TSTO: Survival Guide to a Game with Issues
Apr 9, 2013 19:01:34 GMT -5
Admin, melly's hypno-troops, and 16 more like this
Post by D'oh-tastrophe Inc. on Apr 9, 2013 19:01:34 GMT -5
Please read the PSA's below and let us know if you have experienced the issue or know a fix.
P.S.A: If you are still experiencing issues with the 3,000 item cap or any in game issues at all, please update your game from the app store. You should be running version 4.2.1. Read the red notes for version 4.2.1 fixes, and bugs still in affect for this game version.
Version 4.2.3 notes are in blue.
Version 4.2.3 notes are in blue.
So, after seeing all the reports of bugs and issues flying around here and elsewhere, I figured we should round them all up in one area as well as some more common and easier to fix bugs. Links to sources and discussions are given here. Please let me know of any issues you know of, as well as a possible fix. Sources are preferred, but I will take personal experience as well.
Current and Known Issues
*My snakes are disappearing: If you log in and have 0 snakes and 0 eggs, killing the app and restarting it may fix this. If it does not, it would seem there is a snake fairy restoring people's snakes. Read all about it here.
*My snake count is decreasing: It seems Lisa's release the snakes task does not release snakes into another person's town, it actually frees snakes and could cause their snake count to decrease. Use this task only on other Springfield for now. Since the App Store update (4.2.1), there are not as many reports of this. Read about it here.
General Connectivity Issues: This could be the game disconnecting while you are playing, or trouble connecting to the server in general. Remember that right after every update there are connectivity issues, and wait it out for a day or two to see if EA fixes anything. Version 4.2.1 seems to have induced a slew of this, with some players (like myself) getting disconnected often and having more crashes than normal. Version 4.2.3 has been absolutely no better about this.
My friend's list is jumbled up: Seems to be global, at the moment. No word on a fix, yet, or if this is something intentionally done by EA for whatever reason. Just wait this one out, folks. petergeenen has a thread on this one.
My town has gone back to level X: This happens from time to time, unfortunately. If you are seeing a message that says, "Welcome, [username]! There is a level X town on your device. Is this your town?" DO NOT DO ANYTHING. Read the fix below. If you didn't get this message, and you logged on and your beloved town is gone, you can try uninstalling and reinstalling the game, but this has gotten little to no success. The best thing to do is to not do anything with the town, and get in contact with EA. If friends from your friends list can still see your old town, there may be hope. Some users have gotten their towns back. Be patient, and make a new town (under a different email address and origin ID, of course) in the meantime to keep you occupied. Or, go outside... Maybe? Check out @neosec28's thread to see what other users are saying.
After logging in I get a message about a level X town being on my device: DO NOT CLICK YES. Exit the game immediately. Uninstall the game, and reinstall it. This is an issue that is most likely to be encountered after you change your origin ID. I have personally had this issue four times now. Once for each of my three accounts when changing their origin IDs, and then again randomly on my main account.
I get a message about my other device not saving the game: If you play on multiple devices you'll get this after switching between the two. Sometimes, even if you don't play on multiple devices, you may still get the message. Regardless of the circumstances, tap "Play Now" and you'll find everything as you left it. I discovered the solution on my own since I play on multiple devices. melly's hypno-troops also posted the solution on a thread in which the original post has poofed.
My _____ has stopped collecting: If you have a building that has stopped collecting, try storing the building and taking it back out of storage. Of course, if the Simpson's House has stopped collecting, you can't store it. At least you won't be missing out on much. I discovered this from personal experience, and I don't really have a source for it.
My righteousness dropped to 0 Stars: No one knows why this happen, and none of us understand the righteousness system at all. Just keep mopping up your town and vandalizing your friends every day and it all should be fine. There's a discussion here about righteousness, as well as in Duder's guide to 5 stars.
Harpies: The dreaded harpies. Head here for a potential fix. If your device can't get you through, you may be able to find someone around here with an iPhone 5 to help you. You no longer get around 1,000 donuts, however. The working theory on what causes harpies seems to be the accumulation of too much XP in one session. I also haven't heard of anyone getting the harpies since the end of March, but I'd keep an eye out for it.
I'm locked out of my town (no specific reason): The only thing we can tell you is to try the old uninstall-reinstall drill, but you may want to go ahead and deal with EA's horrible customer service in an attempt to fix it. To make sure it's not device specific, try to get a hold to another iDevice and see if you can log in from there. lakooo has a thread going on game lock outs of all kinds.
My town takes forever to load when I log in: This seems to be related to having a lot of decorations in your town, as some users have reported this happening when they visit a decoration happy neighbor. No alarm here, just wait on the game to load. sara has a thread on this one.
Game crashes after log in: Thank you to corkhopper for information on this. If your game crashes when you try to take normal routes to log in, play the game anonymously and log in through Origin from the anonymous game.
My XP Meter is saying I need a ridiculous amount of XP for the next bonus level:
This tends to have happened in every update since they implemented
bonus levels. EA will either fix it, or they actually mean it this time.
It seems the issue is resolved in version 4.2.3, but I'm leaving it under current issues due to the frequency of the bug every time there is a big update.
I'm losing XP: This has happened every update since the bonus levels were implemented too. EA should fix it. This seems to be resolved in version 4.2.1, but it may rear it's ugly head again next update, so I will leave this under "Current Issues."
General Connectivity Issues: This could be the game disconnecting while you are playing, or trouble connecting to the server in general. Remember that right after every update there are connectivity issues, and wait it out for a day or two to see if EA fixes anything. Version 4.2.1 seems to have induced a slew of this, with some players (like myself) getting disconnected often and having more crashes than normal. Version 4.2.3 has been absolutely no better about this.
My friend's list is jumbled up: Seems to be global, at the moment. No word on a fix, yet, or if this is something intentionally done by EA for whatever reason. Just wait this one out, folks. petergeenen has a thread on this one.
My town has gone back to level X: This happens from time to time, unfortunately. If you are seeing a message that says, "Welcome, [username]! There is a level X town on your device. Is this your town?" DO NOT DO ANYTHING. Read the fix below. If you didn't get this message, and you logged on and your beloved town is gone, you can try uninstalling and reinstalling the game, but this has gotten little to no success. The best thing to do is to not do anything with the town, and get in contact with EA. If friends from your friends list can still see your old town, there may be hope. Some users have gotten their towns back. Be patient, and make a new town (under a different email address and origin ID, of course) in the meantime to keep you occupied. Or, go outside... Maybe? Check out @neosec28's thread to see what other users are saying.
After logging in I get a message about a level X town being on my device: DO NOT CLICK YES. Exit the game immediately. Uninstall the game, and reinstall it. This is an issue that is most likely to be encountered after you change your origin ID. I have personally had this issue four times now. Once for each of my three accounts when changing their origin IDs, and then again randomly on my main account.
I get a message about my other device not saving the game: If you play on multiple devices you'll get this after switching between the two. Sometimes, even if you don't play on multiple devices, you may still get the message. Regardless of the circumstances, tap "Play Now" and you'll find everything as you left it. I discovered the solution on my own since I play on multiple devices. melly's hypno-troops also posted the solution on a thread in which the original post has poofed.
My _____ has stopped collecting: If you have a building that has stopped collecting, try storing the building and taking it back out of storage. Of course, if the Simpson's House has stopped collecting, you can't store it. At least you won't be missing out on much. I discovered this from personal experience, and I don't really have a source for it.
My righteousness dropped to 0 Stars: No one knows why this happen, and none of us understand the righteousness system at all. Just keep mopping up your town and vandalizing your friends every day and it all should be fine. There's a discussion here about righteousness, as well as in Duder's guide to 5 stars.
Harpies: The dreaded harpies. Head here for a potential fix. If your device can't get you through, you may be able to find someone around here with an iPhone 5 to help you. You no longer get around 1,000 donuts, however. The working theory on what causes harpies seems to be the accumulation of too much XP in one session. I also haven't heard of anyone getting the harpies since the end of March, but I'd keep an eye out for it.
I'm locked out of my town (no specific reason): The only thing we can tell you is to try the old uninstall-reinstall drill, but you may want to go ahead and deal with EA's horrible customer service in an attempt to fix it. To make sure it's not device specific, try to get a hold to another iDevice and see if you can log in from there. lakooo has a thread going on game lock outs of all kinds.
My town takes forever to load when I log in: This seems to be related to having a lot of decorations in your town, as some users have reported this happening when they visit a decoration happy neighbor. No alarm here, just wait on the game to load. sara has a thread on this one.
Game crashes after log in: Thank you to corkhopper for information on this. If your game crashes when you try to take normal routes to log in, play the game anonymously and log in through Origin from the anonymous game.
My XP Meter is saying I need a ridiculous amount of XP for the next bonus level:
This tends to have happened in every update since they implemented
bonus levels. EA will either fix it, or they actually mean it this time.
It seems the issue is resolved in version 4.2.3, but I'm leaving it under current issues due to the frequency of the bug every time there is a big update.
I'm losing XP: This has happened every update since the bonus levels were implemented too. EA should fix it. This seems to be resolved in version 4.2.1, but it may rear it's ugly head again next update, so I will leave this under "Current Issues."
Generic Things to Try if Something Goes Wrong
A.K.A: The Four Golden Solutions
A.K.A: The Four Golden Solutions
Are you experiencing something really weird that isn't being discussed at all? You can make a thread if you'd like or post about it here. You can also try these generic solutions below and see if they help you:
Solution 1: Uninstall and Reinstall the Game
- Exit out of the game.
- Tap and hold the game icon on your home screen until the icons on your screen start the shimmy and an X appears.
- Tap the X.
- Reinstall the game with the App Store.
Solution 2: Restart the game.
- Exit the game.
- Double tap the home button. You'll see a dock come up with your running applications.
- Tap and hold the game icon until the icons start the shimmy and an X appears.
- Tap the X.
- Relaunch the game to see if the problem was solved.
Solution 3: Restart the device.
- Press and hold the lock and home button simultaneously until "Slide to Power Off" appears.
- Slide to power off.
- Turn the device back on.
Solution 4: Hard Resetting the Device
- Press and hold the lock and home button simultaneously.
- Ignore "slide to power off" when it appears.
- Keep holding the lock and home buttons until the Apple logo appears on your screen.
Hazardous Activities
P.S.As
P.S.As
beto213 has had issues with placing too many decorations at once and getting locked out. If anyone else has had issue with this, let me know. Just make sure to pace out the amount of decorations you place.
Old Issues
My Swanky Fish/Springfield Falls is Gone or Swanky Fish is gone from the buy menu: The only fix I came across was to uninstall and reinstall the game. I haven't experienced this personally. You can see thejudd67 and lakooo987 discussing the solution here, which happens to be located on page 6 of this thread.
I didn't get Springfield Falls: Although I think we're all past this one, just in case, if you bought Swanky Fish before Lisa finished up at Kwik-E-Mart, she and Homer will eat at Swanky Fish for five hours before you can place the falls. All of that is discussed multiple times in this thread.
joebeezy's friends list has gotten lost in the void. Let us know if you know what he can do to remedy the situation!
I didn't have grandpa when Gorgeous Grandpa came out, and even though I've used the skin it's still in my inventory: There's a thread by largemarge on this issue here.
It seems to be a glitch and the skin is just going to hang around, even
though Grandpa is preening and prancing around your town. No reason for
alarm.
I didn't get Springfield Falls: Although I think we're all past this one, just in case, if you bought Swanky Fish before Lisa finished up at Kwik-E-Mart, she and Homer will eat at Swanky Fish for five hours before you can place the falls. All of that is discussed multiple times in this thread.
joebeezy's friends list has gotten lost in the void. Let us know if you know what he can do to remedy the situation!
I didn't have grandpa when Gorgeous Grandpa came out, and even though I've used the skin it's still in my inventory: There's a thread by largemarge on this issue here.
It seems to be a glitch and the skin is just going to hang around, even
though Grandpa is preening and prancing around your town. No reason for
alarm.
[/quote]
Tatum: dear god y r we fighting. God: cuz u touch yourself at night. 
