Paragon Market broken (for me) since today
By
Avernal,
Posted on: 2011-10-15 23:32 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
Quote:
Heya Av. Can you provide your CoH Helper and HijackThis logs (See the "Help Me!" link in my sig)?|
Originally Posted by Avernal
Logged in as usual, figured I'd look at grabbing Beam Rifle finally, clicked the store button and was greeted with a blank grey area where everything should be. This is repeated across all characters and does not go away after completely closing and restarting the client (I've done that around five separate times today, still grey after logging back in).
Support are being frustrating asking the usual Mickey Mouse questions before replying to my email (which in turn is a reply to theirs, sent to the exact same address I'm replying from) and saying they're not accepting the ticket update as it came from an address not registered to my account (basically they can't tell that gmail/googlemail are interchangeable). So does anyone have any ideas? I've even tried checking the client integrity through the launcher suspecting maybe something had gone wrong with an update, no dice. Image of what I'm getting:  Uploaded with ImageShack.us |
This way it'll help us rule out any sort of client-side issue.
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
Sure thing.
My best guess is that something went awry with the latest patch (for me at least), and since it'll happily display the other store sections such as account/purchasing points/support I'd lean towards ruling out a video issue and more towards me having some kind of network problem loading the store's main page. Support have basically given me the equivalent of "have you tried turning it off then back on again?".
For reference this is a brand new PC, about two weeks old, with the ATI drivers updated to 11.9 since 11.8 caused issues with loading zones getting stuck and having to end the CoH process.
Code:
---System information gathered by CoH Helper version 0.2.0.2--- DxDiag gathered at October 16, 2011 23:52 (+13:00) Operating System: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit (6.1, Build 7601) Service Pack 1 (7601.win7sp1_gdr.110622-1506) System Manufacturer: To be filled by O.E.M. System Model: To be filled by O.E.M. BIOS: BIOS Date: 10/20/10 09:47:36 Ver: 08.00.10 Central Processor: AMD Phenom(tm) II X6 1100T Processor (6 CPUs), ~3.3GHz Memory: 8192MB .Net Memory Report: 6260MB out of 8153MB available Page File: 14170MB (2134MB currently in use) C Drive: (OCZ-AGIL ITY3 SATA Disk Device) 68303MB out of 114370MB (59%) free D Drive: (WDC WD10 EALX-009BA0 SATA Disk Device) 876370MB out of 953866MB (91%) free E Drive: (ASUS DRW-24B3ST SATA CdRom Device) zero-size drive Windows directory location: C:\Windows DirectX: DirectX 11 DirectX Diag version: 6.01.7601.17514 (64-bit version) Display Notes: No problems found. Sound Notes: No problems found. No problems found. Input Notes: No problems found. Monitor: Monitor's Max Resolution: (blank) Video Device Name: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series Manufacturer / Chip: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. / ATI display adapter (0x6719) Video Memory: 1755 MB Driver Version: 8.892.0.0 Driver Date: 9/09/2011 6:32:58 a.m. Driver Language: English Sound Device Description: Speakers (Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio) Driver File: t3.sys Driver Version: 6.10.0000.0209 Driver Date: 6/04/2009 3:22:40 a.m. Sound Device Description: Digital Audio (S/PDIF) (Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio) Driver File: t3.sys Driver Version: 6.10.0000.0209 Driver Date: 6/04/2009 3:22:40 a.m. WMI Information Motherboard Manufacturer: ASUSTeK Computer INC. Motherboard Model: (empty) Motherboard Product: M5A99X EVO Motherboard Version: Rev 1.xx BIOS Manufacturer: American Megatrends Inc. BIOS Name: BIOS Date: 10/20/10 09:47:36 Ver: 08.00.10 BIOS Version: ALASKA - 1072009 BIOS Release: 20110823000000.000000+000 Registry Information for Current User Resolution: 1920x1080 3D Resolution: 1920x1080 (Not using renderscale) Full Screen: Yes Maximized: No Screen Position: 133, 17 Refresh Rate: 60Hz Vertical Sync Enabled: No Physics Quality: Very High Maximum Particles: 50000 Max Particle Fill? 10.000 Physics Card Enabled: No Anti-aliasing: 8x Anisotropic Filtering: 16x Texture LOD Bias: Crisp Water Effects: Ultra quality Bloom: 1.000 (turned off) Depth of Field Enabled: No Desaturation Effects (Sepia) Enabled: Yes Shader Detail: High World Texture Level: Very High Character Texture Level: Very High World Detail Level (Vis_Scale): 2.000 Entity Detail Level: 2.000 Shadows Enabled: No Shadow Mode: Unknown (5) Shadow Map Shader: High quality Environmental Reflections: Ultra quality Advanced Occlusion Settings: Yes Ambient Occlusion: Ultra Occlusion Strength: Strong with color bleeding Blur: Trilateral Ambient Resolution: Quality Gamma Correction: 1.000 Geometry Buffers (VBOs) Enabled: Yes Suppression of FX When Camera Close Enabled: Yes Close Suppression Range: 3.000 Show Advertisements: Yes Audio Mode: Performance 3D Audio: No FX Sound Volume: 0.346 Music Sound Volume: 0.197 Show Advanced Graphics Options: Yes Overall Graphics Quality: 0.500 Reverse Mouse Buttons: No Save Login Username: Yes Transfer Rate: Unknown bytes/second Current Game Version: 2050.201106210214.1.0 Installation Directory: C:\Program Files (x86)\NCsoft\City of Heroes Mod files in the Data directory .\texts\English\Help has 1 file .\texts\English\Menus has 1 file .\texture_library\BadgeReporter has 530 files .\texture_library\BadgeReporter\Logos has 3 files .\texture_library\MAPS\city has 1 file .\texture_library\MAPS\Midnight_Squad has 1 file .\texture_library\MAPS\Safeguard has 9 files .\texture_library\MAPS\sewers has 44 files .\texture_library\MAPS\static has 38 files .\texture_library\V_MAPS\City has 1 file .\texture_library\V_MAPS\Outdoor_Missions has 9 files .\texture_library\V_MAPS\Static has 16 files
Code:
Logfile of Trend Micro HijackThis v2.0.4
Scan saved at 11:50:29 p.m., on 16/10/2011
Platform: Windows 7 SP1 (WinNT 6.00.3505)
MSIE: Internet Explorer v9.00 (9.00.8112.16421)
Boot mode: Normal
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--
End of file - 11341 bytes
Resolved this one myself.
Support had me download their Game Advisor and generate a report, sent it off to them then started mulling through it myself, my system was unable to ping/trace two IPs they had listed on port 2106.
Had a little further scroll through and noticed the report had included my HOSTS file, in there I'd added a few lines of adblocking redirects and amongst those I had several sites and subsites of Google Analytics (as I don't like being datamined by them) and lo and behold removing those addresses and flushing the DNS cache made the store start working again. I added them back in and repeated and it became the same grey screen... removed again and everything was working hunky-dory.
Bottom line is that NCSoft are using Google Analytics for market research on their store visitors, if you block Google Analytics you can't access the Paragon Market. Case solved.
I notice that today too. And yes, I too block google-analytics.
I noticed earlier already that the NCsoft Launcher, too, tries to connect to google-analytics.
Which leaves me with three questions to Cryptic, since I don't like passing data around like that, especially when my name and credit card data are involved:
1. Why?
2. What of my data is transferred to google?
3. Can you please stop that?
Thank you.
Quote:
Cryptic can't answer those questions. They've not had anything to do with the game since early November of 2007.
|
Originally Posted by BlueRaptor
I notice that today too. And yes, I too block google-analytics.
I noticed earlier already that the NCsoft Launcher, too, tries to connect to google-analytics. Which leaves me with three questions to Cryptic, since I don't like passing data around like that, especially when my name and credit card data are involved: 1. Why? 2. What of my data is transferred to google? 3. Can you please stop that? Thank you. |
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
Quote:
That long? Sheesh, seems like last year...|
Originally Posted by Texas Justice
Cryptic can't answer those questions. They've not had anything to do with the game since early November of 2007.
|
But true. NCsoft and... what did they call it, Paragon? then. My bad. Sorry Cryptic.
Isn't it possible to make an exception for CoH with regards to blocking Google Analytics while still keeping it generally blocked?
For myself, I don't actually have it blocked from my firewall. But I do have it blacklisted from the NoScript plugin in Firefox.
Quote:
I wonder if this has anything to do with why the game always crashes for me on Linux whenever I try accessing the Paragon Market. Perhaps whatever API they're using to ping google might not be available in this version of Wine that I'm using.
|
Originally Posted by Avernal
Bottom line is that NCSoft are using Google Analytics for market research on their store visitors, if you block Google Analytics you can't access the Paragon Market. Case solved.
|
Quote:
Just about every responsible webmaster these days uses Google Analytics, especially if they're into e-commerce. It's a small piece of script at the top of every webpage that tells google which pages you have visited.|
Originally Posted by BlueRaptor
I notice that today too. And yes, I too block google-analytics.
I noticed earlier already that the NCsoft Launcher, too, tries to connect to google-analytics. Which leaves me with three questions to Cryptic, since I don't like passing data around like that, especially when my name and credit card data are involved: 1. Why? 2. What of my data is transferred to google? 3. Can you please stop that? Thank you. |
This allows people to see where their traffic comes from, which sites are most visited, and among those sites that are visited, which result in actual purchases. It's especially useful in advertising, because you can see from where these people come from --- if people in California or New York are doing all of the purchasing then maybe you only need to advertise in those locations, or maybe you should change your marketing in other locations.
If people in New York primarily buy costume pieces and people in Los Angeles generally buy mission content, this is something the e-commerce webmaster needs to know, and these kind of statistics may (or may not) be useful.
The only information given to google is your IP address, which just tells them roughly where you are from and which page you accessed. No personal information is given out.
The information as to which websites people visit isn't nearly as important as knowing which sites (or market items) people are NOT visiting. This analytic data will be useful in deciding which items to remove and which to modify.
If a lot of people visit the Circle of Thorns Costume Bundle but that doesn't result in a lot of people accessing the Buy Now page, that sort of activity shows up in Google Analytics. At this point, a webmaster has to ask himself why people seem interesting in viewing this but decide not to buy. Is the description not appropriate? Is the title misleading? Is the price too high?
These are the types of questions that statistical data helps webmasters to answer and its hard to find without collecting that anonymous data in some fashion. The more invested you are in e-commerce, the more you depend on information and statistics.
Admittedly, Paragon should invest in developing internal statistics code, but how would this really be any different? Google Analytics is convenient, its functional, and its free.
(Why is it free? Doesn't Google get something out of this? Google provides this service to webmasters, hoping that as they learn their marketing needs, they'll turn to Google for targeted internet advertisements, which is their specialty.)
@Altus Vir
Triumph Server
In the pacific time zone? Join us on the "West Coast Heroes" global channel.
/chanjoin West Coast Heroes
Quote:
That seems unlikely, because SO MANY sites on the internet have this same bit of code. I doubt they have it on their forums, but certainly their main City of Heroes site will have it. It's not really an API, just a bit of script sending the IP address to google. This also happens everytime you access a site through google or visit the google website. |
Originally Posted by Miracle_Kat
I wonder if this has anything to do with why the game always crashes for me on Linux whenever I try accessing the Paragon Market. Perhaps whatever API they're using to ping google might not be available in this version of Wine that I'm using.
|
So I doubt this specific script is the source of your WINE problem.
@Altus Vir
Triumph Server
In the pacific time zone? Join us on the "West Coast Heroes" global channel.
/chanjoin West Coast Heroes
Well I assume both the web page displayed in the Launcher and the web page being displayed in the market are generated by some Paragon or NCSoft web monkeys and their starting framework always include Google Analytics for the tracking data it can provides.
Their bosses still need some kind of metrics to analyze and put on power point sides for their bosses.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
Quote:
Well I know what google-analytics does. (And I still don't like it. |
Originally Posted by Lord Rahvin
(But google-analytics is good for you!)
|
)I'm not so much worried that Paragon and NCsoft looked into it with a lot of care and evaluated all options and then came up with a highly elaborated way in which their site is to utilize this great product.
But rather, like Father Xmas here already hinted, that the one(s) who threw together this spiffy new features just included it by default without much thought, because it's easy, free, and 'everybody uses it' (tm).
Google-analytics is not for you. It's for google.
Quote:
Sorry, it didn't occur to me before that the Paragon Market feature in CoH was a webpage and not a part of the client. I wasn't expecting that. But thanks for explaining.
|
Originally Posted by Lord Rahvin
That seems unlikely, because SO MANY sites on the internet have this same bit of code. I doubt they have it on their forums, but certainly their main City of Heroes site will have it. It's not really an API, just a bit of script sending the IP address to google. This also happens everytime you access a site through google or visit the google website.
So I doubt this specific script is the source of your WINE problem. |
Logged in as usual, figured I'd look at grabbing Beam Rifle finally, clicked the store button and was greeted with a blank grey area where everything should be. This is repeated across all characters and does not go away after completely closing and restarting the client (I've done that around five separate times today, still grey after logging back in).
Support are being frustrating asking the usual Mickey Mouse questions before replying to my email (which in turn is a reply to theirs, sent to the exact same address I'm replying from) and saying they're not accepting the ticket update as it came from an address not registered to my account (basically they can't tell that gmail/googlemail are interchangeable).
So does anyone have any ideas? I've even tried checking the client integrity through the launcher suspecting maybe something had gone wrong with an update, no dice.
Image of what I'm getting:
Uploaded with ImageShack.us