User:Phinbart/Tapped Out glitches
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The following is a list of well-known glitches in The Simpsons: Tapped Out. This page does not provide fixes to these glitches, and is only an informative page on them.
Contents
Major glitches
The Launch
- It is near impossible, most likely impossible to name and list all glitches in this section. We have listed the ones that we have found.
To most players when the game was officially launched on February 17, 2012 (March 1, for all) the game was heavily buggy and glitchy. Towns were lost and reset to level 1. Roads, pavements and river sections and intersections spread out over towns (reported happening after visiting a friend's town and after logging in again, the game crashing) and unable to place them in obvious places.
After the launch of the game, the official Tapped Out forum was inundated with users reporting problems, calling one of them the ""DC [disconnected] while loading friends city bug"", a major problem which encompassed when trying to visit a friend that is a lower level than you and being disconnected, your town is reset to look like theirs, losing buildings, characters, decorations, land expansions, cash and donuts in the process. Houses and buildings in the game that players have placed are somehow placed 'outside the land', and when you click to buy a land expansion, the land in which the buildings are on show up with a price[1][2]. There was also a glitch with towns also mixed together and buildings and decorations laid on top of each other.[3] There was also a friends glitch which made available to the player the ability to control the characters in that town.[4] Players also reported not being able to access friends' towns because they were on a different update, and the game offered the option to install a new update, but when opting in to do so, there was no update. This glitch/problem began occuring after the game had been removed from the App Store[5] So it appeared the bulk of the problems were to do with visiting friends.
Some of the problems also conveyed were duplicated buildings[6], missing buildings[7][8] and having been given game-halting quests to build a building they have already built, meaning players couldn't build anything[9][10] Quest statuses were also affected, with some going to "-2/1" (an example).[11] During February, EA posted a survey for users that experienced problems with the game.[12]
On March 3, the game was removed from the App Store, citing "positively overwhelming"[13] and unprecedented numbers of downloads having a detrimental impact on the servers, causing connectivity problems and criticism EA didn't even expect the number and improved server capacity. On March 6, the game had periodic outages to make fixes, as well as reporting on that day it had made fixes to lag and connectivity issues.[14] On March 7, it was announced that most connectivity problems had been fixed, but were working on a solution to player's characters or buildings that have disappeared and jumbled-up Springfields[15][13] Since March 9, no updates were made on the game's Facebook page, no updates from EA, apart from a post on the EA Game forums in April which showed an email reply from EA, saying that the company was STILL trying to fix the bugs.
On March 11, 2012, reports began of an error with player's Origin accounts. The error somehow made multiple Springfields on the user account, and in some cases, supposedly made the game wipe all the player's progress, and when they log in again afterwards, goes back to the player's former Springfield which progress was supposedly wiped.[16] This was supposedly fixed in May 2012.[17]
Other glitches reported during March-June 2012 include:
- The game crashing trying to play cutscenes.[18][19]
- Not being able to use the "Select/Move" tool.[20]
- Conformity Bonus being negative [13]
In mid-June 2012, EA took the game offline to fix the server, and to fix the Springfields which experienced problems.[21] When the game was put back on the server, a mini-update was released, with, as compensation, the player receiving 
60, and some towns that experienced problems were replaced with preset towns designed around the level and development stage in the game the players were at. Players' donut balances were also restored to the correct amount, adding the 60 Donuts also.[22] Players still reported problems with the servers, however[23]
On June 20, 2012, the game's Facebook announced it "actively working on a solution" for the being reset to Level 1 glitch.[24]
It has been stated that the quickly-abandoned aspect of the game to steal a friend's Lemon Tree was one of the main problems of the glitches, where you can steal a lemon tree from one of your friend's Springfield, and if you plant it in your town within 24 hours, it will start to generate XP and cash; but when your friend visits your Springfield, they can steal it back. The game was finally reinstated across all App Stores in the August of that year, the majority, and nearly all the glitches fixed.
Some players even accused EA of making them "beta-testers". [25][26]
"The Harp of Death"
Also colloquially known as "Harpies", this glitch was found in the Valentine's 2013 event. The glitch is when the game freezes up and crashes, before continuously playing a 'harp sound' through the loading menu when the game is opened again. This glitch was reportedly fixed sometime after the event's end, but isolated cases still exist today.[27]
EA responded to the complaints at the beginning of February 2013, saying that there would be a patch released soon, and on February 22, 2013 with a tweet from @AskEASupport: "Attention Springfield citizens! The #TSTO team are aware/investigating a resolution for ‘harpofdeath' issue. Thanks for your patience." @OriginInsider also responded to the complaints, saying on February 21, 2013, "This is being investigated and the Simpsons Tapped Out team is working as quickly as possible to resolve it." EA also informed affected players of a fix. At the time, many players suggested the completion of a quest or a building had prompted the game to crash and the bug to start.
Springfield General Hospital
The Springfield General Hospital was implemented with the Christmas 2012 event on December 3, 2012. Ever since then, players have reported difficulties in trying to purchase the item, especially trying to trigger the Mr. Burns quest "Medical Industry Corruption" in the Hibbert Family Practice questline. This glitch was reportedly fixed with the November 27, 2014 update. The glitch was apparently partly due to Chester's quests involving the building when it might not be built.[28]
Disappearing Characters
Players have since the beginning of the game reported characters vanishing from the game, especially during the launch where some important characters to complete quests disappeared, as well as Homer and Lisa, who due to their inability to be stored (as well as the Simpson House), caused the player to be stuck.
Town Resetting
Wrong Springfields
There was an apparent recorded glitch in January 2014 concerning players accessing the incorrect Springfields. It was fixed on January 31, 2014.[29]
Android
- Main external link: EA Forums - The Simpsons: Tapped Out - Bugs & Issues - "Ongoing Android Problems: Thanksgiving 2014 Edition"
Event glitches
- Halloween 2012 - Some players reported receiving the same pieces of the Mayan Calendar, therefore not being able to complete the construction of the item.[30] Server maintenance was taken out on October 6, 2012.[31]
- Thanksgiving 2012 - Some players ended up receiving the balloons before others, with countries receiving updates at different times, and one reported occurence of a player not paying donuts, but cash instead for the premium balloons. There were also numberous reports of game crashes upon installing the update, which was fixed with an update on November 20, 2012[32].
- Christmas 2012 - Likely not related, but from December 9, 2012, players reported receiving "intermittent technical difficulties"[33], and EA was aware of a widespread problem amongst their games, mostly to do with Origin[34], which was attempted to be rectified with server maintenance over the following days[35]. On December 19, 2012, 2-hour server maintenance took place to try and fix the inability to connect to the server, the game crashing, the friends list disappearing and being unable to log back in after getting logged out of your Origin account.[36]
- Valentine's 2013 - See above ("Harp of Death")
- Halloween 2013 - A ghost permanently possessing a character, enabling the player to farm
GOO, until that character was put into storage, or until the event ended. - Clash of Clones - Players not receiving certain items
- Halloween 2014 - See here
- Thanksgiving 2014/"Covercraft" episode tie-in - Players reported not receiving the November 28 quests and tasks being removed, due to a mistake in the game script, reading "Thanksgiving 2014 Deprecate Quests" being activated on November 28.
Minor glitches
- After the 4.8.1 update, players reported frame-rate issues.[37]. This was purportedly fixed with an update on May 16, 2014.
- Donuts not being awarded to players after purchasing them, which can lead to complaints and refunds.
Minor, innocuous glitches
- EA had released different versions of Tapped Out in different countries. Players who added a friend who was playing on a different version of Tapped Out, couldn't visit them. EA said that once they re-released the app, they would standardize versions across countries so people on different versions to each other can visit each others towns. The app was re-released in August 2012, and presumably this glitch was fixed.
- Texture glitches are almost ubiquitous, and are extremely common. That is when another building/object appears instead of another building. For example, Moe's Tavern may appear where a Blue House should be.
- Players receiving duplicates of items and when trying to "Use" from the inventory, a notice pops up reading "*Already built!".
- Players receiving a notification that someone has visited their Springfield when no-one actually has with no handshakes.
- Players receiving a notice upon logging in that the progress wasn't saved on their other device. This can appear when the player doesn't even have the game on another device, or logged in and played on it.
- Players with modded items' friends not being able to see a modded building in their town due to the friend not having the added, modded building in their game files.
Fixable "glitches"
Towns Resetting
Players have since the beginning of the game said their towns have been reset to level 1 or a lower level than what they were. During early-mid 2012, this glitch was commonplace and not fixable, but since then players who have reported this glitch have been told to check if they are logged into Origin or not.
One problem akin to this was a glitch where after logged in on an Android device, when logging onto the game on an iOS device shows a lower level Springfield.[38]
Exploitable glitches
- Boardwalk/Handshake glitch - where someone can receive multiple free Boardwalk Tiles with friend actions and handshakes. This was reportedly fixed as of Christmas 2013, however it has also been reported to have worked since then.[39]
References
- Apologies, due to the fact some glitches are years old and now fixed, it would be near impossible to retrieve the references for them all.
