bugs Simtropolis 9.0.x - Bugs & Issues Report Thread

[_Michael 2,681]

Well...

(On Ln X's most recent CJ entry)

And also all over the site I'm seeing duplicate posts and comments.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

OK, has this first been noticeable today? It sounds like a possible case of the server timing out, then somehow duplicating the request (to post).

As far as I'm aware, there have been no updates this weekend to the site software.

A few questions to anyone:

1. Does the site seem slower today than usual?  Think I've noticed it being a bit sluggish.
2. Has anyone experienced posts working as normal?  If so, this would hint at an intermittent server issue.
3. For those who've noticed the duplication, does it occur with each post you've made?

EDIT: Confirmed with this post as well.

[_Michael 2,681]

1. Loading some posts seem sluggish but this has only really happened this evening (BST)
2. For me, it usually gives the 'Too many posts in a time frame. Wait for 50 seconds" type error, but if I refresh, the post has already saved.
3. I guess the post duplicates when you press the save button more than once, even though it has already saved, the new post just isn't being displayed.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

2 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

x

It sounds like a possible case of the server timing out, then somehow duplicating the request (to post).

As far as I'm aware, there have been no updates this weekend to the site software.

A few questions to anyone:

1. Does the site seem slower today than usual?  Think I've noticed it being a bit sluggish.
2. Has anyone experienced posts working as normal?  If so, this would hint at an intermittent server issue.
3. For those who've noticed the duplication, does it occur with each post you've made?

 

 

2 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

OK, has this first been noticeable today? It sounds like a possible case of the server timing out, then somehow duplicating the request (to post).

 

OK, has this first been noticeable today?

Yes.

Does the site seem slower today than usual?

Yes - several actions: switching from page one to latest page of a thread, login, refreshing pages, submit a post.

Has anyone experienced posts working as normal

Me not. All submits were processesed etremely slow.

For those who've noticed the duplication, does it occur with each post you've made?

No. Happened  only once.

 

EDIT

Noticed also that the Activity tab won't update for me (refresh button in browser). Meanwhile forum main page updates normally activity tab may have a delay up to ten minutes.

[BLANKBLANK 4,414]

1. Yes the site does seem slower. Particularly in the CJ section.

2. In one of the comments I made in my CJ, in my latest entry (Delanio's Marketplace), I posted a comment and the text I had written was copied again.

3. I have had a duplication in a CJ entry I posted (Delanio's Marketplace), one of the user's comments was duplicated too.

The duplicated CJ entry has been removed by admin FYI.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

Thanks all.

I've also noticed one nasty additional bug from this:

In the forum list (for example), a new reply isn't always displayed. Even though a post is made, it may only show on the forum index and inside the actual topic.

To get around this, I've hidden and unhidden a few, which then proceeds to update the listing. The problem is, without checking each topic to view the latest post, it's difficult to know which are affected. If you notice this on any post with this issue, please submit a report and I'll perform a 'reset' as described.

If this persists much longer, I'm going to try and contact @Dirktator for assistance.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 hour ago, Cyclone Boom said:

If this persists much longer, I'm going to try and contact @Dirktator for assistance.

Hurry and do a backup. The hard drive might be failing!

The only issue I've really noticed today is a persistent 4H268/2 error trying to get into chat a couple hours ago. I'm playing SC4 on my adjacent comp so I just kept retrying every couple of minutes and finally gave up after 20ish tries. I had some chores to do too that I'd been putting off so I naturally assumed it was the universe telling me to get to them. (Which I did.)

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

30 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

Hurry and do a backup. The hard drive might be failing!

Good idea. I believe (and hope) there are auto backup measures in place, but you can't always rely on systems.

 

30 minutes ago, CorinaMarie said:

The only issue I've really noticed today is a persistent 4H268/2 error trying to get into chat a couple hours ago. I'm playing SC4 on my adjacent comp so I just kept retrying every couple of minutes and finally gave up after 20ish tries. I had some chores to do too that I'd been putting off so I naturally assumed it was the universe telling me to get to them. (Which I did.)

That error could well be related to the slow performance today. Then again, I'm just guessing -- it could equally be another bug.

Some things do occasionally happen for a reason, but hopefully we can get everything working properly.

 

EDIT: Posting has worked normally these last two. I guess that proves this is intermittent.

[kingofsimcity 5,739]

I've been having some trouble with the "insert image from URL" function today. Normally the image shows right up in my post but it doesn't seem to be working at all right now. Pasting the direct image link directly into the body of the post also doesn't automatically display the image.

The STEX also seems to take a longer time to access relative to the forums currently.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

4 hours ago, kingofsimcity said:

I've been having some trouble with the "insert image from URL" function today. Normally the image shows right up in my post but it doesn't seem to be working at all right now. Pasting the direct image link directly into the body of the post also doesn't automatically display the image.

Confirm this. Also using the button 'insert other media to post' seemed to me not responding at all - but after waiting one minute processing it worked. As - to my understanding - there is nothing uploaded by doing this it seems to me more a problem of resolving urls - and therefore might be related to DNS.

Also - if I post, the editor frame remains open below the post - as if I hadn't posted yet. Maybe this causes double posts. As it seems post hasn't been posted yet -  but if you scroll up it's already there - it's only that the editor box doesn't close after submitting - you'll have to refresh page.

[Fantozzi 4,067]

* LOL * Double post.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

20 hours ago, kingofsimcity said:

I've been having some trouble with the "insert image from URL" function today. Normally the image shows right up in my post but it doesn't seem to be working at all right now. Pasting the direct image link directly into the body of the post also doesn't automatically display the image.

15 hours ago, Fantozzi said:

As - to my understanding - there is nothing uploaded by doing this it seems to me more a problem of resolving urls - and therefore might be related to DNS.

A validation does take place when images are inserted (checking the correct format).

Can anyone confirm this and the posting issues are no longer present?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Can anyone confirm this and the posting issues are no longer present?

I posted a little while later last night without only one glitch. The fist pic didn't want to resolve into an image, but I deleted the link, repasted it and then it was fine. The other 3 pics became images without any hassle. The post itself posted fine too. (And if you are reading this, and only once, then I'd say posting now is ok too.)

[TakemeThere 5,833]

@Scribosilyn I noticed that problem on occasion as well. A couple of my entries are miscalculated too, though only by one each. 

@Cyclone Boom Just wondering if you had a chance to look at the requests I posted above. I know there's more pressing matters to attend to but I really would appreciate a response to my concerns.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

@Scribosilyn

I'm pleased to report this has now been fixed. Manually hiding and restoring all entries and comments did the trick.

I suspect this may have been caused by the server issues the other day, where posts were being duplicated. The stats counter likely processed the totals greater than their actual value. If anyone has the same issue, let me know and I'll fix it up as well.

 

@Takingyouthere

Thanks very much for the ideas.

Apologies for not replying sooner -- it has been a rather busy couple of weeks.
 

On 02/10/2016 at 6:07 AM, Takingyouthere said:

1. Is it possible to change the rating system for CJ entries? Imo those ratings should be visible just as they are for ST Exchange uploads.

2. Total CJ views are calculated in a misleading way. My guess is that it only calculates views to a CJ's "home page" and most certainly not the total amount of views to each entry.

3. It would be neat to add a filler to enable CJ's to be sorted by comment and follower totals.

4. On that note total comments should not included comments made by the CJ creator.

I like these ideas and would support them. Although right now, there are no such built-in options, so it'd require custom development. Once the major lingering bugs have been taken care of, I'll check with Dirktator and see what can be done.

For the CJ ratings, the only current option is to disable them entirely.

 

On 02/10/2016 at 6:07 AM, Takingyouthere said:

5. I've noticed that occasionally the "Popular Contributors" list shows the top 5 instead of just the top 3. Showing the top 5 is definitely better and should be the set standard.

The main reason was to save space on the sidebar, since it often overflowed the bottom. Think it's just about OK right now, so I've expanded this again to the top 5.

Also in the Activity Feed, I've added one showing the top 20.

 

On 02/10/2016 at 6:07 AM, Takingyouthere said:

6. On that note perhaps we could also have a most likes given list? Well... that might be a bit gratuitous, it just something I'm a little curious about.

I think that would be doable using a similar type of query, but again would need looking into. All the info is there, it's just a case of extracting it using the right tools, and displaying it in a user-friendly format.

On the whole, there's always room for improvements. A few site areas could especially use some refining. Being central to the software, I'd say the forums are pretty solid; it's the other sections which could use some work. The devs have these on their radar, and are readily improving aspects in each update. Problem is, this becomes quite a slow process, which isn't helped by the bugs to contend with. Right now their focus is on stability, with more new features to follow resuming later in the year.

I'll open a "Suggestion Box" thread where all these neat ideas can be collected, and we can then work to incorporate them.

 

On 02/10/2016 at 6:07 AM, Takingyouthere said:

One last question. What's the procedure for getting a thread pinned or unpinned? Do the mods chose or can it be requested?

We usually pin threads which are useful, or contain valuable information: Tutorials, guides, an important discovery or news, to name a few examples. Also, if there's a prevalent topic which attracts a large discussion over something. Requests are considered, as long as it meets the rough criteria of being informative, and there's enough space in the forum list.

The same also applies for featured topics, which are shown in the homepage and forum sidebars.

Unpinning is generally done when a thread no longer contains relevant info, or in the case of a discussion, activity has declined to a point where it's no longer beneficial to remain pinned.

Right now in the various forums, there are quite a few pinned items which could do with updating. This has been mentioned before, and we're now planning to go through them, check info & formatting, unpin/consolidate old ones, and create room for new resources. There is quite a lot of redundant info left over which needs to be addressed. This won't be an overnight task, but once done, it should greatly help newcomers and make pinned threads more useful.

[TakemeThere 5,833]

@Cyclone Boom No worries and thanks for implementing the top 5. It's cool to see a top 20 list available too and a suggestion box thread would be quite useful indeed.

I see what you mean regarding the limited space for pinning threads and how it's not something you'd want to make a habit of. I only had couple recommendation for threads to pin, specifically @CorinaMarie water & rock shoppe(the beach shoppe is already pinned) which are starting to get buried in the SimCity 4 General Discussion forum. All three of which are very useful resources. It took me a while to find them the other day, I actually had to goggle them up!

"For the CJ ratings, the only current option is to disable them entirely."
Is this possible on an individual entry basis or is it something that can only be implemented system wide?

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

5 hours ago, Takingyouthere said:

I only had couple recommendation for threads to pin, specifically @CorinaMarie water & rock shoppe(the beach shoppe is already pinned) which are starting to get buried in the SimCity 4 General Discussion forum.

Slight correction: My beach shoppe isn't pinned, it's Featured. (As is my map tutorial atm.) Which means it gets a listing on the home page.

 

5 hours ago, Takingyouthere said:

All three of which are very useful resources. It took me a while to find them the other day, I actually had to goggle them up!

Once I finish the rest of my Shoppes style threads (terrain is next) I'll create one overview thread for them with sub-linkys and that's the one CB said would get pinned. In the mean time if you just remember it's me who did them you can go to my About Me page (linky in my sig) of my Profile and I've written a complete, clickable list of my (self defined) best posts there. (Scroll down a wee bit past the narrative gibberish.)

On a somewhat related note: @Cyclone Boom, with regard to doing those post anchors, may I suggest that's too much work for no real benefit? I mean you can do them if you feel they are a good idea, but only one person didn't like the layout so is it really time effective to add them? My reasoning is that if someone is looking for a particular mod they can Ctrl-F it and if they don't yet have a preference then they'd be scrolling and looking at them all anyhow.  And opening the thread twice in separate windows would allow side by side comparison of current potential favs.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

11 hours ago, Takingyouthere said:

All three of which are very useful resources. It took me a while to find them the other day, I actually had to goggle them up!

Yes, that's the unfortunate thing about resource type threads. While being highly useful, they don't generate prolonged discussion, so tend to drop down and blend amongst everything else. Of course, we do have the Omnibus which is really the main system for housing resources. Perhaps this is another option...

In future, there might be a way to 'promote' threads to a resource in the Omnibus. Think I recall hearing that on the IPS forum, so that could be useful...

 

11 hours ago, Takingyouthere said:

"For the CJ ratings, the only current option is to disable them entirely."
Is this possible on an individual entry basis or is it something that can only be implemented system wide?

Currently just sitewide for all entries, which probably isn't a solution. I'll get around to open that suggestions thread, it's on my radar.

 

7 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Slight correction: My beach shoppe isn't pinned, it's Featured. (As is my map tutorial atm.) Which means it gets a listing on the home page.

For the time being, I've swapped them over and featured the rock one again.

 

7 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

I'll create one overview thread for them with sub-linkys and that's the one CB said would get pinned.

Yes, that would be ideal, and is the kind of thing we'll end up doing with other pinned threads. Maybe it could even serve as a general index to your other useful SC4 links.

 

7 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

...with regard to doing those post anchors, may I suggest that's too much work for no real benefit? I mean you can do them if you feel they are a good idea, but only one person didn't like the layout so is it really time effective to add them? My reasoning is that if someone is looking for a particular mod they can Ctrl-F it and if they don't yet have a preference then they'd be scrolling and looking at them all anyhow.  And opening the thread twice in separate windows would allow side by side comparison of current potential favs.

OK, I guess it would be too much work for little gain. That's been my main excuse for not doing it up to now, as I simply haven't had the time. The browser find tool is a good idea. Maybe just list all the variations at the top (e.g. in a spoiler), then people can jump to them manually if they'd like.

[TakemeThere 5,833]

Just noticed a new bug, the activity section on everyone's profile is completely blank. Thankfully it doesn't look like anyone's activity has actually disappeared, it's just not being indexed there.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

58 minutes ago, Takingyouthere said:

Just noticed a new bug, the activity section on everyone's profile is completely blank. Thankfully it doesn't look like anyone's activity has actually disappeared, it's just not being indexed there.

Confirmed.

We had a minor update earlier, which usually requires everything to be reindexed. The problem is, this seems to be taking longer than normal. As you've suspected, nothing has gone missing, but content posted before around 12pm EDT today isn't being shown in activity feeds.

If it doesn't complete soon, I'll send for reinforcements again.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

It kinda looks like an earthquake and a tornado have been playing with the code for this page.

Here's how it looks to me:

The download works just fine, but everything is scrambled around there.

[Cyclone Boom 16,875]

A cyclone fixed it.

That's why one should never paste directly from Word.

After a few cases, I'm sure this is related to the messed up formatting. In the past, it was common to paste directly from an Office app, which brings all the meta and proprietary bloat with it. During a site update, the HTML filter clearly couldn't process it, so it malformed the data. The actual display issues are caused by missing code, not too much of it.

Now the editor processes the HTML automatically, pasting from Word is no longer an issue. Problem is, all the junk has been left lingering behind on existing files. We really need a way to batch process and correct such issues.

 

On 19/10/2016 at 9:02 PM, Cyclone Boom said:

The problem is, this seems to be taking longer than normal.

If it doesn't complete soon, I'll send for reinforcements again.

Update: This is still ongoing, hence the auto message still on the activity feed.

I'll try and let Dirk know.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

4 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

A cyclone fixed it.

Woot!

 

4 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

Update: This is still ongoing, hence the auto message still on the activity feed.

I'll try and let Dirk know.

Do you have one of these?

 

[averagecrackfiend 0]

Getting "503 Service Unavailable" when trying to download files from the website. It has been going on for an hour or so. It worked fine this morning.

[Tyberius06 12,189]

Hi!

I've noticed some problems about searching function on STEX. I got weird results. When I wanted to find my upload and typing the "Heretic" or "seaport" or "project" words I didn't get any match with my content. The same if I'm looking for the NDEX contents. There is not too much Audi Dealership contents on the STEX, but typing "audi" is not coming out with any result. I wanted to get some water treatment lots, but I couldn't find anything browsing the "water" word, because only showed me results from the descriptions and there were only 8 matches, which I think is not quite good aswell.

 

- Tyberius

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Ok, I've got another one for you that needs a bit of tweaking:

No earthquake or tornado this time. Just looks like it got chewed up a bit in the site conversion. I'm sure a Cyclone visit can rectify that too.

First thing is the picture just needs to be:

//www.simtropolis.com/library/Omnibus/Beaches/Beachesshs111111110yt.jpg

Without the old BBCode surrounding it so it shows as:

 

Then, I searched and found this post in the Can't Find It thread and it seems the Beaches for Irregular Coastlines link should be:

https://community.simtropolis.com/files/file/11541-beach-set-v14/

 

Next the Goldivas Tropical Packs might have been a do-find-user-or-word-search link for:

• GDV Mayor Mode Tropical Sea Set
• GDV MAYOR MODE TROPICAL TREE SET

 

And then Ocean River water mod seems to be:

• Ocean River MOD final 1.1

 

The line for Some embankment/wall mods. is too vague for me to figure out just which one it might've linked to.

And that's the best I can figure out.  There's also a reference to Goldiva Stuff II (Optional; Not on the STEX), but I had no luck Googling that.

 

Edit: I posted a request to find out what the walls are here.

Edit Too: Got this reply with regard to walls:

2 hours ago, rathefalcon said:

@CorinaMarie It's hard to tell from the images but they might be these ones: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1519

Even if they aren't the right ones, it's a good set of walls

Ok, I just checked that wall link and it's textures only, but then thru a couple of hops I found: https://www.sc4devotion.com/csxlex/lex_filedesc.php?lotGET=1504

 

[feyss 1,981]

On 10/10/2016 at 0:58 AM, kingofsimcity said:

I've been having some trouble with the "insert image from URL" function today. Normally the image shows right up in my post but it doesn't seem to be working at all right now. Pasting the direct image link directly into the body of the post also doesn't automatically display the image.

The STEX also seems to take a longer time to access relative to the forums currently.

I've got the same problem right now with the 'insert image from URL' function. The little loading circle is moving and moving and then the background becomes red/pink and nothing happens. Sometimes it works for no reason then the problem occurs.

[AndisArt 2,066]

On 10/25/2016 at 5:12 PM, Tyberius06 said:

Hi!

I've noticed some problems about searching function on STEX. I got weird results. When I wanted to find my upload and typing the "Heretic" or "seaport" or "project" words I didn't get any match with my content. The same if I'm looking for the NDEX contents. There is not too much Audi Dealership contents on the STEX, but typing "audi" is not coming out with any result. I wanted to get some water treatment lots, but I couldn't find anything browsing the "water" word, because only showed me results from the descriptions and there were only 8 matches, which I think is not quite good aswell.

 

- Tyberius

I've also been issues with the Search function not working. Was just looking for wall-to-wall buildings and searched for "w2w", which is commonly used term, and got zero result. Happened also this past week with another thing, did a test search for my username and only got one result.

Also Cyclone, where are the Trixies? They are not showing anywhere, am I correct? Is there a plan to have them reinstated below your username?

[MushyMushy 3,617]

10 minutes ago, andisart said:

I've also been issues with the Search function not working. Was just looking for wall-to-wall buildings and searched for "w2w", which is commonly used term, and got zero result. Happened also this past week with another thing, did a test search for my username and only got one result.

Yeah the problems with the search function have been ongoing for a while now (maybe >1 year?). Unfortunately until it's fixed the next best thing is a custom Google search.

[AndisArt 2,066]

1 minute ago, MushyMushy said:

Yeah the problems with the search function have been ongoing for a while now (maybe >1 year?). Unfortunately until it's fixed the next best thing is a custom Google search.

for so long? oh boy... Sounds like a deeper issue. Hope it can be fixed some soon as I think this is discouraging people when searching and browsing and therefore potentially disengaging. Since my return this time (last active early 2015) I did notice a much less active forum, at least for SC4 and BATing. Also judging by the amount of STEX uploads. Maybe this search function problem is a contributing factor.