Desyncs

OpenTTD GitHub docs contain a guide to desyncs.

How to gather desync data

In order to fix a desync, one needs playback data. Only server admins can gather the data and their help is needed as they need to enable desync debugging on their servers. Without these desync debugging data, one has nearly no chance to find and fix these bugs. This is how you can gather the necessary data and help us pinpoint and ultimately fix the problem:

• Make sure you have enough free disk space on your server. You'll need space for a savegame every minute without cleaning, possibly over hours.
• Via rcon set: debug_level desync=3
• Save the game to 'desync_start.sav' (or some other name you remember).
• Load the game you just saved from the savegame file you just created. This makes sure there's a well-defined starting point.
• Let people play until you see a desync happening.
• When the desync happens:
  • Gather the data and make them available for download: save/desync_start.sav, save/autosave/dmp_cmds*.sav, save/autosave/commands-out.log.
  • Open an issue in our bug tracker and link us there to the available desync data. Check back on the issue or enable notifications, we might have further questions or ask you to possibly try a fix.
  • You then can also disable desync debugging again (rcon [password] "debug_level desync=0").

Anything less will likely not fix the desync issue nor help finding it. Thus, if you are a server admin and want to see them gone, enable desync debugging on your server and gather the data! Don't wait for anyone else - chances are slim there will be, especially as some desyncs might need the specific combination of settings and / or NewGRFs which only you use on a server.