This is still something we're trying to track down. Seems most frequent after the app is force-closed. Was this the case with your issue as well?
Yes. Yes. Yes. I complained about this maybe a month or two ago & theorized that maybe it had to do with level 3 stores. I switched to all level 4 but it still occurs. One of the devs had some ideas at that time but I guess it wasn't a priority at that point. This happens when I: 1) switch devices & need to exit the device on one; 2) update my iOS or update game; 3) no reason whatsoever, just when the opening screen pops up after the device has been asleep & I turn the device back on. Like you, it always shows the opening screen regardless of the precipitating factor. It is a constant source of frustration which has limited my use of syncing/switching devices, a great feature of TTV, for example (where it happened seamlessly & flawlessly). A monetary investment in NB has kept me playing but I'm not always a happy camper. I was thinking of writing another post such as yours but then I thought, hey, if this were widespread, this thread would be full of players complaining. Thanks for bringing this issue back to the forefront. Are we the only two? Surely this affects more players. Maybe they become disenchanted & just give up on the game. And devs, is this a bug you DO intend to track down even if you haven't found the cause yet?
I can't remember offhand, but I'll try to keep track if it happens again. I don't generally close the app as a rule (just switch to other apps and then back via the multitasking function) but every once in a while when I switch back I'll see the loading screen, so maybe it's closing for some reason while in the background?
me too! but it happened enough times, and the devs have been so responsive on this thread, I thought I'd just check. glad I did! I have separate towers on each of my two devices and never log out, but it's definitely possible that sometimes I've closed the app without thinking about it, rather than just switching to another app. I can confirm it's not related to having all the same level of stores; I have mostly 5s and a couple of lower levels on one device and mostly 4s with a couple of 3s on the other, and it has happened to both within the past couple of days. I can't remember it happening at times when my tower was over 30 floors, but that could just be coincidence.
Does the time between switching devices seem to matter in your experience? Or will it happen even when minutes/hours have passed in between playing?
Tiny Tower: 5th Anniversary Edition (by NimbleBit) It only happens to me in the very early game when I'm starting to rebuild. Btw it happened to me today with my new rebuild. Had 5 Golden ticket shops and one level 3 full. Came back everything was empty and I had 40k coins (maybe 25k before) so I'm sure it didn't sell everything or even close. I don't think I force closed the app but opened other apps including TTV in between. It never happens to me when the tower is higher than 15/20 floors. Also, happy birthday for the shared 66 candles
In my case, I think the time between switching devices matters. If I close one device & switch to another within a minute, the majority of the the non-gold floors empty out. This happened so often that I rarely switch devices now. I thought it had to do with the TT servers not being aware of my status for my device hadn't been backed up upon manual or self-occuring exiting. And, BTW, I've lost a floor under construction so this also indicated to me some lag in backing up time. If I wait 8 hours or more, there is probably no difference - either that or I expect floors to empty.
This happened to me a few days ago when it wasn't early in the game. The gold floors were fine but the majority of the rest had no stock. Since it happened during an exit I didn't initiate in any way, I merely turned my device back on, I am uncertain as to coin total. At times I'm tempted to do the experiment myself (re coins) by noting coin total, exiting & then opening on another device but then I remember how disheartening it is to open the game to a so many black floors. Maybe with people chiming in with their experiences the devs will finally be able to track down & exterminate this nefarious bug. If my post yesterday seemed strong to the devs, I apologize. Frustration, when it builds up (largely my fault for not complaining more - why fix something that only affects a few users?), can be expressed with less attention to word choice. As ashenkitten noted, NB gives amazing support. Plus, the way NB incorporated ideas requested in this thread was incredible.
The gold floors not being affected makes me think it might have something to do with the stock amount. Has anyone noticed if upgrading floors (and thereby the stock amounts) tends to make this less likely to occur?
When it's happened to me, every single floor, including all the gold floors, has been affected. That's actually the reason I was sure it was a glitch, since it would be rare but not impossible for all of my L4 floors to end up out of stock at the same time, but no way that could happen to all of my gold floors at once (especially the one I regularly use my big spender VIPs on, which almost never dips below 30,000 stock on the 3-coin item). I'm not sure if there's been a pattern in the amount of time that's elapsed before switching back to TT the previous times this has happened, but I'll pay closer attention to the details and report back if it happens again. Thanks for being so receptive to little things like this!
Yesterday I would have said only non-gold floors. Today I lost all stock on ALL floors, even gold floors; finding sold out gold floors had never happened to me before. If the stock had been sold, I would have had enough coins to build another couple of floors at least. No so. As for your theory, I tried it by making floors all level 4 when I used to have them all level 3 - I did this for I thought they'd hold more stock & thus be less vulnerable. No difference. And now with my gold floors (i.e. the highest level) being sold out, I would think that would make that possible explanation much less likely. I'm baffled since switching devices or exiting the program works so perfectly on TTV & the programs are so similar in so many ways. At which point is TT backed up: 1) periodically during play or 2) upon exiting or 3) both since exiting is rare for many people?
@nimblebit So my brother (SQP8) has an android phone and he just replaced it (same type of phone), and when he synced everything over he lost all his floors and his 60+ day fireworks bonus. He was also very close to being able to reset to get his first golden ticket. He kept his friend code but nothing else.
Yeah, the code for writing and loading saves (and the timing for said things) and the code for calculating profit earned in the background is all identical. The answer is going to be something very small I'm not seeing.
Sounds like it didn't actually sync. I'd suggest having him contact [email protected] hopefully Dani can sort it out.
a (non?) update: since both of my towers have passed 30 floors, I haven't seen the zero-stock problem at all. I'm getting close to rebuilding again, so when the new tower is still small I'll experiment a little with force-closing the app vs switching between TT and other apps, and keep track of the situation before any (if any) more clean-outs. I know it's been said already, but I think it's fantastic how closely the TT team is listening to the players, and how quickly it's responding. so many of the little tweaks made in recent updates have made the game both more fun, and easier to enjoy. it's so great when developers care as much about the user experience as about their Platonic ideal of what the game "should" be like!
This pic is enlightening & may explain why I kept getting "Stables" gifts although I had long since filled that floor with DJers & listed another gift in my *previous* tower. I've played every day so there has never been a time when 2-3 days have passed without my playing. There may be a clue in here somewhere as to a glitch in updating. If your screenshot thinks I haven't played in almost three days, maybe most of my floors would be empty. Vic, out of curiosity, what gift do you see for me now? How long since I played? As I'm writing this, my game is currently open.
Tiny Tower: 5th Anniversary Edition (by NimbleBit) On my iPhone just now. Killed the app, reopened it, same result.
I know your status doesn't update right away as I have my android tower on at the same time as my iOS one but three days is a bit wrong. I've noticed a few on my list that aren't updating last played for a number of days now.
