I have noticed a huge bug in the multiplayer lobby system. Every now and then, you join a game that never starts. All the players are screaming for the host to start them game, and eventually everyone leaves. I use to think it was because the host was AFK, but evidentally not.

Today i played a game, went out and tried to come back to the lobby to join another game. Then the program asked me for another username because the one i usually use was taken. I did this then entered the lobby.

I joined a game to find that my old name, the one taken; was actually the host. It had the same avatar and everything. I thought this was a bit odd so i looked at the name if the game and i noticed the game's name was different to that of the host's.

I'm not really sure how to explain this but i think is shows a huge flaw in the lobby system.

The name of the game is built using the name of the player _creating_ the game, it has nothing to do with the current host. If the creating player leaves the game, it will still be a game with his name. The name of a game does not change.

If you leave a game and connect to join the lobby, there are several reasons why you could get the message that the user already exists:

1. You have started a second instance of PokerTH, and the first lobby is still open.
2. Someone else is now using the name.
3. There were problems disconnecting the first user. This is probably due to connection issues, but could possibly occur due to a bug in the game. There is no known issue with the game, and I cannot reproduce this. Disconnecting removes the player from the game.

If you pull the network plug, for example, instead of disconnecting, the server does not know that the player disconnected and it will take some time until the timeout occurs. This is due to TCP being unable to quickly detect connection loss.