Beta Patching Testing Forums: Usage Guidelines.

[Placebo]

Firstly this forum should be used for all discussions/feedback/reports about the beta patches please.

A couple of simple guidelines to make everyone's lives easier:

• Please search to ensure you're not covering something or reporting something that's already reported, the more duplicate threads that are created, the less effective your feedback is and thus the slower a fix is likely to be.
  
  
• By reporting issues in a short, simple way, but with clear repro steps you greatly help the entire development process.
  
  
• Please remember to still use the Community Issue Tracker to report issues you're having, this Beta Patch forum is not here as a replacement for the Community Issue Tracker but merely to compliment it.
  
  
• Listing your system specs/drivers/OS versions when reporting feedback will help everyone, please do not however simply paste an extract from Dxdiag as it's too long and unclear.

For now I'll leave this open in case there are questions or other suggestions as to how we can best run this via the forums

[Eda Mrcoch]

• It should be stressed that the beta patch can be removed by simple deleting the beta folder or using bundled uninstaller and it coexists with the official release peacefully (almost - see the next point)
  
  
  
• If you are using bundled Launch Arma2 Beta Patch.lnk you are essentially playig a hybrid between beta's .exe and the official release's data (config, models, missions).
  By using both the .exe and the -beta mod you can try out the tweaks in the data but it can also make your savegames or edited missions unusable for other versions.
  You are not out of the danger even if you use only the .exe - for example BIS might change the format of saved files - so remember: You are using beta at your own risk.
  
  
  
• If there is a bug in the beta, try to reproduce it in the official version. If you can, then it has no place here and should be in the Troubleshooting forum.
  
  
  
• If you find regressions (something that worked in previous version but is now broken) please take your time to test it again in the supposedly okay version - maybe it is caused by new drivers, some automatic update or spider's nest in your PSU.

Also I have a plea to BIS for more detailed changelog. This was always a minor gripe with official patches but if you want the community to do good reporting then it should be clear what we should test in the first place.


Now for some §18 infraction:

I think there should be new (perhaps autogenerated with changelog on top) thread for every build, it is getting awfully crowded in the sticky one. The old build's thread should be closed by the time the new one appears. Allowing individual threads about issues here would make this subforum a clumsy replacement for existing CIT. Now there would be the tracker, troubleshooting forum, the big betapatch thread and also lots of issue threads here that might not even be related to betas itself - an awfull mess for developers and the moderating team. Maybe some dev should shine a little light on how they prefer this to be organized.

[Dwarden]

the changelogs are quite detailed for official patches if you read the full changelog version (not the shortened one used for media)

also changelogs for beta builds are 'sparse' because it contain only fraction of all fixes (that's why you see more build changes than changelog entries)

[InFireBaptize]

Placebo,
I registered at CIT but it wouldn't log me in, I requested and changed my password but still can't log in!! User name is being emailed to me along with link to change the password but still won't let me in!

[akd42]

Placebo,
I registered at CIT but it wouldn't log me in, I requested and changed my password but still can't log in!! User name is being emailed to me along with link to change the password but still won't let me in!

I have the same problem. I have asked three or four places here, but have not received any reply or help for days now. Seems official CIT is not really officially supported by anyone.

[Sickboy]

Placebo,
I registered at CIT but it wouldn't log me in, I requested and changed my password but still can't log in!! User name is being emailed to me along with link to change the password but still won't let me in!

I have the same problem. I have asked three or four places here, but have not received any reply or help for days now. Seems official CIT is not really officially supported by anyone.

When you register, you receive an activation mail. Perhaps it ended up in your spam folder.
Expecting support for CIT in a Beta Patching Testing Forums: Usage Guidelines thread seems not very useful.

You find Dev-Heaven support @ http://dev-heaven.net/projects/heaven/wiki/Support