New Naming Code Messed Up? Can't Create a Name I Just Deleted.

[gameboy1234]

So I deleted an old level one character to change them to the new Symphony power set.  The character was "expired" after 39 days not being logged in.  After deleting them I couldn't create a new character with the same name.  I think there may be something wrong with the new naming code.  I also did a /getglobalname on the name and it came back "nope" with no global.  So I think it's deleted but something else is preventing the name from being reused. 

 

(Does the database actually delete characters, or just mark them as deleted?  Could the new naming code not be checking for a character that's been marked as deleted?)

 

EDIT: P. S. I've also recently (two days ago?) had trouble renaming a character.  I renamed an existing character, played a bit, then decided to switch back to the old character name.  It wouldn't let me rename it back, gave me a "That is not a suitable character name" or similar message, even though I just had the name less than an hour ago.  I think it's possible this is related, there may be some way old names are "sticking around" and interfering with renaming or creating new characters.

Edited August 24, 2022 by gameboy1234

[Lines]

A workaround for now is to name your new character something different and then rename them back to the original name.

 

But yes, I encountered the same thing. A bit more testing over time might reveal if there's a timer associated with the deleted name being unlocked.

[Mindbomb]

I am having this same issue.  I renamed my existing character, and tried to use that name for a new character and it said the name was taken.  I was able to change the existing character back to the original name.  Something is broken.

[Mindbomb]

**Update.... I renamed a level 5 toon that had not been logged in for 50 days.  It gave me the new name and then the toon completely disappeared.  Something is clearly broken with the name warning and renames.

[UberGuy]

Make sure your character didn't jump somewhere else in your character list. Especially if you use a customized playerslots.txt.

 

This change should have had no side effects capable of doing what you're describing, but I have seen characters apparently disappear when renamed. In my case, I had a playerslots.txt that had the same character name in multiple slots. The character went to the other spot in the list, which was on a different "page" of my list.

[Mindbomb]

5 minutes ago, UberGuy said:

Make sure your character didn't jump somewhere else in your character list. Especially if you use a customized playerslots.txt.

 

This change should have had no side effects capable of doing what you're describing, but I have seen characters apparently disappear when renamed. In my case, I had a playerslots.txt that had the same character name in multiple slots. The character went to the other spot in the list, which was on a different "page" of my list.

***EDIT*** I logged all the way out and restarted from the launcher and the toon is back. 

Edited August 24, 2022 by Mindbomb

[UberGuy]

🤔 You likely did do this, but did you sign out and back in to confirm it was still missing afterwards?

[Mindbomb]

6 minutes ago, UberGuy said:

🤔 You likely did do this, but did you sign out and back in to confirm it was still missing afterwards?

The first time I just exited to login, but logging to desktop and re-launching fixed it.

 

Also worth noting that I can rename any toon and re-use the name right away now.

Edited August 24, 2022 by Mindbomb

[UberGuy]

So I think I found an old CB thread that talks about this, and I was able to reproduce the issue.

 

What happens is that renamed characters sometimes end up with a duplicate slot assignment after a rename. This is not harmful, except that only one character in a slot can "win", and the loser seemingly disappears from the list. This is purely a UI thing - nothing bad happens to the underlying character info.

 

It looks like the client checks for slot collisions (along with a couple of other invalid states) when reading the file fresh, so logging out and back fixes the issue.