Goodsol Solitaire Blog

Play Gold Mine Solitaire Online

 

Play Gold Mine solitaire online, a Klondike type game.

Play Thumb and Pouch Online!

New, play Thumb and Pouch solitaire online, a Klondike type game.

Play Fours Up Solitaire Online

Play Fours Up solitaire online, a Busy Aces type game that I invented.

Pretty Good Solitaire v15.20.1

A new version of Pretty Good Solitaire for Windows is available!

Version 15.20.1 is a maintenance release that fixes or improves a few things:

1) Version 15.20.1 fixes a long standing bug in Penguin and a couple of other related games that affected a small number of users.

2) Version 15.20.1 makes some improvements in the look and feel of the game for Windows 10.  In particular, it changes the default main menu colors to look similar to what the default colors were back in the Windows XP era.  It will not change the colors for anyone who has changed the menu colors by clicking on the Options button, Main Menu area, it only changes the defaults for people who have not changed the colors or for new installations.

Version 15.20.1 can be downloaded from the Pretty Good Solitaire download page.

 

 

Play Storehouse Solitaire Online!

New today, play Storehouse Solitaire online.

Play WestCliff Solitaire Online!

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Play Congress Solitaire Online!

Today's new online solitaire game is Congress.  Play Congress Solitaire Online.

IOS 9 and our iPad Games

Note: Pretty Good Solitaire is (finally) approved!  Look for it in the Updates section of the App Store.  Goodsol Solitaire 101, Most Popular Solitaire, FreeCell Plus and A Little Solitaire have also been approved.

 

Apple released a new version of iOS yesterday, iOS 9.

Some users are reporting problems with our games in iOS9.  Specifically, when they try to play a game by clicking on the game name on the main menu, the game crashes.

Unfortunately, we have been completely unable to duplicate this problem.  The game works fine in iOS 9 on every iPad we have tested it on.

If you are experiencing this problem, we desperately need crash reports of it.  Apple does collect crash reports from users who set their privacy settings to allow it, but unfortunately at this point no one who has the settings to allow sending crash reports to Apple has had the crash and we have no crash reports to look at.

So we badly need someone who is getting this crash to send us a crash report directly.  This can be done by syncing your iPad to iTunes on a Mac or Windows computer as below.

Syncing with iTunes

To find crash reports, sync your device with iTunes.  After syncing, crash reports will be copied to a specific location on your hard drive.  

1. Sync your device with iTunes on your desktop or laptop.
2. After syncing, look for crash logs in the correct folder.  See below for a list of folders for each operating system.
3. In this folder, look for files starting with the name of the game that crashed.

NOTE FOR MAC USERS: ~/Library is hidden by default on Mac OS X.  To easily get this folder, open the Finder application, then hold the "option" key while clicking on the "Go" menu.  You should see a menu item for "Library."  Click on that, then continue navigating to Logs, CrashReporter, etc.

Locations of Crash Report Folders:

Mac OS X: ~/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/MobileDevice/<DEVICE_NAME>

Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<USERNAME>\Application Data\Apple Computer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\<DEVICE_NAME>

WIndows Vista/7/8/10: C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Apple Computer\Logs\CrashReporter\MobileDevice\<DEVICE_NAME>

If you can find the crash report and send it to me at [email protected], it will really help us find the problem.

Update Sept 18 - 9 am:  We now have a few crash reports and are looking at them to try to find the problem.  We could still use more crash reports to help.

Update Sept 18 - 12 pm:   If you can't send a crash report, it will also help us to know what model of iPad you have.  To find the model number of your iPad, look on the back of the iPad in the small print, it has a model number.  It starts with A and a bunch of numbers, such as A1458.  We'd like to know what model numbers are having the problem.  There is more on iPad model numbers here.

Update Sept 18 - 10 pm:  So far *all* of the reports of crashing are from iPad model A1458 or related models.  These are the 4th generation iPads.  There are so far no reports of crashes from the first 3 generations of iPad or from newer models such as the iPad Air.

Update Sept 19 - 8 pm:  It is now clear that the crashes occur only on the 4th generation iPad models.  We have duplicated the crash on one of these iPads and are trying to find the problem.  Something definitely changed for iOS 9 on these iPads.  We hope to figure out what is wrong as soon as possible.

Update Sept 21 - 9 am:  We still haven't been able to find the cause of the crashes, nor can we figure out why it is crashing on 4th generation iPads and not crashing on any other iPads.  We haven't yet determined if it is a bug in the game or a bug in iOS9.  We don't need any more crash reports (unless your iPad is not a 4th generation iPad, as that would be interesting).

Update Sept 22 - 9 am: It's found!  It's a bug in iOS 9 affecting 4th generation iPads.  We think we have a way around the bug that we can do and we will be testing that and hopefully submitting to the AppStore soon.  Thanks for your patience!

Update Sept 22 - 6 pm: A fixed version of Pretty Good Solitaire for iPad has been submitted to the AppStore.  It is now waiting for approval by Apple (unfortunately, this takes about a week usually).   Now we need to apply the same fix to the other 4 iPad apps and get them in the queue as well.

Update Sept 26 - 10 am: We are still working on getting all of the app updates submitted to the App Store.  Pretty Good Solitaire was the first submitted.  It everything goes well it could be approved sometime around Tuesday, but that is just a guess (of course, that assumes it gets approved, and with Apple you never know.  Just because it is identical to the previous version except for one little bug fix doesn't mean Apple will approve it - they reject for all kinds of crazy reasons).  Thanks for your patience - hopefully you will be back playing solitaire in just a few days.

Update Sept 30th 12 pm: 

 

As a developer working with Apple is so frustrating. In comparison Microsoft is like friendly, happy little teddy bears.

— Thomas Warfield (@goodsolitaire) September 30, 2015

So after a week of waiting for a review, Apple rejected our fix for Pretty Good Solitaire. We are not sure why, but it looks like version issues with their development tools, or maybe a corrupted build. In any case, we have re-submitted Pretty Good Solitaire to Apple to be reviewed again. Unfortunately, there are 2 issues:

1. Because we had to update to Apple's latest development tools, we had to drop support for iOS 5.1.1, which means that the game will no longer update on the iPad 1.  The current version will still play on iPad 1's of course, it is just that they will no longer receive updates.  (and this particular crashing bug does not affect the iPad 1 anyway - but this affects future updates).
2. Because of Apple's insane policy, it means it may be another week before Apple will review and hopefully approve the update.  This is incredibly frustrating.  I am trying to see if there is any way to get them to look at it faster, but Apple just doesn't really care about getting updates out fast.

In short, it is still going be some time before we get out the update (at least for Pretty Good Solitaire).   The other 4 apps remain in the queue to get reviewed over the next few days - they may or may not have the same issues, we will see.

 

Update Oct 2 9 am:  This entire affair has now moved into the surreal.   We have had another rejection of Pretty Good Solitaire by Apple, this time saying that the game does not run on an iPhone 6.  Given that it is an iPad only app that of course does not run on iPhones, this is the most bizarre rejection yet.  We are waiting for a reply from Apple about this totally crazy rejection.   

Given that essentially we are making a simple one-line fix to an existing app, the approval process should not be taking this long or be this complicated.  This is simply the most frustrating experience we have ever had with Apple.

Goodsol Solitaire 101 should be getting reviewed soon, we will see how that one goes.

 

Update Oct 4 9 am:  We have now had a total of 8 rejections from Apple for updates to the apps.  It seems there is some new problem, apparently introduced in iOS 9.0.2 (released last Wednesday), that is causing the app to freeze on some iPads, but we simply haven't been able to confirm it.  We are stuck trying to catch a moving target - as soon as one thing is fixed, Apple releases a new iOS version and more problems are created.  Never before have we had to deal with anything remotely like this.

 

Update Oct 8 11 am:  We are still unable to get an updates approved by Apple.  We have been unable to determine what the problem is that Apple is having with the games - the games are identical to the previously approved versions except for a one line of code fix.  But something involving iOS 9 is preventing Apple from approving them.

It appears we are not the only ones having problems with iOS 9.  A number of companies are having so much trouble getting their apps to work with iOS 9 that they have pulled their apps completely from the App Store.  See these links:  Why So Many Games are Disappearing from the App Store, Here is Every Game that has Vanished from the App Store Recently, Now Telltale's Games Have Been Pulled from the App Store.  There is not enough detail to tell if any of these other companies are having the same issues that we are, but it shows just how troublesome iOS 9 has been for developers.

At this time there is no reason for us to pull our games from the App Store, as the current versions work fine for most users and only crash on one type of iPad (the 4th generation models).  We continue to look for a solution that will get our updates approved and hope that maybe Apple fixes some of its bugs in iOS 9 with future updates.

Update Oct 21 12 pm:  Not much new to report, we seem to have fallen down a rabbit hole at Apple. Our latest build of Pretty Good Solitaire has currently been "In Review" for almost 7 days (note to developers who know the Apple review statuses, I mean "In Review", not "Waiting for Review").  Since normally apps remain in this status for a few hours, we have no idea what this means.

 

Update Oct 25 9 am:  Pretty Good Solitaire has finally been approved.  The ending was as surreal as the entire affair.  Yesterday, it was rejected again (10th rejection) and again it was rejected because it did not work on an iPhone.  Again, we replied to Apple that the game is iPad only, of course it does not work on iPhones.  We asked why they persist on testing an iPad only app on iPhones when it is clearly set as iPad only.  The response today was an approval.  Why they couldn't have responded to this almost a month ago when we asked the same question is a complete mystery.  Pretty Good Solitaire 1.41 is now available in the updates section of the AppStore, we now work on getting the other 4 apps resubmitted (and who knows what will happen there).

 

Update Nov 5 5 pm:  Most Popular Solitaire just got rejected again, basically the same as all the previous rejections.  It appears Apple didn't fix whatever is causing them to falsely reject our apps and we are going to have to fight out each one.  I hope we get success on them soon.  We know we can do it because we got Pretty Good Solitaire approved, but everything with Apple takes a long time.

Update Nov 5 8 pm:  Goodsol Solitaire 101 has been approved.  The update should now be in the AppStore.

Update Nov 6 12 pm: FreeCell Plus has been rejected.  Same nonsense. 

Update Nov 6 2 pm: After my appeal of yesterday's rejection, Most Popular Solitaire is now accepted and the update should be appearing in the AppStore this afternoon.  Also, we may have had a breakthrough in discovering just why Apple has been rejecting our apps - I might have more on this later.

Update Nov 7 9 am: FreeCell Plus has now been approved and the update should be appearing in the AppStore this morning.

Update Nov 7 9 pm:  A Little Solitaire has now been approved and the update should be appearing in the AppStore tonight.  The whole affair is now finally over.

Play Accordion Solitaire Online!

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