360voice Dev Blog

Badge Update Impending

Working on pushing an update out for badges, although since there are small code changes involved it actually won't effect badge calculations until tomorrow as I test and update.

Badges today may not run as normal I will post an update when I find out more.  The changes effect only genres and I will post a list of changes once everything is working and finalized.   there won't be major changes, but I wanted to let people know in case they notice any wonkiness.

UPDATE: Badge did run as normal yesterday (12/31).  Look on schedule to have all the new code run today, just fighting bugs elsewhere then will jump back on to get everything in place. 

UPDATE - 19:06 EST 1/1/09:  Badges won't run today.  Need the processing time as I am working on fixing Prince of Persia (arcade versus retail bug), and I need the server processing time to go fix old records.

Blogs now with added Bragging Rights!

Ok before you laugh at how low my weekly gains are, please remember that I am busy cranking away at code for you folks.  Here you have it a new bragging rights entry should be shown on your blogs.

Keep in mind this stat is only based on information from today's weekly recap and on, its pretty much impossible to properly back fill the data to drive this stat.  So if you had a bigger week previous to this week, sorry - but just get an even bigger week next week!

Happy Holidays from 360voice

Hey everyone. Just wanted to say Happy Holidays on this Christmas Eve. Myself (Change), Steve (Fatty) and David (Squid) wanted to say thanks for being such a great community and really keeping this place going.

I hope everyone is enjoying a little time with the ones (or games) they love. I am on vacation in Chicago... so I will see everyone after the turn of the new year.

Enjoy yourselves out there.

Still getting redirected? We might have it fixed.

Due to the great help of all our members sending us their HTML source, we found where the redirect code was being hidden. Still no idea why it showed for some people and others, but we think we have it cleaned up. Please click the title of this post and leave a comment if you are still getting redirected.

There was a snip of code that was calling a javascript redirect. Again, if it is in the code it should have been impacting everyone and it should have been visible in every page, but it has not been. So no clue why this was so hard to find. Once you started sending in your code it was super easy to track it down.

Thanks again everyone.

If you are getting redirected, do this!

If you are hitting a page... and then getting redirected to a spam site or an ad site... please help my by doing the following.

In many cases the page you were trying to get to finishes loading... and THEN the redirect happens... so as soon as you see the 360voice page... hit ESC to stop the page from loading. View the source of that page... select all of the source and copy it into an email and send to mail@360voice.com.

Since I am unable to ever get redirected, I am unable to see where the code is that is doing the referrals. If you can send me the page that redirects you I will have a better shot at tracking it down.

Thanks everyone!

Getting redirected?

I am aware that some people are still getting redirected when hitting the 360voice site. Are you one of them? Click the title of this post and leave a comment.

From what I can tell, the number of people being impacted is decreasing as we are getting fewer and fewer complaints, and our view/reg numbers haven't been impacted... so it isn't as dramatic as it was a few days ago.

Please keep letting me know if you are getting redirected, and what browser you are using.

Just to recap I have been through all the code... checked for malware on the servers... disabled all ads... and I still haven't actually seen this happen. I can't recreate it on my laptop, desktop, my wife's computer or any computer at the gamerDNA offices. Because of this, it is impossible to track it down because I can't reproduce and therefore I can't tell what changes I make that can impact it positively.

A special thanks to everyone who is trying to help out... and to everyone who has been patient enough to endure the issues. I am well aware that this is one of the only sites where it happens to people, so it has to be something with our configuration. However I am not sure what that is.... still...

People getting redirected - Patch your IE Browser!

Microsoft has released a patch for IE. If you are an IE user, please patch your browser ASAP.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms08-078.mspx

This may help with the redirects. If it doesn't, than it is a serious coincidence that all this happened at the same time as a major IE exploit that was causing users to lose control of their browser actions.

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If you are getting redirected when hitting this site, please leave a comment on this post that includes.

1. Your browser
2. The URL of the page you were trying to hit

Clear your cookies, then try hitting the same pages again.

We think this is related to IE7 users based on a recent release from Microsoft:

"Microsoft is to due to issue a patch to fix a security flaw believed to have affected as many as 10,000 websites."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7787445.stm

Other coverage:
http://news.google.com/?ned=us&ncl=1280059446&hl=en&topic=t

Although there are still many IE7 users on our site that aren't having a problem. At this point I have no reason to believe it is the actual code of our site that is affecting users, but something in the IE7 browser.

One other option is to make sure you clear your cookies. This will reset any domain specific advertiser cookies that could be causing the problem.

Page Redirects/Click Blocking Issues - Still happening

Hi everyone. We are aware that some users are getting redirected to spam/virus pages from 360voice. We are working on where this is coming from and why it is occurring. I will post updates when we know what is going on.

You can help by leaving a comment in this blog entry about the page you were trying to hit, your browser, if you run any plug ins or tool bars, and what other social media sites you use regularly.

Thanks for helping us track this down.

Update 12:50pm ET

There is this link saying it is spyware related:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_blocked_click_com

Not sure why it would only trigger on our site. Right now I am looking for the code to see if we were some how comprismised.

Update 2:58pm ET

Still no major progress. I can't find any code anywhere that could cause redirects. Our ad networks are not directing to those URLs... and I have been unable to get a redirect myself no matter how much or where I browse the site. Any additional symptoms anyone else has would be appreciated.

Update 6:22pm ET

I still haven't found/done anything major. Had squid looking at some things as well. Still no sign of the problem in our code/server or on our end. Seems likemany people who reported it are not seeing the issue anymore. Still no clue. :)

Update 12/16/2008 9:33am ET

Still happening. I am pulling in more resources to try and fix it.

Update 12/16/2008 9:33am ET

I have just removed all ads from the site. Post if that seems to help.

Testing today

Yesterday I re-coded a bunch of the gamerscore challenge processing code to handle the new cases where NXE bugs are causing people to delete games and lower their score. If you lower your score in a challenge, you will be automatically removed from the challenge.

Because of this DELETE nature, I want to run the challenges manually this morning. This will cause a delay in the jobs today while I work through the issues. So I will update this when things are back on track.

Update 2:22pm ET

Challenges look like they updated ok. If you notice anything funny... let me know. Also if you were removed from a challenge, let me know.

Blogs have been running a few hours so things look good there. We should be on track.

Issues with presence, livescore, microblogs - fixed

Your online status, challenge live score and microblogging is turned off at the moment while I swap some things around. I hope to have it up some time tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Update 11:30pm

Hey look at that! Things are back faster than I thought thanks to the magic of the squidpunch.