War With Friends (Risk) Beta Group Created

Putting together a beta group to test the online aspect of my turn-based Risk clone "War With Friends." Here's a link to the .apk, if you install it feel free to add "LeffelMania" to your friends right away, and please post your registered name here so we can get a good game going!

Edit: APK removed. Beta is basically over. Database is being wiped soon to accommodate new features and schema changes.

IF YOU INSTALLED THE BETA [first, thank you] YOU NEED TO UNINSTALL IT BEFORE THE NEXT RELEASE FOR IT TO WORK. I'M WIPING THE DATABASE AND THE USERNAME ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR APP WILL NOT EXIST.

 

Update: Beta apk released. Please post if you can help test the networking code.

 

I invited you to a game

 

Thanks cmh,

I didn't think about that happening but it's easy to imagine how that's possible since you mentioned it. When you finish a game, a message is sent to the server that the game is over and it returns you to your list of active games. It doesn't refresh the data for that game though, so it still appears active unless you manually refresh the screen. I've fixed that by updating the cached game info upon winning (the app keeps the information on all your active games handy to minimize server calls), so when you return to your active game list, it should show that you've won the game and clicking it should remove it from the list.

The other thing that's been fixed - though you didn't mention it - is the notification system that alerts you when it's your turn. The way I had it, if you closed the app it would lose its ability to contact the server, so you wouldn't receive any game updates until you started the app again. Now the service should remain functional until you manually go into your Running Services and elect to turn it off. This should help games go a bit faster.

Otherwise the results are positive so far. Games are being set up and updated correctly, friend connections are being set up correctly, and now the notifications are much more reliable.

Latest .apk with the changes is in the same link in the OP.

 

Is that reproducible every time you try? What device/version are you using? Any specifics about reproducing the crash will be helpful, I don't want to publish an app that force closes during normal use.

Edit: Saw you're using an HTC Hero. But still any specifics are appreciated.

I added you to my friends list successfully, so if the app is loading and connecting to the server correctly when it starts, the bottom button should read "Add a Friend (1)" because I should be in your friends list now.

 

The only thing I can think of just from what you said is that you installed it to the SD card. That isn't what's assumed/intended, but I also don't know if it should matter. Crashing right away makes me believe it's hitting an error when trying to read your username from a file. Maybe try installing to phone storage and seeing if it still crashes (sorry it's a bit bloated right now, there's a lot of unused assets in the apk).

 

Well that's discouraging...

I see you in the database, but I also see that you were able to add a friend (or a friend added you). I just really wish you guys could send me a stack trace from the crash, because without seeing what exception is being thrown I can't find a fix without being able to reproduce the crash myself.

If you want I can delete you from the database so you can try registering again, but since you have a game invite pending I'll hold off until I hear from you again that you still can't get registered.

Again, anything specific you can tell me about your hardware/software setup or how I can maybe reproduce the crash will help. At this point I have no specific problem to go after, unfortunately.

 

You've been removed from the database, so registering with "weazol" should work fine now, assuming we can get past the force-close issue you're facing.

Unless you have the Android SDK installed and you can access the logcat, I don't think there's any way for you to send me the stack trace. I thought I heard at Google IO that with Froyo, after a crash you'd have the option to send the developer the stack trace, but that may only be valid through apps distributed through the market.

 

Yes. If you register, and then delete the app data you will have problems. When you register, you associate your phone with that user name. If you delete the file that the phone reads for your user name, it's going to prompt you to create a user name again. The app tries to read from a file it creates when you create a username to determine what information to retrieve from the server. If you delete that file, the app's not going to know how to retrieve data for you.

If you have different crashes I'd love a stack trace from the logcat if you can access it from the SDK.

 

That really sucks that we lost those messages...

Anyways, you shouldn't have received a message about the game you started. I tested that out with Weazol [I think, the IMs are gone] and it kept notifying him to start even after he had, and I couldn't track down the bug so I removed that feature. I think what I'll do instead is give an option for players who joined to ping the creator to start it.

In case anybody interested missed it with the loss of those messages: There's been an updated APK linked in the OP, please update.