Pitboss WebStats Proof of Concept - Curious About Interest

[MooManof_]

What does 'Return Code: -4' mean? Because I appear to be doing everything correctly... It's found the game, it's talking to 207.38.11.34 (www.civstats.com is 69.59.169.176 ), and it's sending the game data... yet it keeps saying 'Upload Failed'. I'm using the username from the website, and the password I put in when I selected 'Add Game'.

The game is 'ApolytonMFS', and it looks as though you have a lot of work head of you, not just to finish, but to clean up afterwards.

 

[Fosse]

CINvilization is my game, and Fosse is the name I registered on your site. The name and password on the old uploader I was using are different than the name and password for your site. Will this cause problems, and if so what do I need to do to fix them?

The new version of the uploader is not successfully sending information to the website. Also, the Pitboss game autodetect tells me it has found two Pitboss windows (I have one game and pbnotify open at the time), but it doesn't discover the name or put anything in the text box of that little window.

-Fosse

 

[HitAnyKey]

I've also noticed that for your Bar Graphs, you only have line colors available for 9 players. So any game that has more than 9 people, any of the additional people won't show up on the graph.

 

[OverloadUT]

What does 'Return Code: -4' mean? Because I appear to be doing everything correctly... It's found the game, it's talking to 207.38.11.34 (www.civstats.com is 69.59.169.176 ), and it's sending the game data... yet it keeps saying 'Upload Failed'. I'm using the username from the website, and the password I put in when I selected 'Add Game'.

First of all, don't use the "Add Game" feature on the website. I totally forgot that when I rolled out the latest changes, that will not work until I release a version of the uploader that doesn't use the username/password paradigm. It will eventually use a gameid/password system, but that's not implemented yet. So for now just use the same method as before, where you choose a unique user/pass and that will create the new game for you, and then I have to manually set you as the admin.

Return Code -4 is when the Uploader can't parse what came back from the script. It usually means it's going to the wrong location OR there's a parse error in the pbupload script that is causing it to print out unknown data. And it was the latter. I found out I had a bug in the upload script that caused a parse error. Argh.

So tell me if it's working now. You shouldn't need a new version of the uploader. The thing I find strange is what IP you say it's communicating with. That seems wrong to me. Oh well, try anyway.

Fosse- Same thing; I fixed a bug in the uploader so tell me if it's correctly sending data now. If it's not then I must have some bug in the uploader that is not manifesting on my two test machines. Very possible.

I also set you as the admin for your game, so you should now be able to adjust the details if you visit your game page. It should have a red bar saying that you have not completed setup.

Finally, what exactly is it saying when you click the Auto Detect button? If there is only one game running it should simply fill in the game name in to the field, and if there is more than one, it should pop up a small dialog with a list of the games it detected. Selecting one of them and clicking okay should fill in the game name field for you.

 

[OverloadUT]

I've also noticed that for your Bar Graphs, you only have line colors available for 9 players. So any game that has more than 9 people, any of the additional people won't show up on the graph.

Yes, this is true, and will only be temporary. It simply came down to the fact that I couldn't think of more than 9 colors that were unique enough! I plan on making it work for more players.

 

[OverloadUT]

The name and password on the old uploader I was using are different than the name and password for your site. Will this cause problems, and if so what do I need to do to fix them?

I should have mentioned this. For now, just use the same user/pass combo in the uploader you have been using all along. The only thing that is going to change in the future is that instead of asking for a "username" it will ask for the gameid of your game, but you will still have a unique upload password for each game.

 

[Fosse]

Got it. I think that a problem was that I set up the new version's profile as my game name, since I intend to start a new game soon, instead of my first name as I did before.

That doesn't make sense to me, because from what I understand it should just create a new game if it thinks something is different about it, but there you are. using the profile "CINvilization" with the same username and password gets a failed upload every time. Useing the profile "Kyle" with the same info works like a charm.

Thanks again!
Fosse

 

[MooManof_]

I traced that IP using Ethereal... that's where the packets were going. As for the fix... it didn't take for me. I'm still getting -4's all over the place.

oh, and for the player colours, why not use the civ colours? So Russian would be Orange, and English white, etc.

 

[OverloadUT]

Okay, there were indeed a couple bugs in the Uploader. It wasn't always updating the user/pass variables based on what you put in the fields, so that's why you were having trouble with a new Profile Fosse.

I uploaded a new version; same link as above.

MooManof_: Your problem is definitely the fact that it's for some reason uploading to the wrong server. -4 is returned whenever it can't parse the "webpage" that is returned.

There are a coule things I'd like you to check out. First, you can open the .tmp files in your PitbossStats directory. Those contain the "webpage" that was returned when it tried to upload the data. The contents of those files should tell us where it's actually trying to go.

Second, open your PitbossStats.ini file and change the LogLevel to 4. Change your upload password to something you don't mind posting here, try to start the parser, quit after it gets an error, and then post the contents of your .log file named after your profile name here.

oh, and for the player colours, why not use the civ colours? So Russian would be Orange, and English white, etc.

That's a great idea. For some reason I thought that the colors in the game were random (I could have sworn I started another game as the Russians and my color was different) but those two colors you said match up with the colors in my game, so you must be right. Do you know where there is a list of the colors that all of the players are? Even better would be the actual python script that contains them because then I can probably use the exact colors.

 

[MooManof_]

I didn't have any .tmp files until I switched off my Firewall, which incidently seems to have cured the problem.

I'll look into making an entry in my firewall list, which it normally does automatically for any program I run that wants an internet connection. I don't know why it didn't this time. Unless it only made a one-way doorway.

EDIT: <Removed Log-dump as it was unecessary>
I think the simplest method for controlling who owns what game, would be to add a 'Claim this game' option to the games which aren't yet assigned, and the game admin has to supply the upload password whilst logged in to claim it.

EDIT2: Game: ApolytonMFS, User: MMC

 

[MooManof_]

Ok. It's now working, although it doesn't seem to have updated for 2 hours and I can't see any problems.

I have a couple of requests. I'll try to list them in a way to may it easy for you to reply:

• May I have a copy of the php source files? I have a few ideas that I want to test out the practicality of. You could send them to my email address if you don't want to give them out publicly. I'll send you any work I do with notes so you can integrate it into your version.
• One of my players likes to play as the Arizonians (formally Romans) and I have another who's playing as the Band o' Theives. Could you add the option to rename civs when they register their leaders.
• When playing with AI and 'Take over AI' switch off, it seems a little annoying to be told that the AI slots are 'unregistered'. Two ways of correcting this could be: a) Check for the AI flag and simply remove them from the list when the admin sets passwords and from the list for a player registering their leader, or b) in the admin list, add a checkbox that lets the admin set that civ as AI, thus removing it from the second list. a) would be the simplest for users to deal with, but b) would allow for the AI scene to change (if players are kicked or 'Take over AI' is switched on)

 

[OverloadUT]

• May I have a copy of the php source files? I have a few ideas that I want to test out the practicality of. You could send them to my email address if you don't want to give them out publicly. I'll send you any work I do with notes so you can integrate it into your version.
• One of my players likes to play as the Arizonians (formally Romans) and I have another who's playing as the Band o' Theives. Could you add the option to rename civs when they register their leaders.
• When playing with AI and 'Take over AI' switch off, it seems a little annoying to be told that the AI slots are 'unregistered'. Two ways of correcting this could be: a) Check for the AI flag and simply remove them from the list when the admin sets passwords and from the list for a player registering their leader, or b) in the admin list, add a checkbox that lets the admin set that civ as AI, thus removing it from the second list. a) would be the simplest for users to deal with, but b) would allow for the AI scene to change (if players are kicked or 'Take over AI' is switched on)

1) Right now I'd prefer to keep the source private. You could tell me what your ideas are and I could tell you what I think the practicality of it is . I may change my mind about this in the near future as this project might become too big for me

2) Hm, that's a good idea. It would require a bit more login in the query functions, but that's why I'm moving all the queries to their own common functions anyway! I'll add this to my design doc.

3) Also a good idea. I'll go with b) because in my games we have players switching to AIs occasionally. If you tick a player as "Always an AI" (perhaps a better term?) then they will not show up in the list of leaders to register, nor in the diplomacy center to send messages to.

 

[GFletch]

Fantastic tool, OverloadUT! Got the uploader up and running, followed your instructions on this board, and it's running perfectly. My Pitboss game is: "FOFC Global".

I appreciate you making a tool like this available.

 

[Bernout1]

First of all, don't use the "Add Game" feature on the website. I totally forgot that when I rolled out the latest changes, that will not work until I release a version of the uploader that doesn't use the username/password paradigm. It will eventually use a gameid/password system, but that's not implemented yet. So for now just use the same method as before, where you choose a unique user/pass and that will create the new game for you, and then I have to manually set you as the admin.

Oops...I went and used the new game feature at the site before reading this. If you could delete the "6MD Test" that has 0 players I'd appreciate it. Thanks! So far this looks very cool.

[Edit:] Never mind...found a way to delete it on my own. Double cool.

Bernout

 

[OverloadUT]

I'm glad everyone is enjoying it so far. Thank you very much for the testing and feedback you've been providing!

A major feature has just been rolled out:
New Turn Notification!

It should now be emailing out new turn notifications. This also means that the "Preferences" button on the game stats page works as well. Individual players can now choose whether or not they want to receive new turn notifications (as well as diplomacy message notifications.)

This feature is not entirely tested, so don't go and tell all of your players to register just yet! Let a turn or two pass and make sure you get the notification yourself. Right now you can't customize the message. I will eventually be implementing HTML mails for those that want it, and in the distant future the new turn notifications will also list the key events that happened durin the previous turn.

I am getting pretty close to an official launch of CivStats.com version 1.0. I have a couple more small features to implement and then a bunch of code cleanup and error handling to do, and then I will make a new thread officially announcing the service.

After that I will begin work on the new "discussion-based" diplomacy center. That will be a lot of work so I wanted to polish up the current feature list first. It's about time I actually go through and clean up the error handling.

 

[GFletch]

Thanks for the work on this. My players absolutely love it.

 

[DaveShack]

I'm hosting "MTDG Test Game 2" and the players are asking how they register their leaders. What do I need to do?

 

[OverloadUT]

I'm hosting "MTDG Test Game 2" and the players are asking how they register their leaders. What do I need to do?

Okay, I manually set you as the administrator for your game. Now if you visit you game stats page while logged in, you'll see a banner asking you to finish setup. Just click "Next" when it asks you to start the uploader.

 

[IglooDame]

OverloadUT, I'm having a serious problem. I've been running the v.5 uploader on my "civivor" game with no problems, but then attempted to add a game called "CDZ" (running on a different box, different IP address) and #1 haven't been able to make CDZ show up, and #2 every time I start the v.7 uploader, it injects CDZ data into the Civivor game display. I've upgraded the Civivor uploader to v.7 as well, and I've tried creating the CDZ game from the website. Can you suggest a troubleshooting path?

 

[DaveShack]

For IglooDude's problem my suggestion would be to allow an alternate port address, if the PHP side can handle that.