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GoodSyncingPractices

Here are a series of suggestions for making sure that your lists never run into corruption and syncing issues:

Initial Setup

  • Be careful when creating new lists. One common reason for corruption is when a new list is being used for the first time.
  • Only use Auto-Add Mode during initial list creation. Because of the way an Auto-Add list insertion is stored, it can cause corruption if used after initial list creation.

Pre-Raid Preparation

It is absolutely essential prior to running a raid that all SKG Admins have the same lists. That is especially true if you are going to be running multiple simultaneous raids.

In the following procedural example, there are three SKG Admins, call them "Zhinjio", "Jabouty" and "Kazia". For the purposes of this example, I will also assume that they all have slightly different lists as they may not have all been on for the same looting events.

  1. Assign one of your SKG Admins to be the master syncer. It doesn't matter which one it is, eventually everyone will all have the same events. It is perhaps most practical to find the person whose SyncKey timestamp is most recent (closest to now). For the purposes of this example, "Zhinjio" will be the Master Syncer.
  2. Zhinjio selects the Players List, and clicks on "Sync Status" on the Sync Panel.
  3. Both Kazia and Jabouty answer Zhinjio's request and they send along their SyncKeys for their Player's Lists. Zhinjio's Sync Panel should now reflect their data.
  4. If the SyncKeys do not match, Zhinjio clicks on the button corresponding to the other SKG Admin whose key was not the same, causing his lists to update with their new data. (Note: this has not changed Kazia or Jabouty's lists). Zhinjio repeats this step until he has sync with ALL the other SKG Admins.
  5. At this point, if syncs in the Player's Lists were necessary, both Kazia and Jabouty need to Sync Zhinjio's Player's List with their own. One at a time, both Kazia and Jabouty click on "Sync Status", and then on the button for "Zhinjio" that appears. After this, all three SKG Admins will have the same Player's List.
  6. Zhinjio then selects the Roll List to be used for the raids tonight
  7. Zhinjio again requests Sync Status, this time for the selected Roll List, and receives the SyncKeys from Kazia and Jabouty.
  8. Assuming their SyncKeys are not the same, he again clicks on the buttons with their names to sync his lists with their events.
  9. Once complete, and again, one at a time, Kazia and Jabouty should both request Sync Status and click on Zhinjio's named button.
  10. All three SKG Admins will now be correctly synced to start the raid.

Start of Raid Activities

  • Add any players into the lists that are new to your raid group. Remember, new players need to be added into the Player's List first, then the roll list. The "Find Missing" and "Add Missing" buttons should make this task very easy.
  • Doing a quick check again here to make sure all your SKG Admins lists are synced is a good idea.
  • Be sure whomever is going to be handling your loot events during the raid has set any players on "Reserve" that should be.

During a Raid

  • Although not technically required, it is usually a good idea to have the Master Looter be the SKG Admin who processes loot events and handles bidding.
  • If an SKG Admin swaps toons mid-raid in order to ensure the proper class makeup for some boss, be sure s/he has a Synced List before doing anything with lists.
  • If the person handling looting switches toons mid-raid, also make sure they once again set anyone to "Reserve" who should be.

Post Raid Activities

  • If multiple groups were running during a single night, before any group's SKG Admin leaves for the night, they should verify that their SyncKeys match the other SKG Admins. If not, they may have some loot event processing the other admins did not catch (perhaps they were logged out, or whatever). Be sure to sync up again before logging out for the night.
  • Finally, the last SKG Admin to log out on a raid night should publish his SKG.lua up to a website tool (like SKG Web) to make sure there is at least one offline copy of the raid data.
  • Once the list is up on the website and verified, perform a list snapshot to make syncing quicker next time.