The Bridge

Frank

9:00 PM

@murgatroid99 Yeah, but that process is generally how you're going to have to go about it.

murgatroid99

Other than that, yeah, that's pretty much general-purpose troubleshooting advice

Remove things one at a time until the problem goes away. The last thing you removed is the problem.

Frank

Which is why I would recommend just some generic canonicals. And then dupe our cranky little hearts out.

We're going to get user backlash for whatever choice we make, though.

murgatroid99

@Frank My heart bleeds

Frank

@murgatroid99 Yeah, I know the feeling. We tried, nobody was happy, now we don't try anymore, and we're happy. All is good.

murgatroid99

This is still going to be better for them than having their question closed without a pointer to helpful information, or having it just languish with no answer

Frank

9:04 PM

Depending on how the community comes down on it.

So far, we're just going to chuck out all mod tech support, period.

murgatroid99

I voted not to do that, but it looks like the community disagrees

Frank

I'd prefer giving canonicals a shot, first, but I'm not going to be heartbroken if we just chuck it all out.

murgatroid99

However much I dislike those questions, it doesn't seem right to carve out weird chunks of our question space as off-topic just because we don't want to deal with them

The way I see it, if we don't want to do tech support, we should just not do tech support

Saying "tech support questions are OK, but not yours" doesn't seem like a good idea

Frank

@murgatroid99 I don't think it's so much as, "Don't want to", as, "We suck at it immensely, and Minecraft compounds the issue by orders of magnitude"

A couple here and there isn't a big problem; just need people to give it the old college try.

Minecraft, though, we get so much crap for it that we literally can't handle it all.

murgatroid99

@Frank Whatever the reason is, it doesn't change the rest of my point

Frank

9:09 PM

@murgatroid99 I see it as a solution to a problem that's been plaguing us for quite a while.

We did treat them as regular tech support questions.

Mad Scientist

@Frank We suck at those, too

Frank

@MadScientist No argument from me!

GodEmperorDune

@Sterno yes it is

Rainbolt

Do you guys seriously get that many unique crash dumps per day?

I just joined recently so I am not in the know here.

Frank

@Rainbolt Community deletes something on the order of four or five every day.

Yuuki

9:10 PM

@Rainbolt Given how you can define "unique" based on the combination of mods and there are a lot of Minecraft mods, yes.

murgatroid99

@Rainbolt It's hard to tell whether a crash dump is "unique" in an important way

badp

Part of the issue I assume is the lack of tooling

Rainbolt

Wow someone put an automatic pinger to my head and pulled the trigger

badp

it's not like we have some kind of list of Minecraft questions

MBraedley

@murgatroid99 I would argue that they're not really part of our question space to begin with. Tech support questions were always a tack-on because they happen to fit within our scope, but only tangentially. We're about playing games, not dealing with crashes.

GodEmperorDune

9:11 PM

@badp ktash mentioned that and got a ton of downvotes

badp

@GodEmperorDune doesn't mean it's not true.

murgatroid99

@MBraedley That's what I mean. I think that if we're going to make some tech support questions off-topic, we should make all tech support questions off-topic

badp

We don't have the tools to handle these questions, no one built them and no one cared to build them.

GodEmperorDune

@badp it means the community doesn't think that it is a viable solution

Frank

@murgatroid99 I made this argument to agent a couple years back.

badp

9:12 PM

Rather I think it means it isn't worth the effort.

Frank

He just pointed to SU and said they built an entire site around tech support.

murgatroid99

Well, I'm working on that as an answer to that meta question

Frank

@murgatroid99 If you want to propose banning tech support, period, I am totally on board.

And with that, home time!

Rainbolt

if (Game.hasDedicatedSupportForum())
{
    response.redirect(Game.getDedicatedSupportForum());
}

That aught to take care of 90% of them.

Batophobia

Call of Duty: Revolutions

#backinblack

►

Rainbolt

9:16 PM

All you have to do is ask the canonical question, "Where can I get support for Minecraft?" and close all support questions as a dupe.

(forgive me if this has been proposed before... this chat has been going on about this topic for like two days now)

StrixVaria

@Rainbolt Umbrella questions like that aren't really that great.

We've tried it for some other things in the past.

Arperum

@Rainbolt Except you should point to the relevant mod tech support thing in case of mod, and good luck figuring out what mod is used.

Batophobia

@Rainbolt This topic is much older than 2 days

Lazers

0

Q: lost my icon on my phone

My icon vanished from my phone. I still have my village but can't get to it without the icon. If I go to play store and hit play it just takes me to a video . Any suggestions. All help will be appreciated.

clash-of-clans

hotline california

I'm of the belief that if you have a Minecraft question, and IT HASNT BEEN ANSWERED BY THE MINECRAFT FAQ and HELP ARTICLES ON MOJANG, then it's perfectly fine answered here. Because otherwise is just a striking lack of research effort

Batophobia

9:19 PM

@hotlinecalifornia Lack of research isn't a close reason afaik

StrixVaria

@hotlinecalifornia It's okay for us to duplicate information available elsewhere on the internet.

Rainbolt

But you have reduced the problem to an easier one. Rather than solving their original problem (the crash), you have a much simpler problem, "What mods are you using?"

And if that much is unclear, close it as such.

Arperum

@Rainbolt heh.

Dream on.

Half of the time they don't even know it themselves.

Rainbolt

I don't have to dream. I see you guys already closing questions as unclear because they don't contain information about what mods are being used. Are you going to make me go find one?

Arperum

"Idunno, I downloaded it from the internet"

Rainbolt

9:21 PM

I'm telling you there is a solution to that. Close as unclear.

Batophobia

If there is a crash report, doesn't it generally tell you which mod is to blame?

Rainbolt

So canonical question no. 2: How can I find out what mods I am using?

hotline california

@StrixVaria But do we like it?

badp

I'm all for canonical questions btw

Jason Berkan

@Batophobia Most of the time. Though it just gives you the class name and if the mod's namespace isn't the name of the mod...

badp

9:22 PM

@hotlinecalifornia So long as it isn't plagiarism and it fits the format...

StrixVaria

@hotlinecalifornia We don't dislike it.

hotline california

I think this should be the reward for the winners of StackEgg. Just migrate all Minecraft crash log questions over to PPCG :)

badp

didn't Anime win it anyway?

GodEmperorDune

@JasonBerkan with all the obfuscated class names too, this is even less useful

Wipqozn

I'm fine with canonical questiosn when they make sense. I think this is such a case. Most of our minecraft tech support is just telling people their mods are not compatbile. A question showing people how to figure that out on their own is a good use case for a canonical question.

GodEmperorDune

9:23 PM

@badp iirc, anime, then ppcg, then us

hotline california

Then they can craft a program to parse the crash log and figure out what mods they're using

fredley

Arqade gamers 3rd best gamers

tombull89

Just finished my PC upgrade - now rockin' a Oct-Core AMD FX-8320E at 3.6Ghz and 16GB of RAM. Om nom nom.

badp

@Wipqozn It's funny because you know they aren't compatible when you try using them at the same time and they crash.

StrixVaria

@fredley Arqade gamers most noble gamers!

GodEmperorDune

9:24 PM

@fredley first in non-raiding, not bot play

badp

@fredley We have real games to play, you see.

We are busy gamers.

Rainbolt

@hotlinecalifornia I will prepare the PPCG troops. New challenge: Golf me a Crash Dump

badp

Our libraries are exploding with unplayed games.

fredley

@GodEmperorDune Bot play isn't for everyone

Batophobia

@badp We have real games to not play, you see.

StrixVaria

9:24 PM

Semantic arguments on the Bridge > playing games > other stuff > talking about games on the Bridge

badp

@Batophobia that too

GodEmperorDune

@fredley talk to a doctor to find out if bot play is right for you

GnomeSlice

I talk about games

badp

@StrixVaria The Bridge > The Bridge

fredley

@GodEmperorDune I'd talk to my partner first

badp

9:25 PM

the math checks out

Jason Berkan

@Wipqozn I agree with this. If anything is shouting for a canononical question, it's how to deal with incompatible Minecraft mods.

badp

@fredley WHAT IF YOUR PARTNER IS THE DOCTOR

spugsley

HALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

fredley

@badp THAT IS A SEPARATE MATTER

Trent Hawkins

@fredley Arcade gamers, became bored by the game and stopped caring. And we play a lot of incrementals, so if we got bored by it...

Lazers

9:25 PM

0

Q: How do you delete a metro line?

I've been relying heavily on metros to ease the burden of traffic on my city, but lately they've been getting into huge backups. I want to be able to delete my previous lines in order to start fresh again, but I can't seem to find an option to do this.

cities-skylines

tombull89

@badp never mind the doctor, who was phone?

badp

@JasonBerkan but how do you tell if you're running incompatible mods BEFORE you crash?

GodEmperorDune

@TrentHawkins it was a weak incremental

badp

@tombull89 @Wipqozn.

@Wipqozn was phone.

Wipqozn

fredley

9:26 PM

@TrentHawkins Speaking of incrementals, I'm enjoying Mola Mola. The aim of the game is to die, and everything kills you

Batophobia

@TrentHawkins We haven't had a new incremental in a long time

StrixVaria

StackEgg really wasn't an incremental.

badp

I thought this had been painfully obvious by now.

spugsley

@Wipqozn HEY IT'S MY PHONE BACKGROUND

Wipqozn

@spugsley I mostly posted that to make up for this

Trent Hawkins

9:26 PM

@Batophobia wasn't there 'time clickers' or something recently?

spugsley

AHHHHHHHHHHHHH WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

StrixVaria

Jason Berkan

@badp You can't. And I'm not talking to you. You de-ownered me while I was typing. I had to retype a message. I WILL NEVER GET THAT 3.2 SECONDS OF MY LIFE BACK.

badp

@fredley Do things kill you more and more efficiently?

GodEmperorDune

@spugsley y u do dis

tombull89

9:27 PM

@Wipqozn Wipqozn pls

fredley

@badp No, less and less

Stack Exchange

StrixVaria has added Jason Berkan to the list of this room's owners.

badp

@JasonBerkan I can reowner you bu----

GnomeSlice

I bet he was typing again

Batophobia

@TrentHawkins Must have missed that one

badp

9:27 PM

I WAS NOT DONE TALKING @StrixVaria

fredley

badp

Let's try that again

Wipqozn

@JasonBerkan I hate when that happens. It's the worst.

StrixVaria

@fredley I wanted a link to the game.

tombull89

45 secs ago, by StrixVaria

GodEmperorDune

9:28 PM

@tombull89 lol, link to the past

Feeds

badp has removed Jason Berkan from the list of this room's owners.

Wipqozn has added Jason Berkan to the list of this room's owners.

tombull89

@GodEmperorDune badum-tish

badp

I could---

GnomeSlice

Stop

GodEmperorDune

@StrixVaria its iphone/android from what google tells me

Feeds

9:28 PM

badp has removed Wipqozn from the list of this room's owners.

fredley has removed StrixVaria from the list of this room's owners.

fredley has removed badp from the list of this room's owners.

user15026

@tombull89 facedesk

spugsley

I can't run today because my knee is all inflamed :(

GnomeSlice

More spam pls

spugsley

it's so sad

Jason Berkan

THAT'S IT. I'm done typing anything in here.

2

Stack Exchange

9:28 PM

StrixVaria has added StrixVaria to the list of this room's owners.

tombull89

@JasonBerkan anything

user15026

@spugsley Ice/heat?

Feeds

badp has added badp to the list of this room's owners.

spugsley

I guess I will go for a walk or get on the elliptical

@AshleyNunn yeah I have been since yesterday and I have a brace on it

running is no joke :o

badp

I guess I got inb4'd on the self-mod-abuse

GodEmperorDune

9:29 PM

man, how do i get in on this deownering incremental?

Feeds

fredley has added GodEmperorDune to the list of this room's owners.

badp

@JasonBerkan IT IS NOT MY FAULT THIS ROOM IS EXTRAORDINARILY RUDE

user15026

Can we stop with the ownership kerfuffle please?

Feeds

badp has removed fredley from the list of this room's owners.

GodEmperorDune

crap, need a tutorial

GnomeSlice

9:29 PM

Can I get in on it too

user15026

@spugsley :(

spugsley

yah :(

Feeds

fredley has removed badp from the list of this room's owners.

Wipqozn

fredley has added Wipqozn to the list of this room's owners.

StrixVaria

@fredley Is it "Survive! Mola mola!" or "Get Bigger! Mola"?

fredley

9:30 PM

@Wipqozn That confused me for way too long

Wipqozn

@fredley Excellent.

fredley

@StrixVaria Survive! Mole mola! I think

GnomeSlice

Guess not?

Powerlord

orders his Mafioso to kill @fredley

No one ever believes that you're a survivor

GnomeSlice

Heh

fredley

9:30 PM

I paid a dollar to remove the ads.

GnomeSlice

We really should do a bridge Salem game night

4

fredley

@Powerlord Too bad, I was jester

Batophobia

@GodEmperorDune @fredley PingOverflow

fredley

@GnomeSlice META

Wipqozn

@GnomeSlice That's a good idea.

Powerlord

9:31 PM

@fredley Too bad Jester only wins if they're lynched.

GnomeSlice

Jester just dies if attacked feedlot, you have to get hanged to get your revenge

Wtf is a feedlot

Powerlord

I find it much easier to play Executioner than Jester

Yuuki

> Yuuki has added GnomeSlice to the list of this room's owners.

GnomeSlice

Exe is fun

Feeds

fredley has removed Yuuki from the list of this room's owners.

GnomeSlice

9:32 PM

Whatever man I know you guys still think I'd abuse it

This fuct up headphone jack is posing me off

badp

You couldn't be much more terrible than @fredley

Yuuki

Knew I shouldn't have done that. I ragret nothing regardless!

GnomeSlice

I've been being careful since my dad fixed my headphones too, WTF how did this happen

Wipqozn

@GnomeSlice My biggest concern is that you'd somehow delete the room when on your phone.

Powerlord

Powerlord has added Bacon to the list of sandwich ingredients

Wipqozn

9:34 PM

@Powerlord You tried so hard.

Powerlord

Aw

Mad Scientist

@Wipqozn Deletion is completely reversible

GodEmperorDune

@Powerlord aww

badp

@Powerlord there there #modabuseforgood

GodEmperorDune

oh no, the mod abuse frenzy has attracted other mods!

Wipqozn

9:34 PM

@MadScientist I know, but I wanted to make a joke about his phone.

Feeds

badp has removed GodEmperorDune from the list of this room's owners.

Yuuki

@badp NEVER FORGET!

Wipqozn

@GnomeSlice That sucks.

GodEmperorDune

@StackExchange i never figured out how to use it :(

GnomeSlice

This is free rust

badp

9:35 PM

Headphones are the worst

Never pay more than $10 for a pair.

GnomeSlice

Mother worst

THE WORST

lol badp no

I am very very picky about my headphones

badp

@GnomeSlice so is my cat.

GnomeSlice

But even though I try to take care of them I always end up Breaking the plugs

badp

She won't just nom any pair. Only those that are sufficiently expensive looking.

murgatroid99

0

A: Minecraft crash questions should be made off-topic: yes/no?

Tech Support should be completely off-topic Tech support as a topic, in general, has exactly the same problems that Minecraft tech support questions have. Everything in the question applies to them; it's just more pronounced because Minecraft has an astonishing ability to generate unsearchable e...

GnomeSlice

9:36 PM

Keep them in a case

badp

@GnomeSlice that is incompatible with use right before sleep.

MadMAxJr

"It appears you're posting a minecraft log. Don't do that."

Wipqozn

@murgatroid99 OOOOOH SNAP! SOMEONE IS LOOKING TO START SOME DRAMA!

GnomeSlice

Get a wireless speaker for your bedside

Wipqozn

cc @Sterno

GnomeSlice

9:37 PM

You can get cheap ones for like $40 that sound decent close up

badp

Speakers? I'm not living on my own.

Those would aggravate the fuck out of everyone.

Powerlord

As a developer, I got 0 minutes and 0 seconds of development done since my 11am EDT meeting started today.

Wipqozn

Also, I think "We only support the latest version of Vanilla Minecraft" is a fairly straight forward and easy to implement rule.

GnomeSlice

Do other people sleep in your room?

MadMAxJr

I can't wait to stop living in an apartment and purchase a subwoofer for our sound system. I miss deep bass ranges. For now, 7.1 headset.

badp

9:38 PM

@Powerlord In our current job we never have meetings. Why have meetings when you can just shout?

GnomeSlice

How loud do you listen to music before bed

badp

@GnomeSlice No. But I can't sleep with the door closed.

@GnomeSlice Any loud will disturb people in their sleep.

also I don't really listen to music, just youtube videos and whatnot.

GnomeSlice

Trust me, it won't even carry out of the room

As long as you don't crank it

badp

I'll consider it. Skeptically

GnomeSlice

Get one to try and see what it sounds like. When I buy shit like this I buy like five and take all but one back anyway

badp

9:40 PM

Meanwhile a new pair of cheap-o earplugs will get here tomorrow to replace those Samsung ones that got punctured in the sleeve

Batophobia

@GnomeSlice cranked to 11

Lazers

0

Q: Why isn't my trigger working?

First I'm creating a initial setup for people connecting to my server, to "hook them up on the system", as Bukkit no longer exists. /scoreboard players reset * /scoreboard objectives list /scoreboard players enable mazunki newplayer /scoreboard players set mazunki newplayer 1 /say...

minecraft minecraft-commands

0

Q: Where can I get more Growth Eggs?

When I started playing, I was given a Growth Egg as a launch bonus. I used it on Cloud and it trivialized the first few areas to have him at level 7 right out of the gate, but once I picked up Rydia, dragging her along was painfu. It took about 4 attempts to get her to survive one map and get her...

ff-record-keeper

badp

also the Apple ones the jack of which had gotent jammed in my tablet.

GnomeSlice

I can't even wear earbuds

user15026

@badp Did you ever get that out?

Powerlord

9:42 PM

@badp Well, in this case it was a teleconference and at least two of the people on it weren't actually in our office. One wasn't even on our continent.

badp

@AshleyNunn I did manage. My tablet lost a few grams in the process.

GnomeSlice

Fuck though I'm starting to get really pissed I can't have a nice pair of headphones without the jack or cord eventually breaking

badp

@Powerlord Lag is fun!

user15026

@badp :(

Powerlord

But then I had to deal with a bunch of issues with getting a new version of our app pushed out to production.

badp

9:43 PM

@AshleyNunn I'd rather have a lighter tablet than no tablet at all for $weeks

user15026

@GnomeSlice I can't handle those rubber right in your ear ones, but like the ipod style ones are okay

Powerlord

Turns out no one knew the administrator password to the production appserver.

user15026

@badp I can understand that

GodEmperorDune

@GnomeSlice maybe you need some gold plated ones from best buy

GnomeSlice

I went through two pairs of PX100s and now my year-old PX100-2s have had the cord somehow broken in half, fixed by my dad, and now the socket in my phone appears to be fuct even though I've only been using it for music for less than a year

badp

9:43 PM

@AshleyNunn My ears are probably incompatible with the ipod style. One of the two speakers was basically plugged perfectly in my ear and I wouldn't hear anything from it unless I pulled the earplugs slightly off

Powerlord

and once we finally found it (in an old Hudson script back from when "Production" was essentially another testing box since we weren't actual in production yet).

badp

so rubbery things it is.

Powerlord

then the admin tried to use a web interface to redeploy the app. Which kept kicking him back to the login screen.

I eventually scripted a solution to that, but apparently missed that there was a space between an environment variable and \ (this was in a path)... didn't find out until my second meeting ended.

GnomeSlice

I've been making an effort to not jam it in my pockets or anything lately too

badp

@Powerlord D:

Powerlord

9:45 PM

and then I had to set up SSL on our Dev server as it'd never been configured for SSL.

badp

At least you scripted it out. We're just filling in Websphere forms manually

I really need to figure out how to use the Jython interface.

Powerlord

@badp Well, in this case it's an Oracle Appserver install, so it has admin.jar and adminclient.jar that are command-line interfaces.

GnomeSlice

I think my mom feels bad that my birthday dinner was McDonald's

badp

@Powerlord Yeah, Websphere also has Jython scripting and it will even generate command lines for you on the fly, but we just never sat down to figure it out.

user15026

@badp I also don't like the rubbers because then I lose my ability to hear things outside my music and when you are a paranoid person walking alone...yeah, no.

badp

9:47 PM

@GnomeSlice There's always your name day!

user15026

@GnomeSlice See, that would be something that was fine by me :P

GnomeSlice

Didnt help that some teenage skunks came in and sat right behind us and kept talking about really horrible shit loudly and swearing a lot

Yeah I mean I'm good with McDonald's

badp

@AshleyNunn You have good rubber thingies then. Most of those muffle the outside noise but don't quite cut it out entirely, unless you go BOSE or something.

Powerlord

Anyway, Oracle Appserver was fighting me on the Dev server. So I redid the SSL config for it. And then forgot to specify the port in the new config file, so it tried binding to 443... but our dev server also hosts Subversion... on port 443.

and apparently rather than just not binding that port and reporting an error, OAS just doesn't bind any ports and sits there.

user15026

@badp Right now they're just the ones that came with my tiny MP3 player, because my non hated ones had a trip through the washer dryer, and these work and are free

Powerlord

9:49 PM

'cause webservers not listening on any ports makes sooooo much sense.

GnomeSlice

Autocorrect probably saved me from a flag, there

badp

@Powerlord Oh hey a list of 0 listeners is still a perfectly good list of listeners.

It makes for really efficient event handling, too.

John

@GnomeSlice I would so be down for that if I could get that thing to work. Apparently it takes flash 11.4 or greater, and flash 11.2 is the highest it goes on Ubuntu.

user15026

@GnomeSlice oh, thats just shit

Powerlord

@badp Yeah, but why does having the second binding fail make the first listener (which should have been already bound in top-down config file) stop listening?

GnomeSlice

9:51 PM

@john wat

John

@GnomeSlice It requires a version of flash at or above 11.4

I have 11.2

GnomeSlice

What does

John

Salem

GnomeSlice

I can't see replies I'm on mobile

Oh yeah

It does

Upgrade flash then

John

1 min ago, by John

@GnomeSlice I would so be down for that if I could get that thing to work. Apparently it takes flash 11.4 or greater, and flash 11.2 is the highest it goes on Ubuntu.

GnomeSlice

9:52 PM

Oh, er

John

> 11.2 is the highest it goes on Ubuntu.

> 11.2 is the highest it goes on Ubuntu.

GnomeSlice

I thought you had been playing it before?

John

That help?

Nope

Tried, no dice