Yeehaw Games’ bizarre adventure or yet another Patreon clusterfuck (Patreon)

Yeah, that’s my face from the last several hours fixing shit from yet another awesome™ Patreon update. This post is not directly connected to any of the games, I’m here just to share the experience with you. If you are not interested in it, just skip the post.

As some of you may have noticed yesterday, my main post or the “About” page looked weird. I finished restoring it, but feel free to contact me if something looks weird of doesn’t work appropriately. Patreon deployed an update that somehow affected the core HTML function of the site. It’s the thing that draws and assembles the page you can see right now.

Somehow these absolute geniuses™ managed to screw it up so badly that the whole page lost literally all formatting. That’s what I saw in the preview for updating the main post. And I’m not talking about advanced stuff like screenshot miniatures that allow you to see the whole picture after a click. I mean, everything went down the drain, even the basic paragraph formatting.

But I just needed to update a few links in the main post for the new game update. It will be fine, right? It’s just the preview thing, right? Right? Well, I hoped so. I’ve updated the links, saved the changes, and reloaded the main page.

Insert Jojo’s “OH NO!” meme here. Patreon can’t handle such advanced tech.

Yeah, you guessed it right. The main page turned into an unreadable text wall. The very same that I’ve seen on the preview. Well, shit... Guess I’ll contact support and try to fix it myself, at least try to do what I can. Oh, and let me tell you, filling out a support ticket form is such an awesome experience™ in itself. Do remind me, why I have to fill out stuff like the email bound to my account when I’m logged in at the moment? Ri~ight, the tech just isn’t there... Need to wait a few hundred years, I guess.

Okay, let’s try to do something about this mess. So, the on-site graphical editor is limited to 8-9 strings of text. I assure you it’s absolutely convenient™ to use if you have more than 800 words in your main post. Well, let’s start cracking. I’ve fixed the main issues in the graphical editor, saved it, and clicked preview.

Right, this doesn’t look like a shit brick anymore, but why there are no line breaks? It’s that thing that you create by hitting the “Enter” button in most text editors. Huh, weird... Okay, maybe one line break isn’t enough? Let’s add 4. Still no change. Err... I see them in the preview, but not on the actual page even after a few reloads and several browsers? That’s interesting...

Guess I have to use the HTML editor. And it will add another few hundreds of under-the-carpet code to fuck my eyes better. Did I mention that I absolutely adore™ the on-site editor window with a limit of 5-6 rows and no way of extending it? Hilariously enough, I could do this BEFORE this last update. And, yes, somehow it has fewer rows on the screen than the default graphical one. Don’t ask me why... Okay, to the HTML realm we go.

And that’s the first time in the evening when I laughed out loud. They completely fucked up the code. Some of you may not be familiar with HTML, but it doesn’t take a genius to understand this case. Different text blocks are separated in paragraphs in HTML, like this <p>Hi, I’m a text block!</p>. These don’t include line breaks on their own and require a separate tag <br> for them.

And that’s the thing. By hitting “Enter” in the graphical editor, you are creating empty paragraphs, not line breaks. Needless to say, it worked fine before the last update... Okay, what does it mean? When assembling the page, the HTML engine ignores empty paragraphs since there’s nothing inside. You can’t use these as a substitute for line breaks, but Patreon tries to do so. What’s their total staff? Around 100? Apparently, it’s not enough. Or maybe too much... I liked Patreon much better a few years ago...

Right, cleared up everything. Okay, everything looks good. Oh... Aside from that, Windows download that’s stuck on the same row as the header for download links. Meh, I don’t want to go back to the HTML editor again. I’ll just adjust it in the graphical editor. Even an empty paragraph will do for pushing the download link down. Everything will be fine, right? Right?! I save the changes from the graphical editor and check out the page itself.

Insert omaewa mo shindeiru meme here.

Ye~eah... Everything turns back into shit. Wut?! How?! I return to the HTML editor to check what the hell went wrong. And that’s the second time I laughed out loud that day. All the <br> code parts I’ve inserted are... Gone. Not even a single one remains. If I add them in the HTML editor, save, then add another change via the graphical editor and save the changes again, all line breaks disappear. Truly, Patreon went above and beyond with this one... So, I’m back to square one. Alright, I guess we have to go back to the future...

*20 minutes later* Okay, everything looks good and proper. Save. Now, the only thing that’s missing is screenshot snippets that allow viewers to open a new tab for the image with a simple left mouse click. Not a problem, it’s added by a simple “target=”_blank" in the HTML editor. I add these to a pair of screenshots and test out the results. Nothing, they are still opening in the main window. Nah, that’s a brain fart. I’m definitely missing something. Gotta get some sleep.

And the story continues today. I got back home and decided to fix screenshots, to no avail. The code worked fine before the last update but doesn’t right now. I’ve tried out different screenshots and different ways to apply the code snippets, cleared out the browser cache and tried out different browsers. No, nothing. The revelation was just as dumb as the platform it’s based on.

You see, after adding that code, the site doesn’t save it after you click the “Save changes” button. Who could have thought about something like this aside from a true genius™? That’s a bullshit level that shouldn’t be attainable in the world of mortals. Are we transcending with Patreon’s help? Looks like I’m going to hell, since I can smell a lot of burnt wood. Oh, wait... That’s my chair and a lot of buttfire. Nvm.

Oh, do you remember that support ticket that I filled out more than a day ago? You know, about that critical fuckup the web presentation? And the big question – did they contact me at all? I think you know the answer...

So, next time Jack Conte will be boasting about doing everything for the creators on a stream – give him a fat middle finger for me.

Someone recommended me make a separate support platform aside from Patreon a while ago. Looks like it’s time. I’ve started preparing a Subscribestar account and will post an update if everything goes well...