Player Team changes not replicated across clients

Bug Reports Engine Bugs
#1

There exists a bug on PF for a while where someone thinks they are one one team, but every other client sees him on the other team. Or rather, some do and others don’t, producing a variety of bizarre contradictions and weird behavior.

A video capturing this bug can be found here (ignore the audio, it’s using Roblox’s recorder and has issues) - YouTube

I kept wondering how this could have been caused and I believe I finally found a clue.

The current issue:

  • Server changes players’ teams
  • Team change for a specific player does not replicate to the other clients

I have confirmed this once by going to console log and printing out the teamcolor of a player who experienced this glitch on my server.

He appeared to be on teamcolor Bright orange to me and every other player.
However, when I printed out his teamcolor through server console log, the result was teamcolor Bright blue.

The potential cause:

  • Server changes players’ teams at the end of each round
  • Maps are removed and new maps are cloned into workspace, creating a large chunk of data being sent through network traffic
  • New player joins as all of this massive data is being sifted around to update clients
  • The server changes the new player’s team at some instant as he joins but the change is lost within the massive data changes

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The key clue I found here is that it most likely involves a new player joining when a massive map change takes place and his teamcolor getting changed in the process, but does not replicate to other clients because the data was lost somehow?

Hopefully this might help aid in figuring out this rare but critical glitch.

3 Likes
#2

To narrow this down someone needs to determine if this is a bug with the player list or a bug with replication. This should be done by running a LocalScript and printing out the player’s TeamColor.

Another consideration: is it possible the Neutral property is somehow involved?

#3

Based on some deductive reasoning from the video of the glitch, I can determine the Neutral property is not involved and that the player’s teamcolor (on all other clients, not including the glitched player himself) is in fact the opposite of the server’s teamcolor.

You can reason this because the enemies see him as an ally, while his teammates see him as an enemy.

If it was the possibility that his teamcolor was simply neutral and not set to either teams, both the enemy team and his allies would see him as an enemy, but we largely see the enemy team ignoring him completely as an ally.

Therefore it’s more likely this originates from a bug with replication, but perhaps leads to a bug with the player list.

#4

We changed the order of map swapping and team balancing in Phantom Forces. After doing so, we’ve received an influx of reports regarding this bug, which confirms this is a bug with replication.