So I got the infamous harp freeze this morning myself.... Sigh...
I have been lucky enough to get myself out of it by using some of the info that I found here on the forum and I wanted to share my story with you in the hopes that maybe it might help.
As has been suggested, I originally allowed the harp to play on for as long as it wanted... But I noticed that at some point it would inevitably simply crash and return me to the same spot once more. Frustrating... And not helpful...
So I tried this... I let the harp play on, but to keep the program active, I moved my finger in small circles on the screen constantly. I continued this for approximately 10-15 minutes with the harp sound becoming progressively faster and faster (I suggest turning the TV on or getting something to read while you do this because it is incredibly boring and the sound annoying).
After 15 minutes the harp was playing very quickly... suddenly the screen went completely black! My first reaction was "oh crap it has crashed again" however I continued making circles with my finger on the screen and after a few seconds the game popped back up with the level up doughnut screen!
All has been well ever since!
So maybe give it a try... It can't hurt!
Cheers,
W
Just tried that and it worked.
This 100% worked! Plus, I got free donuts out of it. 10 or so. Thanks, Internet!
I'm so glad it has been successful or you both! I hope more people take the time to try it out! It truly sucketh to be locked out from something this addicting!
Cheers!
W
I got the harp freeze this morning. I messed around with it several times, and it kept crashing back to my ipad main screen. This afternoon I tried the hint of tapping continuously while it was doing the harp thing. It worked for me. I then got the level up glitch and got some extra donuts for my trouble. It crashed again, and when I tapped back in, all was back to normal. We will see if this holds and I can continue to log in.
Funny enough the tapping actually does help. I have packet analyzers on my network so I can see the exact details of all traffic. Without going into too much technical detail it acts as a keep alive and continues pinging the server request the download of the town.
As other have called the harp "speeding up" it is actually multiple instances of the harp (data request sessions to the server) going simultaneously. As they time out (15 minutes) they stop and the last harp ends up being successful by some (the reported slow down). I still don't have an answer to why folks are getting successful (some even before the 15 minutes) connections with what would be the final attempt.
My more detailed hypothesis is that we with the harp of death have our town data on a server that has an issue. This servers sitting behind a broken load balancer (a piece of equipment that sends your traffic to the best available server) and as we constantly try to hit it there are a lucky few that end up getting redirected to a good server. The reason they lucky ones get the level up glitch is that all of their data hasn't finished syncing over to the new server. Once it does the glitch goes away. Also now that their account is associated to a new server that's working that's where the account will continue to go moving forward and why they no longer have the issue. Without access to their network I can't know for sure but I do this type of troubleshooting for a living on network and server farm topologies like what ea uses. And with the info collected by posters on multiple boards and my own testing I can put a pretty good picture together. This is very paraphrased as there is a lot more to it but this is a fairly good overall summary.
Again sorry for the long diatribe emails but I am using the key pad as a tapping substitute.
My brother's town got the harp freeze again after El Chemistri finished building. I told him to leave it on the screen and the harp sound keeps changing from slow to fast to slow to fast. Then the screen went black and he got back into his town again. Total time for him was about 15-20 minutes
My brother's town got the harp freeze again after El Chemistri finished building. I told him to leave it on the screen and the harp sound keeps changing from slow to fast to slow to fast. Then the screen went black and he got back into his town again. Total time for him was about 15-20 minutes
Gzero you seem to have the magic touch to getting out. Wish you could come bless my device.
I actually made a video of it this time but most of it was just the harp sound playing over and over again. So I cut the recording to start a new one and right when I started to record a new one, the harp sound stopped and screen went black.
Looks like I'm a member of the harp club too. It happened right after I got the Wiggum place built. Poor Ralphies probably sick of that crayon sammich by now.
I've tried most of the tricks suggested here but so far no luck. This is my first malfunction and it is truly frustrating. I do sincerely hope ea gets this fixed soon!
Looks like I'm a member of the harp club too. It happened right after I got the Wiggum place built. Poor Ralphies probably sick of that crayon sammich by now.
I've tried most of the tricks suggested here but so far no luck. This is my first malfunction and it is truly frustrating. I do sincerely hope ea gets this fixed soon!
Haha my ralphie has been eating crayon sammich for two days now.
What's even more frustrating to me is that I was getting the popups telling me when characters finished tasks or when my Popsicle tower finished and a ton of the " it's been a while since you visited your Springfield" messages. While they were an continual frustrating reminder I also kept getting false hope I was fixed just to hear the dreaded harp :?
If so, then expanding on my hypothesis is that yes the harp sound is happening while you are downloading your town but also that you are leveling up ( or just getting the donut bonus) due to the Xp point glitch and the donut bonus is executing before the town can load thus creating the loop. This would also explain why so many people are coninuing to get hit with this issue at various times and a wide variety of tasks gaining experience points.
The bonus donut reward could be the actual trigger factor causing this for many. Even if you weren't primed to get to the donut bonus, the xp glitch could have thrust you into the bonus.
Just posted this in another thread... New Input and details from other members are really helping this hypothesis evolve. Though its still a server side issue so still no solution or fix.
Though I am really starting to think more and more this is related to the xp glitch everyone has been reporting. Since you get a big chunk of experience points for a building (many experience the issue around wiggum and elchem builds) that even if you didn't "finish these build" to try and avoid the issue you would still be susceptible to the issue as you continued gaining xp from everything else.
As we all know ea has had serious issues with xp multiplier for the bonus from the stars and percentage increasing decor. So if that went wonky again it could be the cause for the xp glitch. The you compound that with a possible bug in the donut bonus for xp or leveling up and you have a great formula to cover most of the reasons and times people say they got kicked out. Then compound that again with the general issues they have anyway and viola we have the recipe for disaster.
Ok, so i know most skeptics wont believe my post, but i am posting anyway. I had the harp glitch due to building wiggums house and putting ralph on a task. I listened to the advice of this thread and let my game load for 15 minutes. Eventually my screen went black and my game was back.
When it came back on, the donut bonus level up screen was up. What happened next is what most people wont believe....i got the donut glitch. I kept geeting the donut bonus. I admit, i took full advantage and got a bunch of donuts.
If you are not a believer but are one of my friends just visit my town and see all the premium items.
Give it a try.....it may work for you?
I hope you believe me. I am not looking to trick anyone
I have had the harp of death since Saturday right after building the Wiggum house.Tried the finger rubbing the opening screen fix for about 15 min. and BAM, got in and the donut bonus level gave some free donuts! Don't know how long things will last but everything is running smooth for now. I hope EA comes out with their own fix so everyone can get back in and before it's time to build El Chemistri, I hear that may cause problems too.
Ok, so i know most skeptics wont believe my post, but i am posting anyway. I had the harp glitch due to building wiggums house and putting ralph on a task. I listened to the advice of this thread and let my game load for 15 minutes. Eventually my screen went black and my game was back.
When it came back on, the donut bonus level up screen was up. What happened next is what most people wont believe....i got the donut glitch. I kept geeting the donut bonus. I admit, i took full advantage and got a bunch of donuts.
If you are not a believer but are one of my friends just visit my town and see all the premium items.
Give it a try.....it may work for you?
I hope you believe me. I am not looking to trick anyone
Your post is believable as many have posted this out come (by many I mean about 15 or 20 people). However most of us aren't that lucky. So I recommend you go buy a lotto ticket as luck is on your side right now.
Replies
I'm so glad it has been successful or you both! I hope more people take the time to try it out! It truly sucketh to be locked out from something this addicting!
Cheers!
W
just crashes after about 25 minutes
Funny enough the tapping actually does help. I have packet analyzers on my network so I can see the exact details of all traffic. Without going into too much technical detail it acts as a keep alive and continues pinging the server request the download of the town.
As other have called the harp "speeding up" it is actually multiple instances of the harp (data request sessions to the server) going simultaneously. As they time out (15 minutes) they stop and the last harp ends up being successful by some (the reported slow down). I still don't have an answer to why folks are getting successful (some even before the 15 minutes) connections with what would be the final attempt.
My more detailed hypothesis is that we with the harp of death have our town data on a server that has an issue. This servers sitting behind a broken load balancer (a piece of equipment that sends your traffic to the best available server) and as we constantly try to hit it there are a lucky few that end up getting redirected to a good server. The reason they lucky ones get the level up glitch is that all of their data hasn't finished syncing over to the new server. Once it does the glitch goes away. Also now that their account is associated to a new server that's working that's where the account will continue to go moving forward and why they no longer have the issue. Without access to their network I can't know for sure but I do this type of troubleshooting for a living on network and server farm topologies like what ea uses. And with the info collected by posters on multiple boards and my own testing I can put a pretty good picture together. This is very paraphrased as there is a lot more to it but this is a fairly good overall summary.
Again sorry for the long diatribe emails but I am using the key pad as a tapping substitute.
Gzero you seem to have the magic touch to getting out. Wish you could come bless my device.
I've tried most of the tricks suggested here but so far no luck. This is my first malfunction and it is truly frustrating. I do sincerely hope ea gets this fixed soon!
Haha my ralphie has been eating crayon sammich for two days now.
What's even more frustrating to me is that I was getting the popups telling me when characters finished tasks or when my Popsicle tower finished and a ton of the " it's been a while since you visited your Springfield" messages. While they were an continual frustrating reminder I also kept getting false hope I was fixed just to hear the dreaded harp :?
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/9304987.page#27219715
Posses an interesting tidbit of info that the sound of the harp is the level up donut bonus sound. Can anyone confirm this?
If so, then expanding on my hypothesis is that yes the harp sound is happening while you are downloading your town but also that you are leveling up ( or just getting the donut bonus) due to the Xp point glitch and the donut bonus is executing before the town can load thus creating the loop. This would also explain why so many people are coninuing to get hit with this issue at various times and a wide variety of tasks gaining experience points.
The bonus donut reward could be the actual trigger factor causing this for many. Even if you weren't primed to get to the donut bonus, the xp glitch could have thrust you into the bonus.
Bugger.
Artdeco!!! We used to be neighbors but you dropped me at one point. You always had an awesome town and I always looked forward to seeing it.
But no hard feelings as I'm sure you had to free up a spot, we all do at some point in time.
Though I am really starting to think more and more this is related to the xp glitch everyone has been reporting. Since you get a big chunk of experience points for a building (many experience the issue around wiggum and elchem builds) that even if you didn't "finish these build" to try and avoid the issue you would still be susceptible to the issue as you continued gaining xp from everything else.
As we all know ea has had serious issues with xp multiplier for the bonus from the stars and percentage increasing decor. So if that went wonky again it could be the cause for the xp glitch. The you compound that with a possible bug in the donut bonus for xp or leveling up and you have a great formula to cover most of the reasons and times people say they got kicked out. Then compound that again with the general issues they have anyway and viola we have the recipe for disaster.
When it came back on, the donut bonus level up screen was up. What happened next is what most people wont believe....i got the donut glitch. I kept geeting the donut bonus. I admit, i took full advantage and got a bunch of donuts.
If you are not a believer but are one of my friends just visit my town and see all the premium items.
Give it a try.....it may work for you?
I hope you believe me. I am not looking to trick anyone
Your post is believable as many have posted this out come (by many I mean about 15 or 20 people). However most of us aren't that lucky. So I recommend you go buy a lotto ticket as luck is on your side right now.
Good luck to everyone trying to get thier games working again
EA Fixes the freaking game!