Board Game Arena

I tried the "Contact Us/Support" page, and the only relevant option ("Technical Issue") led me to a page for reporting a bug. OK, so I've done that ( https://boardgamearena.com/bug?id=170953 ) in the hope that it will be possible to stop the same thing happening to other people, but what I really need is for someone to clear up the state that my account has been left in. Even if they fix the bug that led to the problem, it's not obvious that it will then clear things up for me. Anyway, I've seen what happens to bugs - they sit around for ages in a state of "Bug has not been reproduced by developers yet" - and meanwhile, somehow this one page is not working for me. I can see that it is working for other people (for example, they have been able to join Potion Explosion games, which the page won't let me do). So it's not a problem with the page as such, it must be a problem with some data in my account that is related to the page. So, quite apart from hopefully some day fixing whatever bug caused this state, I need someone to look at my account's data and/or the data for that page, and alter whatever it is that is stopping the buttons on the page from working for me although the page is working for everyone else. In other words, I need to contact someone who can fix a current problem with the website data, so that it actually becomes possible for me to play Potion explosion again, not just someone who'll one day look at whatever bug in the software caused the system to get into the state that is preventing me from doing so.

So is there any way to contact a support person who will look at this sort of thing - i.e. the realtime state of the system - rather than just bugs in the software?

This isn't a solution to the game page problem, but can you create or join a potion explosion game from https://boardgamearena.com/lobby (the "play now" link in the page header)? If you've somehow gotten incompatible options set for potion explosion, maybe the other table setup interface will let you change them?

(I'd suggest clearing your browser cache, but your bug report says you already tried a different browser.)

Thanks, I had tried that, and it looks as if it works to some extent - i.e. it sits waiting for a premium player to come along and play with me. I suppose that might happen at some point, but (f I can believe what the gamepanel now says), it is looking for a game with options that are nothing like what I selected on the "play now" page! In any case the main reason that I want the "Show tables waiting for players" button to work is that there are many combinations of options that I'd be happy to play with, but I can't specify them as combinations in the "play now" settiings, so I usually find it much quicker to wait until someone is starting a game that suits me. (Not being a premium member I have to wait for someone else who wants to play in any case.) So I really need whatever the system thinks is wrong with me to be fixed. But thanks for the suggestion anyway.

That sounds like automatic matching? I think you can configure settings by game for that (sort of like arena games), but I haven't used it.

<pokes the interface> Also not premium, so checking with Jump Drive: when I created a table & changed the settings, the settings on the game page changed, too. But that probably only works when creating a table.
Now the "searching" entry on my games in progress page displays different settings than the table page & the game page. Possibly that's picking up the "solo" option instead of the main options, even though I set up a three-player game. And I can't get back to the game table page. I continue not to like "virtual" tables.

Unlikely, high overhead thought: recruit a premium player to create a table & invite you, then they drop so that you become the table administrator, and see if you can change/fix the settings that way.

mikkashar wrote: ↑01 June 2025, 16:01 then they drop so that you become the table administrator

Only premium players can be administrators of a premium table. If no premium player remains at the table, the table is abandoned.

Alas, not a useful thought after all. Thank you for clarifying.

philnewone wrote: ↑31 May 2025, 16:44 Thanks, I had tried that, and it looks as if it works to some extent - i.e. it sits waiting for a premium player to come along and play with me. I suppose that might happen at some point, but (f I can believe what the gamepanel now says), it is looking for a game with options that are nothing like what I selected on the "play now" page! In any case the main reason that I want the "Show tables waiting for players" button to work is that there are many combinations of options that I'd be happy to play with, but I can't specify them as combinations in the "play now" settiings, so I usually find it much quicker to wait until someone is starting a game that suits me. (Not being a premium member I have to wait for someone else who wants to play in any case.) So I really need whatever the system thinks is wrong with me to be fixed. But thanks for the suggestion anyway.

I'm confused by this. In the old lobby (under Play Now), you can choose all the settings you want (for automatic play) under the cog for that game. They are done in a preferential order - you can say how much you want a particular setting from "okay with this" to "never play with this", and it should search for a table based on the settings you indicate there. If you want to join tables yourself, you can do that too - switch to manual (drop-down on top right) and take a look at the tables open to you.

For someone who is happy with various combinations, the old lobby and the settings you can do there are more useful than the new lobby (game page), which as you say, only really lets you define one configuration or all of them (fine if the option is expansion on/off, less fine if the option is, for example, a specific set of maps you prefer to play with, and really bad if the option is which turn-based time setting do you want).

nik592 wrote: ↑02 June 2025, 00:37 I'm confused by this.

Probably because what you described is how the system is supposed to work, whereas my problem was that it wasn't working properly.

I've now escaped from the situation. This seemed to occur as a result of my trying to change the table restrictions setting (the one that yets you choose which levels you're playing against), but that might be coincidence - perhaps something/someone fixed it just before it occurred to me that that was the one button on the page that I hadn't tried.

Anyway, my particular problem has now gone away. I am however still interested in the question in the thread title. It seems to me that there should be a way to attact the attention of support people to a problem that is concerned with the current state of a bit of the system being stuck wrong and seeming to need a change to some data (or maybe a reboot of something) rather than just to a fault in the software that might have or might be going to cause such problems to arise.

philnewone wrote: ↑02 June 2025, 07:27

nik592 wrote: ↑02 June 2025, 00:37 I'm confused by this.

Probably because what you described is how the system is supposed to work, whereas my problem was that it wasn't working properly.

You said it wasn't working on the new lobby (game page), and your comment was that it "works to some extent", but that "(f I can believe what the gamepanel now says), it is looking for a game with options that are nothing like what I selected on the "play now" page". Your issue was with the game page not working, so I don't understand why you weren't just looking in the old lobby (although to be fair, auto-searching doesn't tell you what it's searching for, only what colour group of options).

Unless you're also saying the old lobby wasn't working? Point is moot since as you now say, it works.

As far as table restrictions, I've set them on tables many times (as have others), so that in itself isn't likely to be the problem. It could have been a coincidence as you said, or some combo of that setting and something else in your account.

As to getting the attention of BGA support, I don't believe they have enough people for it to happen. Raising a bug is really the best way to do so and then yeah, posting on the forums so someone non-BGA might be able to help you troubleshoot. But they don't have people sitting around 24/7 waiting to fix bugs. I work as a software dev (not for BGA), and for a "showstopping" bug, it's 24h to get a response, and maybe if you're lucky, a fix will be deployed 24-48 hours after that. It's not life and death software, nor is BGA. It's annoying, and I'd want it fixed too if it were me, but there's probably not much you can do.

Actually it turns out that some things on the page have started working, but some only partially, and others not at all. For example, if I try to change the "5th ingredient" option, it now reacts and appears to let me select 1 or 2 professors (whereas previously it didn't react at all). But then whichever I select, it still goes back to displaying the option as "Off". It's just weird. But at least it now lets me show tables waiting for players, so hopefully I'll be able to join one.