Known Bugs and Server Issues

Preface

Please do not worry that the fact that we included a Known Bugs and Server Issues Section in our Unofficial Walkthrough and Guide to Farmville 2 in any way suggests that the game is buggy or that play is challenged by bugs - that is simply not the case. We share that observation with you in response to a fairly large number of email we have received worrying over just that - with the majority of the email asking if the game is stable enough to be worth spending money on?

The simple answer is yes, Farmville 2 is a stable game, it is a lot of fun, and there really is no need to have those types of concerns. In fact the email that we have received from our readers voicing concern over this type of issue has reminded us that we need to take care in how we present different issues in our guides!

So for the record, this section on Known Bugs and Server Issues exists to help players in recognizing and dealing with the normal sort of bugs and server issues that you would expect to find in any game, and in no way implies that Farmville 2 has issues, which as far as we know it does not.

As with most complicated computer games and in particular games that are created outside of the normal game design platforms FarmVille 2 has the to-be-expected odd bugs and server issues that effect it, many of which are easily detected and experienced by the player.

The bugs that impact the game generally take the form of either a player interface error or a server error. At the time that I wrote this section of the guide there were just a handful of very obvious bugs, none of which are classified as game-breaking in the sense that although the player is likely to experience them, none of these bugs will prevent the player from playing the game or from making forward progress.

Each of the bugs can be addressed by taking specific Actions to remedy them, and some of them can actually be prevented on behalf of the player by avoiding specific actions. The following list represents the bugs that we are presently aware of. There may be others that we have yet to experience...

Server Bugs / Reset Bugs

The following list of Server Bugs have been experienced in the game, with the optimal solution for each listed with the bugs:

Neighbor Navigation Menu Lock-Up

This bug is encountered when the player attempts to utilize the Neighbor Navigation Menu to visit the farms of their friends/neighbors. The Neighbor Navigation Menu is positioned along the bottom edge of the game play screen and consists of the player-chosen icon that represents the player (in this case your friends or neighbors) that can be clicked on to visit that farm.

The bug occurs when the player clicks on the icon and nothing happens. This bug occurs most often when the player is in full-screen play mode, and can be fixed by reverting to windowed-mode.

Blocked Spaces Bug

This is perhaps the most common bug that is encountered in the game, and occurs when the server is convinced for a number of reasons that the open land that the player is trying to utilize is actually blocked by or contains some other object, with the end result being that the server will not allow the player to place an object upon or otherwise make use of that open land.

This bug occurs most often when the player is attempting to place a new object or structure in the game after the server has offered it to them. When they attempt to place the object or structure in the location desired they find that the outline for the object remains dark and the server does not allow it to be placed.

Players should bear in mind that any time the server prompts them to place a new object or structure that item has already been added to their personal inventory, so failure to place the object will NOT result in the loss of that object. If the player abandons placement mode, the object will automatically be added as an item in their Inventory Storage, allowing the player to return later and select it to place it from their Inventory Storage.

Correcting this Bug and its Effects: The most common solution for this bug is to abandon placement mode and then click on the "Home" button via the Facebook Navigation Menu to return to the Facebook site, at which point the player can then load a new game session in which the previously blocked area is no longer considered blocked by the server.

At this point the player can then select the object from their Inventory Storage and place it as they normally would.

Wall Feed Substitution Bugs

One of the most commonly experienced bugs on Facebook is found in the various Wall Feeds - and is present in both the Player Wall, the Wall belonging to Friends and Neighbors, and in the Games Feed Wall Postings.

This bug takes the form of a substitution of resources when the player clicks upon, for example, a post on the Wall that states that your friend/neighbor is sharing Power Resource Units (PRU's) but when you click on the link to collect them, you find that the resource that was actually being shared is Fertilizer (FRU's) or Animal Feed (AFRU's) in place of the expected Power Resource Unit.

This is not a graphical error - when we have encountered the error and verified what resource actually was added to our inventory in the game, the resource always ends up being whatever type was depicted in the image and the output of the followed link.

While this can be rather annoying it is not a game breaking bug, and there does not appear to be a fix for it other than to smile and accept that you have received a resource unit other than that which was expected.

Client Bugs

The following list of Client Bugs have been experienced in the game, with the optimal solution for each listed with the bugs:

Goat Shelter Action Crash Bug

When using the Goat Shelter to add Goats from your farm animal population that have evolved from adult regular status to "Prized" status there are two basic methods by which the newly evolved Prized Goat can be added to the population of the Goat Shelter:

(A) Automatically added via the "Add Prized Goats" button at the bottom of the Goat Shelter Interface, which is accessed by expanding the Goat Shelter Menu by clicking on the building.

The normal action that should result from clicking on the Add Prized Goats button would be that any Prized Goats on your farm that are not presently housed in the Goat Shelter would then bounce around the area and happily enter the Goat Shelter, at which point they take up residence in the Shelter;

(B) Hand-add Prized Goats by picking them up using the "Move" feature and dropping them on the Goat Shelter.

Adding newly evolved Prized Goats in the manner detailed above is an expedient method that does not rely upon the mechanism that was created as part of the implementation of the Goat Shelter in the game.

The bug that has surfaced that is attached to the Goat Shelter functions as follows: When the player clicks on the "Add Prized Goats" button inside the Goat Shelter Menu that action initiates a game client crash that results in the game client dropping to the load-in state; the player experiences this without warning, as their game immediately shrinks from full-screen (if it is in full-screen mode at the time of the bug) and the game client blanks and then presents the loading screen.

Once the game reloads, the player can then continue to play as normal, with the game state reverting to whatever it was at the time of the last automatic save.

Avoiding this bug: This bug can be avoided by simply not using the Add Prized Goats button inside the Goat Shelter Menu. Using the alternative method of picking up the newly evolved Prized Goat by hand and dropping it onto the Goat Shelter will cause the Goat to take up residence without triggering the game client crash.

Bugs Closing Summary

The play state for FarmVille 2 is generally accepted to be in the full version mode and not beta or earlier mode, and as such bugs that are encountered by the player that are not included in this list should be reported to the game developer via the bug reporting system that is already present in the game.

It is in the best interest of yourself and all players that newly encountered bugs be reported properly, as soon as possible, after they are encountered in order to keep the development team aware of them and to allow them to fix them as soon as they can. You should consider reporting bugs to be a service to yourself and to the game community. If nobody else has thanked you for making the effort to report a bug you encounter, please consider this to be a formal thank you from us to you.

Reporting Bugs in Farmville 2: The most effective method for reporting bugs in Farmville 2 is to access the Bug Reporting section of the official player forums, which can be found at the following URL:

http://www.zyngaplayerforums.com

After the web page loads, select the game you are reporting the bug for from the complete list of games from the publisher -- in this case that would be Farmville 2 -- and then select the Bugs & Bug Reporting Chat Board from the game boards menu.

If you do not already have an account with posting permissions on the chat board server you should create one now, and then post in detail the bug you are reporting along with any screenshots you created that illustrate the bug.

The Bug & Bug Reporting Board is divided into three sub-boards, and they are Known Issues, Resolved Issues, and Bug Reporting.

After you have reported your new bug in the Bug Reporting sub-board, you may want to review the last dozen or more posts in both the Known Issues and Resolved Issues sub-boards, paying particular notice to any bugs or issues that appear to be similar to the one you are reporting in case they offer possible fixes that might help you continue your game play with as little lost time or inconvenience as possible.

Thanks again for reading this section of the Unofficial SuperCheats Walkthrough and Guide for Zynga's FarmVille 2 social and farming simulation game.