"Updating Progress" Explained and work around!

[eugene]

Everyone has seen the dreaded “Updating your Progress”
What this is doing is it is comparing one number (your current level) with what is stored in the cloud.
Here is the catch. As long as your current level is unchanged EVERYTHING ELSE (pig kills, gems, coins, silo status, gems, mission statuses) will default to previous settings. This means:
1. Completed and cleared missions – will need to be cleared all over again (and the rewards could change)
2. Gems, coins and pig kills will default back to the last setting when they were connected to the cloud.
3. Coins will be returned to the play field, and you will lose anything over 600 if you had collected additional coins.
4. Nodes to play – These will change, both character and locations.

It is my belief that the cloud was chosen by default because it will prevent people from cheating, or using hacks to increase their pig, coin, and gem count. The problem is it is a bad programming option since it takes resources from the honest players since no comparison was written in to do honest comparisons.

The bad of how this works
6:19pm – Note pig, coin and gem counts. I had cleared most of the coins, missions and visited Professor Pig. Please note my leaderboard is blank at this point.

After an Updating Progress I cleared all the coins and did everything else I did to get the count above.
The end result 25 minutes later, 6:44pm, all of my counts are lower
Gems -15
Coins -10,754
Pig Kills -188

Since I was able to identify the “why” it occurs, it was time to see if I could work around it. Hint, I gave the answer above in what is being compared.

So I ran into the problem again, only this time I was a bit more prepared. I was ready to upgrade Lockdown to Level 13. I took pictures of everything. The playfield, what level he was, how many coins, gems, and pig kills I had

6:33am – before I upgraded Lockdown (He is going to level 12)

6:34am – Lockdown Upgraded – 97 gems for the early upgrade finish and 225,000 coins for the level 13 upgrade

6:40am – Reconnected to Facebook

Counts are the same, Silo is unchanged, Lockdown is still on upgrade to Level 13.

Conclusion
When you connect to Facebook and the cloud the game clearly is looking at what level you at on the device you are playing on.
1. If both the device and the cloud match then it updates counts (coins, gems, pig kills) and mission vortexes to their last settings. This results in things being taken away, and any “progress” is reset back to the last setting when the device was connected to the cloud. The update progress is FROM the cloud.
2. On the other hand if a higher level is detected on the device compared rather than the cloud, then the cloud is updated with all of the current settings on the device. The update progress is TO the cloud.

This is an example of bad programming practices, since the default is set that the cloud is always right unless a character is upgraded. This cancels any “progress” you make while playing offline.

Topic

[arceemega]

A new option has been added as a stopgap measure in the latest game client “Enable cloud load”

Disabling cloud load does exactly that, it prevents the game client from ever showing you the “updating your progress” dialog, and thus stops any kind of cloud load. When disabled, your local save will always overwrite whatever the cloud has, which when you only play on one device, is pretty much what you intended anyway.

I would advise only using this option if you are affected by this bug. Disabling cloud load will still save your progress to the cloud, but it will also prevent a legitimately better save from being loaded, for instance, if you play on two separate devices, and want to transfer progress between them.

[gradientturtle7]

Hello all,

Thanks to @eugene-alex for this comprehensive write-up. We’ve made some progress in addressing the causes of the issue, so I thought I would explain some of the detail of how Angry Birds Transformers compares local (device) saves to cloud saves.

It’s true that your player rank is checked as one of the most important factors when deciding whether your local save or your cloud save is preferable. However, it’s not the only factor. We also compare your silo level, energonicon collection, and your cumulative totals of pigs, materials, coins and gems earned. It’s these totals that have caused us the most problems when trying to handle unwanted overwriting of local saves.

In particular, we discovered an issue where a high cumulative total of materials earned will result in the value of those materials being calculated incorrectly, leading to a save containing a greater number of materials earned being overwritten by a save with less.

We have just pushed a data update live that will address this particular issue, so hopefully a number of you will notice the difference. If you do still find your save regularly rolling back to one you consider to be older or worse, please let us know the circumstances.

As mentioned by @arceemega, we have now added the option (tucked away in the settings menu) to disable cloud loading entirely if you continue to encounter the issue. Please use this option with care, as disabling cloud loading will result in your cloud save being overwritten by the save on your device at the first opportunity. Note that we do not consider this a solution, rather a temporary measure until all the causes are addressed.

Thanks for playing, and we hope you enjoy the holiday event that starts in a few days!

[Pampeans]

@gradientturtle7 thank you for this explanation, I really appreciate you taking the time to post it. I understand there is fraud on the part of some users and perhaps this code was possibly created to correct some of that as well as unforeseen circumstances resulting from app functionality, but it has reeked havoc with honest users as well. Maybe Rovio could allow some of the fans on this forum to help beta test before an update is released to help cut down on bugs and the fraud exposure? (I know a few people with maxed out Tfs and nothing better to do :-)) This is a fun, addictive game, but it’s time for ABT to live-up to the design excellence that users expect from the AB franchise. Jmho…

[eugene]

@gradientturtle7 you’re welcome. I tried to be a clear as I could so there would be no question as to exactly how it is or isn’t working.

I hope there is further progress in addressing this issue. It has been a problem taking stuff we earned.

[eugene]

You may be able to download a pdf version of my work around with color screen captures from this link.
https://www.facebook.com/download/434148533443089/Updating%20Your%20Progress.pdf

[Jason]

This problem is not resolved. Just updated to version 1.10.5.3 and a day later this message haunts the game.

Put the phone into airplane mode and it can be played. One can even play several nodes. As soon as it is taken out of airplane mode, the coins, nodes, collections (coins to collect), pigs popped, gems, missions all reset to the prior cloud version save point.

I sit at level 429 with an upgrade in progress that will never finish apparently due to this bug.
There is no setting on this version to disable cloud loading (i have checked every nook and cranny under settings some of which can’t be accessed unless you are connected to the internet – another terrible decision there).

I do not have the game connected to facebook (wish that feature would be removed).

In short, the qa for this latest release was pretty piss-poor.

Oh and before you start the whole thing about multiple devices – I play on a single device.

[Pampeans]

@rhinoman

In airplane mode, tap the left most ? to reveal the setting cog. Tap on the settings cog to see the two blue ?? dots at the bottom of the settings screen indicating there is a second screen. Tap on the blue dots to reveal the second screen where you can uncheck “enable cloud load”. I do not have the game connected to Facebook either.

WHY IN THE HAM SANDWICH IT: 1. IS NOT ON THE 1ST SCREEN WHERE THERE IS PLENTY OF ROOM; 2. REQUIRES YOU TO TAP INSTEAD OF SWIPE LEFT AS THE ??’S INDICATE; 3. IS A CHECK BOX INSTEAD OF A BUTTON LIKE THE REST OF THE ATTRIBUTES?!

But I digress, I hope that helps…

[eugene]

The current Updating Progress bug is something new, and upgrading a character will only fix it temporarily.

This current version of the bug is worse than before. I have had it more than 30 times in a row and I still can’t get in.

Clock is ticking down to the competition and the game doesn’t work

[arceemega]

All I can suggest is to go into airplane mode, instant upgrade a character, or finish upgrading a character, then restart with airplane mode back off.

We think this is related to having a character upgrading whilst being online, so for the time being (until the next version comes out) please avoid upgrading any characters. Let us know in the comments below whether this stopgap solution helps, and sorry for the inconvenience.

[Drover’s Dog]

@arceemega are you by chance a Rovio/Exient employee?

[eugene]

@arceemega this glitch is affecting people all over the place and the competition starts very shortly and your response is it will be fixed in the next version

For the record I am at level 455, I always have a character upgrading. And instant upgrades cost gems. All of my characters are level 10 to 15. Do you have 100-200 spare gems so I can do an instant upgrade? I have been trying to save my gems so I can afford the cost of all of the accessories.

And I always play while online.

Someone should cancel the competition and push it off until a later date because you are going to have major complaints over this.

[arceemega]

For Updating Your Progress glitch in 1.10.x, see workaround in image

[MillForce2k]

I’ve been lucky enough to never have this before and didn’t pay much attention to it since I thought it was related to Facebook and I don’t use Facebook. It happened to me this morning when I started a new TF upgrade. I followed the above and disabled cloud load and can now play. Since I only play on one device, is there any issue leaving it off until it’s fixed?

[arceemega]

@millforce2k No issue in leaving it disabling for now, the feature’s only purpose is to allow a save game to be cloud loaded between devices to keep them in sync.

I would highly recommend Facebook as its most reliable way of backing up your save game. Others have experienced complete progress loss by uninstalling the game whilst not being connected to Facebook.

[MillForce2k]

Thanks @arceemega. I periodically make a backup with Helium but will consider a fake Facebook account just for this.

[PBJ]

I had something interesting happen during the UYPloop. I think it is because I was in the middle of upgrading Sentinel Prime. On occasion when I would check the box it would let me out of the loop long enough to do something before the next banner came up. My pigs, coins, gems and silo would reset to a higher number (from my last cloud save), my TF upgrade would stay and continue. So there may be the potential to continue upgrades, while recovering spent items (because it’s resetting to before the upgrade started) assuming you can get out of the UYP loop long enough to do so. Weird.

[Jason]

The button to get to the cloud mode setting works 1 out of 4 tries on my Android device. Once it is enabled, I can get around the “updating your progress bug” but an even better bug presents itself after that.

This bug happens if you choose to watch a video to double your rewards. If the video is watched while cloud load is disabled then the game pretty much freezes. You can enter exit various screens but you cannot enter any new nodes to play. The only work around for that is to exit the game and come back in. This is terrible with a competition going on.

And I agree that not performing upgrades is absolutely silly. Instant upgrade is not feasible unless you give us the gems to get around your bug. I always have an upgrade running – especially given that my upgrades take 2-3 days at this juncture. I have no character lower than level 12.