Severe Issue With Layered Clothing Causing Server Crashes

Bug Reports Engine Bugs
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#1

A severe issue has been identified that allows players to crash servers of any game using tools in combination with certain layered clothing UGC accessories. The UGC accessories in question, when equipped, appear invisible but cause significant lag spikes. When combined with the rapid equipping and unequipping of tools, these accessories can crash entire servers and disconnect players. The accessories in question are typically box-shaped but appear completely invisible on avatars in-game. Two specific accessories have been linked in the private PM (and I’m sure there’s many more similar to them) and engineers can @ me to request these links if they’re unable to access them.

I’m hoping to have two resolutions as a result of this report:

  1. The items linked are taken down swiftly to prevent them from decimating our (or any other games’) player count any further.
  2. The root vulnerability with UGC validation that allows these abusive accessories to be uploaded in the first place is resolved.

This vulnerability has had a huge impact on our experience. Our crash rate has increased to a staggering 50%, as shown in the Creator Hub crash rate graph attached, and we’ve seen a 75% reduction in player count due to this issue.

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Several related bug reports have been submitted in relation to this issue but appear to have been overlooked, possibly due to the severity not being fully communicated. One of the item descriptions includes the text, “you already know what this is. @f_al to buy,” suggesting intentional misuse.

Reproduction Steps:

  1. Equip one of the problematic UGC accessories.
  2. Join a game and equip a tool.
  3. Rapidly equip and unequip the tool while the accessory is on.
  4. Observe the lag spikes and eventual server crash.

A very simple reproduction file has been attached in the private message linked to this report, exhibiting the entire issue.

This is a severe bug that needs urgent attention and resolution. Engineers - please let me know if you’re unable to access the private PM attached.

Video demonstrating the issue (perpetrator & random player perspective):


A private message is associated with this bug report

3 Likes
#3

An anonymous user has DMed me on Discord with more info about this - and it’s actually a much bigger issue than first thought. Thousands of these bugged accessories are being uploaded to the catalog each day, and if Roblox doesn’t do one of the following quickly, the issue is going to spread to more and more games:

  1. Fix the bug causing the lag with these accessories (this allows the thousands of glitched accessories to stay uploaded but just not cause any harm which is ideal).
  2. Improve the UGC validation checks to disallow these kinds of accessories from being uploaded in the first place (this means Roblox will have to go through all the recently-uploaded avatar assets and take down the thousands of bugged ones, including the ones linked in the PM).

:bangbang: Very helpful info provided by the user:

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