AC bug? Possible or not possible..

[PrInCe]

Hello,

 

We had an issue with someone in the past that need more clear replys now. We had one our Member who was banned from our SilEnt mod server for technical evidence of cheat, but on the video he made and his explanation, it was something with the loading screen. So i would like to know if the change of jaymod to silent mod can cause this bug and this kind of ban?

 

You can also watch his video

 

Hope you will be able to help us.

Waiting for you.

 

Regards,

[Fenrir]

Hello,

 

We had an issue with someone in the past that need more clear replys now. We had one our Member who was banned from our SilEnt mod server for technical evidence of cheat, but on the video he made and his explanation, it was something with the loading screen. So i would like to know if the change of jaymod to silent mod can cause this bug and this kind of ban?

 

You can also watch his video

 

Hope you will be able to help us.

Waiting for you.

 

Regards,

 

Also, we unfortunatly don't know the background programs that were running at the point this video was made, is there any other way? Like prince said, the change of the game mode for example?

Thank you in advance

Edited October 18, 2016 by Fenrir

[sageone]

Some noted key points from the video ...
Player connected to Jaymod server without issues (does not prove he is not running a cheat)

Player connects to silentmod server and is banned on detection of possible cheats

Loading screen (unlike on jaymod) is loading missing (player missing custom pk3?) or replaced textures (server admins that re-use other people's custom packs sometimes leads to this)

 

Assuming player is not cheating.  Install fresh copy of game from splashdamage to a new directory.  Do not install punkbuster service.  When running the 1st time be sure to disable punkbuster.  Delete the pb.cfg or any reference of punkbuster in the player's /etmain/ folder.  Be sure to at least open game to enable profile before connecting to any server.

 

Have the player download the map, mod and any custom pk3 files to ensure the player is ONLY using files the server is looking for on the client.  This rules out any server errors like the client is not getting directed to download all the required files.  Server admins usually overlook this because they have the master copy that built the server

 

If the loading screen fails to load as before then I would investigate further.  There are known hacks that can replace textures (such as replacing walls with glass in pak0.pk3).  Not suggesting your friend is cheating but this might be what the AC is detecting (but I didnt write the AC so no clue what Im saying here lol).

 

A workaround is to find his player ID# and mark it in the default.cfg (on the server under mapconfigs).  Something like unban 3

If he is cheating you would be permitting it - so understand the risks.

Edited October 18, 2016 by sageone

[gaoesa]

I haven't seen his explanation, so I can't comment on that. Bans usually happen right when the player connects to the server so I don't see anything wrong with that. I don't know why his loading screen has missing textures, the video doesn't explain it either. If there is a bug, you would be able to reproduce it with the instructions he gives.

[PrInCe]

Thank you for your help, we will follow these instructions.

Maybe you can take a look a bit to this issue topic to understand it more. In the past, we didn't find anything, and trusted him, but since we have another issue of cheating with him, we need to find if he fool us with this AC bug.

[sageone]

I can say that I have seen the strangest issues over the years.  I know of one guy who installed et3.0 (etdev) as a client and after his windows drive/NTFS corrupted yet his game still worked but he had strange artifacts and blurry textures etc.  Not the yellow/black but like a bad LCD monitor.  He was able to see through certain objects even.  It would crash any etjump server instantly when he would connect but it would work fine on any other mod including silentmod with ac on.  Anyhow, I'm just pointing out the fact that sometimes the issue is Windows or the client of choice (always use vanilla 2.60b from splash damage - avoid legacy and dev).  If it is a regular visitor and they are posting on your forums chances are they are being honest in how they see it - it does not mean cheats are not installed it may mean they dont know about them.  Maybe windows is a pirate copy grabbed from IRC with back door trojans.  Maybe he unknowingly installed a hack by grabbing the wrong et client.  Maybe his NTFS/disk is corrupted (event logs will show it). 

[sageone]

Your same guy has a video showing that corrupt image thing I was mentioning... Definately you can check his windows event logs for disk/ntfs corruption.  Investigate where he installed the game from and how.  Look at his /etmain/ folder (start->run->cmd->dir /s c:\path\to\etmain\ > mydirlist.txt).  Look for suspicious files.  Task manager (show all processes) and also startup tab and services to spot any unknown hooks etc.  His desktop looks to retain some of the original Windows 10 icons - he may not be a computer savvy person.  Again this are just ideas to keep an open mind about.  At the end of the day he could very well be using cheats trolling your forums and server (these people do exist on the internet lol)

 

Adding sysinternals for monitoring processes (not seen by task manager)

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645.aspx

 

 

Your thread where he posted is dated a year ago.  How was he unbanned back then to allow him to be banned again this year?  Did somebody set unban # somewhere or did he circumvent the ban?

What makes the incident back then comparable to this one in terms of a pattern to spot and possibly uncover the root cause (if a bug)?  Same computer same et install etc?  Might help you narrow down the issue.

Edited October 20, 2016 by sageone

[PrInCe]

 

 

Your thread where he posted is dated a year ago.  How was he unbanned back then to allow him to be banned again this year?  Did somebody set unban # somewhere or did he circumvent the ban? What makes the incident back then comparable to this one in terms of a pattern to spot and possibly uncover the root cause (if a bug)?

 

He was unbanned from our Silent mod server because some of us may think it was a real bug. We didn't know him very well when it happened because he joined our Clan Sun Jul 17, 2016, and AC bug happened Fri Jul 22, 2016. But now, he was caught using wallhack on one of our tournament, where we opened another issue topic. But this new story allowed us to think about this old AC bug story, and some questions come to our mind. Was really an AC bug? Did he said us the true?

 

For now, we didn't decided anything on this new issue yet, because we are waiting some replys from here.

[gaoesa]

Sounds like there was no bug back then and there is none now. Always insist a way to reproduce the issue. In case it was asked between the lines, missing textures don't affect the AC.

[sageone]

Missing textures shouldnt effect AC but it could be an indication of other issues. (incorrect et client, issues on the windows desktop layer, aimbots, wall hacks, etc).

 

I was curious so I tried to dig up info on your player and while Pear and Apple are not easily googled due to being common names, splatter ladder does show them connecting to jaymod servers only.  I cannot find him connecting as that name to any silent mod server.  But this could mean he never tried until after he was AC banned (all silent servers) on your server.  He also visited a trickjump server for 30 minutes and that should suggest he might know more about ET and all of its' known hacks (rshook, etc), bugs, etc.

 

Also, what is this about?  How was he able to drop med packs as an engineer?  Is this something anybody can do on your server or is this something only player did?  Is this a server-side cvar in say a diff mod like jaymod?  Or is this a feature of et3.0 (etdev allows you to switch textures such as making all players the african american fieldops)?  The real question is how is somebody who is curious about such hacks (even if they are technically not hacks) coincidentally the only person I have heard of finding such an AC bug.

[sageone]

A perfect example of how any noob can grab the wrong et client and get banned from silent mod (or punk buster if that was still even alive lol).

 

http://aimbots.net/threads/26167-Release-ET-Dev-Test-client

[TitaN655]

Hello, I just want to clear some things up quickly. 

 

Sounds like there was no bug back then and there is none now. Always insist a way to reproduce the issue. In case it was asked between the lines, missing textures don't affect the AC.

Our member was indeed banned by AC, and we came here seeking guidance on if this is a bug or not. I would just like to correct what Prince said in that we caught him using a wallhack in our of our tournaments - we did not 'catch' him, but we do indeed suspect him of using a wallhack after watching a few demos of him. This does not 100% guarantee his use of said wallhack and indeed we do have some people who are still skeptical, so in my opinion it could still be anything that would cause such a bug.

 

I'll carry out some quick investigations to see if I can replicate the issue myself.

[gaoesa]

Hello, I just want to clear some things up quickly. 

 

Our member was indeed banned by AC, and we came here seeking guidance on if this is a bug or not. I would just like to correct what Prince said in that we caught him using a wallhack in our of our tournaments - we did not 'catch' him, but we do indeed suspect him of using a wallhack after watching a few demos of him. This does not 100% guarantee his use of said wallhack and indeed we do have some people who are still skeptical, so in my opinion it could still be anything that would cause such a bug.

There is no point in using the AC if you're going to dismiss all the bans as bugs without a reason.

 

I'll carry out some quick investigations to see if I can replicate the issue myself.

You really should have done that before creating the topic here. The bare minimum would have been to post a description about how to reproduce the ban. Now this topic just looks like someone is socially engineering your clan.

[TitaN655]

There is no point in using the AC if you're going to dismiss all the bans as bugs without a reason.

Judging from the video provided, the most likely cause is a bug. I'm not dismissing the ban as a bug though which is why, as I said, i'm going to try and replicate it myself to see if it is another cause.

 

 

You really should have done that before creating the topic here. The bare minimum would have been to post a description about how to reproduce the ban. Now this topic just looks like someone is socially engineering your clan.

Well, i'm sorry for not being the creator of this topic and not knowing about it's existence until it was bought to my attention. This does not steer away from the fact that there may be a bug that needs addressing.

[gaoesa]

Judging from the video provided, the most likely cause is a bug. I'm not dismissing the ban as a bug though which is why, as I said, i'm going to try and replicate it myself to see if it is another cause.

The video really shows nothing.

Well, i'm sorry for not being the creator of this topic and not knowing about it's existence until it was bought to my attention. This does not steer away from the fact that there may be a bug that needs addressing.

However, so far nothing to even suggest a bug in the AC has been given. Let me remind that the first thing to do is to have a reproducible event. It looks like the person has no problem reproducing as he is making videos. But he doesn't bother finding out how to reproduce it, not for your clan members or for us to reproduce it. Instead he just makes a video of getting banned with some textures missing and calls it a bug.

 

Please, next post should have some actual content for the topic. If you can't make such a post, then please don't post. This still isn't your clan forum for meaningless chatter.

[sageone]

IMO his original post was both to investigate if a bug and if so, how one goes about handling such a situation.  We are now concluding that it is not a 'known' bug unless proven otherwise.  What gaoesa is saying is that bugs are reproducible.  If you can reproduce the issue to which you can then forward the steps for silentmod team to reproduce the issue on their end in the same light - then there is a means to investigate what part of the process is leading to an AC ban.  Missing textures (yellow/back color) as mentioned does not lead to a ban but it does suggest his et client is unique, there is other things going on in /etmain/ or something else

 

While I understand the point here is to reduce chatter and stay on point, there is little information on how exactly AC works (or is there?) which Im sure helps make AC great but it also leads to server admins contemplating if the issue is indeed a cheater or an unknown bug. I'm hoping this thread will at least help other server admins with the same issue.

 

Maybe a sticky with steps to reproduce the issue in a supported environment (link to splashdamage, steps, etc).  What does Silent Mod deem 'an acceptable install'?  Take for example etlegacy or etdev.  Maybe even rule sticky regarding AC - which would allow forum admins to reply with the sticky URL and be done with it.

[gaoesa]

Every bug is reproducible. There are no magic things happening. It is acceptible as a bug report when you can say what changes a working case into a case that bans. If there are specific actions that lead to a ban on an install which does not otherwise give a ban, then those steps are the first thing needed. Again, the same steps work to ban always or it is not those steps that is the cause. In another case, if you can find a pk3 file that makes you get banned. There are some cheats that proxy system dll files and can be inside a pk3 file in the working directory. Server specific proxy dlls (private anti-cheat programs (or other)) are not known to cause bans when connecting to a server without them. That is because the mod is reloaded every time server or map changes. The binary that is referenced by the server is used as long as the server has the sv_pure 1 setting enabled. I'm intentionally using term "not known to". So far it has not happened on testing and such a thing has not been reported. But I can't give guarantee as I have not investigated the mod loading techniques in the engine to that level. Also, self made ET client could behave differently. In any case, it would still be reproducible.

 

Everything works in a rational way and all bugs are reproducible. It is just a matter to analyze what is different and isolate the thing that is causing the ban. We can't do it on behalf of anyone. It is always good to remember that blaming a bug without actually providing any evidence for that is just an attempt to socially engineer the ban. You can compare such case to a rage botter calling admins noob when they ban him.

[sageone]

In another case, if you can find a pk3 file that makes you get banned. There are some cheats that proxy system dll files and can be inside a pk3 file in the working directory. Server specific proxy dlls (private anti-cheat programs (or other)) are not known to cause bans when connecting to a server without them. That is because the mod is reloaded every time server or map changes. The binary that is referenced by the server is used as long as the server has the sv_pure 1 setting enabled. 

 

Is it possible that a client can connect to a jaymod server, autodownload a custom map such as z_darkness.pk3 which contains such dll then when client connects to silent mod AC detects it? 

 

Regardless of ban issues, I install a fresh copy of wolfenstein for every unique server IP I visit to reduce mod/map clutter in my /etmain/ folders.  Have not seen missing textures since

[gaoesa]

The mod can detect things that are loaded into the process. For example one OpenGL hack works this way, the dll is dropped to the working directory and it gets automatically loaded instead of the actual one. It doesn't really matter how such a dll ends up in to the working directory. But note that it does not detect hacks from such dll files if they are not loaded by the ET process. The working directory is only relevant here because that is where the servers can make the clients download stuff. To be honest, I don't remember if there are such hacks that can load from silent/etmain directories automatically or if it is possible to make the client download stuff to the working directory with some zip archiving hack. Usually you would want to place such proxying dll files into the directory with the ET.exe. However, it is also possible one would connect to a server with a private AC that would install some background service which could hook the ET executable everytime it is launched and could be detected by the silent mod AC.