#eggies - FAQ

.:: 2 :: Then what is windrop?

A windrop is basically an eggdrop compiled for the Microsoft Windows platform (using the freely available cywgin environment).
It has the same features and the same possibilities as a normal eggdrop, except it's OS.

There may possibly be some more problems using a windrop vs using an eggdrop, which are a result of an eggdrop being designed & written for the *nix environment only; porting an application to another operating system is never easy. However, in #eggies we'll try to help you with any problem you have.

Another disadvantage is that your windrop was compiled for you, but if you want to compile third-party eggdrop modules for your windrop yourself, you'll have to instal the cygwin environment yourself, while on eggdrop you can just compile the new module like you compiled your eggdrop. The Windrop maintainers know that, and ship the mostly used modules also pre-compiled with Windrop (stats.mod, gseen.mod).

If you can't afford a shell, or want to play around with bots a bit before spending money on a shell, windrop is a good choice for you.
Remember, however, that a bot is only as stable as its Operating System (WinNT/2K is definately more stable than Win9x/WinME), and that when you reboot/shut down your PC your bot will go down, as opposed to a shell account, where it will simply keep on running.

The Windrop central is at windrop.cjb.net.

.:: 3 :: There are so many versions of eggdrop.. Which one is the best ?

There have been quite a few Eggdrop releases in the past few years.
Some people swear by 1.3.x versions, but we don't. A lot of bugs were fixed since then, and a lot of new features were added.

We recommend ALWAYS using the latest eggheads eggdrop 1.6.x release, which is always considered the most stable and most supported version.

While looking at the Uptime page you may have noticed there are several eggdrop 1.7 bots running. 1.7 is a development-only release which will never be released to the grand public. Once it's ready, it's version will be switched to 1.8. It'll be a major turnaround for eggdrop, but it's not really done right now. There are more bugs in it than features ;-)

Another fork of Robey Pointer's original eggdrop is the Eggdrop Racbot. It's different from the standard ("Vanilla Eggdrop" as they call it) eggheads eggdrop, and is not supported in #eggies.

Whatever you do, don't use eggdrop 2.x, it's an old abandoned project, trying to completely rewrite the eggdrop code, and it won't work.
If you're talking Windows, then you should probably use a Windrop, or compile your own using the Cygwin suite.

.:: 4 :: Are there any other IRC bots ?

Sure there are. And lots of them, too. Apart from some mIRC scripts that try to act like a bot, here are some links:

There are probably a lot more... but please do keep in mind that none of these are supported in #eggies.

.:: 5 :: Where can I find help on for my eggdrop ?

You can find help on the web:

eggies.powersource.cx ;-)
www.egghelp.org
www.eggfaq.com
www.eggheads.org
.... find many more sites on Google or by using the eggdrop webring (see our main page)

You can find help on IRC:

#eggies ;-)
#eggdrop on Undernet
#eggfaq on IRCnet
... many other channels devoted to Eggdrop. Check the readme file for some other channels giving support.

If you have a shell, your provider may have a helpdesk or a support team, if you can't resolve your problem and think it has something to do with the shell server (a small misconfiguration somewhere, for example), don't hesitate to contact them. You're a paying customer.

.:: 6 :: Help! My IP/Host/ISP/ident has changed and my bot doesn't recognize me anymore!

You need to add your host to the bot. Either telnet to it, login and type .+host *!your@new.host or, if you have not disabled the ident command, /msg botnick ident password. Some scripts may require you to use /msg bonick ident password handle instead.

.:: 7 :: Does eggdrop support public commands like for example !op and !voice ?

By default, eggdrop does not listen to any public commands, only via /msg or via the partyline (dcc/ctcp/telnet).

If you want eggdrop to listen to such other commands, you need to install a script. Keep in mind that public commands are less secure than msg or dcc commands, and could be abused.

.:: 8 :: Where can I find good TCL scripts ?

See the links section for links to sites which contain tcl scripts.

.:: 9 :: What about that uptime page ?

You can find the uptime page at uptime.eggheads.org.
It is a cooperation between guppy from eggheads and Proton from energymech.

Energymech have had the uptime code for quite some time now, and eggdrop is now also competing since version 1.6.7. (the older versions you see on that page have had the uptime module added later, through cvs or other means).

If you don't want the uptime module to be loaded, simply remove or comment out the "loadmodule uptime" line from your config file and restart the bot. If you have any privacy issues with this module, please check slennox's uptime module description to get more information. Ofcourse, the open source code is available for review as well.

Another common question: The lines in red are bots that haven't submitted an uptime update for quite a while, and are assumed to have died. They will normally be removed from the list soon.

Don't load this module in bots that haven't got the server module loaded (limbo bots), it won't work. They won't start.

.:: Advanced Eggdrop Usage

.:: 1 :: How do i add !top10 and other stats to my bot ?

The stats are usually provided by stats.mod (there are scripts to do that too, but stats.mod definately beats every single one of them). You can find stats.mod at www.visions-of-fantasy.de/stats.mod, there are instructions included on how to compile it together with your eggdrop, and how to load it up in the config file.

.:: 2 :: How do I add !seen functionality to my bot ?

You need a script or a module for that. Modules are faster, but they have to be compiled on your shell, together with your eggdrop. If you are knowledgeable enough to compile modules (there is documentation included, it shouldn't be that hard), go for the module. It's probably lots more efficient than a TCL script will be.

Module: GSeen.mod
Script: BSeen

.:: 3 :: Where can I learn TCL or find information about it ?

There is at least one very good tutorial that we know of, made by _SunMar_. You can find it at www.suninet.nl/tclguide. Apart from that, there is ofcourse still the main site, tcl.activestate.com which has documentation on all standard tcl commands. Eggdrop's added TCL commands are all documented in doc/tcl-commands.doc in the eggdrop directory. Also, if you want to learn TCL, looking into other well-known scripts may help you understand how to program. Make sure you don't take over their bad practices, though :)

.:: 4 :: How can I use handles with more than 9 characters ?

To use handles longer than 9 characters, you have to edit the source and recompile the bot.
Please do keep in mind that you cannot link 2 bots with a different handle length.
Open up eggdrop directory/src/eggdrop.h with a text editor, and look for the following line:

#define HANDLEN           9     /* valid values 9->NICKMAX              */

As you can see, it's pre-set to 9. Edit the value and recompile the bot to use a longer handle length.

.:: 5 :: I tried setting a greet message with my infoline, but it doesn't seem to work.

First off, check if the channel is set +greet, if not, the bot won't greet you there with your infoline, ofcourse. If you're sure that setting is turned on for the channel(s) you want to be greeted in, take a look at the variable wait-time in the config file. It defaults to 180 (seconds, aka 3 minutes). You have to be away from the channel at least <wait-time> seconds, so simply cycling the channel to check if the greeting does indeed work usually won't be enough (unless your client takes 3 minutes to cycle a channel?) You can try setting it to 0 (untested) or 1 if you want to be greeted every time.

.:: 6 :: There is no question number 6.

But the answer is always 42.

.:: 7 :: I'm getting "No start function defined" while trying to load a module, what is the problem?

You are probably trying to load a module like fbsql. Those are TCL modules, not eggdrop modules.

Eggdrop modules need to have a specific structure, and TCL modules have another.

You do not load TCL modules like Eggdrop modules:
- TCL: load modulename
- Eggdrop: loadmodule modulename

.:: Troubleshooting

.:: 1 :: My bot keeps getting thrown offline with the Excess flood message... Why?

Open up eggdrop directory/src/mod/server.mod/server.c with a text editor, and look for the following lines:

/* Number of seconds to wait between transmitting queued lines to the server * lower this value at your own risk. ircd is known to start flood control * at 512 bytes/2 seconds. */ #define msgrate 2
Change 2 to a higher value, like

#define msgrate 5
Then recompile the bot.

This setting controls how fast the bot sends its messages to the server. If you set it higher, there will be less chance for an "Excess flood" quit, but the bot will send its messages slower, therefore responding a little slower to your (and other's) commands.

.:: 2 :: My bot says "Memory table full" and won't start... what is up?

Open up eggdrop directory/src/mem.c with a text editor, and look for the following lins:

#define MEMTBLSIZE 25000 /* yikes! */
Change 25000 to a higher value, like

#define MEMTBLSIZE 50000
Then recompile the bot.

If you have many users in your eggdrop, your memory table may become full. #Prototype had the problem in some bots, but not in all. After raising the limit to 75000 everything was fine. You can check current memory usage here by typing .status in the partyline.

Memory table: 56238/75000 (75.0% full)

If it's getting full, you may run into problems adding users or restarting your bot.

.:: Windrop-specific questions

.:: 1 :: I keep getting "Cannot write to tempdir"

Make sure you specified the tmp-dir correctly in your config file, the directory specified there needs to exist, which it probably doesn't in your case.

.:: 2 :: My bot can't connect to any irc servers, it says "Hostname not found".

Your bot can not resolve DNS. That probably means you didn't fill in c:\etc\resolv.conf correctly, as was told by you in the instructions. If you really can't figure it out, specify your servers via an IP instead of via a servername. e.g.:

set servers {
  66.252.8.98
}

instead of

set servers {
  powell.oh.us.spidernet.org
}

.:: 3 :: Can I run Windrop as a service?

Yes but only under Windows NT4, 2000 or XP, use ServiceInstaller to add the Windrop as a service.

.:: 4 :: My Windrop says "*** Shared region version mismatch" .. How come?

That error means there is another version of the Cygwin library (cygwin1.dll) in memory, but only one version can be in memory at a time. Try quitting all other Windrops and any other programs that use the Cygwin library (cygwin1.dll) Windrop is not the only program that can use that library. If you can't find which program is using it, check if there is another windrop running, and if you still can't find it, try rebooting the system to see if it gets better. If you are running multiple Windrops on a system then they must all use the same version of the Cygwin library.

.:: Stupid questions

.:: 1 :: Someone else set up a bot but I don't like it. Does eggdrop have backdoors to hack the bot and take it down?

Ofcourse not. Eggdrop never had any backdoors and it never will. There were some unintentional bugs (coding mistakes) in older eggdrop bots, but they have been resolved (which is why you should always be running a recent version) for quite a while now.

This doesn't protect against users /msg'ing their passwords to the wrong users, or in the channel, nor for tcl scripts with bugs in it.
(e.g. CTCP PING Reply bug)

.:: 2 :: Can I have a bot ?

NO. #eggies doesn't lend out any bots, except to known friends, for known channels. Don't bother asking for a bot in #eggdrop either, it will result in an immediate kickban.

Try #shadowbots or #ACeTOnE (ACeTOnE doesn't like channels with X), they provide a nice botlending service.

.:: 3 :: But can I have a bot for my channel?

Yes, ofcourse you can. www.geteggdrop.com. You can get eggdrop there.

.:: 4 :: What am I downloading???

Eggdrop. The software you can use to run an eggdrop for your own channel, yourself, on your own shell account. If that isn't what you asked, I suggest you read our rules once more.

.:: 5 :: There is no .exe file!!!???!!!

*sigh* If you want to run eggdrop on windows, you need windrop. See other questions in the faq.