TBG Website Status

[Robc]

First let me apologize for the security warnings that everyone has been receiving over the last couple of days. As you may recall last year around this time I brought TBG into the modern era by relaunching the game through a secure SSL webserver connection. To do this requires that I purchase and maintain a security certificate from a third party. The third party encrypts information that is exchanged back and forth between our servers and your browser.

The security certificate expired a couple of days ago and I didn't realize that I wouldn't get any notice prior to its expiration so I was caught a little flat footed. After the certificate expired you could still get to the tbg website by accepting the risk that your browser warned you about. The 'unsafe' risk is overstated by your browser because it doesn't know that you are just playing a game... most SSL sites are banking or e-commerce sites rather than games and the warning is strong to keep you from accidentally entering confidential information.

TBG has not been hacked or compromised in any way. When you accept the risk and come to the site anyway then it works just like any other site that starts with http:// in the address (rather than https://).

So what about the future? I have secured a new certificate and it is installed. Unfortunately however the process of installing the certificate caused a number of other back end server programs to be updated and reconfigured. The result is a bit chaotic and tbg has and will occasionally go offline for the next couple of days. Most of this time I will keep the new certificate off and try to keep the site working as best I can while I work out each individual issue and bug. Occasionally you will get a message that the site is in maintenance mode but other times you will see a "404 site not found" error. Rest assured that I am doing my best to put humpty dumpty back together again.

When the site is active you should be able to return to this forum to get any updates that I may post although you may want to bookmark this page since there are no links currently to here when the site is in maintenance mode. Thanks for your patience.

[Robc]

We are stable now under the new SSL certificate. I still have a fair amount of work to do to make sure this stability becomes permanent, I'll try to do that work in the late evenings when player populations are lower. Thanks again for your patience.

[riverbottom]

thanks for the continued hard work robc!

[Marcis]

Thanks Rob!

[riverbottom]

not sure if its related to this interruption but lately myself and a few other players have noticed minor glitches in the pub.....personally ive had some problems with the pub loading when logging in. sometimes i have to try up to 4 times before the pub will load fully. it seems to stay in "waiting for bartender" mode forever and the tabs will not work. i need to go to forums and back to pub a few times till it actually works. also, after raffle is drawn during happy hour ive noticed the # of tickets i have do not clear and restart sometimes up to 20 minutes after drawing. and any other tickets earned durin g that time also disappear with them.
i use firefox if it makes a difference with this. nothing huge robc but maybe enough for new members to get frustrated with pub not loading.

[Robc]

I'll check the recent server loads to see if I can figure out why you are having trouble. I haven't changed anything lately but the core software is updated at the server farm all the time and maybe something happened there. Apologize for the difficulty.

On the pub raffle, forgive my asking but were you aware that the raffle tickets do not disappear after the grand prize drawing anymore? They disappear at the end of happy hour. This allows for the award of the small happy hour raffle prizes through the entire happy hour even if the grand prize fires off early. It has worked this way for quite some time now and maybe you didn't notice it. If that's not what you think happened then let me know.

Thanks!

[riverbottom]

i was not aware of that change. i was away from the pub for a few months, and just recently got back to consistent playing.

[Robc]

Cool river, and welcome back. And now I feel bad because I didn't realize that you were missing! I kind of presumed that most of our regular players are checking in but playing less while waiting for the new version to come out. I am running more ragged then ever these days trying to work and keep the games running at the same time, so I have become somewhat less responsive to issues I know. But its all good, I will work through them all in time.

The change in the pub raffle was done many months ago, but it is subtle change and easy to miss if you are not paying attention to it. So no worries there. I can't remember when I announced those changes but I think the reception for the smaller raffle prizes was good.

I didn't see any evidence of glitches in the server loading recently so I hope the other problems you experienced were a temporary glitch in the internet routing or something. By all means keep me posted if the problems repeat or continue.

Cheers!