Fixing the system for changed usernames – Part 1

I have identified an issue in the system coming from the changed usernames: When you are on the website, your username is actually your old username (the one you originally whitelisted with). I wrote code that makes the website display your current minecraft username instead when you post a comment for example.

The issue is that so far every time the website displayed your information, it looked for your original username in the database, not the current one. I went now through the code and tried to fix all the places where it does that.

That’s the first step in fixing the whole issue with changed usernames. Next up (provided that the above worked) is the lot reset. I did already substantial work for a new process to reset the lots. Nothing will change for the users, just the way the code works. I will need to test that however, otherwise I will spend a couple of days reloading stuff from backups :)

Server down temporarily [Update]

There seems to be some chunk issues that I could locate to a specific region of the server. I will try to reload that region from the backup. If that does not help, we might have to revert the whole server for almost a day.

Keep the fingers crossed.

Ok, so I centered the issue around HylandQuids lot. I reset the file around there and could login and teleport to the location, which previously crashed the server. Let’s hope it keeps up and I can go to bed…

Sorry for the delays

You most likely have realized that right now a couple of things are broken with the lots: The lot resets do not work, adding people to your lots and some other smaller things.
The issue is that I have been involved in a very important and urgent project at work that is sucking away a lot of my time and attention right now. On top of that, the issues described above are all non-trivial and require to go through a lot of code to fix them properly. So I am not sure when those will be fixed, it won’t take weeks, but I cannot give a certain date at this point.

So sorry, and thanks for your understanding!

Changing names (important)

Since you can change usernames now, please be aware that this will wipe your inventory, XP and enderchests. If you want to avoid issues, please empty your enderchests and personal inventory before changing the username. Everything else should work fine. If you have troubles in other issues, please submit a ticket.

 

Update to the minecart plugin!

Floored kindly provided an update:

- Elevator blocks (red wool) functioning.  Now 100% suffocation free, if you remember how MCM worked.
- Empty cart timeout.  Any carts left unattended for over 10 seconds will be towed... Into oblivion.
- Control blocks on curves are working properly.

Please test and give him a hug!

Slabs in the nether (and other places)

Today I found out that covering areas with slabs to prevent mob spawning causes lag. On a large scale, it can cause so much lag that it uses 50% of the CPU of the whole server. So if you use slabs on a few places to prevent mob spawning, it’s fine. Once you count the places where you use it in the hundreds, or if you cover whole chunks with slabs, you are creating an issue.

The problem comes from the fact that the mobs spawn and de-spawn again on the slabs, as opposed to properly lit areas, where the spawning is prevented before it happens. When the mobs de-spawn, the server has a lineup of mobs to populate the chunk, and it starts from scratch.

So please do not use the slabs as a broad method to prevent mob spawning.

We have a new (beta) minecart plugin! Thanks floored1585!

Floored1585 has written a new minecart system from scratch for the server! Yay!

While this is still in beta, there are functions already working perfectly fine. It’s based also on colored wool, so there is no huge difference between what we already have. Also, the general functionality of the individual wool colors will not change too much, but possibly some of the details. So please wait a bit before reconstructing your minecart systems. We also won’t rewrite the documentation before we have something like a “final version”.

What works?

  • Black wool: When powered, creates a minecart, picks you up and then waits for you to press a direction key on the keyboard. Will start driving in that direction
  • Yellow wool: If you drive over it, it will destroy the minecart you are in and you stay where you are.
  • Green wool: Stop where you are until you press a direction key on the keyboard.
  • Orange wool: Slows you down while you are over it.

More stuff such as elevators etc will come, please be patient, plugin development is difficult and a lot of testing needs to be done!

What can you do?

  • Test the stuff above and comment here if there is unintended behavior.
  • Give floored1585 a hug.

Shop Manager history added!

I made a quick add-on to the shop manager due to frequent requests: If you go on the sellers or buyers tab, you can click on any username and get the recent hsitory of all the items the user bought or sold. The layout is not perfect yet, but the data should be correct.

1826 Minecraft account leaked. So far no active users affected – but please check!

A German IT website has found a list of 1826 compromised minecraft accounts – emails + passwords. I have searched and found said list (since they did not mention where to find it) and checked the list against our userbase.
So far only 2 users (who have not been active for years) have been matched with our users. Of course I can check only for users where the email address used to register the minecraft account is the same as the one they used for the server here. So in case you used a different address, please go here and check if your email is in the list.

New Donator perk: Lot expiry protection

I am implementing right now a new perk for donators: For the term that you have ++ donator level, your lots won’t expire. I think it’s very fair that as long as you “pay for it”, you should be able to keep your lots, too.

Update: You can now see how many months a user has left as donator (above 12 months it will just show “More than 1 year”) on their user info page that links from the user directory.