Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I'm glad to see that 3DR is back and will be releasing games once again!

I've stumbled across a number of issues with the new website. I reported some of these issues to Joe, and he recommended that I get an account here and report them for you to investigate. (Which led me to another problem to report)

My primary browser is Firefox 33 in Windows 7 x64, but I've verified all but one of these problems in Internet Explorer 11 x64, too. For the one remaining problem, I've isolated its cause. Hopefully these will help further improve the new site.

First issue:

A number of your pages have a "Home" link on the top left. Those links point to nonexistent index.html files in that page's directory. here's an example from the "About" page, with red arrows pointing both to the link location and to the destination URL, as shown in Firefox (ditto in IE):
http://harris.xyz/3DRTeamHover.jpg

Second issue:

Your "Contact" page has a "Contact us" link that directs to #. Usually, I see "#" links when some kind of script call is being made to open a popup or something, but on this page, the link doesn't do anything in IE or Firefox. Fortunately, the page also has an email address posted on it, allowing users an easy workaround.

Third issue:

The system used to display content on the Team and Catalog pages didn't work for me in Firefox, but did in IE. I isolated the problem to one extension: "Search By Image (by Google) 1.1.2." Even though this extension shouldn't have any effect on page rendering, and I've never seen a problem associated with the extension before, 3DR's site conflicts with it somehow. The extension can be found here on Mozilla's Addons site. Since I'm not seeing this issue affecting multiple sites, I'll leave it to you to either work with Google on troubleshooting this further or to work around it.

Here's an example of what the Catalog page looks like with that extension enabled. Note that my cursor is hovering over Commander Keen's head, and there's actually a link there to the anthology pack, but it's invisible:
http://www.harris.xyz/3DRCatalog.jpg

Fourth issue:

As I was making some of the screen shots above, I noticed that the same code that has issues with Google's Image Search extension also has problems with its dynamic resizing. I tried to make the screen shots relatively small, but large enough to show the problem, and I found that there's a pretty large range of viewport widths that cause the images to misbehave badly. They get very large and truncate. Here's an unexpectedly extreme close-up of the CEO's forehead (again, this problem exists in IE and FF, and also exists on the Catalog page):

http://harris.xyz/3DRGiantHead.jpg

Fifth issue:

When Joe suggested that I report these details on the forum, I tried to register for the forum. Unfortunately, through four separate attempts across both browsers, I was denied registration without any explanation beyond:

"Registration denied, this forum runs an active policy of not allowing spammers. Please contact us via the "Contact Us" page link if you believe this is in error" (This is when I discovered the "Contact us" problem)

I was able to see both CAPTCHA features (ReCAPTCHA and the text CAPTCHA containing either a very simple math problem or instructions to type text into the text box), and I only attempted registration when I was able to read the ReCAPTCHA text (or number, as ReCAPTCHA showed me text in Firefox and numbers in IE) with high confidence, so there's no way I entered the values wrong all four times. Either the site has my Verizon FIOS IP address on an overzealous spam blacklist, my email address somehow got into your system on a spam blacklist, or your forum is not allowing people to register. Hopefully vBulletin's logs are detailed enough to help troubleshoot. You should find the four registration attempts in the logs only a few minutes before Joe manually created my account for me.

I hope these reports are detailed enough to act upon. If you need any clarification or want me to take any additional troubleshooting steps, let me know.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I can handle the registration denied thing. The forums use a public database made up of IP addresses and email address of known spammers. It will trigger if some direct value or (I think) a wildcard match of what is being used to register with matches something in the database.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

Also I got this error when I first logged into the forums today:

vBulletin Message
Could not find phrase 'invalid_redirect_url_x'.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

That's known. Within the last hour there was a server fix applied. See if it makes a difference.

https://twitter.com/3drealms/status/525844521435684865

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I've been seeing the invalid_redirect_url_x error pretty frequently, too. It seems kind of random. I'll get it after doing something, and then when I repeat the action, the error doesn't repeat.

Also, I didn't notice this before, but the Search by Image (by Google) extension reviews contain comments from others that the extension sometimes breaks websites. This is the first time I've encountered the problem (it also affects your FAQ), but others are seeing it elsewhere, so apparently that extension has issues. Especially given that, I'm going to go ahead and kill the extension (TinEye's image search tends to work better anyhow).

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

Cross-posted from the Duke4 thread:

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

This is nitpicking down to the extreme, and has absolutely nothing to do with the functionality and purpose of the site.

About the original post - Thank you for the feedback! We're looking into it as we speak :)

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I've always heard it described as attention to detail. Is it not the "functionality and purpose" of the website to properly represent the games you're selling? I can see how cosmetic issues would be low priority compared to site design issues, but I don't agree that they can be dismissed outright.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

Could not find phrase 'invalid_redirect_url_x'.

Any one get that when logging in ?

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I was getting that constantly yesterday while logged in(on my mobile phone) and I got it today while logging in on a desktop.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I get it too. It seems to go away if you just go back to the forums again. Will look into it, but it doesn't seem to show up except the first time you are logging in.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

i made a new account so i wouldn't have this awful username anymore, but the account confirmation email never showed up in my inbox.

I'm probably a complete buffoon but i can't find any way to re-send the email, or otherwise validate the new account.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

Have you checked your junk/spam box?

For some reason, my sign-up email ended up there. How dare outlook filter a 3dRealms email to my spam, but I had to check in there to get mine.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

Comcast filters some of my emails as spam, and the only way to access those emails is to log on through their website and mark it as not spam. A friend of mine had a similar experience with AT+T.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

Been getting this error at random:

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I know. I have a theory as to why it happens. It doesn't break anything except the natural flow of what you're doing. The forums still work right, though.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I'm getting this all the time, after login.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I get it when I try to use the ignore functions or when I log in.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

So will this ever gonna be fixed?

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

Fix your grammar :p

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

Also have a issue with uploading photos, etc. I tried many formats (.gif, .jpg, .png, .bmp,) i tried reducing the size, and it always says invalid file. :(

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I get this error too when I try to change my avatar. It worked before in the past.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

It is a known problem. It is also why the photo gallery doesn't work on the legacy site. Need to get the graphics backend fixed.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

One new question:
Does the internal message system work?
I did get a message, sent a reply for it but the reply does not show up, nor did I see a message for a successful send. :confused:

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

I'm unable to log into the new forums, says username or password is incorrect.

Re: Issues with 3DR Website and Forum
 

You need to create a new account.
IIRC accounts are not carried over to the new forum.