Why is tweakscale no longer supported on CKAN?

[Corporalsimmons]

The rant says "WIP" on their site, but its been 4 months.

[Cheesecake]

7 hours ago, Corporalsimmons said:

The rant says "WIP" on their site, but its been 4 months.

Why didn`t you read and write in the Tweakscale-Thread?

@Lisiashas clarified why he does not continue to support CKAN.

Quote

Unfortunately, yes. I do not support CKAN anymore.

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That pesky Warning will only be displayed when the Module Manager's cache changes, what means that CKAN installed or deinstalled something, And, even that, twice a month at maximum (I will change it to once a month in the next release).

This doesn't means you are on your own, TweakScale IS SUPPORTED, so any problems you get while using TS will be diagnosed and fixed.

But I will not handle problems created by CKAN itself, as that horrible breakage that happens when CKAN mess up things and renders TweakScale unusable (most of them are caused by KSP itself, but yet…). These problems are time consuming to diagnose and fix, and I'm barely have time to support my own add'ons these days, I need to adjust my workload somehow.

So, if TweakScale was working and then you ran CKAN and it stopped working, this is a CKAN issue and you should ask help to the CKAN guys. I can help if I have time available, but absolutely no promises I will ever be able to respond a post about.

If TweakScale is misbehaving, or is issuing Warnings or Errors about Parts, then this is something related to TweakScale and I will gladly help you on whatever I can to have your problem fixed.

As a Rule of Thumb

• if you managed to reach the Main Menu and only there TweakScale starts to yell, it's a problem related to TweakScale. Please report and I fill fix it.
• if TweakScale yells before you reach Main Menu, then this is 99.95% of the time a problem unrelated to TweakScale, and I suggest you reach first the CKAN guys for triage - if they diagnose a problem on TweakScale itself (there're still that 0.05% of chance), I will fix it.

Cheers!

 

[HebaruSan]

Is anything that's being complained about there actually different from when users upgrade mods manually?

[HebaruSan]

Anyway, if such an issue truly exists and anyone stumbles upon it, please report it so it can be investigated and fixed (rather than posting a dubious "rant" in some obscure place, which virtually guarantees nothing would improve):

• https://github.com/KSP-CKAN/CKAN/issues

So far there have been no such reports resembling the above. Frankly given how CKAN works, it just sounds like blaming someone else for the currently active fork of TweakScale working poorly if you install other mods and keep them up to date.

Edited July 24, 2023 by HebaruSan

[HebaruSan]

One further note: The current maintainer of TweakScale has not requested to have TweakScale removed from CKAN. CKAN has a strict policy that such requests are to be honored; mods are only in CKAN if the author agrees to it and doesn't request removal. You can draw your own conclusion about how seriously to take talk of "ditched" and "support" based on that.

Edited July 23, 2023 by HebaruSan

[Lisias]

9 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

One further note: The current maintainer of TweakScale has not requested to have TweakScale removed from CKAN. CKAN has a strict policy that such requests are to be honored; mods are only in CKAN if the author agrees to it and doesn't request removal. You can draw your own conclusion about how seriously to take talk of "ditched" and "support" based on that.

The take for it is simple: I DO NOT SUPPORT CKAN. I support TweakScale. It's simple like that.

If the thing was working, and after using CKAN it stopped working, then it's a CKAN problem. It's simple like that.

What I ceased to do is to support problemas caused by 3rd parties as it was something TweakScale did wrong.

People wants to use CKAN? Not a problem for me. I will just not support it - only TweakScale is supported by me, POINT.

Anyone find a TweakScale problem, I will fix it no matter what - is someone using KSP 1.2.2 finds a bug on an ancient version of TweakScale, I WILL FIX IT, point.

But I will not use my time supporting 3rd parties problems anymore.

TL;DR: you fix your mess, I fix my mess, and everybody wins.

[HebaruSan]

So you have no actual reason to think CKAN's doing anything wrong? I guess I can't say I'm surprised. It's just too bad that TweakScale users have to suffer the consequences of that attitude.

Fixing messes requires credible reports of actual problems.

Edited July 24, 2023 by HebaruSan

[Wyleg]

7 hours ago, Lisias said:

The take for it is simple: I DO NOT SUPPORT CKAN. I support TweakScale. It's simple like that.

If the thing was working, and after using CKAN it stopped working, then it's a CKAN problem. It's simple like that.

What I ceased to do is to support problemas caused by 3rd parties as it was something TweakScale did wrong.

People wants to use CKAN? Not a problem for me. I will just not support it - only TweakScale is supported by me, POINT.

Anyone find a TweakScale problem, I will fix it no matter what - is someone using KSP 1.2.2 finds a bug on an ancient version of TweakScale, I WILL FIX IT, point.

But I will not use my time supporting 3rd parties problems anymore.

TL;DR: you fix your mess, I fix my mess, and everybody wins.

I don't understand, what does your "i don't support CKAN" really means? If someone finds an issue in TweakScale when installed it with CKAN, you will deny fixing it even if it is a legitimate bug inside TweakScale? I'm confused.

[Lisias]

25 minutes ago, Wyleg said:

I don't understand, what does your "i don't support CKAN" really means? If someone finds an issue in TweakScale when installed it with CKAN, you will deny fixing it even if it is a legitimate bug inside TweakScale? I'm confused.

Please read this post just a bit above yours.

 

[HebaruSan]

Let's rewind the clock a bit and try to actually answer the question in the OP. I still have not seen any direct communication about this incident, so the below summary is gathered from reports by others who follow some forum threads I don't.

Some time ago, the current maintainer of the currently active fork of TweakScale uploaded a release of a mod that was impossible to install correctly at the time of upload, because it depended on a version of another mod that was not yet released:

This is like dropping a landmine into SpaceDock, lying in wait to cause problems for unsuspecting users. Any user who sees an update of that mod and clicks Download without reading the fine print will end up breaking their install. This was the first time I know of that any mod author has subjected this community to this problem. People take shortcuts, skip reading fine print, misunderstand warnings, etc., and it's quite easy to release updates in a sensible order to avoid a span of "dead time" of forbidden installation.

Ironically, CKAN has the technical ability to handle this quite smoothly (and in fact the code supporting it is very old), given the courtesy of a notification that it's needed. Though this exact problem is likely unprecedented in the history of KSP1 modding, it's common for a mod author to approach the CKAN team and ask how to deal with other types of tricky upgrades, and we're happy to work out those situations. All it takes is a quick heads-up about what is about to occur, so we can figure out a good plan, and the users with the smoothest upgrade experience will be the CKAN users.

In this case, no such advance communication occurred. This is understandable if the person doing this doesn't know it would help, but it meant that CKAN users (presumably) also got burned by the out-of-order release snafu, just like anyone else that clicked Download upon seeing the update.

Of course, sometimes tricky upgrades get missed, and mod authors come to CKAN with problems that could have been prevented but are already occurring. Again, we're happy to make tweaks and adjustments to fix such things. All that's needed is a quick note, "Hey I did this thing and it had an unintended consequence, can you fix it?" As a bonus, the next time there's a tricky upgrade, that mod author is much more likely to let us know in advance, making things smoother for everyone.

In this case, no such post-event communication occurred. Instead, a "rant" about "ditched" and "support", conspicously paired with NOT wanting the mod removed from this awful horrible CKAN that has been blamed for causing so much distress. Hmm. Interesting.

[Lisias]

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

Let's rewind the clock a bit and try to actually answer the question in the OP. I still have not seen any direct communication about this incident, so the below summary is gathered from reports by others who follow some forum threads I don't.

Please read this post just a bit above yours.

 

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

Some time ago, the current maintainer of the currently active fork of TweakScale uploaded a release of a mod that was impossible to install correctly at the time of upload, because it depended on a version of another mod that was not yet released:

An unfortunate copy and paste mistake from the github's release page that I left unchecked by accident.

The github's release entry was edited, by the way: https://github.com/TweakScale/Companion/releases/tag/RELEASE%2F2023.03.18 . This released was flagged as Pre-Release, and posteriorly promoted to Release after TS 2.4.7 was published.

TweakScale 2.4.7 was released on March 24 : https://github.com/TweakScale/TweakScale/releases/tag/RELEASE%2F2.4.7.1 , so anyone that installed the 2023.03.18 (released on March 28 on SpaceDock) or newer didn't found any problems. And people that had read the unfortunate mishap on the change log and cared to check TweakScale would had detected that 2.4.7 was already released, and so the warning was already dated.

Obviously, you didn't cared to check if TS 2.4.7 was released or not, and decided to keep ranting about it since then - as you did now, by the way.

The absolute lack of checkings on CKAN is a constant source of head-aches for responsible maintainers, and you just helped me to prove this point now.

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Lisias
Tyop! Surprised?

[HebaruSan]

I see. Then we're back to no evidence whatsoever that CKAN was involved in causing any problems. At least that narrative had the tiniest sliver of possible shared responsibility.

[Snark]

@Corporalsimmons, as you can see from the preceding exchange, the answer to your question why basically boils down to "because there is substantial contention between the TweakScale and CKAN maintainers to which they have not been able to come to an agreement."

Any further details of "why" (including "whose fault is it") is going to depend on whom you ask; both of those folks have weighed in, above, and this thread is unlikely to provide a more definitive answer than that for you.

I would guess that what you really care about is "will this get resolved any time soon?", to which the answer seems to be "probably not", given the rancor already displayed here.

Given how contentious the thread has become, and that it's already given you probably about as much of an answer as you're likely to get, there's not really any point to further discussion here.  Accordingly, the thread is now closed, and shall remain so.