Boat warps

[Jur Schagen]

Like I promised yesterday, I took a look at the boat warping problem. Here's a report of my findings.

The problem seems to be related to the fact that for an unknown reason, there were more than one records in a table called "sailing" (storing current information on the location and speed of the boat), where there should be only one. The code assumed there was only one, and updated that as the ship sailed around. However, when it docked, the entry was deleted. But, only one of them... thus reactivating the "sleeping" record that had been around all that time. No problem while the boat was docked, no checks were done on this table while the boat was in port... bu when the ship undocked again, there was a new insertion into the table... but, with the ID number of the "sleeping" record (with age-old information)being lower than the record just inserted, that suddenly became the "active" record! (Apart from that, inserting a new "sleeping" record as well). The location was suddenly changed to the location of the false "active" record - and a warp was born.

The code has now been changed so that there's a DELETE of any existing records in the sailing table when undocking, just before the new record is inserted. Even though we still don't know what caused the original bug (the fact that there were multiple records in the first place), we hope we have fought the symptoms. Boat warping *should* not occur anymore.

However! This is not to say that this has solved the warping problem once and for all. The change to the code was in fact implemented about a week ago - so if there have been warps since then, we would like to hear about them.

Please accept an apology from us as well. It appears as if we didn't handle the warping problem reports appropriatly, not returning messsages to the players, etc, up to a stage where people simply decided to sail back the way they came. This has probably got to do with the fact that there are too many channels for reporting bugs (the Forum, Flyspray, bugs@cantr.net), plus the fact that several members of the Dept are involved in solving them. I hereby request you people to report urgent bugs like this to bugs@cantr.net - and please include your player ID, character name, and other relevant details in the report. We seriously hope that we can improve our performance in this respect, and that we'll appropriatly handle boat warps (or other bugs with serious IG consequences) within a matter of a few days max.

Jur.

[Surly]

Go Jur!

[Agar]

Thank you Jur!

I only got whisked to the middle of nowhere a couple times on boats myself, never got hit by warping.

Good work on just plain communicating though! It's always good to see people getting thier issues adressed!

[SekoETC]

Is it over now? Can I come out? *peers out of the deck hatch*

Anyway gotta love loads of stuff that weren't even really yours getting stolen while your boat takes a good leap across the island. Or losing a bunch of food in trying to sail back to where you warped from. Might be a good start for some sailor stories.

I was partially afraid that if I'd ask for my boat to be moved, they wouldn't check if my character was still on it by the time they read the message and he'd be stuck on a locked ship without a beaching vessel. So it was safer to try to find an ingame solution.

[kinvoya]

Thank you for looking into this, Jur.

[Schme]

Nice work.

[Surly]

I think, although I'm not sure, that my boat suffered a minor (but very annoying) boat warp.

I'll email bugs@cantr.net about it...

[Cookie]

Are boat warps so bad? I mean it could be like the bermuda triangle of Cantr.

[Jur Schagen]

Thanks for your report, Surly, it is indeed a warp. We're figuring out how it is possible right now.

To all boat owners: if your boat is docked to another boat, that in turn is docked on land or port, do not undock the sub-boat or you might warp as well. That is, until we confirm here that this is solved.

Jur.

[nitefyre]

I have a question, which comes from the effects of such a bug.

This recent boat warping phenomena recently caused one of my characters who owned a big boat left out at sea (within sight of land), to go searching for their boat when it was no longer visible in the graphic.

From what I could deduce, OOCly, was that the boat had been docked to by someone who left the town they were all in, for whatever reason, but warped away when undocked.

Knowing this was OOCly the case and all I had to do was sit and wait for the issue to be resolved, but also figuring in my character's natural tendency to have an obsessive concern of their boat of 20 or so years; how would one play their characters in such circumstances?

[SekoETC]

Actually the boat was sailed out of there. But getting close to it was due to a warp. So technically the one who took it shouldn't have been there.

[T.L.H.E.]

If I understood what you said correctly, I believe I had a boat warp after the code was changed. I explained it on flyspray, and it was resolved quickly (Thank you Chris Johnson!), but if it's any help, the page is here.

[SekoETC]

lol That ship is cursed. And besides you couldn't have gotten a chance to try docking there if I haven't warped away from it to outside Mokquasdorn. Anyway but since all the warping back and forth had cost me so much food, I had to go ashore to get more potatoes. So what next? I'll go to the ship stolen from nitefyre's character, use it to sail back to CI Sea Maiden and dump it half a world away from where it was taken, or would it be possible to move my docking boat to CI Sea Maiden, and Siom Soarer back to outside Omeo and things would be almost like they should. Exept that nite's character wouldn't know it had magically returned and would end up sailing around the island only to notice it was back where they left it. Blame the fog? And my character has lost loads of food. Not to mention the things stolen from the boat after the first warp.

[nitefyre]

Well, I take it in good light (unlike how some other very-very-very angry Cantrian players probably would), so I don't mind the deceptive challenge for my character.

IC solutions to OOC problems.

[Surly]

And now, due to that warp, I have lost my main boat.

Fantastic. Just fantastic.

Just how many boats do I have to lose before the problem is rectified?