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Known Issues

PlayYourTurn.com is still very much in development. Everything is coming together, but there are bound to be issues that pop up as more and more players start using the site and uploader tool. There is only so much I can test on my own and with my friends.

I am keeping bugs and issues out in the open, in hopes that this will make me resolve them faster. Please feel free to email me and report any bugs, issues, or feature requests you have.

This is broken up into two sections. The first are known issues with the Pitboss software from Firaxis. Sadly, there is nothing I can do to resolve these, but knowing about them ahead of time will save you some headaches. The second section is for issues specific to this site and the uploader tool.

Table of Contents

Known Issues with Pitboss

Creating Vassals Freezes Pitboss Window

Whenever any player creates a vassal, a new civilization that was previously not in the game, the Pitboss Window freezes. The game goes on normally, and players can play their turns, but the UI will freeze, and lock up. The Pitboss UI seems to have trouble adding a new player to the window. The game must be manually saved, Pitboss restarted, and the game loaded to properly load the new civ into Pitboss. While the UI is frozen, the PlayYourTurn.com upload tool will be unable to parse any game data, and the turns will not be recorded.

Whenever a new vassal is created in the game, it is the admin’s responsibility to restart Pitboss and the Uploader.

Known Issues with PlayYourTurn.com

Tables Do Not Sort Properly

The tables do not sort properly. Everything is being treated as a String, and not a number. This means “11″ comes before “2″. I’m looiking into this. I should really just move to jQuery at this point.

Turn-Based Games Showing Incorrect Played Turn Information on Connect

Since version 1.00, when the Uploader Tool connects for the first time, it sends all of the Player Info. This is useful for when the Uploader has been disconnected for a while, it sends “fresh info”, such as scores, status, and the played turn flag. For Simultaneous Turn games, this is fine. For Turn-Based games, this might improperly set the “Played Turn” flag, because of the way Pitboss represents this information. The issue will fix itself whenever a new turn begins.

No support for Linux

Linux is currently not supported by the Uploader Tool, even when run under Wine. This is a direct result of the way that the tool handles communication with the Play Your Turn website, to generate events. I will look into this while I am re-writing the uploader, but it is not high on my list of priorities.

Multiple Instances of Pitboss not Supported

If you are using some kind of sorcerery to run multiple instances of Pitboss on the same machine, the Uploader Tool will be unable to figure out which is which. This issue could be resolved in a future release, but would take a substantial rewrite of the tool. Please let me know if this is of high importance to you.

Lack of Feedback in the Uploader

The uploader was a hard-coded command line tool up until December 12th, 2009. When I was contacted by a group of gamers interested in using this site over CivStats, I worked all weekend to give it a decent UI, and remove all of the hard-coded sections.

One of the glaring omissions in the uploader tool is various forms of feedback. For example, if you input the incorrect game password in the tool and start it, the tool won’t tell you. This is due to the way the tool sends information to the PlayYourTurn.com server, and the communication between the two will have to be improved in order to provide feedback like this.

The uploader tool is still very much in it’s infancy, much more so than the website itself. Please report all issues with the uploader tool to me as you find them, and I’ll try to keep pushing out newer versions with fixes.

Resolved Issues

“My Turn” Emails Not Implemented

The only emails that are currently supported are “New Turn” emails, which are sent when a new turn begins for the game. This works best for Simultaneous-Turn games, so if you’re playing in one of those, no worries. “My Turn” email alerts are not implemented yet.

“My Turn” emails are now fully supported, and can be enabled in the same place as simultaneous-turn emails. These “My Turn” emails will only be sent when it is YOUR turn.

Array Out of Bounds Error

Two beta testers have reported seeing intermittent “Array out of Bounds” errors in the Uploader Tool. Looking into this, the only way that I can reproduce this error is to actually close the Pitboss window while the Uploader Tool is running. It seems like the Uploader Tool is losing track of the Pitboss window on some systems, but I can’t figure out why. I think it might have something to do with the /ALTROOT setting. I’m going to continue looking into it, and work with them to resolve this bug. If you also run into it, please shoot me an email and let me know what steps you take to reproduce it.

This issue should be fully resolved in Uploader version 0.07. The Uploader Tool should never kick out with an error and close entirely. If the Pitboss window cannot be found, or if for some reason the Uploader tool only gets half of the window’s text, it will try again immediately, up to 5 times by default. Users of the uploader tool should never, ever see an Array Out Of Bounds error.

Player Ended Turn / New Turn Events

Based on the way in which Player Finish Turn and New Turn Events are parsed from the Pitboss window, there is currently a race condition. The last player to play their turn generates an Finished Turn event, and at the same time the game year updates, which generates a New Turn event. This means that either event can come first, and you will sometimes see a New Turn event before the Player Finished Turn event that triggered it. This isn’t a huge deal, but it may appear as though the last player to play their turn is getting two turns in a given year. I assure you, that’s not the case, and I’m working on some ideas for fixes.

The order of Finished Turns and New Turn events is now forced with the Uploader Tool version 1.00. This is no longer an issue.

GUI Lag in the Uploader

There’s no native threading in AutoIt, the language I wrote the Uploader Tool in. It’s possible, but very complex to implement. The Uploader Tool is in a constant loop, looking at the Pitboss window to see if anything changes, like a player’s score. This parsing can sometimes take several seconds, depending on the number of players, and cause the interface of the tool to lag a little. For example, trying to drag the window, or pressing the “Stop The Uploader” button might take a full second to register. There is currently no way around this that I can find, but it is not a huge issue. The GUI is only slowed when it is actively parsing, so setting up games is fine, and for the most part, the GUI should be minimized in the system tray. Just be patient with it, and don’t mask buttons multiple times.

While the GUI Lag cannot be removed entirely because of threading in AutoIt, I have significantly reduced it by rewriting the parsing code in version 1.00 of the Uploader Tool. The GUI is much more responsive now.

Errors with player Elimination and Played Turn Messages

There is a problem with the Uploader Tool that can sometimes read an incorrect score value of a blank string, which changes the player’s score to 0, which eliminates them from the game on the website. This is being looked into. It’s also possible for the website to go “out of sync” with the Pitboss menu in terms of which player has played their turns. This is going to be address in a major re-write of the Uploader Tool.

These errors were the result of errors with parsing. With the rewrite of the parsing code in Uploader version 1.00, this should no longer be an issue.

“Wont Fix” Issues with PlayYourTurn.com

The Turn Timer Does Not Match Pitboss Exactly

The turn timer on a game’s page may sometimes be slightly off from what Pitboss actually displays. It is generall slightly slower, meaning that the turn will end several seconds before the timer actually finishes.

This issue is due to the fact that we parse the time, send it across the internet, parse it through a PHP script, and store it in a database. This can take a second or two itself, but on top of that, we have to account for the differences in the user’s clock and the server’s clock. Not timezones, but simple things like the Pitboss server’s clock being 3 minutes fast. The website does not know or account for that, so you may notice the timer on the game page is not exact. It is generally correct most of the time, but do not take it as gospel and wait until the last second.

Missing “Ended Turn” Events for Single Player Games

If you are playing a Pitboss game with only one human player, it is very likely that you will lose “Ended Turn” events for your player. This is because the second you end your turn, a new turn starts, and sometimes the Pitboss UI updates so quickly, the Uploader Tool cannot read the change before it’s gone. New Turn events will be processed correctly, but it is very likely you will miss many “Ended Turn” events.

This site is intended for the tracking of multiplayer pitboss games. We have no plans to support single player games like this. The score graphs and event logs will work in every other regard, but you will be missing “Ended Turn” events.