bugs Simtropolis 9.0.x - Bugs & Issues Report Thread

[Cyclone Boom 16,876]

12 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

CB is going to fix this one up later this evening as the Quadrupler mod has gone missing.

I've now re-uploaded and assigned the file to @toroca in Mods & Tools:

 

As a bonus, I internally swapped in the original ID (21293) which was vacant after the original file went missing many moons ago. With the old STEX link redirects working, the good news is the original URL now correctly points to the re-uploaded file:

E.g. As @huzman reported:

https://www.simtropolis.com/STEX/details.cfm?id=21293

So, this means anywhere which refers to the Industry Quadrupler should arrive at the proper destination.

[huzman 445]

Good job, @Cyclone Boom. As you may have noticed, out of ~20 files, only a couple were really important. For instance, I think that @toroca's Industry quadruple has played down the goodness of that mod and published another similar mod that doubles the effects only.

Nice to see the updating those old but cherished files.

Thanks.

[redfox85 659]

Whenever I get mentioned/tagged in a city journal that system notifies me twice. Not sure why...

[huzman 445]

I noticed that too. Until I realized that one was "commented" and the other was "quoted". Have you noticed that?

[redfox85 659]

@huzman Nope - this is just getting tagged, nothing else.

[Cyclone Boom 16,876]

5 hours ago, redfox85 said:

Whenever I get mentioned/tagged in a city journal that system notifies me twice. Not sure why...

Thanks for reporting. I can confirm this as a site bug which will be forwarded to IPS (the developers).

[BC Canuck 207]

Just opened my iPad and everything is back to normal  

I can see all the pictures, avatars etc and I can even sign out now that the search box doesn't cover the sign out box.

I'm not sure who fixed the snafu but thanks so much!  @Cyclone Boom maybe??

 

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

1 minute ago, BC Canuck said:

I'm not sure who fixed the snafu but thanks so much!  @Cyclone Boom maybe??

He certainly is a genius with that kind of stuff so that'd be my guess too. (I know I hid under my bed until it was resolved.)

[BC Canuck 207]

Hehe...no need to hide under the bed...it wasn't my laptop!  If it were that would have been a real mess and I would have joined you under the bed 

Anyway waiting for the plumbers to show up.  My entire building is being repiped from copper to a type of plastic pipe due to our soft water causing leaks.  Apparently soft water is very  acidic and eats into the copper (sounds counter-intuitive).

So fun and games here at home!

 

[huzman 445]

On 11/27/2017 at 5:45 PM, redfox85 said:

this is just getting tagged, nothing else.

It was just an idea. Looks like @Cyclone Boom took care of that.

[Cyclone Boom 16,876]

8 hours ago, BC Canuck said:

I can see all the pictures, avatars etc and I can even sign out now that the search box doesn't cover the sign out box.

Excellent, glad to hear it!

Occasionally there's a phenomenon where unexplained site issues mysteriously resolve themselves all of a sudden, seemingly for no logical reason. Seems like this is one case in point, as much as I'd like to claim I did fix this.

(Although I did reset the site cache last night to fix profile backgrounds not showing, so maybe that helped.)

[nycsc4 5,250]

I have a question that I can't seem to find an answer for.  When I upload images I just use the upload option through Simtropolis.  It seems each time I upload an image the Max size per file gets smaller and smaller.  Originally it was always 4MB per post allowed.  I always shrink my photos before uploading them (usually around 500kb each) but now I can't even upload that.  Anyone know anything about this...seems like it just started happening.

[matias93 7,535]

54 minutes ago, nycsc4 said:

I have a question that I can't seem to find an answer for.  When I upload images I just use the upload option through Simtropolis.  It seems each time I upload an image the Max size per file gets smaller and smaller.  Originally it was always 4MB per post allowed.  I always shrink my photos before uploading them (usually around 500kb each) but now I can't even upload that.  Anyone know anything about this...seems like it just started happening.

You are right. The site doesn't offer a lot of space for uploading images, so it's recommended to use another image server, like flickr, imgur or something like that for most of your images, along with a handy local backup in case the cloud pops and your images dissapear from the internet.

Normally, what needs to be stored locally in terms of images are graphical references that need to be stable and available years after the original poster uploaded them. In line with that, we recommend only to upload images directly to ST if you are posting an omnibus tutorial or a reference image on a file.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

@nycsc4

I took a peek in our site toolkit and I can confirm you have used 99% of your allowed storage space. As @matias93 mentioned, using an image server will allow you to continue posting images. Another option is if you delete some of your older images via the My Attachments thinger.

To clarify: The images posted with an Omnibus article and STEX files are stored in ST's Library separately from a member's quota and don't count against your total allowed.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

Everybody's profile picture has gone missing.  I just spent an hour trying to find the original on my hard-drive, and was about to have a nervous-breakdown as its buried in a mass of clutter that it would take a year to find, then I came back and looked at a few profiles and mine isn't the only one that is missing.

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 hours ago, RandyE said:

Everybody's profile picture has gone missing.

Our storage provider was having problems starting on Monday. They claimed to have it resolved. Then the problems came back. Checking their status page shows them saying they are fixed again as of Dec 19, 2017 - 02:17 UTC. Checking the online users list I see Avatars so maybe it's all good now.

[Cyclone Boom 16,876]

Oddly enough I signed in earlier and first realised my profile pic missing:

This was in the user bar at the top right, and also everywhere else on the site (as would be expected from being the same file).

Trying to load the image directly resulted in a repeated time-out 504 error:

What was strange is it appeared I had the only image which wouldn't display. Others loaded in a timely fashion and didn't throw the error upon visiting directly. Also I loaded this thread into a screenshot capture site to double check, and sure enough it still showed blank. Cleared my local browser cache, force refreshed all to no avail. Then an hour or so later and it suddenly came back, as it is now.

It seems like the degraded performance is both intermittent and sporadic. On several occasions I've previously observed the images being slow to load, before they'd pick up the pace. Then on Monday evening there was a mix of "503 Service Unavailable" errors with time-outs.

So this is certainly something we'll be monitoring. If anyone notices any missing images or STEX files not downloading, please continue to let us know.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

Its happening again where the profile picture is missing.  I didn't check anybody else's yet, but I'm assuming its across the board.  What I did is re-upload my profile picture and it uploaded OK, but did not appear on my profile page.

[ResidentGrump 2]

hey guys, noob here.

I have been having a lot of trouble with downloading of SC4 mods and files.

keep getting server errors, dls fail at 512kb and show "failed - Server problem" in almost all cases with files hosted at nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com (I was only able to get a few files before this started, the NAM, Maxis Bldngs and SC4Fix, but nothing else.)

Is this a known problem? is there any way to fix?

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

Hiya, @ResidentGrump. Welcome to Simtropolis!

Yes, the nyc3 section of Digital Ocean is where we host our files, avatars, attached images and such. They were having lots of problems a few days ago and claim to have it all fixed up. Their current status page proclaims it's all wonderful atm. However, for the past six hours I've noticed our ST site itself seems to be laggy from time to time and occasionally tossing out errors and not displaying pages and such.

There is a button in our Admin Control Panel that wipes out the cache and then lets it rebuild from fresh. I've never pushed said button before, but I believe it's worth me giving it a try. Maybe that'll help.

Edit: Said button has now been pushed. Nothing exploded.

[ResidentGrump 2]

thanks @CorinaMarie it is working now.

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

Yeah I'd like to report a bug.  Its snowing on my desktop, the snow is originating from the ST front page.  I like it!  Please don't fix it!  Let it snow, let it snow!    Also there is a strange Santa cap affixed to my avatar to the left.  Its a bit off from my right orientation of my space suit.  

[Tyberius06 12,189]

Hi everyone!

Can it be done anything with the search engine? Because It's pretty annoying when I try to search on for example the RUM for RRW, I got a no match message and the offer to try to filter my search and it must contain more the 4 letters... That one with bold is 9 letters, still I guess, the search engine handle it word by word, instead as a whole thing, and wants 4 letters in each word, which is pretty nonsense... 

Thanks in advance!

- Tyberius

[CorinaMarie 29,605]

2 minutes ago, Tyberius06 said:

Can it be done anything with the search engine?

Only if IPS (the devs of the site's software) decide to do so. They've been promising improvements of the search forever (and not delivering on said promises).

About the only solution is to jump out to Google and try: rum for rrw site:simtropolis.com

[Cyclone Boom 16,876]

In the changelog of the most recent board update (4.2.6), I noticed a nondescript mention to supposed "Search result improvements".

Testing now, it does seem 3 character terms such as NAM, RUM, RRW and RHW finally retrieve results which is a welcome improvement from previously. For these I went to the Advanced Search page, selecting the Files section (STEX), and filtering by "Content titles only". Then on the Sort By option, doing so by Relevancy (I'll look into whether this can be made the default). Once entering the first term, another can be searched subsequently with the same set of criteria.

So a small encouraging sign perhaps of even better things to come. The latest hint I heard from the developers is the 4.3 release would have much more notable enhancements to the search engine mechanics. A search for your "RUM for RRW" really should bring the exact match.

As search is a feature integrated into the software, admittedly there's only so much can be done from Dirk's end (really limited to the UI and styles in the templates and themes). Here's still hoping the promises IPS have made finally live up to expectations...

[RobertLM78 1,597]

Getting high CPU usage with Simtropolis site.  When I close the window, the browser returns to normal idle CPU use. 

Edit: And of course no sooner do I post this that the browser seems to be chilling out... though this has been a noticeable issue in general today

[matias93 7,535]

40 minutes ago, RobertLM78 said:

Getting high CPU usage with Simtropolis site.  When I close the window, the browser returns to normal idle CPU use. 

Edit: And of course no sooner do I post this that the browser seems to be chilling out... though this has been a noticeable issue in general today

My gut feeling is that the snow is causing the issues, but we have been experimenting a lot of issues with the servers, so it can be multicausal...

The snow graphics on the top, I mean, but the real snow in North America could also be taking its toll...

[RobertLM78 1,597]

45 minutes ago, matias93 said:

My gut feeling is that the snow is causing the issues

That's what I was beginning to suspect - thanks! 

 

[SecretMbr_735754 2,157]

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<Error><Code>ServiceUnavailable</Code><Message>Please reduce your request rate.</Message><RequestId/></Error>

This is what I've seen a few times.  There seems to be continued difficulty with serving pictures and files.

[Cyclone Boom 16,876]

1 hour ago, RandyE said:

This is what I've seen a few times.  There seems to be continued difficulty with serving pictures and files.

As per the announcement shown atop the site header, that 503 error along with the 504 timeout is caused by our files host (Digital Ocean).

What they're encountering can broadly be described as sustained intermittent service degradation. Resultantly STEX files are significantly slow to process, or at times may not even download whatsoever. Over on their status page, it still reports increased error rates with their hosted S3 storage setup, which has been persistent on and off for a while now (and most notably the past week). This also affects site resources including file screenshots, attachments, profile pics and award icons.

Rest assured files are still intact, and the issue is the process of transferring them upon request. Global service overload is playing a part here (ST is not only affected), and we'll be considering our options. In the meantime our advice is to try again. It seems downloads may not work one minute, then be perfectly fine the next. It's very frustrating.

Again apologies for the inconvenience, and thanks everyone for your continued patience.