Why, of course they don't want us to know ---- I believe the only reason now for the delay is that the final decision to end the game is still being pondered by someone, somewhere.

Surely we can all agree that if there is not a Christmas Event/Winter Event, the game is done.

I have been playing for 3 or 4 years on an iPad and have never had any problems. I bought a new one several years ago and no problem getting it on the new one. I do always update my iPad and computers and no glitches. Seems to me from reading this forum everyday most problems are on the computer games. I may be wrong.

whitebutterfly54 (redbutter54) said:

To my feeble brain, that has nothing to do with the number of friends or gifting, but something technical within the game not allowing it to save OR a problem with BF servers.

I think LvlSlgr said it best - there are inconsistencies with this massive glitch, in that some problems are different from others, and some are losing their games while others are not. So it makes it harder to pinpoint the underlying culprit, especially when tests for hopeful fixes don't give the desired results.

LvlSlgr - thank you so much for extending your knowledge and experience, to help us understand better what is going on.  :)

My dad was a computer programmer - but with planes (like the F16) not games. lol But I recall, even after his retirement, when his former dept. at Lockheed ran into big glitches, they would call him and he would be on the phone/computer for days, helping them out...

I don't necessarily disagree, but with all the inconsistencies, why put out information that says the problems stem from players who have over 450 friends or gifting or whatever else they've blamed it on.  I can't swear to it, but I think mine was one of the first games lost, if not the very first.  And it had absolutely nothing to do with the number of friends I have.

I told EG the download was extraordinarily slow for the October 4 update, which is very unusual for me.  I assumed it was simply because of a traffic jam with everyone downloading at the same time.  My updates usually go very fast.  That was the only indication of an issue.  After the download was complete, the game played normally.  And closed normally.  I didn't access the social tab and didn't send any gifts.

So that has nothing to do with it.  They need to focus on the commonality of players' games who reverted to Level 1.  Not just throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks.  But have they reached out to everyone who lost their game to ask questions?  No.

I honestly believe the problem is with BF servers and naturally EG isn't going to say that.  So they blame the players for having too many friends.  Just like they did in 2016 when they blamed the players for moving around the App Folder (as AllanaX7 jogged my memory).

whitebutterfly54 (redbutter54) said:

why put out information that says the problems stem from players who have over 450 friends or gifting

That Facebook page where that message was posted is run by Big Fish - not Elephant Games. If you scrolled on down you would have seen many other posts by Big Fish. Yes, the post is signed "The Midnight Castle Team", but that could be the Big Fish "Midnight Castle Team". I think BF was just trying to post something to pacify those who are complaining and they don't know any more than the rest of us. 

I thought the trouble began with the Castle Challenge, some days after the Oct update.  

There is also a post on here (somewhere) that connected issues to a certain quest in the new update. 

True, the social area (gifting, wish lists, invitations) is connected somehow but NOT because of the number of game friends.

whitebutterfly54 (redbutter54) said:

But have they reached out to everyone who lost their game to ask questions?  No.

Whitebutterfly54 has a good point.  I too thought, if they are having such a hard time pinning down the cause, they need some data they don't have - and that comes from us!  I think it's still not too late to put out a brief query to players that had their games revert back to level one.  I won't guess what questions should be asked because that, of course, would depend on what information they already have and what they don't have, so they can correlate it all and narrow their field of concentration.

If they collected a Dr. Felix report, they collected a lot of information about your individual game and what you did during the time before the crash.  When Sunken Secrets crashed, I lost 2 games. Big Fish collected a Dr. Felix report on both but kept requesting additional information from only one. They were on different devices running the same OS. I'll never know what was different in the information for the two games but I'd guess one had information that directed them toward a particular problem. That game was down for months but eventually I had both games back. It is no longer supported and the replacement game, "Decursed" is only available for mobile devices. 

I am happy to report that all of my efforts worked and my game is now intact and fixed!  All of you nay-sayers who said to quit playing til glitch was fixed were WRONG!  I kept on playing, kept on contacting EG, and finally got my game back to where I was before this problem occured!   I am happily over 10.5 millions coins, etc, which I have honestly earned over the years, and couldn't be happier with the response from EG.

To say that the advice to stop playing until the problem was fixed was "wrong" is a real stretch ---- the game was horribly broken, even to the point that Elephant sent in game gifts as an apology. The game was ruined for a great number of players who may or may not have gotten their games restored, and while it is very nice that you got your game back, your case is hardly typical. There are still lingering problems, there are still players without their proper game, and there are still many things wrong with the game.

Your case (with its very happy conclusion) is an exception ---- not the rule. The "nay-sayers" as you call them were not wrong but, rather, were exactly correct. Stopping playing was correct and saved many games.