Basic solutions to some technical issues

[BB_Sious]

Dear players,

Below is a collection of basic solutions to typical technical issues we receive in-game.

Here is a list of some of the typical technical issues:

• Chat cannot be used - or Lags
• Island does not change into the adventure - or Lags
• Island of a friend cannot be loaded - or Lags
• Promotions do not activate (grayed out in the star menu)
• If something is made/opened in the background, the game Lags and/or freezes*

Solutions

1. Check (are they really up-to-date?) and update your browser
2. Log out of the game (at least 15 minutes)
3. Do not open any other tabs in the background of your browser window!*
4. Limit background activities (such as opening another tab / playing another Flash/browser games or playing videos) or refrain completely*

* A few months ago there was a change included in the latest Flash version. If a tab in your browser is placed in the background, an inactivity setting is activated and places this tab under minimal conditions (e.g. only 1% Flash allocation). If you then activate the tab again, the browser tries to clean up this discrepancy, which can lead to lags and crashes in flash games/programs. The reason is that flash programs, in particular, require a continuous, stable flash connection so that all areas can be fully loaded.

The following are often overlooked but could be necessary (especially after a maintenance)

1. Delete the browser cache
2. Delete your DNS cache (or perform a router reboot)

Solution: Nothing clickable (Firefox)

1. Check your Firefox settings because a change has been reset.
2. Type about: config in the address line and click on Enter
3. A security prompt appears, click "I'm aware of the dangers"
4. Look for: dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled
5. The value must be set to "false".

With regard to game freezing in Chrome and Opera browser:

• The freezing is caused by Chrome itself
• Other Flash-based browser games are facing exactly the same issue

We suggest the following, as a workaround:

• Use the zoom function of the browser (via menu, or CTRL+Wheel)
• Resize the window (These two workarounds will revalidate the whole page, which will also "unfreeze" the game)
• Try another browser
• Activate the In-game sound

  Players who had the in-game sound activated all the time reported less to no lag and around 90% of the German TSO players confirmed this. The theory is, lag and freezes happen due to the inactivity of the tab and having the in-game sound active simulate activity thus the tab will not deactivate. So, if you have the in-game sound deactivated, please activate it and test the game stability for the next 24 hours.

• Disable the browser feature called "Background Tabs Throttling".

  This resolved issues with the game freezing when using multiple tabs for some players in the US. You can also give this a try. To disable this feature, you may follow this tutorial: http://www.askvg.com/how-to-enable-d...-web-browsers/

Instructions for Google Chrome Web Browser:

1. Open Google Chrome web browser and type chrome://flags/ in the address bar and press Enter. It'll open the advanced configuration page.
2. Now press "Ctrl+F" keys together to launch find box and type throttling in the find box.

   It'll directly go to following option:
   Throttle expensive background timers Mac, Windows, Linux, Chrome OS, Android
   Enables intervention to limit CPU usage of background timers to 1%. #expensive-background-timer-throttling

3. If you want to disable this new feature, select "Disabled" option from the drop-down box. If you want to enable this feature, select Enabled option from the drop-down box.
4. Click on "Relaunch Now" button and it'll restart Google Chrome web browser.

Instructions for Opera Web Browser:

1. Launch Opera web browser and open its hidden secret advanced configuration page using opera://flags command in the address bar.
2. Now click inside "Search experiments" text box and type throttling. It'll show following options in the result:

   Background tab throttling Mac, Windows, Linux
   Throttle timers in background tabs. #background-tab-throttling
   Throttle expensive background timers Mac, Windows, Linux
   Enables intervention to limit CPU usage of background timers to 1%. #expensive-background-timer-throttling

3. If you want to disable background tabs throttling feature, select "Disabled" option from the drop-down box of both options. If you want to enable this feature, select Enabled option from the drop-down box of both options.
4. Opera will show you a message "Your changes will take effect the next time you relaunch Opera" along with a button to relaunch Opera. Click on the "Relaunch Now" button to restart Opera web browser.

Note: You can also disable background tabs throttling feature in Google Chrome and Opera web browsers by appending --disable-background-timer-throttling parameter at the end of the string present in Target text box of their shortcut's properties.

If you continue to experience issues, please contact support. In addition, always provide the following information to help us better diagnose the issue:

• A detailed description of the issue
• When did you first notice the issue?
• Browser and Browser version (Please note the complete version number)
• Flash version (Please note the complete version number)
• Operating system
• Internet provider (optional)

Hope this helps.


Regards,
BB_Sious

[BB_Sious]

Dear Settlers,

With the recent update of Firefox to Firefox Quantum (Firefox 57), you may experience issues with the game turning blue and freezing if you applied the fix mentioned above under "Solution: Nothing clickable (Firefox)".

To fix the issue, open the about:config and change the dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled back to true then restart Firefox.

Limited testing, as mentioned in the English forums has shown to solve the issue.

Regards,
BB_Sious