Server down? *Answered: nope.

[StoutMan]

Robc, just a heads up, I am currently unable to access the pub or brew tab this evening. I also noticed some minor glitches when I brewed two batches today, one batch went cold on me during the mash even though I was hitting the heat button regularly; it seemed like there was some sort of delay between hitting the button and heat activation. Seems like possibly the server crashed, or there is a hardware failure, just wanted to bring it to your attention. If it's still down in the morning, I will leave a message on your office phone.
JR

[StoutMan]

Robc, I had the same issue logging in this morning, so I tried using Chrome, and that worked fine. So the issue only occurs when I try logging in with Safari. I rebooted my Mac desktop this morning and tried again with Safari, but the bottom tabs still won't respond. I'm attaching a screen shot of what I see after hitting log in, right under Bartender it says "Wait..." I'll just use Chrome from now on, but I've used Safari without any issue before; perhaps the problem is on my end.

Screen Shot 2014-07-30 at 9.04.54 AM.png (531.7 KiB) Viewed 15839 times

[Robc]

The server is still up and working fine so I believe the problem is with the latest Safari update.

Safari (for Windows) did an update about a year or so ago in which they no longer honored sessions across multiple tabs from the same website. This effectively broke the game for that browser. I went online and found developers screaming about the change but Apple made it clear that this was a security feature in their opinion and it wasn't going to change. At that time I struggled to find a work around but did not succeed so the game has been essentially broken for the Windows Safari browser ever since. The interesting thing to me however was that none of my Apple computer users reported a problem when using Safari from Apple devices and I tested Safari on various mobile devices and the problem did not occur. I sort of left it on the "things to fix when I can" pile.

If what you say is true then Apple may have decided to update Safari for their native machines to behave the same. This may be a fundamental problem for TBG and Safari browsers. If I cannot preserve a user's session data when they switch from one tab or page to another then I will have to re-authenticate the user for every single page visited. This would make the game nothing short of stupid and be very frustrating. I can only guess that Safari for mobile will go the same route and probably sooner than later.

Perhaps enough time has passed that other web developers have found a work around. I know there are plenty of websites that manage financial transactions that require preservation of session data between pages, or else perhaps they are working strictly on a single page and using JavaScript and AJAX to update the page. Under the circumstance I will probably have to do something like that for the game redesign that is in my plans for right after the mobile release.

Here's what I will do, I don't have an Apple machine to test with but I will put out feelers to see if my hunch is correct. I will also try to see if any work around's are published for Safari for Windows. Lastly I do have an Apple mobile device so I will test it to see if session changes are required on tab changes on that device. In the short run there will be nothing I can do about the problem and I am glad you have found the game to work well in Chrome. That is my development platform so it will always have the least problems. I am sorry about all this and the trouble but there is little I can do about Apple's decisions and I already have a monster of a job keeping up with the four major browsers MSIE, Chrome, Firefox, and Safari.

Thank you once again for reporting the problem and sleuthing out the probable cause. I'll see what I can do.

EDIT: I just noticed that none of the barley had started to grow in your screen shot? Does it ever start to grow or is the farm completely frozen? If the farm is frozen then the JavaScript parts of the game have stopped working. This would also mean you would be unable to buy beer or do much of anything. This may be something different in that Apple may have changed how their browser interprets JavaScript coding in their update. If so then this may be something I can find and fix much more easily. Let me know what you observe, thanks. Also if you know how then make sure that your browser settings allow JavaScript (not "Java" although that won't usually hurt you either) code to run. I used to have a bright red warning come up when that browser setting was incorrect but I will need to check and see if that warning is still functional. If you do have JavaScript turned off (or if that is the new default after the browser update) then you will find problems on many other websites as well.

[StoutMan]

Robc,
I have been playing the game using Chrome with no issues, but wanted to reply to your post regarding Safari. I verified that JavaScript is enabled, and that the barley field does not populate. I also notice that the ads on the right side also do not come up like they normally do, even with pop up blocker disabled. It's not a big deal, I have always found that the game runs smoother using Chrome, and I'll just avoid using Safari to play TBG. Just wanted to follow up with you, let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

[Robc]

Thanks again StoutMan. It does sound like JavaScript is not running which will be much easier to track down and fix then a session policy change. That's good news. And while I encourage you to use Chrome it is important for me to keep the game working on as many of the most popular browsers as possible, so I will be working on a solution here all the same. So thanks again for calling my attention to the problem. Cheers.