"Can't see squad leaders" bug

[TheMerchantOfMenace]

Hello DEVs,

Many months ago, maybe close to a year now, someone told me I could resolve that issue where I fire up the game and can't see squad leaders on the map by deleting all files in the cache folder. That didn't seem to work.

Then someone else told me to call up the console via the tilde key, and type in "exit" in the console. That seemed to work like a charm, I virtually NEVER had a squad bug after having exited the game in this manner, for months and months on end, no more squad leader bug.

Suddenly, for the last week, though I've always been exiting the game via the "exit" command in the console, I've been having the squad leader bug fairly regularly now. I'm not aware of any recent changes to my system, it's a new Windows 7 installation that is only a month or a very wee bit more old.

Any ideas what causes this bug, or any other suggestions as to how to steer clear of it?

Thanks.

[LITOralis.nMd]

What you were doing is voodoo.

If you join a server with more than 64 players, and your assigned player slot is 65 or higher, you will not see SquadLeader icons.

hardcoded in engine and will not be fixed.

[Steeps]

What you were doing is voodoo.

If you join a server with more than 64 players, and your assigned player slot is 65 or higher, you will not see SquadLeader icons.

You sure on that one? I'll frequently join servers at 97 players and only once in a blue moon will I get the SL icon bug.

[BloodyDeed]

Well, even if you join as the 97th player you can still get an ID<64. People that leave the server free up lower IDs again.

[TheMerchantOfMenace]

Oh really?

Feck me, so then for months on end I just happened to get consistently lucky? Well I'll be damned!

Well I guess then that would explain how once in a blue moon I would restart PR and still get the bug upon reload... that is consistent with Oralis's explanation.

This also suggests that I could fix my squad bug issue by just disconnecting from the current server and re-connecting to it (then perhaps on re-connection I might get a freed-up <64 slot). Faster than restarting the game.

Going to try it.

Thanks for the info Oralis, very informative and useful.

[captainfuture]

Just a hint to the DEVs. I have Squadleader bug since I got a 64bit computer with Win10.
Up to January 2018 I used WinXP 32bit and there it did not appear. So I guess it has to do with the 64bit OS code

[captainfuture]

What you were doing is voodoo.

If you join a server with more than 64 players, and your assigned player slot is 65 or higher, you will not see SquadLeader icons.

hardcoded in engine and will not be fixed.

Not correct. In WinXP 32bit I never had squadleader bug