ocular rewritten

As you may seen in today's announcement, we deployed a new version of the Cloud Data server. Most of this is code reorganization, and some performance improvements, so there may be a few glitches in this new version. Please report in this thread if you face any glitches. Remember to include information about your operating system, browser, and a link to your project.

Also, I know that some people have reported slowdown of Cloud variable updates recently. Please report those here as well, especially if you used to get faster speeds, but now Cloud variable updates lag significantly.

[Updated 08/30/2013: Based on your reports, I fixed a bunch of problems. Thanks, and keep more of these reports coming in (still working on the glitches that have been already reported, and are still not fixed). For a list of what changed, check out this forum post: http://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/14722/ ]

Note from Paddle2see - In February of 2018, an update was done to Cloud variables that limits the length of them to 256 characters, as well as a few other restrictions. Please see this post for more information. This should not be reported as a bug. Thanks!

Failord wrote:

Sweet! First post!

congratulations, you have my respect for your speedy and entirely useful response.

the cloud data appears to be working and saving things properly. i can't tell if it is faster, but I do think it connects to the server more quickly. i'd be glad to test, so if anybody wants to just start this project and it will record your username. this was previously unstable and often reset data, so we will see how it works now.

cool oh yeah!(forth!)

what did you add to the cloud variables? I cant read ur mind.

FlippyCatFan wrote:

what did you add to the cloud variables? I cant read ur mind.

No feature additions - it's just code cleanup and performance tweaks.

Wes64 wrote:

Failord wrote:

Sweet! First post!

congratulations, you have my respect for your speedy and entirely useful response.

the cloud data appears to be working and saving things properly. i can't tell if it is faster, but I do think it connects to the server more quickly. i'd be glad to test, so if anybody wants to just start this project and it will record your username. this was previously unstable and often reset data, so we will see how it works now.

Seems to be all right.

totally agreed with your views one comment #1

As I said in this topic,

I wrote:

If you look at my Browser Survey project, when somebody votes, it adds 1 to the cloud variable containing the number of votes for that browser. It also adds their username to an encoded variable containing who voted (it's all numbers). However, when looking at the cloud data log, only the browser variable changes. The voted variable isn't changing. I then tried voting for Safari, Firefox and IE (although I cringed at the last one), and they also appeared not to save. Chrome is the only variable that is saving properly.

I am using Chrome v28.0.1500.95 with Flash v11.8 r800 on Windows NT 6.1 build 7601 (Windows 7 64-bit).

Also, in the project mentioned in the above post, I had 5 cloud variables, so I tried re-creating the 4 that weren't saving, but it said I reached the limit, even though there were only 4 (there would have been 5 if I could create the variable).

I am still using Chrome v28.0.1500.95 with Flash v11.8 r800 on Windows NT 6.1 build 7601 (Windows 7 64-bit).

Is there a URL where I can read the Cloud Variables in JSON?
I recall this was there in the beta version (which is no guarentee its there now

Okay Editing this post as I found the answer (at least partial): http://scratch.mit.edu/cloudmonitor/11836408/
where 11836408 is the project id.

Of course thats the full page, slightly easier to parse (and with timestamp) is: http://scratch.mit.edu/cloudmonitor/log/11836408/

Still a URL to get the JSON would be nice

Cheers,
Stephen

When you create cloud data the “info box” drops down, but there is no “visible” way to clear it. Perhaps an X to indicate close me.

Okay here is a “test” program for you. I created a dice roll simulator to count how many times each number 2-12 comes up when rolling two die.

I set the cloud variable each time (thinking I could have a group of kids run this from the same or different projects and aggregate the data, once I got the json URL

But I would also want kids to setup a loop to run thousands/millions of times (and of course write their own dice roll programs rather than use mine).

The log loads incrementally, which makes sense and seems to capture all the data, but I really need to test that more.
Would like to run to millions of rolls, but worried that could impact performance (which others might report) so I leave that to you.

Cheers,
Stephen

Okay one last thing
Would be cool if the data could be loaded into a Google Spreadsheet auto-magically, although with the millions rolls, that could be an issue.

And the solution to large # of log entries would be to have the kids store the counts for each roll (and the total number of rolls in the run) in cloud variables at the end of their 1,000/1,000,000 roll runs.

Cheers,
Stephen

One last last thing, I did a remix of my project to try a test in turbo speed (to see if all the data was logged) and when I did the cloud data log seemed to be duplicated as well. Is there anyway to clear that on remix? Perhaps it is because I remixed my own project?

Cheers,
Stephe

One more. Check http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11837027
I basically increment a variable in a repeat 10 loop each time the Cat is Clicked.
I ran once and the log showed 10 entries PASS
I switched to Turbo Mode (from see inside) clicked 3 times and log still showed 10 entries FAIL
I switched to project page (still Turbo mode) clicked once and log still showed 10 entries FAIL
I switched out of Turbo mode and clicked once and log still showed 10 entries FAIL
I refreshed my page and variable went from 70 to 10 FAIL
Clicked on the Cat, variable went to 20 and log still at 10 FAIL

Also can't see the “Cloud Data Log” link unless I share a project.

Go to http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11837245/
Simple project increment cloud variable by 1 on click. I clicked twice really fast and the counter only incremented by 1 (from 4 to 5) but the cloud data log shows two updated (both with the values in the log show 5). How do you guarentee serialization of messages?

Also create a simple project (http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11837232/) with a slide showing for the variable and changing the slide did not create a log entry. Then added a click to increment and that did update the variable watcher, but still no entries in the log.

Hope this helps,
Stephen

mrsteve wrote:

Is there a URL where I can read the Cloud Variables in JSON?
I recall this was there in the beta version (which is no guarentee its there now

Yes - http://scratch.mit.edu/varserver/<project_id> (don't rely on it to exist forever though, and the format may change as well).

Thanks for all the feedback and reports, going through them…

Sayamindu,

Thanks and thanks for all all your efforts (including those on OLPC and Read).

Cheers,
Stephen

Cloud data gets broken for me when projects are copied.

Recently I copied a few projects and shared them, unsharing the originals in order to change the thumbnails of the projects. The copied versions kept the same numbers as the original project. But when you changed the value of the variables, they would change, but not in the cloud- they acted as normal variables instead of cloud variables. In the cloud data log, it just said that there was no cloud data or something like that.

To solve this, I deleted all the variables and recreated them again. This worked. I'm using Chrome on Windows 8.

PhirripSyrrip wrote:

Cloud data gets broken for me when projects are copied.

Recently I copied a few projects and shared them, unsharing the originals in order to change the thumbnails of the projects. The copied versions kept the same numbers as the original project. But when you changed the value of the variables, they would change, but not in the cloud- they acted as normal variables instead of cloud variables. In the cloud data log, it just said that there was no cloud data or something like that.

To solve this, I deleted all the variables and recreated them again. This worked. I'm using Chrome on Windows 8.

Yep, this is a known issue. DadOfMrLog discovered this a while back and it hasn't been fixed yet.

Cloud data randomly wiped clear- Fixed now.
Here's the project: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11877781/

About half an hour ago, all the cloud data was set to 0 for no reason. It's changed back now to the way it's meant to be but I'm not sure if it won't happen again.

This project's cloud data does not work at all. Please fix this. Thanks!

When I make the cloud data change, 1 second later it goes back to 0!

>Make 10 (or whatever the limit is) cloud variables
>Delete them all
>Make another cloud variable
>Can't because a pop-up says you've reached the limit, even when there are no cloud variables

cload dosen't works. I made a new game with highscore … but it dosen't works. can anyone help me

@moerp Can you please post a link to your project and describe the problem you are having?

I made a pong Project I used a cloud variable and a script for it in. But when I clicked Cloud Data Log there was written: There seems to be no cloud data activity on this Project. Does someone of you know how that can be?

Iv ben told that to make a cloud variable you click on the make a variable button and there should be a box that you can click on to make it a cloud variable but it's not there!

I am working on making a cloud variable cash system, I went to clear a cloud variable, but when I tried, it popped right back to what it was before shortly after, about a half a second.

Cloud variables multiply. Here's what happened:
I was making a cloud data test and renamed the cloud variable “score”.
2 Seconds Later, the cloud variable multiplies:

Rename Score
(Hiscore )
Then: (in Data blocks)
( Score)
( Hiscore)

BigBlueBlock wrote:

This project's cloud data does not work at all. Please fix this. Thanks!

Hmm, somehow the variable creation steps failed. Delete the cloud variables and create them again. Let me know if that does not work.

groko13 wrote:

When I make the cloud data change, 1 second later it goes back to 0!

Which project is this?

emd245 wrote:

Cloud variables multiply. Here's what happened:
I was making a cloud data test and renamed the cloud variable “score”.
2 Seconds Later, the cloud variable multiplies:

Rename Score
(Hiscore )
Then: (in Data blocks)
( Score)
( Hiscore)

Can you post a link to the project ?

MyScratchStuff wrote:

I am working on making a cloud variable cash system, I went to clear a cloud variable, but when I tried, it popped right back to what it was before shortly after, about a half a second.

Which project is this?

sdg1 wrote:

emd245 wrote:

Cloud variables multiply. Here's what happened:
I was making a cloud data test and renamed the cloud variable “score”.
2 Seconds Later, the cloud variable multiplies:

Rename Score
(Hiscore )
Then: (in Data blocks)
( Score)
( Hiscore)

Can you post a link to the project ?

Sorry, that was just a test, or an example.

Hi Samayindu,

Been struggling with changing cloud variables from two instances of a project opened by the same user. This used to work, but is there something that now prevents this from working? (Tokens maybe are unique to user, and server checks you have your most recent before allowing a change…?)

Made a small test project: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11998908/

Trying to run this project from two tabs, or from different machines, fails. Only the most recently loaded project can change the cloudvars. (If I start with a working one, then go elsewhere and open a new instance of the project, the new one works while the old one stops working!)

Don't have access to another account to try it from two accounts, so curious to know if that does work correctly…

Any info appreciated.

Thanks!

I recently posted a project using clouds, but the cloud won't remember anything the next time I come on. Here's the link to the project I'm having the problems on:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11991182/

dav99 wrote:

I recently posted a project using clouds, but the cloud won't remember anything the next time I come on. Here's the link to the project I'm having the problems on:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11991182/

Fixed.

dav99 wrote:

dav99 wrote:

I recently posted a project using clouds, but the cloud won't remember anything the next time I come on. Here's the link to the project I'm having the problems on:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11991182/

Fixed.

Not. Again.

dav99 wrote:

dav99 wrote:

dav99 wrote:

I recently posted a project using clouds, but the cloud won't remember anything the next time I come on. Here's the link to the project I'm having the problems on:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11991182/

Fixed.

Not. Again.

The “☁ The ”Cloud List“” variable was not created somehow. Can you try to recreate it (delete the variable, and recreate it with the same name)? A lot of the problems where Cloud variables are getting reset back seems to rise from the fact that there seems to be no variable record on the server side. I'm trying to make the variable creation process more robust, but for now, recreating the variable is the only fix.

Also, for the “☁ Cloud” variable, it seems like you are sending a very large value across. That's not going to work well, unless you have a super-fast connection.

DadOfMrLog wrote:

Hi Samayindu,

Been struggling with changing cloud variables from two instances of a project opened by the same user. This used to work, but is there something that now prevents this from working? (Tokens maybe are unique to user, and server checks you have your most recent before allowing a change…?)

Made a small test project: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/11998908/

Trying to run this project from two tabs, or from different machines, fails. Only the most recently loaded project can change the cloudvars. (If I start with a working one, then go elsewhere and open a new instance of the project, the new one works while the old one stops working!)

Don't have access to another account to try it from two accounts, so curious to know if that does work correctly…

Any info appreciated.

Thanks!

Yes - tokens are unique to users + sessions, so it's not possible right now to run two sessions in parallel. I understand that it breaks testing games, etc - so I'll try to fix it at some point.

dav99 wrote:

Not. Again.

Whoops - just noticed that your variable name has quotes in it, which broke the serverside parser. I'll fix that with the next deploy. Meanwhile, please use a variable name without quotes.

sdg1 wrote:

Yes - tokens are unique to users + sessions, so it's not possible right now to run two sessions in parallel. I understand that it breaks testing games, etc - so I'll try to fix it at some point.

Aha, great to know it's not just to do with my machines/browsers/LAN/setup/project/phase-of-moon or something like that. TNX1E6!

On my program, radio, cloud variables are sort of weird. On my macbook, I have two google chrome tabs open. The way the program works is when the green flag is pressed a cloud variable will go up by one. When I press the green flag on one tab it goes up by one, but when I press the green flag on the other tab, the cloud variable only goes up by one on that program. Any suggestions? Also, Cloud variables have slowed down for me. I believe that is because of this. A long time ago the scratch team said, on the scratch news that they were slowing down cloud variables to update every 750 milliseconds or something. I think it used to update 250 milliseconds. That update broke some of my programs such of cloud drawer, where you could draw over the cloud with other people, and some other cloud games I made.\


Thanks!

@zsiegel:

zsiegel wrote:

…but when I press the green flag on the other tab, the cloud variable only goes up by one on that program….

See posts just above yours.

DadOfMrLog wrote:

@zsiegel:

zsiegel wrote:

…but when I press the green flag on the other tab, the cloud variable only goes up by one on that program….

See posts just above yours.

Oh, thanks

The cloud data for my Top Scores game doesn't work reliably: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/12066526/

I've had it working for several days: many people have played, and successfully saved to the game's cloud data. Yesterday, I put up a new version of the game, doing an upload to replace the existing game. The game seemed to work OK after that: I had a user save successfully to the cloud data (belugawhale). Also, I was able to save to cloud data myself.

However, this morning, nobody seems to be able to save any cloud data to the game, except for me.

Another anomaly: I've been unable to delete any of the cloud variables in the game. I've tried deleting them all, then remaking them. This has solved past issues I've had with cloud variables. However, in this game, I've been simply unable to delete any cloud variables.

cmessenger wrote:

Another anomaly: I've been unable to delete any of the cloud variables in the game. I've tried deleting them all, then remaking them. This has solved past issues I've had with cloud variables. However, in this game, I've been simply unable to delete any cloud variables.

This is because of a new update the scratch team made. Try refreshing you're page and doing it again.

I've found a new bug with the cloud variables. Follow these steps I took:

1. Create a cloud variable
2. Rename it
3. Delete it; it will instead revert back to the original name
4. Try deleting it again; it will either delete itself this time, or change back to the new name.

zsiegel wrote:

On my program, radio, cloud variables are sort of weird. On my macbook, I have two google chrome tabs open. The way the program works is when the green flag is pressed a cloud variable will go up by one. When I press the green flag on one tab it goes up by one, but when I press the green flag on the other tab, the cloud variable only goes up by one on that program. Any suggestions? Also, Cloud variables have slowed down for me. I believe that is because of this. A long time ago the scratch team said, on the scratch news that they were slowing down cloud variables to update every 750 milliseconds or something. I think it used to update 250 milliseconds. That update broke some of my programs such of cloud drawer, where you could draw over the cloud with other people, and some other cloud games I made.\


Thanks!

Project link?

Having two tabs open with the same cloud variable project does not work right now. Cloud variables will work only if the tab your project is in has focus.

The 750 ms delay would happen only if you are using the HTTP fallback protocol. Otherwise it would be as fast as possible. With the HTTP fallback protocol, the delay used to be 1 second, and it was decreased to 750. Did anything in your network change recently (e.g. new firewall in your computer, or a software upgrade) ? If you were seeing faster times earlier, you were definitely using the TCP socket based protocol.