bugs Simtropolis 9.0.x - Bugs & Issues Report Thread

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

Hi @Moxy

I see, thanks for the info!

I happen to use Internet Download Manager (IDM) myself, so I can test this sometime. It's a very handy tool which helps for efficiency.

A possible theory...

When using IDM the site would see it as a guest (not signed in). There's a daily download and speed caps for guest downloads, and so when using IDM to batch download files, this would quickly lead to the daily limit being reached. Once hitting the limit, the site doesn't allow downloading more files until 24 hours later. That is the likely source of the 403 errors, as the site forbids access to the downloads.

Also as a guest, it restricts to 2 downloads at a time. When signed in there are unlimited downloads and no speed limits.

I'm glad you managed to find a workaround to let your browser download instead. Perhaps in IDM the "Sites Logins" feature could work otherwise, but I've not tried that before. It mentions in the documentation it needs Internet Explorer, so this might be a legacy feature.

[pedroac20c 132]

On 12/9/2024 at 22:47, Moxy said:

Hola Cyclone Boom, estoy bastante seguro de que estaba relacionado con IDM. CorinaMarie mencionó que había probado con otro navegador. Probé Chrome en lugar de Firefox y apareció el mismo mensaje "HTTP/1.1 403 Prohibido". Entonces pensé que debía ser IDM si el navegador hacía alguna diferencia. Así que establecí una clave en IDM para permitir que mi navegador descargara el archivo en lugar de IDM y listo. Pude obtener el archivo. Fue preocupante porque tan recientemente como ayer por la mañana, pude descargar desde el sitio con IDM. Mi problema ahora está resuelto. Para que conste, el mensaje antes de los detalles de HTTP/1.1 403 prohibido era "el servidor responde que no tiene permiso para descargar el archivo". - Pude descargar un archivo con IDM aproximadamente a las 10 a. m. PST del 8 de diciembre y a las 11 p. m. del mismo día, no pude, así que el 8 de diciembre. - Todos eran archivos STEX. Todos los archivos del sitio eran inaccesibles. Gracias a todos por las respuestas.

Hello, could you tell me what you did to solve the problem with Idm? I have the same problem, it doesn't let me download anything, I get an origin server error, it denies me the download!! Please, I would greatly appreciate your help!!

[Moxy 232]

8 hours ago, pedroac20c said:

Hello, could you tell me what you did to solve the problem with Idm? I have the same problem, it doesn't let me download anything, I get an origin server error, it denies me the download!! Please, I would greatly appreciate your help!!

Hi. Sorry for the late reply. Go into IDM options. Under general, at the bottom, there is a button called 'keys' with the description 'Customize keys to prevent or force downloading with IDM. Go into Keys and the dialogue we want is right at the top -'Use the following keys to prevent downloading with IDM for any links' There are four choices. choose one or a combo of two. I use simply ALT and I press that when I click the link to download. Your browser should take it over at that point. If it doesn't work the first try, try it again. If it for some reason still doesn't work, try another button under options the way it was done before. Cheers.

[pedroac20c 132]

2 hours ago, Moxy said:

Hola. Perdón por la respuesta tardía. Ve a las opciones de IDM. En la parte inferior, en general, hay un botón llamado "Teclas" con la descripción "Personalizar teclas para evitar o forzar la descarga con IDM". Ve a Teclas y el diálogo que queremos está justo en la parte superior: "Usar las siguientes teclas para evitar la descarga con IDM para cualquier enlace". Hay cuatro opciones. Elige una o una combinación de dos. Yo uso simplemente ALT y lo presiono cuando hago clic en el enlace para descargar. Tu navegador debería tomar el control en ese momento. Si no funciona en el primer intento, inténtalo de nuevo. Si por alguna razón sigue sin funcionar, prueba con otro botón en las opciones de la forma en que se hizo antes. Saludos.

Ready, thank you very much for your help. I was already without hope, I couldn't find a solution to be able to download the files, thank you very much!!

[Propfam 2,286]

Why do I get snow controls?

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

1 hour ago, Jidan said:

Why do I get snow controls?

Those are so you can control the snow.

[CaptCity 4,669]

1 hour ago, Jidan said:

Why do I get snow controls?

They control the ‘snow’ in the banner at the top of the page. If you don’t see falling snow, try selecting the ‘Toggle’ option. For me, it was off by default. Using ‘Toggle’, let snow start falling.

Edit: Cori won the ‘response’ race... 

[simmering 2,593]

On 24/11/2024 at 8:10 AM, simmering said:

Not sure if this is related, but it seems the Forum Activity link on the home page does not work:

It seems the bug I reported last month (see quote) is back for both the Forum Activity and STEX Activity links.

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

17 hours ago, simmering said:

It seems the bug I reported last month (see quote) is back for both the Forum Activity and STEX Activity links.

Thanks for the heads up. This was caused by me editing the site templates and I forgot to clear the cache. I've fixed it now.

[Propfam 2,286]

The winter Corillion doesn't cover the navbar.

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

1 hour ago, Jidan said:

The winter Corillion doesn't cover the navbar.

Cori is too short for that and has to stand on the navbar.

(Actually, CB needed more height to make the counter fit and so he made the whole area taller which then made the image too short to fill it up the same as it did last year.)

[Leo -- 184]

Not a big deal but just noticed that Nonny Moose's comment of being prepared is using 3 . (dot, U+002E) when he could use just one … (Ellipsis, U+2026).

Again not a big deal at all but it might save ever so slightly on bandwith.

[ncamferdam 1,477]

Hi there,

I noticed today while working on a City Journal entry that the max allowable file size for images seems to be rapidly shrinking. When I started adding images, I think the maximum allowable was 20Mb. Then I started getting an error that prevented me from adding images, and I noticed that the maximum size had shrunk to 4.46Mb. Now it's down to 1.59Mb.

Is this something specific to my account or is it sitewide?

Thanks.

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

Hi @ncamferdam

Checking your account, I see you've almost reached your storage allocation quota. This explains why the maximum size has been decreasing, since the free space was becoming less and less. I've reset your quota, so you have extra space again now.

As a recommendation, I notice you've used PNG images quite often for attachments. If using JPG instead for gameplay pics, it reduces file sizes significantly. To save with 80-90% quality makes them considerably smaller than PNGs, while not losing visible quality for images within the game.

PNG images are usually best for small icons and UI things, which preserves full quality without needing any lossy compression.

Just thought I'd mention that, but you're all set now for having extra storage.

[ncamferdam 1,477]

Ah understood, that's my bad. I'll make sure to stick with JPG from now on.

Appreciate the accommodation.

[nos.17 5,111]

@Cyclone Boom referencing your post here, do you think it would be a good idea to update all the hide-inoki links? Not sure if you can code it up for wildcards; if you can it should be a relatively straight forward replacement with the only variable being the three digits. None of the IDs went past 900 AFAIK so rolling the leading zero over to a 1 in the new format shouldn't be necessary.

From: http://hide-inoki.com/bbs/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=800

To: http://hide-inoki.com/bbs/archives/sc4_0800.html

 

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

On 25/01/2025 at 12:49 AM, nos.17 said:

@Cyclone Boom referencing your post here, do you think it would be a good idea to update all the hide-inoki links? Not sure if you can code it up for wildcards; if you can it should be a relatively straight forward replacement with the only variable being the three digits. None of the IDs went past 900 AFAIK so rolling the leading zero over to a 1 in the new format shouldn't be necessary.

From: http://hide-inoki.com/bbs/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=800

To: http://hide-inoki.com/bbs/archives/sc4_0800.html

Certainly! All sorted now, and they're updated for both the forums and STEX files. In total there were about 720 individual links.

A big thanks to @CorinaMarie for helping me figure out the database query. It needed to use the REGEXP_SUBSTR method to consider the wildcards, so we've made sure the zeros are padded correctly for the new URLs. The logic considered those IDs which were originally either 1, 2, or 3 digits. It was similar in a way for Cori's zero padding SC4 Lua code, so we used a similar process to get this solved. Every little helps with updating broken URLs like these, and it's great the hide-inoki site is still around.

(For context I kept your post here referring to the old format so it makes sense.)

[Silur 3,297]

This message can be moved to another place.

Today, thanks to @TG24, I saw strange things. In my CJ SANTANA ISLAND - Traditions die hard do not open many drawings from OneDrive.

I can see only like this y4mjmSkxOZ5mG0YS75l06aERQoEke8hZ_nV1md5P

I do not see any system in this. All these drawings are correctly displayed in OneDrive. Everything worked perfectly earlier on Simtropolis.

My questions are here.

1. Is this a failure in OneDrive or is it related to the settings in Simtropolis?

2. Will I have to update all links to drawings?

Thank you.

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

4 hours ago, Silur said:

Is this a failure in OneDrive or is it related to the settings in Simtropolis?

I don't know for sure so we'll need to wait for CB perhaps late this evening.

I see:

^ Shows fine as of my posting just now.

It's linky is:

https://1drv.ms/i/c/ce09c4d1de6ad2ba/UQS60mre0cQJIIDOogAAAAAAAO7adpo8iyJwIqI?width=1000&height=733

 

Whereas others which don't show have a different format:

https://4nyqza.by3301.livefilestore.com/y4mjmSkxOZ5mG0YS75l06aERQoEke8hZ_nV1md5PZGEmPiJqdJ_C_Oa81nTQ7Qb7guPenFs10fS-RHEh3UzwgDR3ooKjmwtRpqomjfc1xxpHxsrOGNqmA8k3Bws0tVHArxioZGB-pvdk30Qolel9vZItqiHE3_DE3CW5yQyrEzmATiqlySheiDes8Wa_nJn6veKXJSnB8Fx8czpE1T4G_zi7A?width=1000&height=560&cropmode=none

So as a first guess it seems like One Drive has changed some from a working //1drv.ms/ format to //gibberish.livefilestore.com/ instead.

We do know several years ago they got mad about the bandwidth and borked all sharing, but then relented and provided a new method and everyone had to update linkys everywhere they had posted pics.

I don't use their service so all of this is speculation and observation.

Due to the demise of external hosting like ImageShack and PhotoBucket and such, we maintain it's best to host .jpg images directly on Simtropolis's server. That way no matter which way the tide turns outside of our safe haven here, the pics will remain intact.

[Silur 3,297]

Thank you, Cori!
I attached this drawing with the plane today. 
All other drawings (invisible today) were displayed correctly 2-3 weeks ago. I will wait for an answer from @Cyclone Boom. Then I will make a decision. 
I did not want to overload the Simtropolis storage.
Thanks for the answer and care!

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

Hi @Silur

Turns out I'm able to be here early today, so here I am.

As Cori said, the URLs appear to have changed format, and so this is definitely caused by OneDrive changing something recently. All those random characters are like a password to view a file, but their service has to recognise what those mean. Unfortunately I don't believe there's anything I can do to fix them, since the URL has to be generated from your own OneDrive using the "share" option. It must've been fine in 2017 when you uploaded those, but it's a shame they haven't converted the links over to the new format. It's possible this is only a temporary issue, but I don't have high hopes given they're from a several years ago.

I checked the Internet Archive for your CJ topic, but the images are missing in there too.

So what I recommend is echoing what Cori suggested, to upload them locally to your ST attachments. We appreciate your concerns about site storage of course, and that's very considerate. The good news is we've plenty of space (1372 GB to be precise right now), and we're happy for members like you to use it.

[Silur 3,297]

Thanks @Cyclone Boom
I will try to transfer everything to the Simtropolis storage. It will be long and difficult.

I can’t pack drawings in thematic folders according to my CJ chapters.

But I will follow your advice and I will do it.

Thank you for your attention!

[Propfam 2,286]

8 hours ago, Cyclone Boom said:

we've plenty of space (1372 GB to be precise right now)

I'm afraid it's too small for everything these days. I mean, everyone has that amount of storage on their gaming laptops. I know, SC4 isn't Forza or even GTA 6 and not everyone plays at 4K or 8K but if we add so much images, that would add up. Especially if everyone decided that uploading mostly uncompressed PNG is a good idea.

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

@Jidan

Yes, it isn't unlimited storage space (nor will it ever be). Dirk has to pay for the site hosting after all. However, it's more than enough space if as a community we continue to use it responsibly. The main thing is images uploaded to ST won't randomly go missing as external image hosts are prone to.

Indeed, using JPGs is absolutely best for gameplay screenshots, and we encourage people to use that due to the lossy compression.

[CorinaMarie 29,556]

I see CB won the posting race, but I'll say my bit too.  

 

3 minutes ago, Jidan said:

Especially if everyone decided that uploading mostly uncompressed PNG is a good idea.

Here's the thing about that: Most peeps are very considerate of their home away from home (ST) and are careful to post pics in JPG format with 85 or 90% compression and they look just fine.

[CaptCity 4,669]

Now that things seem to be back to normal, figured this would be as good as place as any... Just wanted to say 'thanks' to @Dirktator, @Cyclone Boom, @CorinaMarie, and anyone else who may have had a hand in getting things running smoothly again so quickly after the recent issues. It just feels strange to not be able to 'check in' when the site is down. Glad it wasn't an overly lengthy downtime.  

 

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

Thanks @CaptCity. It certainly was a frustrating one from our perspective this time. All we could do is wait for our web host do investigate. The server side tools were inaccessible and nothing would respond. The only thing I figured out was adding a custom offline page via Cloudflare.

I've today heard from Dirk and he says tech support were quite vague, but they report it was caused by a "network stability issue" at our web host. I suppose this could range from faulty hardware or a software issue. Or maybe they just needed that old trick of powering off and on again. Either way I'm confident it's all resolved now, and the main thing to confirm is nothing was lost. As a precaution after the site came back, I made a local database backup just in case.

Cori gave me moral support during the downtime, as I was stressing and getting concerned it'd be much longer than it was. Thankfully it's all resolved now.

[Propfam 2,286]

On 3/21/2025 at 8:01 AM, Cyclone Boom said:

Thankfully it's all resolved now.

Thankfully. But there's a catch, the theme is slightly wrong. I don't remember ST had a gradient theme when I joined. And the backdrop is a bit darker than I'm used to.

[Cyclone Boom 16,829]

14 hours ago, Propfam said:

But there's a catch, the theme is slightly wrong.

Actually, the theme isn't "wrong" here.

With the end of winter in the northern hemisphere, it was time to change the site header image to use a non-winter theme. In the process while editing, I decided to do some spring cleaning. Indeed, the navigation bar, clickable buttons, and page block headings now have subtle gradients (e.g. blue forum headings).

Previously @Simizen posted a suggestion here about tweaking the theme in this way (along with your own suggestion here), and I agree this is worthwhile. As such it isn't a bug, but an intentional change I made to (hopefully) enhance the visual aesthetics of the site.

So you're correct there is a difference now, but it isn't a bug or related to the recent downtime.

[bhmantan 2,045]

Hi, did something change with the `og:image` of the mods page?

I'm not sure if it's just me or anyone else experiencing this, but when I share a link to a mods page, now it's not showing the thumbnail of that page anymore.

Previously, the picture would show up on the right side of the box, but now it's not. Just a white square on the left indicates a broken link to the image.
You can try this by sharing a link to a mods page on Discord, WhatsApp, Facebook, or any platform that will fetch the page information of the link.

And I think it's been like this for a while, I first noticed it in early February last month.