#1072834 between: Game no longer works due to server error

Package:
between
Source:
between
Description:
game about consciousness and isolation
Submitter:
James Valleroy
Date:
2025-03-29 16:39:01 UTC
Severity:
normal
Tags:
#1072834#5
Date:
2024-06-08 15:30:32 UTC
From:
To:
Dear Maintainer,

    * What led up to the situation?

I installed between and tried to run it.

    * What exactly did you do (or not do) that was effective (or
ineffective)?

Run the "between" program.

    * What was the outcome of this action?

The following is printed in the terminal:

Screen dimensions for fullscreen mode:  640x480
L4 | Sat Jun  8 11:19:18 2024 (506 ms) | general | Checking if requested
video mode (640x480) is available
L4 | Sat Jun  8 11:19:18 2024 (506 ms) | general | All resolutions available
Max note length in song = 16
Response:  <html>
<head><title>301 Moved Permanently</title></head>
<body>
<center><h1>301 Moved Permanently</h1></center>
<hr><center>cloudflare</center>
</body>
</html>

The game window opens and shows the title screen. When I press spacebar,
it shows "Locating server..." for a second, and then shows the message
"ERROR: Badly formatted response from server." (see attachment). There
is no way to continue after this point, except to close the window.

    * What outcome did you expect instead?

The game would be playable. It seems to depend on a server that no
longer exists.
#1072834#14
Date:
2024-09-11 11:47:01 UTC
From:
To:
Hi James,

This bug comes from PHP on server side.

Server is here : http://www.northcountrynotes.org/game7/server.php
And error is : Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Call to undefined function get_magic_quotes_gpc()


I'll send an email to the author in order to see if he can manage this error.

Mindiell,
#1072834#19
Date:
2024-09-11 13:06:53 UTC
From:
To:
Hi Jason,

I'm part of debian games team.

It is found that your server at http://www.northcountrynotes.org/game7/server.php is malfunctioning, blocking between
players to play the game (see: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=1072834).

Are you able to manage this error ? Is there anything you can do to prevent this in the future ?


Thanks,
Mindiell
#1072834#24
Date:
2024-09-13 14:20:40 UTC
From:
To:
Ah, they force-upgraded the hosting server to PHP 8, which broke a bunch of things.

I got it all fixed and it's working again.

In terms of preventing this problem long-term...  hmm...  not sure.  I think PHP won't be changing that much in the future, hopefully.

Jason
#1072834#29
Date:
2024-09-13 16:48:19 UTC
From:
To:
Thx for that Jason !


James, can you confirm that between is now running smoothly ?


Regards,
Mindiell
#1072834#34
Date:
2025-03-29 16:30:25 UTC
From:
To:
Hi,

I retested on Debian sid (between 6+dfsg1-4) and the game still reports
the error 'Badly Formatted Response from Server'.

thanks,
kienan