Farmville or Glitchville?

It’s been a rough couple of weeks in the land of Farmville. There have been a number of glitches and issues affecting the game and various features. The Dirt Farmer team has been on the case, identifying causes of issues and communicating with the studio regarding fixes. In this post we’ll cover the major issues people have encountered recently, what caused them, and  the Farmville studio’s response. Read below for details, and be sure to share with friends if you find it helpful.

One issue that has been affecting people for a while is losing their Dream levels. As you may recall, when the Fantasia section opened on the Isle of Dreams farm, a number of people lost some or all of their progress on Dream points and levels. Some dropping as drastically from levels in the 70’s to near zero. We communicated with the studio regarding this issue, and they assured us that they fixed the underlying cause of it. However, levels need to be restored to farmers on a case by case basis, and players would need to contact support for a restoration. Alternatively, we have also provided a post here at The Dirt Farmer that we have turned into the studio for tracking. If you are still experiencing this issue, be sure to comment on this post with your Facebook ID so the studio can get you on the list of farms to restore.


Another issue that has been ongoing is malfunctioning Unclaimed Feeds (for an explanation of Unclaimed Feeds, click here). Players found themselves unable to claim any items from players via the Unclaimed Feeds. The studio pushed through a fix for this. However, the fix may have only been a partial one. While quite a few have had them fixed, a number of people are still complaining about issues with them. While at least some of the issues are due to the way their friends share the items (for instance, if an item is shared from a friend's timeline into a group, it may not work), some players have informed us that if they go to a players timeline, the items can be collected even if they don’t work in the Unclaimed Feeds. Here is what the studio had to tell us regarding this issue: “As for the unclaimed feeds issue, it is a problem with Facebook. This issue should not happen if your neighbors are also your Facebook friends, but this issue will persist for folks who have neighbors who aren't their FB friends. We are trying to find a work around for this issue” Due to the number of people saying it is still broken, we are continuing to discuss with the studio whether or not this is the entire problem with the feature

This week, we’ve also seen a tangle in the Daily Delights feature. Players reported that last weeks animal was showing, and even though they clicked on collect, the feature was not recording their clicks. At the time of this post, a fix has just been implemented, and the studio tells  us “players that interacted with the feature” will be compensated according to the missed days, however, we have recommended to them to compensate everyone, in the event of someone not interacting with the feature because they saw reports of it being broken. We will keep you informed regarding any changes with this. 



This week we also saw the breakdown of several permanent farm features. The Flower Shack, the Time Machine, the Nutcracker Theater, and the Water Sprinkler (click the names for explanations of these features) all went down at the same time. The issue behind this came about due to a studio project to attempt to reduce game issues and load times. The studio has begun removing the code for a number of older, defunct features, hoping that the reduced amount of code will also reduce the resources needed to run the game. Unfortunately, these permanent features accidentally got caught in the crossfire, and key parts of their code ended up on the chopping block. The Dirt Farmer informed them immediately of the issue, and the studio has been working hard to restore these features since then. We have good news regarding these features. At the time of this posting, the studio has just implemented a fix and these features should be working again.

We also saw an issue with older Vote buildings crop up this week as well. As you may be aware, Vote events start you out with a “blank” building, and then gives you paths to choose from, allowing you to transform your building into a decoration of your choice, depending on if you decide to go left or right. Older vote events have also been part of the older code cleanup initiative by the studio, which led us to an unintended side effect. Removing the old code, which also eliminated the paths related to right and left voting, reverted everyone’s older vote buildings from whichever one they chose, to the “blank” building you start with. While we do appreciate the studios attempts to eliminate obsolete code and improve performance, we have recommended they leave voting events in the future, due to this unintended consequence. At this time, we are unsure if there will be a fix for this issue due to the amount of code that would have to be reinserted into the game, or the fact that reinserting the code may not actually fix the issue without re-doing the vote events themselves. We’re also unsure whether customer support can provide the specific left and right buildings, but since they are separately coded items, it is worth a shot if you would like to try.

Players also reported an issue with feeds below the game this week (for an explanation of this feature, click here). The studio had this to say regarding this glitch: “We have found a fix for the the feeds issue and it should go out in a few hours. The issue was with the messaging. On clicking a particular feed, the player was not shown the right message, even though they were getting the consumable/item from the feed.”

There have also been many people have been experiencing any number of ongoing loading issues with their farms. This has led to much frustration, being unable to play the game. There unfortunately hasn’t been an easily identifiable underlying cause for this, and many farmers may be experiencing individual issues that require more in depth analysis. We asked the studio if they had an update for those anxiously awaiting a return to their game, and this is what they told us: “The Loading Issues are our primary focus as of now, and we are trying to get a blanket fix for this. There is no ETA as of now, but as and when we get any news we would like to share with our players, we will get in touch with you.” So while the studio is hard at work trying to track down the issue, unfortunately it is currently being elusive. Hopefully we will get an update soon about the efforts to fix this. In the meantime, if you can’t load your farm, be sure to report in to customer support. For an explanation of how to contact support, click here.

Finally, many have noticed some scheduling issues regarding recurring features, such as Leaderboards and Quests. Due to some issues that have cropped up and attempting to deal with them, the studio has fallen somewhat behind on their regular coding of new tasks for these features. At this time, we can’t provide any information on when they might get their scheduling back on track, but hopefully it will be soon. In the meantime, rest assured that as soon as The Dirt Farmer gets access to the latest information for these features, it will be provided. If you can’t find it on our site, it hasn’t come through yet.

Let’s all cross our fingers that the weeks and months ahead are a bit smoother in than the previous few weeks, but in the meantime, be sure to follow our Fan Page and our blog for all the latest news on upcoming features, ongoing problems, tips and tricks for easier game playing and much more, and happy farming.