Hey there Hoppereenos. I figured it is about time I tell you all what I have been doing for the past few months in the “back doors” of the game. It isn’t a fancy tale. No swashbuckeling, or light saber duels, or phasers stunning (well…maybe a lil of it all). Here is my story of my silly lil addiction to my silly lil game and my penchant to NOT give up.
This all started back in January of 2014. We were in the midst of the snow covered lil Springfield and the tail end of the Christmas Event. Updates were still rolling in, gifts being dropped off, and I was a happy lil Bunny.
Then…an Episode Tie-In Update hit…and my lil world was turned upside down and shattered. For whatever reason I am still clueless of to this day (outside my thoughts that Kit Kat was a factor in it all), this lil update had forever changed my game play on my Samsung GS4. All of the sudden my phone refused to allow any updates into it. I continually saw the “not enough space” pop up.
The basic troubleshooting wouldn’t fix this. How on earth could 64GB worth of space just not be enough? It baffled my mind. Being the lil geek girl I am, I was determined to fix this myself…as I usually do. So I cleared cache/data and restarted my phone. Error again. Grrrr. So I uninstalled/resinstalled game to SD card…Error again…GRRRR!!! So repeat, however this time I transferred it all to my SD card, back to phone, back to SD card and then let it reinstall all the information. SUCCESS!! FINALLY!!
This became a game within a game for me. Every update playing around with just what tweak here and movement there and delete over there would get the frakkin update to install. Only thing keeping me sane at this point was the fact I had my Tablet I could still play on just fine and dandy. No issues at all.
So time went on…the issue was always there but bearable. Then, the lag started to hit. Somewhere around February and all the VD fun, I started to have more and more trouble visiting my neighbors. Kept getting kicked out. It was tolerable to an extent. I was still able to acquire the items I wanted ok, but the game play was getting frustrating. But alas, I kept my head on and played on through. I notified EA of the issue about this time, but they told me they would look into it and then I never followed up. Then…it got worse.
Just after the Easter Event hit…the thing I BEGGED EA to please please please give me had finally arrived. I was so happy and giddy that I had to jump into my game right away…but I could not. Bart screen. GRRRR!!! Tried again all the past tricks to trigger the update after removing the app again and again. Still, nothing. (Thank goodness for my frakkin B game.) Emails back and forth to EA. Working on it.
As time went on I was finally able to get into my A game on my GS4 and play around. It was tricky though. I had to be quick…like a Bunny Lol…and go through as much as I could as fast as I could before the game would kick me out. The lag was awful. To visit a neighbor, a joke. Maybe 2 or 3 before I was booted out. I would have charged EA’s doors at this time, but was struck down with a nasty virus after returning from a trip. Frakkin Flu and Pneumonia. I do not recommend it…well…maybe…there is someone I wish it on. Lol.
So the Easter Event came and went and my poor lil A game, my lil baby I started out with Freemium waaaaay last year…got a few items, but not as many as I hoped. More so because I just could not get into the game that much. Luckily, I had my others so I was still OK gettin prizes in them, but sad my A game missed out. At least my luck gave me Hugs and #24601 in the first few gold boxes. So I got some bunnies roaming my town. I just barely had finished the quest in it. Lots of baskets at the end. And…just before removal…Faberge too. But this issue of not being able to play had gone on too long. I would get kicked out so fast my game would always still think I was in it. These pop ups and me got to know each other REALLY well. Lol.
Then Easter removal hit. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!! Locked out of my game over and over and over. Update wouldn’t take. Finally took, but lag was so terribly I only lasted a few seconds in the game. I don’t have to much in there. Not all the land. Minimal decorations since I pulled it apart. I just could not play anymore. So now…STORM THE CASTLE!!…errr….STORM EA!!!
I started going through and reopening ALL my cases. From way back in January. Used my methods of storming and got phone calls to EA initiated. Then spent from the Easter Removal Update until literally last night (5-22-14) back and forth with EA. This time, they went in my game and took it over for a bit. Time to find the issue and fix it once and for all.
So I waited. I was told that a fix was on its way late last night. And lo and behold…and update hit late this afternoon…and my game…update went in WITHOUT having to go through hoops and tricks (which I still did for the Level 41 to go through) OH MY HOLY FRAKKIN SWEET MOTHER OF…WOOOHOOO!!!! FINALLY!!! I have my game back. Like REALLY back. It hasn’t played this smooth since …well…I can’t remember when it has been so long. But I have it back. WOOHOO!! Makes me so happy. I can turbo tap all through my town. Neighbor visits in seconds flat.
Now the question is…I don’t want to jinx this. Keeping my paws crossed this lasts. Keeping my paws crossed many others that were in same situation as me are starting to see the light of their lil Springfields again. My hopes is EA will continue to work on these issues. I hope that accessing my game helped to locate the issue (as it was the upper tech levels that were accessing it and playing around with it.) I still however will not give up on this endeavor as I know many others are still locked out. I will still keep calling, emailing, and chatting on our readers behalf until the issue is isolated or EA can do no more to help. (I hope it is not the latter.)
Short story long, keep your head up. Don’t give up. Hang in there. Don’t feel bad for not backing off. Stay on top of it. Flood the forums. Make your voice heard. Keep opening a new case if they close the other one “resolved” and it has not been. There is circumstances when it is too much, however if you are still locked out of your game…I would not say continuing to keep it in the light is too much.
http://answers.ea.com/t5/The-Simpsons-Tapped-Out/bd-p/The-Simpsons-Tapped-Out
Now…to go take a look at the lil game I started with a long time ago and try to piece it back together to its glory before all this happened.
~Bunny
YAY! Glad you got your game back! Not getting to work on your town for that long would be horrible. Why were you not able to login to that account on your other device?
She was but for obvious reasons would prefer the big screen.
Huh? She said the tablet worked, it was the phone that didn’t…
Don’t mind me, I’m the resident techno-dummy.
Ya, they just keep Wookiee around for the fuzzy eye candy LOL!
BTW Wook, I heard on the radio that they are letting 1 fan act in the new SW that is coming out! If it’s based on votes, you know you’re in like Flynn 🙂
Great job! My Nexus 5 is back to buttery smooth, but now it’s not crashing anymore so Woo-Hoo!
I have a question about the glitching issues. I play on a Sasung Galaxy Ace II. Constant issues; I get locked out, the game won’t load, it lags so bad I can’t even use it, freezing, what I’ve been calling “the eraser glitch” where it erases whole sections of my town. I’ve been sending error report after error report, but do those go to EA? Am I complaining to the right people?
Make sure you open a ticket with EA. This is the best way to let them know.
http://tstoaddicts.com/2014/01/14/troubleshooting-101-contacting-ea/
That was your best, Bunny 🙂
Wow, I remember you mentioning having issues on your GS4 but I had no idea it was that bad, that really sucks! I started playing the last day or two of the most recent Christmas update and only signed in to Origin after FPs started so maybe that’s why my experience on the GS4 has been a lot better than yours. All the same, I got used to being kicked out frequently and expecting some mildly annoying lag when encountering numerous characters on outdoor tasks, whether it was my town or someone else’s. Since I’d already experienced other issues playing The Sims Freeplay on my phone and Sims 3 on my laptop, I just chalked it up to it being EA more than anything else. It was tolerable until after Easter when I resorted to putting everyone indoors and not letting them out unless I had to, and primarily visiting Krustylands (until I really needed cash more than tickets, heh).
After finally getting the latest update to take, I’m glad to say that not only is my game playable the way I want to play it again, but I think it runs even better than it did before *knocks on faux wood desk*.
I’m happy you finally have your game back. 🙂
Thanks. 😉
Yah. My poor lil A game. So neglected. EA is finishing up with it tonight and hopefully I will have it all back shiny and new tomorrow. Then…time to start my 2D/3D art work and redesign. WOOHOO!!
………I’m sorry……..I got distracted staring at your picture😳…….what was this post about?……device not working………..now fixed.!?! Something like that?😜
Hooray! Glad to hear the good news! Thanks for championing this for all of us with Android devices. I had added my name to the lists on EA, definitely glad to no longer have a lag or get kicked out while visiting friends.
They know me…quite well by now. They know I won’t back down. A lot of the backroom reps have our blog tagged on their desktops actually. They look to see if we’ve reported issues and what we’re doing to help too. Lol. They felt awful I missed out on “my” event. Lol. Great group of guys.
I just couldn’t stomache the amount of players down. I try not to push my connections as I don’t want them feeling used or burnt out on me. But this…I just couldn’t let go of til it was fixed. IOS too. Too many people locked out.
Congratulations on finally getting your Springfield back and working like I should! I can’t imagine how frustrating that must have been. Just the post-Easter Event lag was enough for me.
I am happy to report that the update yesterday fixed my LG2 phone. The lag is gone and (knock on wood) I haven’t been kicked out yet. Good job, EA!
Thing is…I held on more for YOU guys. I knew I wasn’t the only one. Especially after Easter. So I pushed and pushed. Lol. This lil Bunny has fangs. 😉
How’s your knee?
I too had a problem way back in the day on my gs3. I ended up deleting and not playing until I got my motoX and love it again.
Hey Ryan, hit me up with another request, I was having prob’s & declined all requests hoping that would help 🙂
I did the new update and lag is gone!!! I haven’t enjoyed playing this much since Easter started. Plus I just got Cool Lisa and Hibbert’s nephew and only 1 1/2 hours from Mrs Hibbert so tapping life is good 🙂
WOOOOHOOO!!!
So basically after 37 1/2 paragraphs ;)), you called EA and they fixed it? Or did I miss a trick you did that got it working? Always looking for different tricks and I have a guy teaching me how to fix crashing, lagging server issues without going to EA. Glad my hun-bun got her game back, yay!!
Been an ongoing thing since January. Calls, emails, chats back and forth as they “looked into it”. I could get it to function OK using my own troubleshooting. Wasn’t til more recently…last month…that I got to the back rooms where I needed to be using my links that got me to the techs that work on glitches. It was then that they took over my game and watched. Saw all the ins n outs. The issues I was having. Then they told me fixes were coming. Each patch made it a lil better. Each time they asked to get in my game and see how it helped. The last one (yesterday) made my game good as new. So it was an ongoing effort. Just never really pushed it through the EA channels til I got my strength back and could focus on who I needed to talk to.
Thanks Mike. 😉
I had the “lack of space” issue on my Galaxy S3 at Christmas and I found that although I had what I thought was enough space on the phones memory (approx just under 1Gb) and having the game and photos saved to an external sd card. The issue turned out to be that the installation of the update extracted to the phones memory regardless of where the game is installed, so after removing some apps I don’t use it installed fine. Since then I always try to make sure I have between 1.5 and 2 gb on the phones memory.
Thank you for your story, I think I’ll keep the pressure on EA as a lot of us are still experiencing lag on the Galaxy note 10.1 2014 edition despite them compensating my with doughnuts and closing my ticket as they say it’s not an issue with my account but rather the device.
Yah…That’s why I upped my SD cards. 16gb for device…32 to 64gb for the external. I always put the game on the External, but make sure the internal had at LEAST 10gbs free at all time.
How did u sort out the insufficiant space on the gs4 dont get lag but every update involves deleting more and more pictures even though there is enough space already.
The space wasn’t the issue. Built in 16gb free and an external SD card with another 32gb free. It was just something in the game itself not translating with my device.
Clearing cache/data from my device app manager helped. Also moving the game files to store on my SD card helped.
I thought deleting pics would help too…until I realized it didn’t make a difference. Not for me. Still had 40+ gb of free space all the time.
What an ordeal! Did they ever tell you what the problem was?
I didn’t ask for details on it…yet. They’re still playing round with it today. Lol. Just glad I see more games coming back to life now.
Congrats for getting your game back. I’m not sure I would have had the patience to not give up and walk away.
Unfortunately I had one crash today on my Nexus 4 just by scrolling around. So, while it seemed to have become much less crash-prone this week, it’s apparently not fixed completely.
With each “patch” update the last week it slowly got better. Yesterday’s was the one that brought it to life.
I love the game. Put a lot into it, so giving up was just not something I could do. That and technology fascinates me. So I wanted to see what they can do. Not their fault my device wouldn’t take to their coding, but the fact they never gave up trying to fix it impressed me the most. They’re determined to get them all working again.
So glad to hear you’re back in good as new Bunny! You weren’t kidding last night, they really were IN your game. 😀 That is such a weird thing if you can see it. I had tech support in my tablet long ago, was surreal watching it act “possessed” (which it actually was, LOL).
Lol. It’s funny to watch. Similar to a computer screen takeover. It comes in handy when I try to help my Mom with tech issues.
Damn that’s quite a story. Can’t help but feel if maybe a mummy doing a backflip or a shifty eyed dog would help. Lol. Good for you though bunny. Did you get any perks from EA for being off so long? Free building, few donuts, maybe a new ho for your garden?
😉
Lol…well after the crash occured with Origin last night following the update…EA took over my game again. I have not gotten it back just yet…but yes, I was told compensation would be given for time without. What I dunno just yet. But having a ticket trail helped.
I too have had non stop issues since when I got my newly released at the time S3. The game constantly crashed, could be on start up, assigning tasks, visiting neighbours or just moving around my town. This has been the case with all my phones, S4, One, Z1 and now my N5. Next the Easter removal slow down hit and things were even worse, could barely get into the game. A few days ago with the updates I noted it had stopped crashing and with the update just there the lag has also gone! I too am a happy bunny! 😀
Woohoo!! 😉