NationStates Jolt Archive

Yesterday I posted after the email verification thing - today I tried to reply to automagfreek and was unable to log into the forum.

However - under my supersecret psuedo Identity of Humor Troll - I had no issues.

I'm having the same problem. The Holy Word is fine but it won't let me log in under Kalimon. As that's my UN nation this is rather bad.

I have the exact same problem. I can get on the forum with this nation, but with -Verbatim-, it won't let me.

I still can't get on with -Verbatim-! All I get is a 'Not Found' error.

I think they might of changed something overnight that caused them to lose the validated records without flagging for new validations.

Without a look at the database and the method to prompt for validation - I can guess no further. I'm guessing anyone who validated on tuesday is tits up until they get to it... ;)

Right. Can you explain that in english now?

Sure.

All the usernames are located in a database. Jolt, in adding nationstates to their database wants to validae e-mail addresses for whatever reason. Salusa assured me that it's not for any nefarious means like spam.

So what happens is users go to log into the new forum. Jolt checks the forum and sees that this will be your first post in the jolt forum since the flag isn't set yet for you being a previous poster..

You validate your account by the link, and jolt welcomes you in and sets the flag to true in the database since you validated.

Now - this flag is probably tied to your username - jolt posting, the fact you're a nationstates member, and perhaps your IP. that's four fields of criteria to save.

A problem comes along and you are forced to reset the flag, but forget to reset part of the code that refers to nationstates info. Now - Jolt knows you posted, but the flag that says you're allowed to post isn't there. You can't add your info since it's already there - the database will not allow you to make a new account via triggers or keys to prevent dupe data.

This is but one scenario of the headaches the programmers face when translating and redoing data to maintain the forum. mapping the fields, relinking tables and columns, making sure to DTS properly. It's a fricking nightmare when it comes this amount of data.