mod.

5) I deleted all the mod folders to double check and re-run dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe -only_update_server_mods -ugc_directory "../somefoldername"  again. It successfully downloaded both the V2 and V1 mods to the ugc folder, and automatically extracted the V1 mod to the ./mods folder.

6) I ran my regular .bat to launch the dedicated server and both the V1 and V2 mods loaded successfully.

 

I'm not sure why, but I guess the re-validating of the DST dedicated server files allowed the dedicated server to both download the V1/V2 mods as well as properly load the V2 mods when launching the server.

The strange thing though is that I had already downloaded the DST dedicated server using steamcmd to that PC with validate command when I first setup that server, and it was only a couple days ago too.

Not only that, as I mentioned, I actually ran the -only_update_server_mods command multiple times before the latest re-validate, and they were still failing to download the V1 mod. So the only difference is the re-validate a few days apart.

Also looking at the logs for the -only_update_server_mods attempts before and after the re-validate, one of the failed attempts had the error "Failed to log on to Steam, workshop functionality will be disabled.", however, all the other failed attempts did not have that error. The other failed attempts actually look pretty similar in the logs to the successful attempts after re-validate, just that on successful attempts, it shows logs of actually downloading and extracting the V1 mod.

Also, before and after re-validate, the logs all said the build version / date was 481207 / 6871, so the dedicated server version was the same.

Oh and I had the full Steam client running in the background during all of these attempts with steamcmd and the DST dedicated server.

At least I got it working now, and hopefully this info might give clues to anyone else that might be experiencing similar issues.

Thanks, myxal, for your responses. Saying what worked and didn't work for you helped me to at least get ideas on what other stuff I could try to resolve this case.

And for anybody else experiencing issues like this, here's my dedicated server .bat file for reference:

::Update DST::
D:\pathto\steamcmd\steamcmd.exe +login anonymous +app_update 343050 +quit
cd /D "D:\pathto\steamcmd\steamapps\common\Don't Starve Together Dedicated Server\bin"

::Update mods::
dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe -only_update_server_mods -ugc_directory "../somefoldername"

start "DST - World 01 - Master" dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe -skip_update_server_mods -cluster numbers/DST_server_world_01 -shard Master -ugc_directory "../somefoldername"
start "DST - World 01 - Caves"  dontstarve_dedicated_server_nullrenderer.exe -skip_update_server_mods -cluster numbers/DST_server_world_01 -shard Caves -ugc_directory "../somefoldername"

Also for reference, the ugc mod folder set here shows up under:

D:\pathto\steamcmd\steamapps\common\Don't Starve Together Dedicated Server\somefoldername

V1 mods will show up under:

D:\pathto\steamcmd\steamapps\common\Don't Starve Together Dedicated Server\mods

The ugc mods actually use a different folder structure, so I keep the V1 and ugc mod folders separate.