Hi folks,

brainCloud 5.9 is now live - with StoreKit2 support. Go to it!

Paul.

Note - the system allows a maximum of 15 anonymous ids. If you exceed that, it will delete the oldest ids to keep you at 15.

[Background - this used to be totally unlimited - but they really added up for some apps - so we implemented this behaviour and set the max of 15 as being "more than reasonable enough to handle all use cases!"

Paul.

Hi Noah,

I don't quite understand your question.

Development Plus provides access to some features (hosting, deep data, etc.) that we can't otherwise provide access to in a free development plan...

I suppose it IS accessed via the [Go Live!] button - which can be a bit confusing - since your app isn't really "live" under Dev+. That's a UI inconsistency that we haven't addressed yet.

The full details of the various plans can be found here: https://getbraincloud.com/pricing/

I hope that helps!

Paul.

We are very interested in doing it - just need to find a model that works and is reliable...

Hi @bkmitchell ,

thanks for reaching out.

Unfortunately our built-in relay server tech doesn't support what you need for Unity WebGL multiplayer.

Most brainCloud devs implementing your use case would integrate with Photon or Edgegap for their multiplayer for this reason. They both work well and work well with brainCloud!

[PS - This is an area of ongoing development for us though and we aim to fill this gap in the future. I can't comment on timelines for that though...]

Paul.

Hi @william - for now we'll stay focused on Visual Studio Code... but never say never!

Hi Vinicius,

You currently can't "run" scripts from the Code extension (I know - boo!).

For now the simplest is to keep a portal window up on the debug screen - and just switch and run the script from there upon save. Note that you don't need to load fresh script contents or anything - the servers automatically run the latest version - even if it's not currently what's showing in the Portal editor screen...

[Note - there are improvements to the Portal script editor coming in 5.9 - so that it's windows update more quickly and more reliably if the script has been edited elsewhere <-- exactly for this use case].

Paul.

Hi,

I know we have some Apple IAP improvements coming in 5.9. I'll check on the details of that...

Paul.

Posting a copy of the AWS service health page for posterity.

It mostly refers to the outage impacting DynamoDB - but a lot more services than that were impacted. We expect that just means that a lot of AWS services use DynamoDB under-the-covers to operate.

Our alerts have all clears (gone green) - and we now have access to StatusPage and Intercom again. It looks like things are back to normal <knock-on-wood>.

Be sure to double-check your apps - especially any recurring scheduled cloud code job - to ensure that they are still scheduled to run at the normal schedule... [delayed job processing appears to be one of the impacts of the outage - likely due to delayed AWS SQS (queue) processing].

If your app is still seeing issue - be sure to let us know via the Intercom support (which is working again)!

It looks like things are getting back to normal. Error levels are coming down - and we're seeing new hosted server launches again.

Hi folks,

An AWS outage in the us-east-1 region (which is the central brainCloud region) is currenty affecting brainCloud. More info here - https://health.aws.amazon.com/health/status

It most specifically seems to be affecting the ability of customers to download files - and launch new hosted servers.

It is also affecting our ability to log into Intercom, the chat service we use for support, and StatusPage - the service that we use to describe brainCloud health! (https://braincloud.statuspage.io/) (or else I would be posting this there!).

Anyway - AWS folks are on the issue - and hopefully things will be resolved soon!

Paul.

Hi,

Actually - voting leaderboards are implemented via the PostScoreToLeaderboardOnBehalfOf() call - where you can basically vote for someone else's score. [i.e. voting for that person].

Create the leaderboard as a "Cumulative" leaderboard - and basically the player votes for the score of another player - incrementing it by +1.

I suppose we should add those details to the roadmap item!

I hope that helps to clarify things!

Paul.

As I mentioned in the support chat - the issue is that midnightPSTinUTC isn't dynamically calculated for midnight today -- it's midnight PST on Oct 4th. [i.e. over a week ago].

What's happening is the call is accepting that past date - which puts the script in the front of our queue to be run ('cause we think we're late!) - and it gets run in the next 60 second job interval. And then reschedules itself in the past again.

So basically this script is running roughly 60*24 = 1440 times a day.

Anyway - I'll have the devs look into it - we should return an error if you are scheduling the script too far into the past... [i.e. a second or two in the past is probably fine - and best to do in case the scheduling script has delays of some sort... but clearly 10 days in the past is too far! Probably 60 mins in the past is too far! ]

@larrybiely over 12K API calls a day? Hmm - I'll take a look at that script...

HI @richard - we're currently working on a feature that will handle this directly for brainCloud 5.9.

In the meantime, an interim approach would be to:

• Manage the Lives in a virtual currency.
• In the item catalog - you can indicate the currencies to award from the offer via the extra data JSON.
• And create a post-hook on PurchaseUserItem - calling a script to award the appropriate currencies - and immediately consume the new "item" that was purchased...

Just a thought...

[But yeah - we're going to have a more direct solution in 5.9 - which is currently targeted for November release.]

Paul.

Thanks for reporting this @devsleeper !

@devsleeper - we hope you like it!

Hi folks,

We are pleased to announce the Early Access availability of our new Visual Studio Code plug-in.
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=braincloud.vscode-bccfs

As you would expect, this plug-in enables developers to create and edit cloud code scripts directly from the comfort of their Visual Studio Code IDE.

Key capabilities:

• Connect to a Team; Switch Teams
• View all apps (that the developer has access to)
• View/edit/delete cloud code scripts of each app
• Create new scripts (script names must have an extension of .ccjs)
• Create new folders (folder names must be all lowercase)
• Supports Intellisense for brainCloud API
• Allows devs to edit the script metadata (example parameters, timeouts)

Integrating with Visual Studio Code enables developers to leverage the advanced capabilities of that IDE, such as refactoring and AI assistance! (Note - the AI suggestions aren't always right - but they will hopefully get better!)

Also note that the extension does not support running the scripts from the IDE. You still need the brainCloud Portal for that!

Key requirements:

• Public BaaS and/or Private instances supported
• For connecting to brainCloud Platform version 5.8 or higher
• Uses brainCloud SSO and our Builder API to establish an API connection.
• "Builder API Access" must be enabled from the Team > Setup > Team Info menu. Does NOT require Static API Keys.
• Developer must have write access to the App > Design > Cloud Code > Scripts page

Troubleshooting tips:

• If you get into a weird state, click on the brainCloud extension, expand the "Environment Info" section, and click "Reset Local State". Don't worry - it only affects the local IDE state. All your scripts on brainCloud are still saved - you'll need to log in again.
  

Anyway - give it a test run and let us know what you think!

Paul.

Cool. Thanks for the update @MattForemanDev !