Weekend Maintenance & Next Simulator
Brant 
Two issues with the disk have worsened this past week, so the 3rd maintenance period of the year will begin (and hopefully end) this weekend to fully resolve them.
The first issue began near the end of January and occurred on the same drive where active simulator sessions are saved. It likely impacted simulator performance across both BrantSteele.com and BrantSteele.net and may have led to more frequent resets. I identified the source of the error in the logs.
I’ve been monitoring the second issue for the past several years. A storage drive, different from the main drive, is filling due to the accumulation of saved seasons on the BrantSteele.net simulators. Under certain criteria, saved simulations that have not been recently viewed are regularly backed up to an external drive and removed from the server. Upon user request, I can recover these seasons for them. The more simulations are saved, the longer this has been taking, so I have been doing this less frequently. Part of this maintenance will involve coming up with a better structure to inform users if and when the simulation was deleted to assist with the recovery process.
The other part of the maintenance involves finally releasing an updated internal structure for the Hunger Games Simulator to reduce the size of saved season since that is the most commonly used simulator. My goal is to do this without any downtime or noticeable differences to the Hunger Games Simulator itself – just a brief period of time where saving/loading is unavailable. Without these changes, the storage drive will fill before the end of the year and saving simulations will no longer be possible under the current removal criteria. I hope that after these changes go into effect, I will only have to do save season removals once or twice per year and can further relax the removal criteria.
ALL MAINTENANCE HAS BEEN COMPLETED!
For those of you interested in the next simulator, it will be the Celebrity Big Brother US Simulator. It’s been in development for the past few months and is getting closer to being released. Estimated release dates for this and the other remaining Big Brother and Survivor simulators are not available, but more teasers will be posted as it gets closer to completion.
.com Server Changes
A significant structural update was completed for the .com server and uploaded on Sunday morning. Adjustments were made to all of the simulators, the images, and other files that should make it easier to maintain and update simulators in the future. Most of the changes were intended to be behind-the-scenes, but some changes to the Edit Cast pages should be noticeable.
Unfortunately, this update caused some bugs, and I may not be aware of all of them. Please report any issues you notice, and I will work on addressing these as soon as possible.
Bugs Fixed:
– Ghost Island logo is incorrect.
– Various color and black & white cast photos stopped working.
– Alliances no longer work in the Big Brother Canada 5, Big Brother Over the Top, Survivor 33, Survivor 34, Total Drama Island, and The Challenge: The Duel simulators.
– Merge tribes and tribes added after the start of a season no longer show on Edit Cast for S33 & S34.
– Big Brother 10-20 Player Templates link no longer working.
– Big Brother Canada 5: The winner page redirects to the start.
Thank you for your feedback. Comments have been turned off. Please feel free to use the Contact Form for additional bug reports.
Big Brother Canada 6 Cast Added
Cast photos from Big Brother Canada 6 have been added to all of the simulators.
All of the shows with cast photos available on the simulators are listed in the Cast Photo Overview. Please use the Contact Form if you have any issues with the current photos or see anything in the Cast Photo Overview that needs updated. Thank you.
Another 100 New Cast Photos Added
Cast photos from The Amazing Race Canada 5, Are You the One 6, MasterChef 8, America’s Next Top Model 24, and Dancing with the Stars 25 have been added to all of the simulators.
All of the shows with cast photos available on the simulators are listed in the Cast Photo Overview. Please use the Contact Form if you have any issues with the current photos or see anything in the Cast Photo Overview that needs updated. Thank you.
The Big Brother Canada 6 cast photos will be added after they’re released, and more news will follow.
Over 100 New Cast Photos Added
Cast photos from The Challenge 31, The Amazing Race 30, RuPaul’s Drag Race 10, RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3, Big Brother Brasil 18, and Hell’s Kitchen 17 have been added to all of the simulators.
All of the shows with cast photos available on the simulators are listed in the Cast Photo Overview. Please use the Contact Form if you have any issues with the current photos or see anything in the Cast Photo Overview that needs updated. Thank you.
Plans are being finalized for the next simulator, but I don’t want to announce it prematurely.
Celebrity Big Brother UK Cast Photos Added
Cast photos have been added for all of the housemates in the 20th and 21st series of Celebrity Big Brother UK. The 21st series ended earlier this month.
All of the shows with cast photos available on the simulators are listed in the Cast Photo Overview. Please use the Contact Form if you have any issues with the current photos or see anything in the Cast Photo Overview that needs updated. Thank you.
I appreciate all of the feedback and images sent since the last update. I hope to catch up on these soon and continue some much needed simulator updates.
Celebrity Big Brother US Cast Photos Update
Alternate official cast photos have been added for the 11 houseguests in the first Celebrity Big Brother US cast.
All of the shows with cast photos available on the simulators are listed in the Cast Photo Overview. Please use the Contact Form if you have any issues with the current photos or see anything in the Cast Photo Overview that needs updated. Thank you.
More cast photos are complete and will be added soon.
Celebrity Big Brother US Cast Photos Added
Cast photos have been added for the 1st US season of Celebrity Big Brother, featuring 11 celebrity houseguests. This season is set to premiere on February 7th.
Please use the Contact Form if you see any issues. If alternate cast photos are released, these may be added as well.
Survivor 36 Cast Photos Added
Cast photos have been added for the 36th US season of Survivor, called Survivor Ghost Island. You can see the logo, cast, and tribes for this season here.
Please use the Contact Form if you see any issues.
An alternate set of photos is also available and could be added soon. In addition, the cast of US Celebrity Big Brother and other cast photos should be added in the near future.
Server Maintenance Complete
Server maintenance is complete on BrantSteele.net. This took longer than expected, as a few issues came up with the Survivor simulator. Its code needed adjusted to be compatible with the latest version of PHP. Please report any issues you see, including performance problems, lack of functionality, or error messages. Thank you.
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