MOTD support is broken

[Eocene]

Hi,

I'm running a dedicated L4D2 server on Linux.

motd_enabled is set to 1 in server.cfg.

motd.txt contains nothing but a HTTP link to my website. This works fine when testing via a browser. index.html is the simplest possible HTML page displaying an image.

It seems MOTD support is totally broken. I can't get any HTML content to display in the game client, only simple text.

Researching the problem on Google shows a lot of other admins experiencing the same problem.

Please fix.

[Eocene]

I didn't ask for your opinion. It is an advertised feature that's broken. Just because you don't see any use for it doesn't mean others don't.

I have a lot of plugins running on my server, and it would save me a lot of time and effort having to explain to players how to use these features over and over again.

I am using a sourcemod plugin currently to display a text panel, but this isn't ideal since it restricts what I can show, and it shows for each new chapter.

A working MOTD would be much nicer not to mention less intrusive.

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by Eocene:

I didn't ask for your opinion. It is an advertised feature that's broken. Just because you don't see any use for it doesn't mean others don't.

I have a lot of plugins running on my server, and it would save me a lot of time and effort having to explain to players how to use these features over and over again.

I am using a sourcemod plugin currently to display a text panel, but this isn't ideal since it restricts what I can show, and it shows for each new chapter.

A working MOTD would be much nicer not to mention less intrusive.

What's "less intrusive" to you, is MORE intrusive to others, plus you realize that there's an option to TURN THAT OFF, if people don't want to see those MOTDs they're just going to turn them the ♥♥♥♥ off so your convenience is pretty much nullified because people are more likely to just have turned it off anyway.

[Eocene]

I don't care about your opinion. Please do not participate in this discussion any further.

[Eocene]

Originally posted by 016R35:

Originally posted by Eocene:

I don't care about your opinion. Please do not participate in this discussion any further.

Do you realise that Valve won't fix it? I've played in a lot of servers with working crappy MOTDs, so the issue is on your side.

I know some have working MOTD's, but I am unable to figure out what they do differently.

If motd_enabled is set and motd.txt contains nothing but the URL to a very simple working webpage, then either there is a bug or someone knows something about motd's that google doesn't.

Stating whether you approve of them is irrelevant here, please do not post if your post does not contain information that might help getting MOTD's working, thank you.

[Cursed Hawkins]

Originally posted by Eocene:

I don't care about your opinion. Please do not participate in this discussion any further.

Public discussion pal! You have zero say over who and what is said on a public post especially when there's nothing rule breaking about them, also wanna know WHY people turned MOTDs off? It's because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ used them to inject ♥♥♥♥ into other people's computers or to entirely hamper their experience on the server, what was first seen as a harmless tool that WAS used to display server rules is now nothing more than a ruined version of itself because of a handful of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you're not going to convince someone to look at a MOTD because either
A: they aren't going to give a ♥♥♥♥ about whatever rules you want to have.
B: they're not going to risk putting anything at risk given the current DDoS situation.
C: even if they didn't turn it off, they're not going to actually READ the MOTD anyway so you're just making it harder for yourself trying to rely on an MOTD and expecting people to READ it.

[sokolov]

Originally posted by Eocene:

I don't care about your opinion. Please do not participate in this discussion any further.

I don't care about your problem. Please stop whining any further.

[Marmarmar34]

Originally posted by Cursed Hawkins:

Originally posted by Eocene:

I don't care about your opinion. Please do not participate in this discussion any further.

Public discussion pal! You have zero say over who and what is said on a public post especially when there's nothing rule breaking about them, also wanna know WHY people turned MOTDs off? It's because ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ used them to inject ♥♥♥♥ into other people's computers or to entirely hamper their experience on the server, what was first seen as a harmless tool that WAS used to display server rules is now nothing more than a ruined version of itself because of a handful of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, you're not going to convince someone to look at a MOTD because either
A: they aren't going to give a ♥♥♥♥ about whatever rules you want to have.
B: they're not going to risk putting anything at risk given the current DDoS situation.
C: even if they didn't turn it off, they're not going to actually READ the MOTD anyway so you're just making it harder for yourself trying to rely on an MOTD and expecting people to READ it.

Literally all I used to do is insta click the exit button whenever those popped up. Disabled it completely when mfs would use it to pop adverts randomly, even during intense fights! MOTDs serve zero purpose and I'm glad they're broken.

[Eocene]

Please, all of you, go spend your time and effort on something you enjoy doing instead of aggressively trying to kneecap this discussion. You contribute nothing of worth.

[Marmarmar34]

Originally posted by Eocene:

Please, all of you, go spend your time and effort on something you enjoy doing instead of aggressively trying to kneecap this discussion. You contribute nothing of worth.

The irony

[Eocene]

Originally posted by Marmarmar34:

Originally posted by Eocene:

Please, all of you, go spend your time and effort on something you enjoy doing instead of aggressively trying to kneecap this discussion. You contribute nothing of worth.

The irony

You mean nothing of worth to you.

I get it. You don't like MOTD's. You have voiced your opinion. Good. Move on.

And stop making Steam worse.

[Marmarmar34]

Originally posted by Eocene:

Originally posted by Marmarmar34:

The irony

You mean nothing of worth to you.

I get it. You don't like MOTD's. You have voiced your opinion. Good. Move on.

And stop making Steam worse.

Double whammy irony

[sokolov]

Originally posted by Eocene:

stop making Steam worse.

Stop making L4D2 worse.

[Lament]

I get not liking motd’s, but man you guys really contributed nothing here. It really would be useful to display the mods currently enabled so that the people using my server could know what is and isn’t changed, so they don’t have to wonder what godawful mods have been installed on my server (none, it’s all basically vanilla aside from fixes and lights).

[Eocene]

It's okay, it's working now. The problem was that my ISP was blocking port 80 by default, so in addition to forwarding the port on my router I had to also had to have them open it for me.

[TheSolenOne]

Originally posted by Eocene:

It's okay, it's working now. The problem was that my ISP was blocking port 80 by default, so in addition to forwarding the port on my router I had to also had to have them open it for me.

Is this still working for you? I have the same problem, I cant display anything, host banner, motd, just black boxes without anything, but links that I wrote in hosts.txt and motd.txt are valid and looks okay in browser