Bug: Pellet Machine

[Flynt]

If I missed a prior report of this, I apologize for not finding it.

There appears to be a (admittedly non-material) bug with the pellet machine. It opens normally; however, when attempting to link to the testing silo, the pellet doesn't come along for the ride. Linking back to the machine, it closes automatically (as if empty), but the blue light stays on. Opening again looks like a slightly different animation, but all five pellets are there and then it works as normal.

This bug happened three straight times.

[Wamduskasapa]

Confirmed.

found that the pellet disapears if you accidentally double click or right click the linking book to the silo..

[tachzusamm]

Confirmed.

found that the pellet disapears if you accidentally double click or right click the linking book to the silo..

Hmmm...
Didn't it behave this way all the time? I find it really logical that it behaves this way.
See, you left-click the pellet, and touch it with your left hand. To take it with you, you have to touch the book with your RIGHT hand, without releasing the pellet. So it seems logical to right-click (or double-click for double-touch). If you left-click the book, it would mean that you release the pellet with your left hand and touch the book instead.

By the way, this is the only part where clicking in URU seems logical to me.
I don't understand this as a bug, it's a great feature in my opinion. Really, no kidding. In all other cases, you have to left-click a book, stone or cloth to touch it with your right hand. THAT is strange. Who came up with this idea?

That game behaviour at the pellet machine is a really brilliant one in my opinion. It proves that the devs really thought about "how could it work to teleport something with you".
So, not a bug. Instead, you have to right-click the book or stone. That's the whole trick to make something teleport with you, using BOTH hands.

It's not accidentally right-clicking, it's intended right-clicking

[janaba]

Just threw a few pellets with my ols avi and a newer one and everything works completely perfect so far ... ONLY one time, I started with the newer avi and when I switched to my old one and just with the first pellet I experienced what Flynt has described --> I've opened the pellet machine, chose one pellet, clicked on it and then on the book and everything went fine as it should ... When I came back the pellet machine closed as if empty though it wasn't and I could open it again with a full load of five pellets, but that incidence didn't happen again afterwards, everything worked fine again ...

I, of course, tried to double click the book which worked fine for me as with only one click, but when you right click on the book nothing happens, so you have to quickly left click then to not loose one pellet as you have only so much time to do so lol ... As for a pellet not coming along I can only surmise that you maybe forgot to or not properly clicked that pellet to take it along with you, it won't follow us by its own ...

Edit: I'm just trying it again, just to try to replicate that incidence, whereas I have to add to this that it happened before when the pellet machine was full and closed when I linked to Er'cana and then it happened just one time ... I just tried it with my old avi again, whereas the machine was opened now and everything worked as usual ... I'm glad that I have one still closed machine with my second newer avi and I'm just about to try this out now with that one ... I'm writing here now so that my time for editing won't expire lol ... Ok, off to throw another pellet ...

O_o, I almost can't believe it, but it's true and I'm glad that I got the idea and tried it again ... It has actually to do with a new load of pellets ... I opened the machine, clicked that pellet, it came along with me as usual, but when I linked back, the machine closed as if empty, but keeps the blue light on, indicating to be ready and when I opened it there was a full load of pellets again ... So, now you know ...

[Sirius]

Didn't it behave this way all the time? I find it really logical that it behaves this way.
See, you left-click the pellet, and touch it with your left hand. To take it with you, you have to touch the book with your RIGHT hand, without releasing the pellet. So it seems logical to right-click (or double-click for double-touch). If you left-click the book, it would mean that you release the pellet with your left hand and touch the book instead.

Here I must disagree: left-click in Uru is not "Use your left hand", it's "Interact with this thing in front of you with either hand".
As I see it, right (or double) click in this case would be breaking the very rules of Uru's gameplay.
Also, since right-clicking is to actually move the view, using it to interact would be real messy when playing in first person.

BTW, if I understood Wam correctly, it's right/double-clicking that breaks it.

About the error itself, my guess is the chronicle storing the pellet is not being correctly written or something. Oh, and since SDLs are sometimes buggy, let's say it has something to do with it too

[Flynt]

Wow, didn't realize that this issue may be related to "clicking style". Anyway, I've always just used the vanilla left-click on pellet, left-click on silo book.

Just tested again with two avies, and the bug didn't happen either time. I know I didn't imagine things, but perhaps it just fixed itself.

[Wamduskasapa]

OK The Problem is now the same for all four of my avatars on Gehn Shard But NOT on MOULa (where the pellet drop functions as it should).

On Gehn it takes 6 Round Robins to the Silo to drop all 5 pellets.

The first Round Robin
a. approach pellet dispenser (blue light).
b. left click blue lit button - pellet dispenser hood raises, revealing 5 pellets.
c. left click blue lit button (first pellet is dispensed).
d. left click pellet, left click Silo linking book (linked to Silo).
e. Arrived Silo with no pellet.
f. Returned to Ercana Pellet Dispenser.
g. Hood still has blue light BUT there are NO pellets. Hood lowers
h. left click blue lit button - pellet dispenser hood raises, revealing 5 pellets.
i. from this point on each Round Robin proceeds as it should.

[janaba]

Hehe, cool ... exactly as described by myself and Flynt above ... now our dearest H'Uru team knows ... and as everyone of the three of us mentions, it happens when the dispenser machine was closed before ... when you enter the room with the machine open then everything works as usual, that was my experience yesterday at least ... The thing is that this never ever happened anywhere in Uru/MOUL in all my seven years in Uru, so, sth must have happened, means changed, lately, but maybe you all know or suspect already where that nasty little bug sneaked in while working on other stuff ...

[Acorn]

I checked all my avvies: all of which had blue lights showing, some with very old pellets inside. I experienced Flynt's bug but not every time - but I can't be sure whether those avvies were at Wam''s stage h) instead of stage a). I also tried dropping one avvie's first pellet into the Bahro cave instead of the City Silo and had no problem - but again I can't be 100% sure I was starting from stage a). Did anyone else try this with the Bahro cave drop?

I've got new pellets baking for all my avvies to be really sure.

One side effect from al this testing should be some increased pellet scores? When are you reporting your next stats, Wam?

Edit - oh, you've just done it! Ah well, next time the figs might be higher?

[Acorn]

I retried all my avvies with their newly-baked pellets and did NOT find the problem at all. But I did have problems with my pellet scores - two avvies showed "---" instead of scoring; and two other avvies couldn't deposit their scores in the chosen hood.

However, I remembered this had been an issue before:

If you ever see "..." in place of your pellet score, then the client is waiting on the server to respond. I've noticed that in some situations, messages to or from the server are garbled (I haven't put forth any effort to actually figuring out what's wrong--it might just be an error in the logging code), so your request probably got messed up. If your KI shows "..." then you definitely won't be able to transfer any points. The points you got from dropping the pellets should still count however.

and then

While testing the modified scripts for Er'cana, dirtsand threw a string of SQL function syntax errors when the client tried to update the pellet and lake point scores. I hoped someone could tell me whether the problem is a missing node or two that I need to INSERT into the tables or if there might be another problem.

EDIT: It appears the scores table was created but there are no rows at all in the DB. I'm thinking at this point that there is a logic error in ErcanaCitySilo.py that fails to create the players score record (ki points or lake points). If the msg is to update (which is what happens when you drop a pellet) then the script bombs out. If it is a list score msg, then it tries to create the row if it doesn't exist. I haven't found what causes a list rather than an update. (help!)

EDIT2: And I found the problem and fixed it. I now have KI points accumulating and displaying in the Neighborhood imager.

so maybe this problem will be fixed when johnsojc's solution is implemented. But as to the pellet that gets left behind, this is very mysterious, given it seems to be intermittent.