GameTZ

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Updating GameTZ to UTF-8
14-Feb-23 11:08am
#1
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

I'm planning to update GameTZ to use UTF-8 character encoding on Monday, February 20th.

It will probably happen in late morning or early afternoon (US/Eastern time). The site will be down for about 10 minutes while I convert the database to UTF-8. Then, I'll release the software changes I made and restart the site.

If all goes well, it will just work and you won't even notice a difference. If you do notice problems (especially garbled characters), please let me know.

I have been evaluating this change to UTF-8 on my test server, but you never know with something like this once it hits the live site with lots of people using it doing different things. I plan to make a backup of the database beforehand, just in case things go very badly.

I'll post again on Monday before I start.

GameTZ is running on fairly old technology. While this change won't fix that, it will help modernize it a bit.

History that led to me realizing I needed to do this UTF-8 upgrade :
https://gametz.com/S...
https://gametz.com/S...
14-Feb-23 11:30am
#2
Boss
GameTZ Gold Subscriber 700 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (8)

Sounds good. yes
14-Feb-23 12:47pm
#3
MrBean
GameTZ Gold Subscriber 400 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (7) Has Written 1 Review

image
14-Feb-23 7:15pm
#4
loztdogs
GameTZ Gold Subscriber 250 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader

Good luck!

14-Feb-23 7:24pm
#5
nonamesleft
Double Gold Good Trader

I already noticed some changes on the non mobile site. I'm guessing they're related to the current transition?
14-Feb-23 7:54pm
#6
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

what changes?
14-Feb-23 8:12pm
#7
nonamesleft
Double Gold Good Trader

bill wrote:
what changes?When you send an offer, you fill in the boxes of what you're sending and what gets sent to you. Those boxes used to have a clear outline. Now the outline isn't nearly as noticeable as it used to be. (On the PC site, old layout)
14-Feb-23 9:56pm
#8
willyum
GameTZ Gold Subscriber 300 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Gold Global Trader (17)

Thanks for all the hard work Bill! yes

image

15-Feb-23 7:15am
#9
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

@nonamesleft I didn't intentionally change that. I don't think it could be character set related (what I've been working on [though I mostly haven't released it]).

Checking the offer creation page myself now, I don't see what you mean about it being more or less noticeable. I see that if I click on a text-entry box, it gains a blacker outline. Could that be it? Otherwise, I don't know what to make of what you're saying.
15-Feb-23 8:41am
#10
nonamesleft
Double Gold Good Trader

bill wrote:
@nonamesleft I didn't intentionally change that. I don't think it could be character set related (what I've been working on [though I mostly haven't released it]). Checking the offer creation page myself now, I don't see what you mean about it being more or less noticeable. I see that if I click on a text-entry box, it gains a blacker outline. Could that be it? Otherwise, I don't know what to make of what you're saying.Maybe it is that. I went back and checked. I did update my browser very recently though. Could a browser update have an effect on how a page is presented?
15-Feb-23 9:14am
#11
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

Possible but not likely. Maybe you could pm me with the specific page you are using and how it looks off? Whatever it is, I don't think it's related to the UTF-8 stuff.
15-Feb-23 2:07pm
#12
nonamesleft
Double Gold Good Trader

bill wrote:
Possible but not likely. Maybe you could pm me with the specific page you are using and how it looks off? Whatever it is, I don't think it's related to the UTF-8 stuff.It's really not a big deal at all. Not even a small deal. It's just something I noticed, and I was wondering if it was related to the change.

Sure. I'll PM some details.
20-Feb-23 7:32am
#13
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

Today is the day that I'll do this UTF-8 update.

I'll start in an hour or two. You may notice the site being down. I'll post when I'm done or if I have problems, etc.
20-Feb-23 9:12am
#14
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

OK, here goes...
20-Feb-23 9:34am
#15
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

It is done.


Let me know if you notice any problems (especially garbled characters).
20-Feb-23 5:03pm
#16
Foxhack
350 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader

Not sure if this is a bug or if something happened on the other trader's end: I just pended a trade with Snappy, I got a message from them and the email I got had garbled text. The text said,

> Hey m8, I’ll go for the 8.30 and PayPal you

But on the site, it said this:

> Hey m8, I’ll go for the 8.30 and PayPal you

Seems the email encoded the character he used in the offer incorrectly. It seems it's supposed to be this: https://www.compart....
20-Feb-23 5:52pm
#17
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

Thanks for letting me know. I think it may be a bug or at least something I may be able to fix. It definitely seems related to the UTF-8 changes too.

I was able to easily reproduce this. So, that should help me fix it as well.
20-Feb-23 6:01pm
#18
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

I should note that the app is also garbling special characters badly (worse, I think). I'm looking into that as well.
20-Feb-23 6:18pm
#19
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

Hm, yeah... email notifications may not work well until I fix this. I'm seeing cases of email just not going out because of it. The module I use to send email does not seem to be utf8 aware... frown
21-Feb-23 7:27am
#20
bill
GameTZ Gold Subscriber GameTZ Full Moderator 600 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader Has Written 28 Reviews

I think I have that email garbling of special characters fixed.

I sent you a test message @Foxhack...
21-Feb-23 8:04am
#21
Foxhack
350 Trade Quintuple Gold Good Trader

The message looked fine here! I'm on mobile so I'm not sure what you did, but it wasn't garbled.

Updating GameTZ to UTF-8