[Bug 20433] New: Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

Summary: Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS
                    requests
           Product: Wine
           Version: 1.1.31
          Platform: PC
        OS/Version: Linux
            Status: UNCONFIRMED
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: winsock
        AssignedTo: [e-mail]
        ReportedBy: [e-mail]

Earth Eternal is an online game by Sparkplay Media with an AppDB entry here:

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=18115

The game is usually started with a parameter telling it where to find its
resources. The parameter takes the form of a URL.

The current standard URL is used here:

wine Spark.exe
"http://static.beta.eartheternal.com/Release/Current/EarthEternal.car"

However, if this is done in WINE, Earth Eternal floods WINE with
gethostbyname() calls (500 calls per second on my machine). The calls all
return the correct IP address, I've verified this by adding some ugly trace
code to dlls/ws2_32/socket.c. Since Earth Eternal is closed source, we cannot
find out whether the result of the gethostbyname() call is used correctly or
whether that loop of gethostbyname() calls is a bug.

We are now trying to disassemble the binary to find out.

It seems the game might work otherwise, it has a simple 3D renderer built in a
popular engine (OGRE), and there are a few OGRE-based games that already work
in WINE.

There is a workaround to at least partially get EE to connect and retrieve its
data files. If started like this:

wine Spark.exe "http://208.71.157.18/Release/Current/EarthEternal.car"

The date files are fetched and installed. Connection still fails at the login
screen, though, because the program then proceeds to establish *all*
connections with 208.71.157.18 instead of using the respective servers (login,
static content and routing servers).

Some details of this bug are discussed here:

http://www.eartheternal.com/forums/earth-eternal-chat/topics/EE-on-Linux-In-...

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #1 from Juan Lang   2009-10-21 12:45:10 ---
Is there a download or demo available?

Any console output?

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #2 from Ramon Cahenzli   2009-10-21 14:14:19 ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> Is there a download or demo available?

I first thought one needs to have an account in order to download the
installer, but apparently I can also just link there:

http://static.beta.eartheternal.com/Release/Current/Platform/SparkPlayerInst...
> Any console output?

Oh, sure! Sorry. I will attach a log of WINEDEBUG='+winsock' on Spark.exe as
well as Spark.exe's and WINE's own STDERR output. It's all rolled into one
file, but the "trace:" at the start should make it easy to filter the winsock
bits.

I think we can see that gethostbyname() never actually returns null (if I read
this log correctly), so Earth Eternal should be happy, take the returned
hostent struct and cheerfully connect to the indicated server.

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #3 from Ramon Cahenzli   2009-10-21 14:14:59 ---
Created an attachment (id=24269)
 --> (http://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=24269)
Earth Eternal flooding gethostbyname() but ignoring its result

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #4 from Ramon Cahenzli   2009-10-23 10:56:35 ---
Created an attachment (id=24293)
 --> (http://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=24293)
Running EE using hostname as argument

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #5 from Ramon Cahenzli   2009-10-23 10:56:54 ---
Created an attachment (id=24294)
 --> (http://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=24294)
Running EE using IP as an argument

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #6 from Ramon Cahenzli   2009-10-23 10:57:23 ---
Created an attachment (id=24295)
 --> (http://bugs.winehq.org/attachment.cgi?id=24295)
akoshka's patch to ws2_32/socket.c

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #7 from Ramon Cahenzli   2009-10-23 10:58:26 ---
Earth Eternal forum user akoshka has identified a problem either in WINE, in
Earth Eternal or in Microsoft's documentation for inet_addr().

The rest of this comment is a quote from akoshka's posting, and a patch to
socket.c is attached to the bug:

After running Wine with the additional WINEDEBUG option 'relay', I noticed
there some suspicious differences :-

Run1 - Using the hostname

(see attached "run_using_hostname.txt")

Run2 - Using the IP address

(see attached "run_using_ip.txt")

There are two differences there. First off the value 0xffffffff is returned
from ws2_32.inet_addr when using a hostname in the URL, yet something that
looks more like a 4 byte IP address is returned when the IP address URL is
used.

So, I checked the MSDN documentation for inet_addr. It appears that this call
is supposed by used to resolve IP addresses (not hostnames) to a 4 byte
unsigned long.

The documentation does not suggest that fully qualified hostnames should be
used. Yet, it appears thats exactly what spark player is doing.

So I hacked around in the WS_inet_addr function, again in socket.c. I've added
a hack to attempt to resolve as a hostname as well. If that works, then the 4
byte unsigned long of that hosts address is returned instead.

Fired up the client using the hostname URL, and it worked straight off!!!
> From the login screen, through the character selection, to actually being in

the game, with all textures loaded (I also cleared out the cache to prove
this).

The only thing I've seen so far that doesn't work is screen resizing.

All of this suggests to me that :-

1) Spark player is incorrectly using the inet_addr function somewhere. Although
it works.
2) The MSDN documentation is wrong and doesn't say that hostnames can be used.

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

Rockfire  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

--- Comment #8 from Rockfire   2010-07-09 14:01:43 ---
Just a bump really. This issue still exists in the game, and it would be nice
to not have to patch it anymore!

The above patch still works, and looks to me like it only really implements an
undocumented feature of the socket API.

I would prove this myself, but do not currently have access to a Windows
installation.

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

Kai Blin  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
           Keywords|                            |patch

--- Comment #9 from Kai Blin   2010-07-10 02:29:45 ---
Sounds like an easy test case to do. I'll try to make some time to look into
this.

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

Bruno Jesus  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
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                 CC|                            |[e-mail]

--- Comment #10 from Bruno Jesus  2011-11-23 21:13:51 CST ---
I have tested inet_addr in several different ways it does not resolve names, it
ever returns INADDR_NONE for anything that is not an IP.

Can any player attach a +winsock in 1.3.33? Some useful things have changed in
sockets since the last post in this bug.

The log from comment 3 shows that the applications calls select/read in an
unbind and unconnected socket which is useless and returns errors. I really
would appreciate a newer log.

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #11 from Rockfire  2011-11-26 09:03:57 CST ---
Unfortunately, both the Earth Eternal and the Japanese version Ikimonogatari
servers are now both closed (again). Coincidentally, Earth Eternal closed on
the very day you posted this reply :)

It's not looking hugely likely that they will be coming back either, although
nothing official from the publishers yet.

With this uncertainty, I'm not sure if this bug is worth is worth any further
effort, at least at the moment. One enterprising player has built a server, but
nothing public or that can be legally used.

For what it's worth. I do know the patch was still required with 1.1.30 (the
last version I tried), but no longer have any logs available.

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #12 from Rockfire  2011-11-26 09:09:51 CST ---
Correction "For what it's worth. I do know the patch was still required with
1.3.30 (the last version I tried)"

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

--- Comment #13 from Bruno Jesus  2012-03-03 21:21:06 CST ---
This bug is most likely abandoned because Earth Eternal is no longer available.
Download links no longer work and the game server was shutdown.

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

Austin English  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|UNCONFIRMED                 |RESOLVED
         Resolution|                            |ABANDONED

--- Comment #14 from Austin English  2012-03-04 13:21:50 CST ---
(In reply to comment #13)
> This bug is most likely abandoned because Earth Eternal is no longer available.
> Download links no longer work and the game server was shutdown.

Abandoned.

[Bug 20433] Earth Eternal cannot connect, creates flood of DNS requests

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=20433

Austin English  changed:

What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|RESOLVED                    |CLOSED

--- Comment #15 from Austin English  2012-03-04 17:32:27 CST ---
Closing.