I had seen it broken and spitting errors in the console a few times before the firewall change. That just compounded troubles.

sent from the nexus

Well, I'm assuming the biggest thing was the firewall - I gathered you reinstalled it once (which I figured it didn't really NEED that badly, everything was fine - especially so if even you can't find an issue with it) and then reinstalled it again + whitelisted everything, then suddenly it works. Makes me assume the firewall was making it break somehow.

I saw it spitting errors once or twice, prior to the firewall. Not knowing anything about it, I figured I'd hear about it if my help was needed. Later I did the firewall. I still knew nothing about the bot at that point. I saw it spitting out server query authentication errors a few times during that period (after the firewall). Last week 8bit & I replaced our windows server with a newly built server installation. We made the new one, moved files and services, etc. On the old server, the bot was spitting out that configuration file error message that we looked at. I installed it on the new server and copied all the configuration files over to keep it intact - that brought the error over too. We finally made it work after both setting up additional firewall rules (needed for Epoch but also applied for TS at that point just to be safe) and reinstalling the bot, without copying all the data files - just the config text. That's when it started working again. At this point I'm uncertain if the firewall played a part at all, but there were definitely some errors at a few points in the past month or two.

Well, firewall would have played a part if it caused the server query authentication errors and those went away after working on that. Not sure where the config errors could come from if the config itself didn't cause it, though - I'm pretty certain I remember it working fine previously, so hmm.

The program directory contains both text and binary files calling themselves configs. I left the binaries behind on the 2nd reinstall, assuming they were the reason for the config errors.

... Anyway, I think the point was it was probably broke awhile and that probably created the impression that there was a change in moderation techniques for the server.

There's only one file that actually changes the way the bot behaves - anything that was messed with outside of that, was DEFINITELY Sandbag's doing... or somebody else's, after seeing what happened to the Terraria server. Anyway, I get that point, just don't fully understand what caused it to break - the thing to worry about now, though, is that it's working and just needs minor tweaking.

Anyway, I just now noticed @Abaddon's response at the end of last page - silly Saib distracting me - that makes me question how long it's been broken, actually. I thought it was only broken to the point it didn't work at all since the firewall went up, which was fairly recent. Regardless, the auto-move to AFK function has been enabled for the bot since it was first put up by Sandbag ages ago, while I know we're only now seeing it again for the first time in awhile, I don't know if that's because it WAS broke for a month or two or maybe even much longer and my memory isn't as great as I think or, another possibility, before it broke people were in channels talking to each other. Bot definitely wasn't as easy to notice without a message every hour (which, I'm likely bumping up to 2 hours here in a moment) for sure. I think the only reason it was off when it initially came back a few days ago was I had to go re-configure it all for the new instance and everything and I likely just got a bit confused on the settings. Pretty certain I was thinking of keeping the idle timer move on, and disabling the 'away' status move - but I've noticed people seem to use that to go into the AFK channel, so maybe it'll stay if it doesn't get used for spam again.

There is a way to send messages without the ding - there are 2 (from memory) types of message you can get it to send, Supp. I was pretty sure one of them didn't ding.

It does become a tad annoying when you have to check if someone has messaged you, only to see it's the bot. Maybe we could have it as a join message to remind people? Failing that I'll just stop checking TS messages/chat after a while.

It's a join message as well, highlighted in red outside the default text colors. The fact it's not known about by a current Tri proves my concern that the join messages are largely ignored - I've had that as a join message for the LONGEST time, even when the bot was working but before I configured it. I know there's another setting for what appears to be a global message, but based on the name of it I'm not entirely sure what it does - I could experiment with it, but I don't want it to end up like a server-wide poke. 'Advert' vs 'Broadcast' I believe...

Regardless, I try to make sure the approachable people are wearing tags - I think I've been told numerous times to avoid the more unapproachable ones and as such I tend to do so. Some kind of message that definitely should get seen will hopefully get the message across, indirectly, I think the trick will be finding a sweet spot where it doesn't annoy everybody. It really is the one setting I was most concerned about.

Anyway, message time is coming up - I'll test the other option and see what it does. Raises concern over 'no ding' getting no attention much like the login messages, though.

Hmm, nope, seems the only difference between the two is if it says {PR}BotHammer or Server - unless you're talking about a different setting. On the other hand, the bot definitely doesn't move you if you're typing in TS - confirmed by Shep, Garler, and myself. Too many ways around it.

So do we actually have an epidemic of non tag wearers?

sent through the air using science

Not really. When I first started changing the config and the bot was broken to pieces, yes, we kind of did - around 1/3-1/2 the community (well, TS {PR} users) not wearing tags. Now, it's maybe 1 or 2 people - I would like there to be some kind of warning for at least awhile that is impossible to miss so when the inevitable happens I don't hear any lame excuses or drama.

Regardless, I don't know if you saw my edit on the OP seeing as I seemed to have forgotten to mention it - the time for it has been bumped up to 2 hours, still observing it.

Okly dokly

sent through the air using science

Idle timer updated to 45 minutes.
Server broadcasts updated to every 4 hours.