This thread is meant to document and give solutions to many bugs plagued throughout our old chat program. If you find an issue and/or a solution, post it here and mention me so I can update this OP.

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- 1890-1904 refuse to launch on certain system configurations
Worlds will refuse to launch. Not entirely sure on what is the cause. The only clue known is that Worlds uses DirectDraw to get the screen resolution, which might not return properly on different modern graphics devices.

- Avatars turn invisible or non-existent after some time.
Users who have just loaded the drone (user object) of the effected user will be unable to see their avatar, while users who have already had the drone loaded will see an avatar. This is caused by the server not sending a packet with avatar information, presumably because the server may have forgotten it.

- Higher resolutions cause surfaces to appear "glitchy".
Graphics will appear like clown barf; a mix of changing colors and strands of a surface. This is very likely just a math limitation of the rendering engine.

- [SHAPER] Object ToolTips are unable to be deleted.
The Delete button on properties will not be re-enabled when selecting the ToolTip property, and it is not possible to set an empty string.

- Worlds is unable to control the mouse outside of it's window.
Using an action that takes control of the mouse cursor on Worlds will break if the position of the cursor reaches outside the application window, causing the application to disagree on the position of the cursor.

- [SHAPER] Right-clicking and selecting "Edit Properties" on an object after teleporting to a world with Multi-user off causes random glitches.
When teleporting to a world that semi-boots you off the server, the Edit Properties context menu will do unexplainable things. Some examples are: Setting you to a random avatar, teleporting you around the world, adding random actions to objects. It is unknown why this happens.

- World client de-sync
Teleporting or navigating to worlds or rooms occasionally de-syncs with the server. In this state, users will not appear and chats will not be sent.

- 1922 does not respect global shortcuts
Global shortcuts defined by external programs or by Windows do not function properly when the client is active. This mostly occurs when the chat text field is active.

- 1920+ will type three (3) characters at once instead of only one.
Attempting to type in chat or any other input field will sometimes insert three (3) of one character instead of one, making your messages look like spam.

- Worlds saved with 1920+ Shaper will be broken and inaccessible if a Shape or PosableShape is used.
A bug in the way Worlds 1920+ saves a world causes invalid data to be processed and written in the world file, preventing it from being loaded again. 1920a02 is unaffected.

- AdBanner is unstable, will attempt to take and control Window focus for the client.
An issue in the way AdBanner is implemented gives access controls to the WorldsPlayer window. Occasionally, the AdBanner will attempt to take window focus and succeed, preventing any keyboard actions to be used in the 3D view. It is still possible to use chats.

- Launching the client will leave the player on a black 3D screen for quite some time.
This is usually caused by a request to the server that isn't responding, and will wait out the entire timeout limit or until the server responds.

Recently in 2022, this is often caused by the servers not responding to the TIME protocol on port 37, and the player will wait until it's timeout or response.

- Unable to connect through built-in proxy handler
Occasionally, connecting through the built-in proxy handler (regardless of if your proxy supports it or not) will fail and be refused. Worlds sometimes does not even attempt to start a socket on the server ports.

De-sync after roaming around for some time--have to restart to see everyone in GroundZero.

Unable to select objects in the current world when the Shaper has been used to select objects in a different world

Software renderer breaks at extremely high resolutions

UI on older versions (1890 and 1904) can't detect mouse movements outside of it's bounding box area when running on Windows 10, for example, buttons will be stuck hovered indefinitely until they are clicked or until another button in that area is hovered instead.

Added a few of these. We already had one of them listed. Can I get more details about the mouse movements one? Worlds doesn't properly read or understand anything outside of it's window border, but I can't seem to reproduce the button issue described.

1922 (BOWIE WORLD VERSION) won't allow me to take screenshots unless I click outside of the program and then screenshot. Weirdest weird thing ever.

I get this issue too on 1904. Seems like most keyboard shortcuts don't register when Worlds has keyboard input active. I have to click out to use ShareX.

sorry for double postーI can record it for you and send an example

I'd also like to report somewhat random crashes that occur when opening Shaper in 1904 on Windows 98, despite 1904's alleged support for 9x. The render window will turn black and Worlds will completely lock up. This happens often but not all of the time.

Despite the claims Worlds should support Windows 98, it really doesn't. It runs, but it breaks more often than works. I think 1890 is the only version that actually should run fine on Windows 98.

One issue I have is when starting Worlds, it sticks on a loading black screen for quite some time. UI loads, it gets past its splash, but the 3D canvas remains black for a while. I'm pretty sure I found the cause, but I wonder if this is just a me issue or an everyone issue. I want to double-check before putting it in the OP.

Happens to me too. At least a minute and a half. Running on Win10, no VM, no graphic card conflicts.

Same here from time to time

Put a cause up in the OP. I'll figure out a way to fix it.

Think the $ROOM URL Macro is broken. All I can get on 1904 is the world name (not room) and cutting off the string. I thought I was using it wrong until I looked at Worlio logs.
Loading this URL in a webwall in NewWorld.world loads a 404:
http://files.worlio.com/users/wirlaburla/worldmaps/$WORLD/$ROOM/map.html
The URL should turn into this:
http://files.worlio.com/users/wirlaburla/worldmaps/World1/Room1/map.html
A look in the logs show:
"GET files.worlio.com/users/wirlaburla/worldmaps/World1/World1" 404

I know this is a valid macro and should work as it's officially mentioned in the table on "URL Macros" in the GammaDocs. However, it doesn't look like it'd be as useful as I hoped if it worked. Rereading the description for $ROOM, it says "The name of the room the user is in when the web object is created". Looks to be a problem if you use portals, but it'd be nice if anybody could test if this is a me issue or what client versions are affected.

Finally back on 1904 (on gnu plus linux) thanks to the guides. The big hurdle was the cnc ddraw issue, tysm! However I'm still unable to open/save worlds; when the open/save window ought to open, the worldsplayer window just goes borderless and I can't click, exit, interact unless I terminate the process. Played around with ddraw config settings to no avail :divthonk:
With the saving corrupted .world files bug in the later versions, I've been unable to work on worlds for a hot minute now. Next thing I'm going to try is running 1890 in a w95 vm, that has networking issues rn tho.

I'd recommend a minimum of 98, with better chances on XP. Not had the issue you've mentioned before, but I'd recommend running through the command-line to see if WINE is missing a dependency. I believe internally it uses X and GTK to display mixed windows.