Poster: motive at 6/8/2005 9:37:21 PM PDT
Subject: Soul Shard bug Explained & Restoring Items |
| |
As most of you probably know by now, there is bug on the live realms whereby Soul Shards will "overwrite" items in a Warlock's inventory. We are currently looking into this issue further and we will keep you updated as to when a fix is planned to go live. In the meantime, I would like to explain exactly what is happening and how you can restore the items that have been "overwritten".
Synopsis: Your items are not gone forever, they are just stored in an invisible overflow buffer. Read below to find out how to restore your items.
Explanation of the Bug
Firstly, when all player items are saved to the character database, that item is assigned a specific number which denotes which inventory position it is in. When the character is loaded and items are pulled from the database, the items are placed in their corresponding slots in your inventory. If, for any reason, two or more items are pointing to the same inventory slot, one of them is chosen to fill the slot and the other tries to find the next open inventory location. If no location is available, the item is not loaded, but it still exists in a limbo state. Some people are calling this an "overflow" state.
The problem we are seeing today is being caused by the spell Shadowburn. When cast, the spell should expend a Soul Shard, and if it kills its target, will replace that Soul Shard. If you cast Shadowburn while your inventory is full, when you use Shadowburn to kill a MOB that yields experience or a player that yields honor (this will occur in both PvP and PvE), the Soul Shard that is given back to you is sometimes not placed back into the slot that was just freed up by the Soul Shard cost of Shadowburn being used. While you did actually acquire that Soul Shard, it does not appear in your inventory and is actually in your item "overflow". The item slot that the spell chooses for the Soul Shard to enter is seemingly random. Meaning that for example, the Soul Shard in your "overflow" could be trying to use the same inventory slot as your mount.
If that empty inventory space is now filled by another item and you then logout of the game, when you log back in you have an extra Soul Shard in your "overflow" that has no where to go. Instead of just staying in this "overflow" slot, the Soul Shard switches with the item in the slot it is pointing to, placing your other item into the "overflow". Each time you login with this character in this state, it is random which one of the items that points to that same inventory slot will actually appear. In other words, you could sometimes login and see the Soul Shard in that slot, and other times login and see the other item in that slot.
With this in mind, the more times Shadowburn is cast while you have a full inventory, the worse the condition becomes. Every time the spell is cast, a soul shard is added to the "overflow" state. As described above, if the newly opened inventory slots are filled, then upon logging out and back in, there is a chance that my items will switch with the soul shards in the "overflow".
How can I get my items back?
Your items are NOT gone forever, as stated above, they are just in a limbo "overflow" state. Basically, to get your items back, you have to clear enough inventory space to clear this overflow buffer of all of its items. Clear out as much inventory space as possible and then re-log. The items in your "overflow" will then be placed into these empty slots.
If you find that doing this fills your inventory up again, my suggestion would be to repeat the process until you login and still have empty inventory slots. All of your items will be restored.
How can I avoid losing my items in the first place
One current workaround to this problem is to only store Soul Shards in your main backpack, not your other bags. The bug will not manifest itself if you follow this rule. Another suggestion would be to ensure that you are always playing with a lot of empty inventory space.
If any more workarounds to the problem are discovered, I will update this post.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion. Thank you for your patience while we get this issue resolved.
- motive -
Blizzard QA Lead Tester
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-warlock&t=348569&p=#post348569 | | | Poster: motive at 6/9/2005 2:37:02 AM PDT
Subject: Re: Soul Shard bug Explained & Restoring Item |
| |
Q u o t e:
so long as i get my stuff back i'm happy... but yeah imagine my surprise when i hearthed out of BG with 0 soulshards and suddenly had 27 of them... so just keep destroying soulshards until my stuff is back? neato i guess... how much buffer space is available and how long will items be kept in this buffer space?
The buffer is infinite in size and lasts indefinitely. You will never lose any items to this bug.
Oh, and while I'm posting, my apologies for the "mount" comment in the original post. When I was writing that up I was thinking "what's an important thing that I keep in my inventory?" and "mount" was the first thing that came to mind. I realized later that, obviously, this was an oversight in regards to Warlocks.
Thanks for catching my mistake =)
- motive -
Blizzard QA Lead Tester
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-warlock&t=348569&p=#post349023 | Poster: motive at 6/8/2005 9:37:21 PM PDT
Subject: Soul Shard bug Explained & Restoring Items *edited post* |
| |
As most of you probably know by now, there is bug on the live realms whereby Soul Shards will "overwrite" items in a Warlock's inventory. We are currently looking into this issue further and we will keep you updated as to when a fix is planned to go live. In the meantime, I would like to explain exactly what is happening and how you can restore the items that have been "overwritten".
Synopsis: Your items are not gone forever, they are just stored in an invisible overflow buffer. Read below to find out how to restore your items.
Explanation of the Bug
Firstly, when all player items are saved to the character database, that item is assigned a specific number which denotes which inventory position it is in. When the character is loaded and items are pulled from the database, the items are placed in their corresponding slots in your inventory. If, for any reason, two or more items are pointing to the same inventory slot, one of them is chosen to fill the slot and the other tries to find the next open inventory location. If no location is available, the item is not loaded, but it still exists in a limbo state. Some people are calling this an "overflow" state.
The problem we are seeing today is being caused by the spell Shadowburn. When cast, the spell should expend a Soul Shard, and if it kills its target, will replace that Soul Shard. If you cast Shadowburn while your inventory is full, when you use Shadowburn to kill a MOB that yields experience or a player that yields honor (this will occur in both PvP and PvE), the Soul Shard that is given back to you is sometimes not placed back into the slot that was just freed up by the Soul Shard cost of Shadowburn being used. While you did actually acquire that Soul Shard, it does not appear in your inventory and is actually in your item "overflow". The item slot that the spell chooses for the Soul Shard to enter is seemingly random. Meaning that for example, the Soul Shard in your "overflow" could be trying to use the same inventory slot as your mount.
If that empty inventory space is now filled by another item and you then logout of the game, when you log back in you have an extra Soul Shard in your "overflow" that has no where to go. Instead of just staying in this "overflow" slot, the Soul Shard switches with the item in the slot it is pointing to, placing your other item into the "overflow". Each time you login with this character in this state, it is random which one of the items that points to that same inventory slot will actually appear. In other words, you could sometimes login and see the Soul Shard in that slot, and other times login and see the other item in that slot.
With this in mind, the more times Shadowburn is cast while you have a full inventory, the worse the condition becomes. Every time the spell is cast, a soul shard is added to the "overflow" state. As described above, if the newly opened inventory slots are filled, then upon logging out and back in, there is a chance that my items will switch with the soul shards in the "overflow".
How can I get my items back?
Your items are NOT gone forever, as stated above, they are just in a limbo "overflow" state. Basically, to get your items back, you have to clear enough inventory space to clear this overflow buffer of all of its items. Clear out as much inventory space as possible and then re-log. The items in your "overflow" will then be placed into these empty slots.
If you find that doing this fills your inventory up again, my suggestion would be to repeat the process until you login and still have empty inventory slots. All of your items will be restored.
How can I avoid losing my items in the first place
One current workaround to this problem is to only store Soul Shards in your main backpack, not your other bags. The bug will not manifest itself if you follow this rule. Another suggestion would be to ensure that you are always playing with a lot of empty inventory space.
If any more workarounds to the problem are discovered, I will update this post.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion. Thank you for your patience while we get this issue resolved.
Edit: A better workaround to this problem is to actually not store any Soul Shards in your main backpack at all. Instead, store all of your Soul Shards in your other bags, and this problem will not occur.[ post edited by motive ]
- motive -
Blizzard QA Lead Tester
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-warlock&t=348569&p=#post348569 | Poster: motive at 6/8/2005 9:37:21 PM PDT
Subject: Soul Shard bug Explained & Restoring Items *edited post* |
| |
As most of you probably know by now, there is bug on the live realms whereby Soul Shards will "overwrite" items in a Warlock's inventory. We are currently looking into this issue further and we will keep you updated as to when a fix is planned to go live. In the meantime, I would like to explain exactly what is happening and how you can restore the items that have been "overwritten".
Synopsis: Your items are not gone forever, they are just stored in an invisible overflow buffer. Read below to find out how to restore your items.
Explanation of the Bug
Firstly, when all player items are saved to the character database, that item is assigned a specific number which denotes which inventory position it is in. When the character is loaded and items are pulled from the database, the items are placed in their corresponding slots in your inventory. If, for any reason, two or more items are pointing to the same inventory slot, one of them is chosen to fill the slot and the other tries to find the next open inventory location. If no location is available, the item is not loaded, but it still exists in a limbo state. Some people are calling this an "overflow" state.
The problem we are seeing today is being caused by the spell Shadowburn. When cast, the spell should expend a Soul Shard, and if it kills its target, will replace that Soul Shard. If you cast Shadowburn while your inventory is full, when you use Shadowburn to kill a MOB that yields experience or a player that yields honor (this will occur in both PvP and PvE), the Soul Shard that is given back to you is sometimes not placed back into the slot that was just freed up by the Soul Shard cost of Shadowburn being used. While you did actually acquire that Soul Shard, it does not appear in your inventory and is actually in your item "overflow". The item slot that the spell chooses for the Soul Shard to enter is seemingly random. Meaning that for example, the Soul Shard in your "overflow" could be trying to use the same inventory slot as your mount.
If that empty inventory space is now filled by another item and you then logout of the game, when you log back in you have an extra Soul Shard in your "overflow" that has no where to go. Instead of just staying in this "overflow" slot, the Soul Shard switches with the item in the slot it is pointing to, placing your other item into the "overflow". Each time you login with this character in this state, it is random which one of the items that points to that same inventory slot will actually appear. In other words, you could sometimes login and see the Soul Shard in that slot, and other times login and see the other item in that slot.
With this in mind, the more times Shadowburn is cast while you have a full inventory, the worse the condition becomes. Every time the spell is cast, a soul shard is added to the "overflow" state. As described above, if the newly opened inventory slots are filled, then upon logging out and back in, there is a chance that my items will switch with the soul shards in the "overflow".
How can I get my items back?
Your items are NOT gone forever, as stated above, they are just in a limbo "overflow" state. Basically, to get your items back, you have to clear enough inventory space to clear this overflow buffer of all of its items. Clear out as much inventory space as possible and then re-log. The items in your "overflow" will then be placed into these empty slots.
If you find that doing this fills your inventory up again, my suggestion would be to repeat the process until you login and still have empty inventory slots. All of your items will be restored.
How can I avoid losing my items in the first place
One current workaround to this problem is to only store Soul Shards in your main backpack, not your other bags. The bug will not manifest itself if you follow this rule. Another suggestion would be to ensure that you are always playing with a lot of empty inventory space.
If any more workarounds to the problem are discovered, I will update this post.
I hope this clears up some of the confusion. Thank you for your patience while we get this issue resolved.
Edit: A better workaround to this problem is to actually not store any Soul Shards in your main backpack at all. Instead, store all of your Soul Shards in your other bags, and this problem will not occur.[ post edited by motive ]
- motive -
Blizzard QA Lead Tester
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-warlock&t=348569&p=#post348569 | Poster: motive at 6/9/2005 2:37:02 AM PDT
Subject: Re: Soul Shard bug Explained & Restoring Item *edited post* |
| |
Q u o t e:
so long as i get my stuff back i'm happy... but yeah imagine my surprise when i hearthed out of BG with 0 soulshards and suddenly had 27 of them... so just keep destroying soulshards until my stuff is back? neato i guess... how much buffer space is available and how long will items be kept in this buffer space?
The buffer is infinite in size and lasts indefinitely. You will never lose any items to this bug.
Oh, and while I'm posting, my apologies for the "mount" comment in the original post. When I was writing that up I was thinking "what's an important thing that I keep in my inventory?" and "mount" was the first thing that came to mind. I realized later that, obviously, this was an oversight in regards to Warlocks.
Thanks for catching my mistake =)
- motive -
Blizzard QA Lead Tester
| | | http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-warlock&t=348569&p=#post349023 |
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