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Order alert system - Eregnon - 09-10-2017

UM -

Just letting you know your order alert system does work. I got one today.

Scared the hell out of me when it showed up in my email list - I thought I'd missed the turn or something.


RE: Order alert system - unclemike - 09-10-2017

Ok thanks. I had to disable these alert emails (for missing orders) back in December '16 when I was working on the ready-button code because ready-enabled games are quite different than what we had before. The main program had to undergo a fair amount of changes to re-enable this alert system once again.

The only issue that may come up will be after a server reboot because I'm not sure if I configured the Windows task scheduler correctly to automatically restart after a reboot.

I was able to configure automatic reboot tasks for processing turns of ready-enabled games and another automatic task to perform a daily backup of our games but this particular task of sending out an email is special in that it has to trigger at the top of the hour (every hour, every day).

That's why you'll see these alert emails at the beginning of the hour rather than an exact 24 hours from the turn's deadline. So if your turn is due 7:34am, the server checks at 7:00am for all games within that hour. So only one check is triggered per hour in the day (24 total). That way, the server doesn't get bogged down if it had to check every minute of every hour to send out these alerts emails.

However, the problem of running the task at the top of the hour is that it's not apparent how to set that up after a server reboot. A server reboot may occur anytime and I don't know how to setup a scheduled task to run at the top of every hour after the reboot.

There's an option in Windows to automatically create a task after a server reboot (which I'm doing for handling the turn processing of ready-enabled games and to perform a daily backup everyday) but there's isn't a way to setup a task to run at the top of the hour regardless of when a server is rebooted (which can occur at any time with an hour).

So if those alert emails don't ever go out for some reason, it means that the server rebooted and I have to manually configure the Windows task scheduler to run this special task at the top of every hour. It's a pain and I'm still investigating how to do this automatically like how the other two tasks are being handled (ready turn processing and daily backups) but there isn't an easy way to set this up currently.

Anyway, I wrote this down in the Alamaze documentation that I recently sent to Rick so the next programmer knows about it.


RE: Order alert system - unclemike - 09-10-2017

When I mentioned above that I didn't know how to setup a task to run at the top of the hour after a server reboot, I meant that the Windows operating system doesn't offer such an option for this purpose. See the attached file.

Shown are the choices available to trigger a Windows task after a system reboot (marked in red) or you can setup a task to always run at a certain day/time but not both. We need to do both. Run after a server reboot and to run at the top of the hour indefinitely. The Windows operating system doesn't allow to do both so its an either/or condition.

If I setup the task to run after a server reboot, it'll run in one hour increments at that specific time. So if the reboot occurs at 10:38am, the task won't run at the top of the hour but at 11:38am. And if I schedule to run at the top of the hour, I can't select the option to run the task after a server reboot.

As a workaround, I could create a MS DOS script file that is run after a server reboot (at any time of the day), and have it configure a new task that runs at the top of the hour (which is what I'll have to do manually) but I don't have time to do all of that so it'll have to remain as a manual process for now.

So if any of you realize that you're not getting the alert email as you should have, let us know at Support and the programmer (who may not be me) will have to manually configure a task to run at the top of the hour. [See all the fun you guys are missing to do a simple little task like this...]


RE: Order alert system - Mad Hatter - 10-11-2017

Have an agent that has the Red Mount. target is 9 sq away. the order system is giving me an error, telling me that the mission is beyond 8 sq. when I look at the order list that I did, above the Error, the order isn't listed there. should I put in my orders and leave one order open in case the system decides to run the agent order?


RE: Order alert system - unclemike - 10-11-2017

(10-11-2017, 07:20 PM)MadĀ Hatter Wrote: Have an agent that has the Red Mount. target is 9 sq away. the order system is giving me an error, telling me that the mission is beyond 8 sq. when I look at the order list that I did, above the Error, the order isn't listed there. should I put in my orders and leave one order open in case the system decides to run the agent order?

Send support the details of your situation. That includes game #, turn, kingdom, agent in question, and the map areas.


RE: Order alert system - Mad Hatter - 10-11-2017

(10-11-2017, 08:36 PM)unclemike Wrote:
(10-11-2017, 07:20 PM)MadĀ Hatter Wrote: Have an agent that has the Red Mount. target is 9 sq away. the order system is giving me an error, telling me that the mission is beyond 8 sq. when I look at the order list that I did, above the Error, the order isn't listed there. should I put in my orders and leave one order open in case the system decides to run the agent order?

Send support the details of your situation. That includes game #, turn, kingdom, agent in question, and the map areas.

Done


RE: Order alert system - JonDoe - 10-11-2017

Mad Hatter I had a similar issue. What I did was cancel the order and verify the total orders used went down then reissued the order to check that it actually did issue the order. Seems the order checker flags the "bad" order but it still is issued and processes when the game runs. Just be sure the order is correct. This applied to when transferring artifact between kingdoms sometimes as well.