darkSpyro

Question my series 1 Zap doesnt work, i have a series 2 but series 1 is fully leveled. I went to activisions support site for the first time i put in the model number, not gonna post it, but i put in the one on the bottom and it says Model Number incorrect. Has anyone else had these problems?

1 310-255-2050 call them 8-D

Agree with Marge, just call Activision's support team by phone. If you get a service rep on the line that sounds like a dunce, just hang up and try again; you'll probably get a different service rep the second try.

You can repair the Skylanders figures in Giants. If you put a faulty character on the portal, go to the pause menu, options and then there should be something about repairing broken figures - it's similar to what you could do on the 3DS version of SSA.

Quote: bionicle2809

You can repair the Skylanders figures in Giants. If you put a faulty character on the portal, go to the pause menu, options and then there should be something about repairing broken figures - it's similar to what you could do on the 3DS version of SSA.

I believe this "fix" only works with some consoles. I know it didn't work for me on PS3. Also, this "fix" only works when placing the Skylander on the Portal causes a "this Skylander isn't working" message on the TV screen. In many cases, a broken Skylander just doesn't result in any interaction with the Portal/game, at all.

So what's causing these problems? I'm mystified as I've never had one break like this and I have over 100.

it just gives the blank character screen and says character cannot be recognized.

I know what it does, I was asking for why these figures get broke in the first place. Are you guys bouncing them off walls or something?

Quote: GhostRoaster

I know what it does, I was asking for why these figures get broke in the first place. Are you guys bouncing them off walls or something?

Lol the whole 'bouncing off walls' thing. Hilarious. :-P

Quote: Kesrael

Quote: GhostRoaster

I know what it does, I was asking for why these figures get broke in the first place. Are you guys bouncing them off walls or something?

Lol the whole 'bouncing off walls' thing. Hilarious. :-P

LOL...agreed.. ..to funny ...can see them now "Stupid Wreacking Ball .....*snatchs off portal*....lets see how good of a wreacking ball you realy are.....*throws against wall*..."

Dangit! I had an overly long post for this but it got lost when I left some stuff closed. Dangit.

Long story short, I've heard that figures get these issues due to a bad byte being written to them.
I don't know how viable this claim is and I heard it a long time ago. However, it does explain why figures reset when you fix them- it will clear all written data, including the garbage and formats to a stable default.

For some reason, the PC version seems to cause these issues a lot(like... To the point I just can't play it now without a figure breaking straight away ), with no trigger in particular that I can find.

I was surmising that the data on the chip was somehow being corrupted. I wonder what percentage of the issues are occurring with folks who still use the wireless portal? I hear there's a lot of verification code if you use wireless.

Also, I also wonder if folks are removing the character from the portal at inopportune times, which cause this.

Yeah, I hear the PC version is good at corrupting. In my mind, the PC version of SSA doesn't exist.

I guess I'm wondering what's the use case that causes the corruption---cause I dont want to be the guy doing it. I'm a good portal master and make sure either the Spyro or Eon icon isn't on screen before I remove it...I guess I follow instructions very well.

Quote: GhostRoaster

I was surmising that the data on the chip was somehow being corrupted. I wonder what percentage of the issues are occurring with folks who still use the wireless portal? I hear there's a lot of verification code if you use wireless.

Also, I also wonder if folks are removing the character from the portal at inopportune times, which cause this.

Well, to date, my wife and I have only ever used the wireless portal from SSA, despite owning several copies of Giants, and have never had any such issues. My wife is bad for yanking a figure mid-cutscene or before a level has completely loaded, causing the game to demand that she put it back before it will proceed, so I don't think either the wireless portal or inopportune figure removal are necessarily solid reasons. Good guesses, but I've never had an issue with either situation and we've both used the wireless portal as well as experienced less-than-stellarly-planned character removal a lot.

-Doug

Quote: darkchylde28

Quote: GhostRoaster

I was surmising that the data on the chip was somehow being corrupted. I wonder what percentage of the issues are occurring with folks who still use the wireless portal? I hear there's a lot of verification code if you use wireless.

Also, I also wonder if folks are removing the character from the portal at inopportune times, which cause this.

Well, to date, my wife and I have only ever used the wireless portal from SSA, despite owning several copies of Giants, and have never had any such issues. My wife is bad for yanking a figure mid-cutscene or before a level has completely loaded, causing the game to demand that she put it back before it will proceed, so I don't think either the wireless portal or inopportune figure removal are necessarily solid reasons. Good guesses, but I've never had an issue with either situation and we've both used the wireless portal as well as experienced less-than-stellarly-planned character removal a lot.

-Doug

Understood, and I'm sure the game has a lot of error correcting logic to detect this kind of stuff...but it's clear SOMETHING causes this...it has to be an incorrect CRC on a data segment, or perhaps there are a few places in the game where if you remove the figure in the manner you describe you can have a dead figure.

the data block is duplicated, if one corrupts it falls back to the next one to allow for corrupt writes.

It does its write to the data block it's NOT using, then increments a counter on that block to show it's now the valid block.
This is a very reliable way to ensure no corruption.

How they DO get corrupted? I have no idea!

I have a couple of half-corrupted figures, figures which cause the game to complain. Most were perfectly fine at first. With ALL of them, while I'm playing, at random times the game reports that I've removed it, sometimes re-reading it on its own, showing random element symbols until I get the "There's a problem with this toy" screen. I find with these figures that it makes a difference WHERE it is on the portal. I'll often get these issues in the center of the portal and on the absolute edge, but NEAR the edge is solid and stable. Actually, just got Boomer in a trade, and he started exhibiting this behaviour basically right away. Lucky he still works like the others, LOL! I wonder if the issue, at least with mine, is that the RFID chip in these figures is embedded deeper or something, and the portal's broadcasting field is weak/strong in the areas I've indicated (I know the antenna is a circle around the rim, so near the edge means near the antenna).