The long and short of it is that the website hub reporting for servers has been pretty flaky for as long as I can remember. Shutting down or rebooting a server can leave a "phantom" version of that server being reported in the live games list for minutes or hours after the server goes down. When rebooting a server this can cause a duplicate entry in the list which confuses players (even though joining a "copy" of the server sends them to the right place so long as the IP hasn't changed).
By "reboot" I mean either a soft reboot or an actual Dream Daemon shut down and manual restart. Both produce the same results.
Numbered Steps to Reproduce Problem:
Shutting down or rebooting a server with lots of players online has the best chance to cause this issue. It seems to happen when one more more users still report to the hub as being online in the shutdown server. The more players there are online when you reboot a server, the more likely it is that at least one of them will be afflicted.
This causes no problems for the users in question, but I have noticed that certain users tend to show up on the phantom server lists on a regular basis. It's as if their pager just isn't reporting things properly, which leads to the false online hub reporting.
For example, last year Unknown Person used to afk a lot and so his key was often online during server reboots. It would sometimes take hours until the phantom server which showed him as the only player logged in would disappear from the online servers listing.
Workarounds:
There aren't any workarounds. This is largely just a cosmetic issue, but the confusion it creates is kind of a headache to deal with.
A screenshot of the hub shortly after a reboot with the new servers and the duplicates showing up:
http://files.byondhome.com/SilkGames/bugs/hub_dupes.png
Here is the JSON output from the hub that shows the originals and duplicates. The old servers are the Algol/Zenithia servers on top that show as having more players, as this information was taken within a minute of the reboot.
Just to note: For Algol I shut down the Dream Daemon completely and opened a new instance of it before restarting. For Zenithia I just clicked the button to start the server back up without closing/restarting the DD first.
live_games = {
hub: {
name: 'NEStalgia',
author: 'Silk Games',
path: 'SilkGames.NEStalgia',
url: 'http://www.byond.com/games/SilkGames/NEStalgia',
icon: 'http://www.byond.com/games/hubicon/78209.png',
small_icon: 'http://www.byond.com/games/hubicon/78209_s.png',
banner: 'http://www.byond.com/games/banners/78209.png',
created: 'Dec 31 1969'
},
count: 5,
title: '5 Games Live!',
worlds: [
{id: 2117498636,
url: 'byond://BYOND.world.1666664065',
status: 'Server: Algol | PvE | v1.62',
host: 'Silk Games',
total_players: 27,
players_title: '27 Players Online',
players: ['TommyG','Ajogamer','Trauma Hound','Laser Money'],
guests: 23},
{id: 1672604278,
url: 'byond://BYOND.world.1095626353',
status: 'Server: Zenithia | Open PvP | v1.62',
host: 'Silk Games',
total_players: 15,
players_title: '15 Players Online',
players: ['Druid Mettol','Evil-Inuyasha'],
guests: 13},
{id: 261908844,
url: 'byond://BYOND.world.87717778',
status: 'Closed Test | Open PvP | v1.63',
host: 'Silk Games',
total_players: 4,
players_title: '4 Players Online',
players: ['Ruesen','Majorawesome','Harudoku'],
guests: 1},
{id: 1877983020,
url: 'byond://BYOND.world.1666664065',
status: 'Server: Algol | PvE | v1.62',
host: 'Silk Games',
total_players: 4,
players_title: '4 Players Online',
players: ['TempestWolf','Arkainn','Metaligoat','Saint Garf'],
guests: 0},
{id: 1338899059,
url: 'byond://BYOND.world.1095626353',
status: 'Server: Zenithia | Open PvP | v1.62',
host: 'Silk Games',
total_players: 2,
players_title: '2 Players Online',
players: ['Derekbro','Thatos'],
guests: 0}
]
};
