Talk:Ghost Mammoth/@comment-5116140-20121028180948

'''Fixing the Ghost Mammoth Bug: A Case of Missing ID Papers '''

Two wikiacons, [Kayaking4fun and SophieMo ] both noted here that the problem of the Ghost Mammoth bug started immediately after the DinoSkeleton was introduced. I also noticed the same thing. Their report provided the vital clue to figuring out the ultimate cause of this nasty little bug. Even though this bug is  now fixed , we need to record an analysis, for three reasons.

1. First it shows how together, we can solve problems when wikiacons share their observations. Sometimes the simplest observation is the clue that solves the puzzle!

2. Second, a very similar bug has happened before with the case of the Lucky and Love dinos.

3. Third, when villagers are unaware of when a bug is easy to fix, as this one was, they may resort to drastic actions such as deleting the problem dinos. I was going to do this myself when my rescue kitten jumped on the keyboard and distracted me.

So what was the cause of this bug? Quite simply, for a few hours on Saturday, the Ghost Mammoth was wandering in limbo  without his ID papers .

A dino's ID papers are needed to display its information in both the Fusion Lab and in its habitat. When you click on either one, a list showing an ID card for each dino is presented, so you can select it. In the habitat, you usually select a dino's ID card to feed it. In the fusion lab, you select a dino's ID to fuse it.

Each dino ID shows a picture of the dino, its tier and Biome information as well as its species name. If that information cannot be found, your village will simply close or crash. The info for these dino ID cards is in the file DinosaurEvolution. We have not shown the guid suffix which is attached to such files for security reasons.

Now just before the DinoSkeleton was released, the Ghost Mammoth was behaving just fine! You could feed it and even see it in the fusion lab. Its papers were in proper working order in the DinosaurEvolution file, where they appear as: {"eggImageFile": "ghost_coinDino_egg.png", "rarityGroupID": "rare", "biomeID": "tundra", "species": "Ghostmammoth"}. This may look like computer nonsense to most of us, but it his how the ID card for each dino is created.

Missing ID Papers: Now, when the DinoSkeleton was introduced, TV had to provide his ID info as well, but they mistakenly pasted it over the Ghost Mammoth's info. Those on Android can check that the second copy of DinosaurEvolution, pumped out exactly when the DinoSkeleton was released had no ID info for the little Ghost Mammoth. That was the only problem.

The Simple Fix:

To fix the problem, TV only had to pump out yet another copy of DinosaurEvolution and this time, make sure that the Ghost Mammoth had his ID papers!

Thanks: So thanks to both [Kayaking4fun and SophieMo ] for providing the vital clue that solved this nasty little bug for us! In the future we will all know to be patient and to just wait a little if a similar problem happens again. You might even get a few free crystals if you report a similar to TinyCO support in the future!