Emergency Maintenance and Aftermath (2/12/24)

[LockeValken]

9 minutes ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

Under Windows, Snipping Tool will work in CoX if you have it activated and enabled (Ctrl-Win-S). That can be more efficient than full screenshots at gaming resolution...

This!

 

However, win-ctrl-s is speech for me; try win-shift-s.

 

I was about to say hit windows key, type "snip", then select, copy button, paste.... did not know there was a "win-shift-s" shortcut, thanks!

 

[Etched]

I figured out how to snip it. A much clearer pic of of my enhancement screen.

 

Look, i have Tough with not havin Punch or Kick and I have Veng with just havin Assault.

 

@Etched

Edited February 13 by Etched

[Shenanigunner]

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

It's a bit of a pain, but here's how to do it on Windows (other OSs use similar steps):

 

I said it below, but using Snipping Tool bypasses nearly all of these clumsy steps. You can snip and save parts of the screen in any convenient format, with a little markup capability, without using any kind of image editing tool.

[Widower]

We are aware that the AH has been having further issues today and will keep monitoring the situation.

[mechahamham]

Widower and other GMs,

 

I was doing a bunch of crafting and /ah sales yesterday morning across multiple characters. Those items now seem to be missing. I just straight up don't remember WHAT I put up or on which characters.

 

Getting the recipes or enhancers back just isn't important to me, but I thought I'd mention it in case looking at my sales history helps your team diagnose the issues.

 

I feel the pain of a bad SQL server install on a very personal, private level. (Jee criminey, I've spent a lot of late nights backing out bad installs...)

[unstatusthequo]

6 hours ago, Shenanigunner said:

 

I said it below, but using Snipping Tool bypasses nearly all of these clumsy steps. You can snip and save parts of the screen in any convenient format, with a little markup capability, without using any kind of image editing tool.

 

Have you tried the open source Greenshot? https://getgreenshot.org/

 

Does a great job and I like it much better than snipping tool, IMHO. Hotkey that to something like PrtScr and you're good!

Edited February 14 by unstatusthequo

[Healix]

I use the last free version of FastStone Capture. I have used it since Windows XP and it works great on Windows 11

 

http://www.oldversion.com/windows/faststone-capture-5-2

[Neopatch]

You can also use ShareX for screenshoting (so now we got a complete inventory of all the good free solution on the market 😛 )

Edited February 14 by Neopatch

[GM Crumpet]

21 minutes ago, Neopatch said:

You can also use ShareX for screenshoting (so now we got a complete inventory of all the good free solution on the market 😛 )

I use shareX, but the snipping tool is now surprisingly helpful. It saves screenshots in pictures now instead of the clipboard and I don't need to go into paint to save it 🙂 

[Sszl]

Is this the right post to check for updates on resolution / response to player submitted support tickets related to this issue?  I haven't seen any ETA for responding to the player submitted tickets, and was wondering if there is an ETA?  Thanks!

[snuggiecide]

I submitted a ticket because I found multiple issues with my account last night. But I want to say something.

 

This is a free game and I appreciate all this hard work done dealing with issues like this. City of Heroes is a labor of love, but perhaps the love is more laborious today. I want to thank you all. 
 

If you can’t find my lost items and money, I will not be too upset. City of Heroes homecoming is a very old game that is jury-rigged to run on modern systems, and it generally works amazingly well.

[Shenanigunner]

7 hours ago, GM Crumpet said:

I use shareX, but the snipping tool is now surprisingly helpful. It saves screenshots in pictures now instead of the clipboard and I don't need to go into paint to save it 🙂 

 

Yes, it could use a few tweaks but it's now a very useful tool that (1) doesn't crash or collide with any other app or applet and (2) costs nothing/asks nothing/doesn't bug you for no good reason.

 

The descent of all of what used to be freeware/shareware into hypercapitalist pinchware makes me avoid it, and I've actively discarded tools I've used for years because of it.

[Jacke]

3 hours ago, snuggiecide said:

I submitted a ticket because I found multiple issues with my account last night. But I want to say something.

 

This is a free game and I appreciate all this hard work done dealing with issues like this. City of Heroes is a labor of love, but perhaps the love is more laborious today. I want to thank you all. 
 

If you can’t find my lost items and money, I will not be too upset. City of Heroes homecoming is a very old game that is jury-rigged to run on modern systems, and it generally works amazingly well.

 

 

I'm not a dev nor a member of the support staff.  I'm a player of City.  But I'd like to speak up for the devs and support staff at this time.  I've done jobs very similar to theirs.  I understand a lot of the issues they face.

 

It's good that when you noticed things were wrong, you submitted a support ticket.  That's one of the ways we as users of this game, players in our City, help contribute to helping the devs and support staff find the problems and fix things now and in the future.

 

 

First, a safety note:  While playing in City, when you change something on your toon and have finished changing it, change ZONES.  That makes a backup.  Change your Supergroup Base, leave it and let it be unloaded and backed up.  These backups can help solve many issues.  Now, back to our City.

 

 

Our City is what's called a legacy system.  That means it's large, complex, and has been around for a long time.  It's not so much jury-rigged as adapted several times to changing circumstances and hardware.  It bears the imprint of every dev, full-time, part-time, and contract, that ever worked on it.  And as I learned in my working past, many times the work that was done before now, further in the past, it wasn't necessarily the best work or the most appropriate.  Often those working back then were working to deadlines.  And when things were seen to be complete, tested to be good enough, well, that was it.  Release it and let the players benefit.  Most times that was good enough.  But there's also a long history of some parts that aren't as good as they should be.

 

The devs and support staff we have now are a much better group of computer craft workers than are usually seen.  All of them are volunteers that are doing what they do out of love for our City.

 

They've got a lot of legacy system to maintain and keep running.  Not just the game as players see it.  All those admin tasks the support staff do.  All the work on the plumbing underneath that the devs do.  That plumbing that makes the game go and makes work all the pretty possibilities we can play with.  Identifying what to review in that plumbing, how to change it, when to change it, and finally go about changing it, all by that crew of volunteer devs backed up by a crew of volunteer support staff.  Even with enough warm bodies supporting a legacy system , changing it for the better can only be done so fast.

 

Our City we play in is that legacy system.  Anything persistent is stored in a database.  There are many databases in City.  Anytime something changes, or things interact, there's code pulling items out of those databases into memory, working with them, transforming them, then storing them back into the databases.  And at times, backups are made of things in the databases.  It's all part of the design of that legacy system that is our City.

 

What happened on Monday is that for some reasons, internal and not really useful to those who don't have to work on the plumbing, the workings of City that had to change some of those items from the databases, then store them back into those databases, for those reasons, they mangled some of the items.  That was identified in good time, then the emergency maintenance done to stop the things going wrong and resolve those reasons for things going wrong.

 

There still seems to be some issues, but that can come from using items mangled earlier that are still in the databases.  It's up to us as users to report when things aren't right.  When reported, those issues can be resolved, from a backup or in some cases carefully fixing what's broken.

 

I have full confidence in the devs and support staff running our City.  Fixing the problems and making our gaming home how it should be.  😺

Edited February 14 by Jacke

[GM Crumpet]

11 minutes ago, Jacke said:

 

 

I'm not a dev nor a member of the support staff.  I'm a player of City.  But I'd like to speak up for the devs and support staff at this time.  I've done jobs very similar to theirs.  I understand a lot of the issues they face.

 

It's good that when you noticed things were wrong, you submitted a support ticket.  That's how we as users, players of this game, contribute to helping the devs and support staff find the problems and fix thing now and in the future.

 

 

First, a safety note:  While playing in City, when you change something on your toon and have finished changing it, change ZONES.  That makes a backup.  Change your Supergroup Base, leave it and let it be unloaded and backed up.  These backups can help solve many issues.  Now, back to our City.

 

 

Our City is what's called a legacy system.  That means it's large, complex, and has been around for a long time.  It's not so much jury-rigged as adapted several times to changing circumstances and hardware.  It bears the imprint of every dev, full-time, part-time, and contract, that ever worked on it.  And as I learned in my working past, many times the work that was done before now, further in the past, it wasn't necessarily the best work or the most appropriate.  Often those working back then were working to deadlines.  And when things were seen to be complete, tested to be good enough, well, that was it.  Release it and let the players benefit.  Most times that was good enough.  But there's also a long history of some parts that aren't as good as they should be.

 

The devs and support staff we have now are a much better group of computer craft workers than are usually seen.  All of them are volunteers that are doing what they do out of love for our game.

 

They've got a lot of legacy system to maintain and keep running.  Not just the game as players see it.  All those admin tasks the support staff do.  All the work on the plumbing underneath that the devs do.  That plumbing that makes the game go and makes work all the pretty possibilities we can play with.  Identifying what to review in that plumbing, how to change it, when to change it, and finally go about changing it, all by that crew of volunteer devs backed up by a crew of volunteer support staff.  Even with enough warm bodies supporting a legacy system , changing it for the better can only be done so fast.

 

Our City we play in is that legacy system.  Anything persistent is stored in a database.  There are many databases in City.  Anytime something changes, or things interact, there's code pulling items out of those databases into memory, working with them, transforming them, then storing them back into the databases.  And at times, backups are made of things in the databases.  It's all part of the design of that legacy system that is our City.

 

What happened on Monday is that for some reasons, internal and not really useful to those who don't have to work on the plumbing, the workings of City that had to change some of those items from the databases, then store them back into those databases, for those reasons, they mangled some of the items.  That was identified in good time, then the emergency maintenance done to stop the things going wrong and resolve those reasons for things going wrong.

 

There still seems to be some issues, but that can come from using items mangled earlier that are still in the databases.  It's up to us as users to report when things aren't right.  When reported, those issues can be resolved, from a backup or in some cases carefully fixing what's broken.

 

I have full confidence in the devs and support staff running our City.  Fixing the problems and making our gaming home how it should be.  😺

Nicely put and I can't think of anything to add as you seem to have covered all the bases 🙂 

[Shenanigunner]

32 minutes ago, Jacke said:

I have full confidence in the devs and support staff running our City.  Fixing the problems and making our gaming home how it should be.  😺

 

Damn... and I was about to ask for a full refund. 😄

 

(Nicely written and speaks for many of us.)

[Dryfter]

Torchbearer is where my primary farmer resides and he's loaded (Funds my incredible Alt-Itis). Pretty sure I was untouched by this and if I did get pinged it was very minor. Whew!

Edited February 15 by Dryfter

[Widower]

Hi everyone,

 

I just wanted to provide an update on the resolution to this issue. We are planning to start reimbursing everyone affected next Wednesday, February 21st. I apologize for the delay, but due to the volume involved, it's taking some time to process the incoming tickets and verify them against our records.

 

Anything which can be purchased from a Merit vendor will be replaced with a corresponding number of Merits, so you can repurchase those items - or others, if you wish. Aether and Influence will be replaced directly. Other items will be replaced directly, or with sufficient currency to reacquire those items.

 

Thank you for your patience! If you have any questions about your personal situation, please respond to your ticket in the support portal and we can provide specific guidance.

[Shocktacular]

Does this mean that the issue has been fixed and our e-mails won't go missing anymore?

[kgoat2233]

I Am Missing 27 mil.   

I'm now at 14,877,127 influences from items I just sold   but man that screwed up my incarnet building...   

 

should be at 

27+14 mil.

[Glacier Peak]

49 minutes ago, kgoat2233 said:

I Am Missing 27 mil.   

I'm now at 14,877,127 influences from items I just sold   but man that screwed up my incarnet building...   

 

should be at 

27+14 mil.

File a support ticket and provide requested information outlined in the first post of this thread. 

[unstatusthequo]

On 2/15/2024 at 9:52 PM, Widower said:

Hi everyone,

 

I just wanted to provide an update on the resolution to this issue. We are planning to start reimbursing everyone affected next Wednesday, February 21st. I apologize for the delay, but due to the volume involved, it's taking some time to process the incoming tickets and verify them against our records.

 

Anything which can be purchased from a Merit vendor will be replaced with a corresponding number of Merits, so you can repurchase those items - or others, if you wish. Aether and Influence will be replaced directly. Other items will be replaced directly, or with sufficient currency to reacquire those items.

 

Thank you for your patience! If you have any questions about your personal situation, please respond to your ticket in the support portal and we can provide specific guidance.

We all appreciate the effort. My sense is it's a lot of work, and on behalf of the community, thanks to all the GMs.

[Kytross]

I wanted to take a moment and say thank you for all the hard work you guys do.  This is a great game and I appreciate the opportunity to play it after it shut down, and have loved playing on Homecoming for the last few years. 

 

Thank you!  

[MaceVanHoffen]

Thanks so much for all your hard work.  The HC team is a good model for open source maintenance that I wish more of my colleagues followed.

 

In "unrelated" news:  you folks should leave the donation windows open longer!

 

[IUIXIUI]

On 2/13/2024 at 12:37 AM, wjrasmussen said:

Along with all my billions of influence.

Maybe not billions but I am afraid I probably will end up losing out on the 140 mill I made last night...

[Enchantica]

OMG this thing has destroyed me! I lost

1. 25 full winter sets

2, 25 sets of every frozen blast , ragnorok , apocalypse

3.1000 aethers!

4. 25 trillion influence!

5. my dog

6. my ex.....i dont need back btw

 

 

Ok I am telling a fib. It was worth a try though.