PyLotRO Forum

Hello Everyone,

I have two installs of LoTRO, and the Public Test is able to get the news, but my normal client isn't. Where does PyLOTRO get the news feed from?

Computer: iMac 9.2 3.06 GHz 6 GB RAM
O/S: Lion

It's not a major issue, but having the news not show up is a bit of a bother. Any help is appreciated.

I have un/reinstalled PyLOTRO, and with Isengard, reinstalling LoTRO isn't really an option at the moment, but if that's the answer, so be it. I'm looking more for a surgical strike than a wipe the slate clean option.

Thanks!

Jeffythequick on a multitude of servers

Some further investigation:

I go to Jeffy/Library/Application Support/Crossover Games/Bottles/Lord of the Rings Online/drive_c/users/crossover/Application Data/PyLotRO/launcher/config and I see in the file:

<!-- News and Sponsor Logo/Link -->

<add key="URL.NewsFeed" value="http://content.turbine.com/sites/launcher/lotro/redirects/NewsFeed.php?lang={lang}" />

<add key="URL.NewsStyleSheet" value="http://content.turbine.com/sites/launcher/lotro/newsstylesheet.xslt"/>

<add key="URL.AlertsStyleSheet" value="http://content.turbine.com/sites/launcher/lotro/alertsstylesheet.xslt"/>

I copy and paste the URL.NewsFeed to Chrome, and get this:

<!--
generator="FeedCreator 1.8.0-dev (info@mypapit.net)"
-->
<rss xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" version="2.0">
<channel>
<title>LOTRO Launcher</title>
<description>
<![CDATA[
Launcher news feed for The Lord of the Rings Online
]]>
</description>
<link>http://www.lotro.com/</link>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 28 Sep 2011 02:05:04 GMT</lastBuildDate>
<generator>FeedCreator 1.8.0-dev (info@mypapit.net)</generator>
<atom:link href="http://www.lotro.com/index.php?option=com_ninjarsssyndicator&feed_id=2&format=raw" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
<item>
<title>Exceptionally High Volume</title>
<link>
http://www.lotro.com/component/content/article/76-launcher-news/1456-exceptionally-high-volume
</link>

plus a whole bunch more, so it looks like the feed is working...

Any suggestions?

Also, if I edit the file, it gets replaced the next time I load up pyLotRO.

Thanks,

Jeffythequick

Jeff Dempsey wrote:

I have two installs of LoTRO, and the Public Test is able to get the
news, but my normal client isn't. Where does PyLOTRO get the news
feed from?

It's not a major issue, but having the news not show up is a bit of
a bother. Any help is appreciated.

The news feed us a :sometime thing" ... sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.... Turbine constantly has DNS issues when under heavy load which appear to rout packets to a generic "down for maintenance" 404 type page.

The feed can be accessed (if it's working) directly from your browser... it is basically an RSS feed.

   feed://www.lotro.com/index.php?option=com_bca-rss-syndicator&feed_id=1

The news server seems to be multiple machines based on IP addresses I've seen, or they are dynamic. My guess is some sort of sync error or load balancing problem. I seem fairly immune to the missing news syndrome as I rarely lose it so tracing problems is tricky.

Alan Jackson wrote:

The news server seems to be multiple machines based on IP addresses
I've seen, or they are dynamic. My guess is some sort of sync error
or load balancing problem.

Yes. Turbine has DNS problems anytime they are "loaded." I actually see it quite frequently.

If you use the link I mentioned above, you will,surprisingly often, get the "down for maintenance" screen.

I suspect they have a router which has a "bad" config file, that when it runs through the list drops into the default error page instead of looping back to the top. It's actually a config that makes sense, but does have unintended consequences... especially if there is no mechanism (or someone watching it) for keeping tabs on the load levels on machines.