Frequently Asked Questions (and their answers)
- Why doesn't it work with Internet Explorer v7?
Starting with version 1.01, it does. However...
By default, for an FTP connection, IE presents the Viewer's HTML file as a text file, instead of rendering it as though it were received from a web server. To change that behavior in the Viewer's favor:- bring up the Security Settings form
(Tools | Internet Options | Security (tab) | Custom Level) - disable Open files based on content, not file extension
- click OK
- click OK
- bring up the Security Settings form
- Why are there (sometimes) so many more line items than screenshots?
PunkBuster™ creates screenshots whose file names are recycled after a specified number of them have been taken. This prevents game server disk space from being consumed by screenshots. However, the screenshot index goes on forever, without deleting references to items that have been replaced. So, only the last indexed reference to a screenshot is valid. The others have been overwritten and lost to the ages.
- Why don't all of a player's aliases appear?
The raw data is restricted to that found in PunkBuster's screenshot index file at the time of Viewer use (if via FTP) or file copy (if used locally). No past history is kept by the Viewer. If a player has not used an alias within the time period covered by the current index, it cannot appear in the Viewer.
- Why do some PunkBuster™ index entries fail validation?
What is the nature of excluded entries?
Index entries can fail validation due to:
- corrupted index entries
- oddities in player names
Based on the way the index is retrieved by the Viewer, and because the PunkBuster™ index pretends to be an HTML file, some web browsers attempt to make good HTML sense of each index entry. This can result in the web browser altering an entry from the original source file. Sometimes, such changes result in subsequent valid entries being included as part of previous entries. Sometimes, an entry passes validation but with a player name that includes part of a subsequent entry.
Future versions of the Viewer would like to be able to do a better job of reducing the number of excluded entries. All versions of the Viewer have experienced excluded entries. Exclusions were not exposed until version 1.01. - Why is all the Viewer content in one column?
(instead of having pane E on the right side)
Perhaps your window is not wide enough. Maximize your window, increase screen resolution (from Desktop | Properties | Settings), or make your text size smaller (by using Ctrl-- — the control and hyphen keys)
Perhaps style sheets are not being used by your web browser. In Firefox v2, be sure menu item View | Page Style | Basic Page Style is selected.
- I see that with each Vista/Windows update, some of my players screenshots become black. Does anyone have an idea if Evenbalance (PB) is working this?
It's normal... usually. PunkBuster requests screenshots from the player's machine. The player's machine is sometimes too busy to reply or the image is damaged in transit or the player has hacked PunkBuster. PBBans is a good resource for learning about such things.
- What -- in your opinion is best screenshot viewer to use for Call Of Duty 4 that is web based?
We use our Viewer for Cod4 and -5.
- How can I get screenshots from my game server to a different server where I have FTP access?
We heard from Hind-d for a CoD4 server...
Find your pbsv.cfg in the /pb folder on your game server.
Download it.
Open it for text editing.
Add a line to it: pb_sv_SsCmd "pb\pbupload.bat"
Save it.
Upload it to replace pbsv.cfg.
Create a new text file named pbupload.bat.
Open it for text editing.
Make its content the following:
cd pb
ftp -v -i -s:pbupload.txt
cd svss
del pb0*.png /q
del pb0*.htm /q
Save it.
Upload it to your /pb folder.
The batch file above will remove all screenshots and .htm files from the COD4 server. It will not remove the pbsvss.htm file.
Create a new text file named pbupload.txt.
Open it for text editing.
Make its content the following:
open yourftpserverdomainname.com
ftpusername
ftppassword
lcd xxx\pb\svss
ascii
put pbsvss.htm
mput pb*.htm
binary
mput pb*.png
bye
quit
Save it.
Upload it to your /pb folder.
For the lcd line, xxx is your game's root directory. for CoD4 it may be something like c:\games\8_3_5_6\67843\cod4. If you look in the pb/svlogs folder and open a log, you should see the root path.
Either restart the server or issue a pb_sv_restart command.
If setup is correct, each time a screenshot is successfully returned, it will be copied to your web server via FTP.
- Why do all of my index entries get excluded?
Having examined a sample of your index file, it was found that none of the entries have GUIDs. According to Evenbalance, there are two causes for this:
(1) connectivity troubles with master server
(2) using a cracked game server
Because NONE of the entries over almost 24 hours included a GUID, it is believed you are using a cracked server. There is no fix for that (unless from you).
- Where can we get Orangepeel's viewer?
www.aliasfinder.co.uk
- Why are screenshots cut out? For instance, a screenshot of 1600x1200 only ends up 600x400. How can I fix that?
PunkBuster parameters can be used to specify the portion of the client's screen to capture. These are specified on the server in pbsv.cfg. I think different games and clients override this, though, as I see different results from different players. I use these:
pb_sv_SsWidth 1200 //[pixel width of screenshots]
pb_sv_SsHeight 900 //[pixel height of screenshots]
pb_sv_SsXpct 50 //[screenshot center as % from left]
pb_sv_SsYpct 50 //[screenshot center as % from top]
Some say PunkBuster restricts total screenshot size -- width x height -- to about 80,000 but this seems to depend on the game and client.
PBBans has a brief discussion about this.
- Why are all my screenshots missing or replaced by red x's?
Missing or broken image icons can occur because the image files mentioned in the PunkBuster index file are missing from the server. If you are moving screenshots to a different location, this could be your reason.
Another documented reason is Internet Explorer v7's habit of saving bookmarks to FTP sites without credentials. For this case, users have reported success by editing the bookmark to include credentials. The proper format is something like:
ftp://user:password@1.2.3.4/pb/svss/msgpbssv.html
- I can open the Viewer with no problem until approximately 29,000 indexed items. After this, Internet Explorer v8 stops responding. Is there a way to set a limit that the PBSS recycles after X amount of PBSS? My pbsv.cfg is set to recycle after 999 screenshots.
This experience could not be reproduced with IE8 nor Firefox 3.5. Each took a while to finish initialization but that's expected with such a large index. Your system may not have enough RAM to hold all the user and alias information; the screenshot space is recycled.
The Viewer does not limit the number of screenshots. The only way to limit them is to edit PunkBuster's index file, pbsvss.htm.
One fix would be to edit your index file as text and remove thousands of entries from the top of it. It's just a text file on your game server in the pb/svss directory, the same one that has the Viewer in it.
It has an entry for each screenshot taken. Each entry looks something like this:
|p| |a href=pb000016.htm target=_blank|000016|/a| "^3{MSG}Goose" (W) GUID=1234...7890(VALID) [2009.06.27 19:14:12]
(where < and > are replaced by | because the HTML causes SMF some confusion, here)
Download the file.
Open it with a text editor.
Select a bunch of entries at the top of the file.
(Because you recycle screenshots after 999, you may want to keep the last 999 entries.)
Hit Delete.
Save the file.
Stop your game server.
Upload the new file to replace the one on the server.
Start your game server.
PunkBuster will now keep adding to the end of your new file.
Warning: The entries used to show screenshots are also used to collect player names and aliases, even if related screenshots have been recycled. If retaining all users and aliases is important to you, you can analyze the entries to remove only those for which a name and GUID will continue to be present. I would first try a ruthless deletion of entries with a backed-up copy of the original file. If that works, you can add user entries back into the front of the file, from the backup, later.
- Why isn't your question here?
Because no one has ever headed over to Contacts or the forum to ask it.
- Why isn't an answer clear?
Because you haven't let us know we answered poorly. Let us know and we'll try harder.