Crash Problems
PB managers currently suffer game crashes occasionally. We have a rather rigid policy outlined in the manual about resetting crashed games but I am flexible on this except for end of season tight race) and playoff crashes.
The best long-term solution is to have our games played from an appellate and every play saved on the host. We are working on this exciting change but in the meantime here are the temporary solutions:
If you CAN switch to W2000, you will not crash games. W98 is very unstable and WILL crash on certain machines and not on others.
If you use W98 you can minimize the likelihood of crashes by rebooting your machine before every series, having nothing but the browser and game open, clearing cache (history and temp Internet files), and especially shutting off RAM-live programs.
As of games of May 11, 2000 the following is our policy for granting game resets:
- Play-off games will not be reset. If you are unable
to report a playoff game to us the ROBOT will replay the game until the home
team loses the game (forfeit). The statistics and status for that game, (the
first loss for the home team) will be official.
- The last game of any regular season series will not
be reset and will be forfeited as in #1 above.
- No game played after the first half of any season
played by a team leading it’s division or within 5 games of the lead will be
reset. These games will also be forfeited to the visiting team as in #1 above.
- Resets for games not alluded to in numbers 1, 2 and 3 will be granted and recorded only if the home team
provides a complete and detailed report of the episode to TECH.
- Repeated requests for resets as described in #4 will
not be granted. Instead, we will urge you to alter whatever conditions are
present on your hard drive that may be causing the crashes (see below).
- Games in progress for more than 12 hours or at 10 AM CT on Tuesday will be forfeited as in #1 above unless you have alerted TECH via email that you intend to terminate the game or that you are playing games past the deadline.
The following are the known causes of CRASHED or lost games:
- Too many windows open and long period since reboot
will cause low resources and not enable Windows to operate game. Guard against
low resources by rebooting your computer before playing PB games if you have
had a crash in the past.
- Guard DOG--or other extra strength virus protection
or other not standard RAM resident programming can also interfere (programs
designed to prevent crashes have been found to interfere with PB on occasion).
If you do not know how to check your computer for RAM resident software or do
not know how to disable it for PB games, please message TECH for help and we
will be glad to help you.
- Too full hard drive or hard drive needing defrag or scan. We had one customer who would crash the game repeatedly and had to re-install W98 to solve problem. If all else fails in our efforts to help you make your system safe from crashed games, we will ask you to solve any hard drive problems you may have.
RSIBB will no longer enable a restart of a game unless that game was
played to completion. RSIBB is used most often when reporting a terminated game
was unsuccessful for whatever reason. RSIBB will continue to enable managers to
re-start the reporting of a complete game. RSIBB will no longer enable you to
restore an incomplete game.
NOTE: When all our leagues are going we
play close to 3000 games a week and rarely if ever reach 5 crashes a week. Most
are technical issues in launch leagues. We hope you never have a crash but
please be aware of our policy if you do.
We have had to institute this
policy because AT LEAST one individual was using resets and other loopholes
associated with RSIBB to turn in altered game results or to get fresh replays of
losses. We have come to the difficult conclusion that the integrity of the game
is more important than a few crashed or lost games and the convenience of using
RSIBB to reopen games in progress.