Catan Universe News

Hi Catanians,

In this is weekly development update VIII we will update you on the state of the next update and what we are further working on.

Last week, Jan 16th. - Jan. 22nd
We released a backend update to tackle some custom match and account migration issues on January 17th. After checking the extended logs, we can see that this resolved some of the related issues. Nevertheless, we will need to address others in another backend update as well as in the client update shortly.
The client update has made good progress, as we could mark several key issues with reconnection as resolved internally. However, we will need at least one additional internal test-build to fix remaining edge-cases before we can publish.

This week, Jan 23rd - Jan. 29th
We continue QA focus on the next internal version of the client update for internal testing.
While QA and the development team are working on this, we have identified several key issues that we will address next. As we cannot reproduce some of these issues here, we kindly ask those affected for additional info via our Discord channel:

- Game closing/freezing for some players after placing the first settlement of a game:
We cannot reproduce this here, but some players reported that clearing their cache (on PC) resolved the issue for them. If this is related to corrupt cached data, re-installing the app on mobile should resolve this as well. We would appreciate if affected users could let us know if this is the case.

- Custom Match Issue “Could not create lobby due to an error”
The backend updated resolved a custom match issue that caused players not being displayed in the custom match lobby properly. However, some accounts get the error message above immediately when selecting custom match mode. We are actively investigating this issue. As of now, we believe it is tied to account migration. You can tell us on discord, if your account is also affected by this problem.

- Some accounts still could not migrate to the new backend
We will add further logging in the next backend update to get to the root of this complex issue. We have several leads on this and will continue refining the migration process until this is resolved for all. In the meantime if you are affected, please contact our support team and we will try to find an alternative solution for you!

Hi Catanains,

In this is weekly development update VII we have some news to share on a backend update we just deployed on January 17th and how the next client update is progressing.

Last week, Jan 9th. - Jan. 15th
As we outlined, our QA team tested the changes made to the clients and backend in an internal test. Our focus of this update is reconnect-handling when one or more of the clients disconnect, as issues here can cause consequential errors. We saw significant improvements in this regard, but identified a related mobile caching issue that we need to tackle at the same time. Therefore, we need to build a new client update for internal testing first.

We also revisited account migration and tested a fix, which should help most of the remaining accounts to finally migrate to our new database properly. We furthermore added additional logging to this system to catch remaining issues.

On top of this, our team investigated and identified certain account status settings that affected matchmaking issues for Auto- and Custom-Matches. A backend fix for this was tested and released.

This week, Jan 16th- Jan. 22nd
We continued testing the backend update for account migration optimization and additional logging as well as matchmaking fixes on Monday. Feedback from our users confirmed our suspicion that the matchmaking issue in custom matches WAS related to player avatar customization. Thank you for your detailed feedback!

This backend updated was rolled out this Tuesday afternoon (CET), January 17th.
Focus for the rest of his week is to finalize the next internal version of the client update for internal testing. As soon as we can confirm it is all working as intended, we can schedule a release as soon as possible.

Hi Catanains,

In this is weekly development update VII we have some news to share on a backend update we just deployed on January 17th and how the next client update is progressing.

Last week, Jan 9th. - Jan. 15th
As we outlined, our QA team tested the changes made to the clients and backend in an internal test. Our focus of this update is reconnect-handling when one or more of the clients disconnect, as issues here can cause consequential errors. We saw significant improvements in this regard, but identified a related mobile caching issue that we need to tackle at the same time. Therefore, we need to build a new client update for internal testing first.

We also revisited account migration and tested a fix, which should help most of the remaining accounts to finally migrate to our new database properly. We furthermore added additional logging to this system to catch remaining issues.

On top of this, our team investigated and identified certain account status settings that affected matchmaking issues for Auto- and Custom-Matches. A backend fix for this was tested and released.

This week, Jan 16th- Jan. 22nd
We continued testing the backend update for account migration optimization and additional logging as well as matchmaking fixes on Monday. Feedback from our users confirmed our suspicion that the matchmaking issue in custom matches WAS related to player avatar customization. Thank you for your detailed feedback!

This backend updated was rolled out this Tuesday afternoon (CET), January 17th.
Focus for the rest of his week is to finalize the next internal version of the client update for internal testing. As soon as we can confirm it is all working as intended, we can schedule a release as soon as possible.

Hi Catanains,

in our Dev update VI we want to talk about how we are currently addressing the most reported issues.

Week Jan. 2nd - Jan. 8th

Our team did resolve a remaining issue with the database that involved game sessions to create a huge workload on the servers even after all clients closed that game session. We are seeing a steady and good performance of the servers since then.

Our team also started to work on client updates that will focus on reconnecting to games as well as how the game detects if a player is offline or online.

Week Jan 9th. - Jan. 15th

Our QA team is currently testing the changes made to the clients in an internal test. Our focus is to resolve issues with games not proceeding properly after one or more of the clients did disconnect. We are also focussing on improving how gracefully a client can reconnect to a game after a short disconnect.

We also took another look at our account migration and are currently testing a fix there which should help the remaining accounts to finally migrate to our new database. We will let you know once this fix has been added to the servers.

On top of this, our team is currently looking into a possible connection between certain accounts and matchmaking issues for Auto- and Custommatches. These investigations only started yesterday. That is why we can´t present any conclusions yet but we will be able to give more info on that in next week's Developer Update.

As you can see our team is currently tackling the biggest issues and we are looking forward to releasing a new client after we tested the changes successfully. Please keep in mind that testing changes on those important functions takes some time. Once testing is finished we will let you know when to expect the rollout of the update.

Hi Catanians,

After the holidays, we want to give you an update on what we are working
on this week and what will be the next steps we are taking to resolve known
issues with the game.

Week Dec 26th - Jan 1st: Our QA team (quality assurance team) went
through your feedback and based on that intensified further testing on the
servers, also by playing games with the community. We were able to retrace
reported issues and forwarded them to our development team. The main issues we saw mostly related to handing over turns, both to other clients and/or with the AI not properly replacing other users.

That is causing further consequential errors you are experiencing.
We also tracked other issues in online games, especially in the setup
phase of games. All these are being addressed with the highest
priority by the dev team.

Week Jan 2nd - Jan 8th: The dev team is back at full strength to keep on
working on the above-mentioned issues. It is our highest priority to make
online games as enjoyable to you as they have been. The team knows what systems
they will work on to resolve these issues thanks to the work of the QA team and
your continued feedback.

Another reported issue (especially by iOS users, who had to log in again
after switching between apps) is one symptom of online games not restarting as
intended when a player is shortly disconnecting from the servers. This is due
to ported “old” code not working as intended and expected on the new infrastructure.
We will continue to adapt or rewrite existing code for fixing this and
other issues. We are confident that once these core issues are
resolved, we will see significant progress in improving of the online gaming
service.

We are personally very disappointed that despite all of our efforts in
the last months, we were and are facing unforeseen issues with components that
are not performing as expected on the new platform. Regrettably, these were not
foreseeable and/or we were not able to replicate them on the test systems, as
they are limited to the live environment.

We are committed to working on resolving these issues as soon as
possible and ask for your understanding that the core team is absolutely
focused on this and we will limit most interaction via social media on identifying
and resolving bugs for the time being.

As always, we want to thank you for your patience and constructive feedback.

We also want to encourage those of you who might be missing in-app purchases
after the migration to reach out to our support team ([email protected]). We will find solutions for these sorts of issues together!