Screw this, Rovio – Update Progress Bug

[Optimus_Pig]

So I complied, and I updated to v1.6.23

You’d think that a bug that’s been around for over three months would have been nailed down by now.

I guess not.

I just lost three hours of progress. Before I’d updated, that wouldn’t have been (as big) a deal, but now with the massive increase in materials needed for upgrades, during that three hours I’d spent a huge amount of time running nodes and using Professor Pig’s recipes to convert mats.

@gradientturtle7 @rumblebee

Any word on when this is finally going to be fixed? It’s a pretty major flaw.

Topic

[wrw01]

Hi @optimuspig,

I am not sure I understand the bug you are referencing. Could you please explain? I do not work for Rovio and just want to know about it. I too play ABT each day and if there is something I am doing that negates my time and effort.

Oh yea, what are “convert mats”?

[Sumit Arora]

Convert mats means converting materials into either gems or some other materials apart from that the bug he means that all of a sudden while playing the game a pop up will come which says we need to update your process please wait something like that and you have no option just to accept it and when you do the game will restart and your recent gameplay of may be 2 hours even more will be washed away and will return to the stage where you were few hours before!!

[gradientturtle7]

Hello. From our end we’ve fixed almost all of these bugs so not sure what’s happening. Are you running on two devices? If so the cloud save looks at your gem spend to see which is the most up to date version. Sometimes it gets it wrong but it’s the safest way of ensuring players who pay aren’t penalised.

Alternatively you could also try to play offline for a while. That might resolve things.

We do try and catch every single bug but with so many players and combinations of how they play sometimes it’s just not possible, so weird anomalies like this slip through.

[Optimus_Pig]

@wrw01 wrote:

“I am not sure I understand the bug you are referencing. Could you please explain?”

It’s been well discussed over the past three months – consider yourself lucky that you’ve never encountered it.

In a nutshell: it’s a glitch with the way that the game handles its automatic cloud saves and automatic restoration of saved game progress.

From time to time it will force the restore of your game progress. The problem is that the saved game information is out of date, so you typically end up losing at least several hours (or more) of your progress.

Although a pain in the ass, it’s not a huge deal if you haven’t been playing much, but in the situation I described up top, between running nodes and converting mats in Professor Pig’s lab I’d been logging a lot of game time recently, and lost all of it when the game “updated” it’s progress.

@wrw01 wrote:

“Oh yea, what are “convert mats”?”

I’m talking about when you go into Professor Pig’s lab and use the recipes in his machine to create materials and coins and gems out of other materials that you feed into it.

[Optimus_Pig]

@gradientturtle7

Thanks for the reply.

Nope, I only play on a single device, an iPad Mini (first generation) updated to iOS 8.4.1

I’m not on Facebook either – my cloud saves are enabled through iOS Game Center.

I generally do play offline if I remember to (it’s a pain to switch back and forth) or else I’ll force the game to hard close and turn off my wifi then. But last night I figured “hey, I haven’t heard people complaining much about it lately, and I am on v1.6.23 – it must be fixed, right?”

Oh, well.

[wrw01]

@optimuspig thanks for the explanation on both items.

I have not experienced the bug as you have described and it must be frustrating. I play on an iPad Air 2. Not sure if that has anything to do with it. I do clear the open iPad items and browser many times a day while playing. Usually when Rovio runs out of bonus videos in regular or Jenga game play. I also shut it down at these times.

I was in the Professors Pig’s lab about 3 days ago for close to 3 hours and played with one-two of the recipes and did not experience a bug. I alway play on-line. Not sure if any of that helps.

The bug I experience just about every day is in regular game play is when I pick a character from the map, a buddy and an energonicon. When playing with all three and having a lot of destruction, the game shuts down and goes back to my home screen on the iPad. Everything from that level is lost and the main character appears back on the main map yet to be played again. This “shut down of the level” also occurs when an email message flashes across the top of the iPad that I have received a new email. The shut down usually happens once per day from one of the causes listed above.

@gradientturtle7 @rumblebee

[gradientturtle7]

Try this…

Boot the game up while connected to the Internet.
Make sure you get to the map.
Then switch off Internet (go to airplane mode is easiest)
Then play a few nodes offline.
Then switch Internet back on.
Then play a couple more nodes.

Hopefully that’ll fix it!

[Optimus_Pig]

Or give us the option to disable automatic cloud saves.

Or even better, give us the option to enable automatic cloud saves, but game recovery must be user-initiated.

[Optimus_Pig]

@gradientturtle7

Thanks, I’ve give it a try if this comes up again.

Although I’m wondering – what you suggested above – is this supposed to fix things permanently, or is it just a short term workaround for every time this happens? If the latter, then wouldn’t it just be easier for me to play offline all the time?

[jman]

For Android you have to be online now to start the game, after that you can turn it off and play all day as long as it doesn’t glitch and you don’t fully exit game.

That’s one big issue for me, I spend most of my day away from data connection and once game glitches I can’t do anything. And it glitches a lot. Most notably I have to double tap coins, missions and nodes to get them to work. Once that happens in nodes I can’t shoot at all, in missions I can’t get three TFS to set cause the last TF disappears when I double tap to play and the coins is just annoying. Also have seen energonicons not responding a lot and game crash as well.

I gave up, support sucks and I was tired of it.

[Optimus_Pig]

“For Android you have to be online now to start the game, after that you can turn it off and play all day as long as it doesn’t glitch and you don’t fully exit game.”

I don’t know why Rovio would do that, except for maybe they don’t want people to be able to play without ads (no ads = no revenue).

But from a purely game-play standpoint there’s really no reason for something like that. Not all of us have data-plans for our tablets, or necessarily have easy access to wifi 24/7.

I certainly hope they don’t do this for the iOS version. But if they do, it’ll be the nail in the coffin for my continuing to play (not that it makes a huge difference to me since I’m still boycotting the video doublers, but I actually play offline a lot to thwart the “Update Progress” bug).

[drewish]

Just a heads up the update to 1.6.24 removes the requirement to be online at all.

Also gradientturtle7 described somewhat how to fix the endless progress loop. Rovio’s actual instructions are once you get the updating progress switch to airplain mode collect some coins to generate a local save file, exit the game, turn airplane mode off, restart the game and this should fix the issue. This solution is grom a Rovio help ticket. Good luck all!!!

[Pampeans]

Just a heads up the update to 1.6.24 removes the requirement to be online at all.

I’m trying to get rid of the “updating progress” bug after having had to delete, reinstall and rescue Bumblebee to get the game to load at all. I initially accepted the updating progress screen to get my progress back. I collected my missions and ran a few nodes and then hard closed the game. Later, when I relaunched, I got the “updating progress” bug. When I launch the app in airplane mode I get, “download unable to complete please check your internet connection and try again”.

[Optimus_Pig]

“download unable to complete please check your internet connection and try again”.

Hm, I just got one of these today.

My first time ever.

Which is strange, since I thought this was only on Android devices and I’m on an iPad Mini.

I guess this must be something they snuck in between v1.5.19 (what I was playing before they forced me to update) and my current version of v1.6.23. I know there were several updates in between these two points that I deliberately ignored.

[Cindy]

I also reluctantly updated to the latest version because I had no choice. If you don’t update you can’t play the game. Well just 5 days of play and now I can’t open the game. I get kicked back to my Home Screen. I’ve contacted Rovio but who knows how long it will be before u can play again.

This is the very reason I didn’t originally update to the latest version.

[eugene]

Cindy I have the same issue and I also contacted Rovio. Here is hoping this bug is fixed.

[Cindy]

Eugene,

I hope to hear from Rovio tomorrow. I’m surprised that one else has experienced the same issue. Well probably be have to wait for another update before this is fixed.

[Optimus_Pig]

@gradientturtle7

“Try this…

Boot the game up while connected to the Internet.
Make sure you get to the map.
Then switch off Internet (go to airplane mode is easiest)
Then play a few nodes offline.
Then switch Internet back on.
Then play a couple more nodes.

Hopefully that’ll fix it!”

Nope, no joy. Lost another two hours of progress, and over 300 gems.

[Optimus_Pig]

@gradientturtle7 @rumblebee

Hey guys, I just lost all my progress since just before going to bed last night. That includes two cycles of completed missions this morning.

I even disconnected myself from iOS Game Center in the hopes that doing so would prevent further cloud backups and cloud updates (I don’t use Facebook).

I’m done. This is just ridiculous.

Bye everyone, I’m going to go get me a bug-free life!!

[Sumit Arora]

@optimuspig

Brother either the bugs love you so much that you face them now or then or you are unhappy with the game (well other players are also unhappy but havent seen someone this unhappy) that’s why the bugs take revenge from you.
If the bugs love you, nothing can be done but if you are unhappy then something can be done.

Dont take me wrong :)

[wrw01]

@optimuspig

I also had a problem at 7:02 am Central Standard Time in the US today. I was playing in the Professor’s Lab for about an hour trying to accumulate Gems. I used up close to 90 Pig Irons and 80 Birdiums. Gained over 80 Gems and probably close to 100,000 coins if not more.

When I got out of the Lab for the final time and went to check my Storage Levels of materials a screen come up that said something like “the game has to be restarted to save your progress”. When the game came back up everything I earned in the Professor’s Lab was gone. I can only guess that Rovio went back to an earlier versions of the game but I do not know what happened to the coins and gems I earned.

I as well as everyone listed above have had trouble with the bonus videos for the past 5 days. In every playing aspect of ABT after watching the bonus video, the bonus coins, pigs, the daily free material in the Storage Levels, and character upgrades are not issued to the player. This has occurred in regular play from the main map, Jenga play, Mission Play for the 5th key (bonus videos say they are presented and are not) and basically anywhere in the game where bonus videos were used and rewards were provided for watching. What was interesting last evening is that Rovio introduce new vendors and products with their new bonus videos and after watching the videos the coins and pigs were still not awarded.

One can only wander if they will fix it?

@gradientturtle7 @rumblebee
1. Do either of you know if a fix to provide the players their coins, pigs, gems, etc., is planned and when it will be implemented?
2. It would be a gracious gesture on Rovio’s part to have a one time offer of 300 pigs, 30,000 coins and 300 gems to make up for all the frustration these programming bugs are causing in the players.
3. Also, these bonus videos and issuing the rewards worked fine for months and all of sudden in the past week they do not work. Please explain the reasons or causes?

[jman]

@optimuspig

Welcome to the bug free zone.

It’s been nearly 2 weeks since I uninstalled the game, just popped in to see if anything has changed. Sounds as if it’s worse. I don’t understand why they (Rovio) don’t address their known problems. Instead of making changes with every update they need to just fix the $!*& game and then release the new crap that I thought was a pointless addition.

Fyi, for the next week your gonna pick up your device from time to time and stare at it for a couple of minutes and think what was I gonna do again.

Will keep checking for release of new areas or tfs and bug fixes to go along to see if I want to try playing again. The world is a stressful place…..a stupid game shouldn’t piss me off.

[jman]

@20qmindreader

It was so ingrained into my mind that I needed to collect coins every 2 to 3 hours that I’d pick it up with the intention without thinking and remember I uninstalled the game after awhile. Just glad I didn’t get withdrawals from it.

[gradientturtle7]

Hello
The codebase of the game is constantly changing as we add features, but more so adapt existing features to new hardware requirements (e.g. iOS 8 and soon to be iOS 9, Android OS updates etc etc.) As a result sometimes stuff that used to work fine suddenly stops working and often we only discover this once the game is being tested by a huge audience. It’s just as frustrating for us as it is for you guys, the fans of the game, because we want more than anything to give you the best experience we can.
We do look at these forums and respond as fast as we can. sometimes we’ll get it right and other times the bugs are so obscure they take a lot longer to find and squash, but we always keep looking at stuff.
Thanks!

[wrw01]

@gradientturtle7 @rumblebee
Thank You gradientturtle7 for the explanation. Greatly appreciated.

I have submitted around 12 requests to Rovio.com in the Support area over the last 4 days of items that do not work correctly during game play. The defects are now affecting all aspects of playing the game: levels on the main map, Mission play, Jenga play and now the Professor’s Lab. I have not purchased any Gems first because of fear that they will not be provided and second because Rovio reduced the number of Gems to be purchased for the same price. So I do not know if that area is affected with codebase errors.

What is interesting is that no one in Rovio has not responded to any of my Support requests for 4 days. You are the first person to provide any feedback about the problems. The majority of the Support requests have been around the bonus videos not providing the bonus coins, pigs and buddy upgrades after watching the videos. But with this new defect in the Professor’s Lab, it is really making the game unenjoyable to play when it starts to take coins and gems away after one has earned them.

Thank you again for the update.