EQ Companion / 'Double-miss' bug

What is 'Double-miss' bug:

Sometime around the beginning of August-2002 EverQuest started reporting every 'miss' message twice in the log file. Your message window in EverQuest would show them normally, but when you look at the log file, every message would be there twice. Here is an example of what your log file might look like:

[Mon Oct 14 04:57:34 2002] Sun Revenant Chancellor tries to hit YOU, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:34 2002] Sun Revenant Chancellor tries to hit YOU, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:34 2002] Sun Revenant Chancellor tries to hit YOU, but YOU dodge!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:34 2002] Sun Revenant Chancellor tries to hit YOU, but YOU dodge!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:35 2002] Konn pierces Sun Revenant Chancellor for 53 points of damage.
...
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:44 2002] Konn pierces Sun Revenant Chancellor for 45 points of damage.
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:44 2002] Konn tries to crush Sun Revenant Chancellor, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:44 2002] Konn tries to crush Sun Revenant Chancellor, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:45 2002] Konn crushes Sun Revenant Chancellor for 53 points of damage.
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:45 2002] You try to crush Sun Revenant Chancellor, but Sun Revenant Chancellor dodges!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:45 2002] You try to crush Sun Revenant Chancellor, but Sun Revenant Chancellor dodges!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:45 2002] You slash Sun Revenant Chancellor for 36 points of damage.
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:45 2002] You slash Sun Revenant Chancellor for 52 points of damage.
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:46 2002] You crush Sun Revenant Chancellor for 24 points of damage.
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:46 2002] You try to crush Sun Revenant Chancellor, but miss!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:46 2002] You try to crush Sun Revenant Chancellor, but miss!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:46 2002] Konn tries to pierce Sun Revenant Chancellor, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:46 2002] Konn tries to pierce Sun Revenant Chancellor, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:46 2002] Konn crushes Sun Revenant Chancellor for 53 points of damage.
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:47 2002] You try to slash Sun Revenant Chancellor, but Sun Revenant Chancellor parries!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:47 2002] You try to slash Sun Revenant Chancellor, but Sun Revenant Chancellor parries!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:47 2002] Sun Revenant Chancellor hits YOU for 114 points of damage.
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:47 2002] You feel feverish. You have taken 40 points of damage.
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:47 2002] You try to slash Sun Revenant Chancellor, but Sun Revenant Chancellor ripostes!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:47 2002] You try to slash Sun Revenant Chancellor, but Sun Revenant Chancellor ripostes!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] You try to bash Sun Revenant Chancellor, but miss!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] You try to bash Sun Revenant Chancellor, but miss!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] You try to crush Sun Revenant Chancellor, but miss!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] You try to crush Sun Revenant Chancellor, but miss!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] Konn tries to bash Sun Revenant Chancellor, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] Konn tries to bash Sun Revenant Chancellor, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] Konn tries to pierce Sun Revenant Chancellor, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] Konn tries to pierce Sun Revenant Chancellor, but misses!
[Mon Oct 14 04:57:48 2002] Konn crushes Sun Revenant Chancellor for 43 points of damage.

As you can see, every 'miss' message is reported twice. Your misses, mob's misses, other fighter's misses. It does not matter if the miss was normal miss or one because of dodge, block, parry or riposte.

This bug was fixed by Verant in the 10/16/02 patch (the one with monk, mod rod, etc. nerf)

How does it affect EQ Companion and other parsers:

This of course affects the statistics EQ Companion provides (also the statistics of every other log parser that uses miss-messages in their calculations). In EQ Companion they affect the Misses, Hit%, %1, %2, %3, %4 and %4+ columns in the fightdata window. The DLY column is not affected except in very rare circumstances and the effect would probably be too small to notice.

  • Misses: Obviously this number is twice as large as it should be
     
  • Hit%: Since this column divides your number of landed hits by your total number of hits (I.E. landed hits and misses) and the number of misses is twice as large, the Hit% will be reported way too small. For example if you hit 100 swings and miss 100, your Hit% should be 50% (100/(100+100) * 100%), but since the misses are now reported as 200, your Hit% would show up as 33.3% (100/(100+200) * 100%)
     
  • %1, %2, %3, %4 and %4+: Since these columns show the percentage of single, double, triple, etc. rounds and misses are reported twice, you will see a whole lot more %3, %4 and %4+ rounds. For example if you double-hit and miss both rounds, it will be calculated not as double-hit but as a quad-hit. If one hit lands and other misses, it will be reported as triple-hit.
     
  • DLY: Since the DLY column already ignores double-etc. hits in the same second, misses reported twice will not affect the calculations. I have seen the double-miss reported with the time stamp one second apart, though. This does not seem to happen too often, maybe one in 100 or so. Since the DLY number is reported in whole numbers only, this small margin of error should not have any effect.

What does EQ Companion do to alleviate this:

  • "Fix double-miss bug"-flag: In version 0.7 there is a new preferences setting in the 'Fight parsing' tab. The setting is called "Fix double-miss bug". When this is enabled, every 'miss' message that has another miss message following it and the time stamps are either identical or only 1 second apart will be ignored.
     
  • "Double-miss %"-statistic: The stats window has a new statistic added called "Double-miss %". This will report the percentage of ignored miss messages compared to non-ignored miss messages.

    If you have enabled the "Fix double-miss bug" flag and your log file is affected with the double-miss bug, this number should be even 100%. If it is anything less, you will get a warning dialog stating that you should probably turn the option off and re-parse the log file as you are probably not affected by the double-miss bug. Note that it is possible that only part of the log file is affected by the double-miss bug.

    If you have this option on and you are parsing a log file prior to August-2002 or after Verant fixes this bug, every legitimate double-miss will be ignored.

    This statistic will show 'N/A' for 'not applicable' if you have not enabled the "Fix 'double-miss' bug" option.

    By the way, the tool tip for this statistic will show the total number of ignored and non-ignored miss-messages.