*DO NOT* complete construction on El Chemistri!!!

lyle_catcliffe

lyle_catcliffe wrote:

Lots of players - myself included - are locked out of the game due to a glitch by confirming the build of the El Chemistri restaurant (level 26 - This Little Wiggy Pt.3).

To prevent any other innocent players from suffering this fate - DO NOT click on the tick icon once the El Chemistri building has finished its 1d12hr construction - until further notice on these forums.

(I realise this is mentioned in other threads, but thought I'd make it concise with a clear eye-catching title that people can read at a glance I'm so annoyed by this glitch and don't wish any other avid players to have this happen to their towns)

I'm sure everyone here appreciates the report on this glitch, but I'm not sure I agree with the prescription. It's clear that, as with most of TSTO's content update, this current one contains a bug that afflicts a subset of the users. But the exact nature of the bug and under what circumstances it is triggered remain a bit fuzzy. Some users, for example, have reported that it occurs upon completion of the Wiggum house; others, El Chemistri. And no one has yet suggested that it's going to affect each and every gamer. I've already completed building the Wiggum house without suffering the ill effects reported by some. Frankly, when it comes time to complete building El Chemistri, I'll probably roll the dice and hope for the best.

lyle_catcliffe

Ta. My thinking was that, as the glitch occurred exactly with the completion of El Cemistri with me (and several other gamers)- that had someone else posted this and I read it, I would have held off building El Chemistri until the affected users could once again access their games.

L_B_123XD

Didn't you make One of these with the wiggum house too? You'll get the same response, you can't generalise it like we'll all get the bug, chances are most of us won't, I know I'm risking it when I have enough though it is nice of you to warn people really

krakenit

I kind of don't want to respond to this as it would best get buried pages deep in the board. Sorry if this comes across bad Lyle. But a very small percentage of people report this specific timing. There are even people that haven gotten it with burns manor build as well as tons that have completed the elchem build without issue. By posting an absolute statement like this that is untrue you are actually affecting people in the wrong way. While there are plenty of folks technical enough not to take your post as fact, there are plenty that will.

For myself personally I got it right after I sent ralph to eat his crayon sandwich. There have been a much higher percentage of people that stated the issue happened around the wiggam house. None the less while many report the issue around similar actions taking place very few match up exactly. The simple fact is there some server issues on ea's side and for some reason a small percentage of players fall victim to this outage and all we can do is wait for ea to fix it. There is no reason to scare people away from playing and interrupting their playing when they don't have an issue.

Again I don't mean this come across crass but you are basically giving people the glitch without them having it.

Edit: many other posters beat me to it... :-)

FreeWillUnit

I am not dispensing advice on how anyone proceeds. I can appreciate the trepidation.

I simply want to note that it is possible for the game to work properly. I have completed both the Wiggum House and El Chemistri, and have not encountered the harp glitch. (I had not read about the issue prior to building.)

lyle_catcliffe

I appreciate the feedback- I do have that (perhaps naive) hope that this glitch will be patched this week, so figured it wasn't too much of an inconvenience for potentially affected players to wait it out til it's fixed to build the potentially triggering buildings

L_B_123XD

If I'm honest i don't even know what te harp glitch is, personally I'd have said there's a risk and idont recommend building it but its your choice

adruralo

Both the Wiggum house and El-Chemistri built successfully in my Springfield.
El-chemistri was built last night, but if I was completing the building now after seeing your advice I would still carry on completion.

krakenit

lyle_catcliffe wrote:

I appreciate the feedback- I do have that (perhaps naive) hope that this glitch will be patched this week, so figured it wasn't too much of an inconvenience for potentially affected players to wait it out til it's fixed to build the potentially triggering buildings

Lyle your opinions are very much appreciated and your response shows a great attitude that will fit well in the community. As I have had the harp of death since the 15th I have been actively monitoring this and other boards to try and figure out anything I can do to get back in.

The players with the common timing of this happening around elchem build have had a very high success rate of getting back in by just leaving it at the frozen screen (or those with sound the harp strums ) for about 15 minutes, then their screen goes black and then their town appears. As for myself and others that got knocked out before that this method has not worked for us.

ebelle122

Harp of death is awful. I usually play at least every four hours. Can't stand the thought of all my characters doing nothing. I wish they would fix my game already.

lyle_catcliffe

@krakenit - Thank you for your kind words - the advice of leaving the game at the crash screen for 15mins is news to me, I shall give it a try and post the result.

ebelle122

Tried leaving the "crash" screen up for 15 minutes. No success.

krakenit

lyle_catcliffe wrote:

@krakenit - Thank you for your kind words - the advice of leaving the game at the crash screen for 15mins is news to me, I shall give it a try and post the result.

Any time my friend. Though I might have given a bit of false hope by saying a high success rate. More accurately this method has worked for a select few. Of that select few the ones that it worked most are the ones that got knocked out after the elchem build. So a high percentage of a few people

sherryt07

My game crashed when I finished building El Chemistri this morning. But I was able to get right back in. There were some wonky xp bar issues that happened when i got back in. I discussed this in another thread "my game won't load please help!", if anyone wants to know the details.

But everything worked itself out.

NeoSEC28

Strange cos i didnt have any of these problems, mine game has been fine since EA got rid of that friends glitch

If your games are crashing or freezing it could be to do with your pending friends list, some people have said before they had over 200!

If you go onto Origin client /download you can remove them there, you will need to do it on a PC tho, this helped me when i was crashing loads, not saying it will stop it but might make it better slightly Hope i helped:)

SG Leroy Brown

ebelle122 wrote:

Harp of death is awful. I usually play at least every four hours. Can't stand the thought of all my characters doing nothing. I wish they would fix my game already.

That is what upsets me the most from this whole "harp of death 2013" situation. I had just collected from all houses and chars, then completed the el chemistri. Been locked out since early am today. Very frustrated right now. If EA is not careful, I have a feeling many people will loose their TO addiction very fast.

krakenit

NeoSEC28 wrote:

Strange cos i didnt have any of these problems, mine game has been fine since EA got rid of that friends glitch

If your games are crashing or freezing it could be to do with your pending friends list, some people have said before they had over 200!

If you go onto Origin client /download you can remove them there, you will need to do it on a PC tho, this helped me when i was crashing loads, not saying it will stop it but might make it better slightly Hope i helped:)

It's technically only effecting a small percentage of the playing world. I believe in the origins friend request over 200 issue the harp wasn't playing over and over like this. But any and all helps for people to try. Thanks a million neo. Your input is always helpful

KrustyBrand

NeoSEC28 wrote:

Strange cos i didnt have any of these problems, mine game has been fine since EA got rid of that friends glitch

If your games are crashing or freezing it could be to do with your pending friends list, some people have said before they had over 200!

If you go onto Origin client /download you can remove them there, you will need to do it on a PC tho, this helped me when i was crashing loads, not saying it will stop it but might make it better slightly Hope i helped:)

Not sayin' that trimming wouldn't help, but I have yet to hear from a single person that it's definitively linked to the harp bug in the same way that it has been linked to other problems (e.g., large and complex towns).

pjd1965

Really wish you had posted this earlier today. I never would have finished el chemistri if it could prevented this.

st33lcas3

Strange, it didn't happen to me. I even went so far as to build it, put it in storage overnight then placed it again. Still nothing.

I then proceeded to start a completely new game from Level 1, advanced to level 26 in a few hours and rebuilt it.

Still working fine.

krakenit

pjd1965 wrote:

Really wish you had posted this earlier today. I never would have finished el chemistri if it could prevented this.

Plus one for Lyle

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 the elchem build" 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.