I've always had this message on about half of the crossword puzzles I have played (and I haven't played them before)

Now that the number of puzzles played is counting toward another badge I would like to make sure that these ARE being counted in my plays - Guess I wouldn't mind the points for them either now that I think about it!

I know other people have had this same issue so it's not an isolated problem

It might not be a bad idea to give a player a message similar to the regular quizzes which let you know that you've already completed it. Maybe a meesage saying 'you have already completed this puzzle".

I had the same message the other day, on the second of two puzzles that I played. I definitely got credit for both puzzles, although I didn't notice about the points.

According to the challenge descriptions, the badges for "Crossword", "Crossword Wizard" and "Crossworder" are all reserved for Gold Members.

These three badges are at the moment the only ones in which a count of solved crosswords is pertinent.

Gold Members (thus the only ones needing a count of crosswords solved) can easily detect which crosswords they have solved previously: the title is ticked against a green background.

I have gotten the message after completing a puzzle and at the present time, I am a Gold Member.

I have gotten the message, too, though it has been a while since I've seen it.

I got the message on a crossword today, I'm a gold member, and I had NOT played it before. I got no points, but I did get credit for a crossword.

Can this please be looked at? If I'm going to spend hours playing crosswords I'd at least like the points for them.

I also received the same message, and I know I had not played that crossword in the past. If I recall I didn't get points, but it did count toward the new badge which is all I care about. I don't expect to score points on a crossword that I already played, as long as it counts toward my badge.

I suspect this may be due to the system starting a timer when you look at a crossword, so if you looked at it in the past and never completed it, it may still be counted as played (to prevent people from solving it offline and then entering the letters in 0.4 minutes).

Guess Terry might have to look at the logic of this to simply score the game as if you had taken some 6 hours instead.

Wesley, what is wrong with taking it offline and entering the letters in 0.4 minutes? (I'm not saying I have, I don't think I ever have.) How is it even possible to score the game as if you'd taken 6 hours? They aren't timed, are they?

I know the times are taken for the crossword, but why? Does it really matter how long one takes?

Adam, we seem to have posted at the same time

Yes, the times are taken. If you go to the crossword home page, you can click on 'My Results', and find that, indeed, they are timed.

http://www.funtrivia.com/crossword/crossresults.cfm

We have a lot of very competitive players who are much more motivated if they can challenge some high score than if they can just randomly play - thus the rankings have been added for those who like this aspect. (This is also why we don't display times over 20 mins - they were obviously by a less competitive player).

Of course wherever there is a competition, regardless how small, you'll also have cheaters, so I would suspect this issue to be an unwanted side effect of a cheat protection. Frankly, my opinion would be that after a week or so, this should simply reset. If someone wants a (mostly meaningless) top score at a crossword that badly that they'd wait a week before putting in offline data, I'd say let them.

Print this crossword on your printer, and play when you're offline! (gold members)

It doesn't exactly sound like an admonition about cheating when this is the last line of "instructions" on the crossword page.

It's not cheating to play a game offline. However, it wouldn't be fair on the lists if someone did exactly that - slowly and carefully play it on paper during the morning commute - and then just copied the verified letters into the grid at lightning speed and got the best score for it. The timed mode is for online play and should include all thinking time.

I must have jinxed myself -- I just got the message. I was playing coachpauly's "Natural World!" crossword, and after I submitted it, I got the message. I can guarantee I never opened this crossword before, since it was just put online today. I did click over to another tab in the middle, but I've done that before with a puzzle open and it's never resulted in the message.

This is odd.

Hrmph... same thing for me. I had the exact same message and also never looked at that puzzle before. My time would probably have been a first place too since I was very fast on that one

This also means I'm out of theories - sorry Terry, this time I have no pattern that could help debug this.

Edit: Even stranger observation - I did just play "Random Trivia VIII", got the same message, but this time my time was entered in the top player list.

No error message here - that crossword worked aok here
btw I haven't played a crossword since 2008!
Maybe you've played too many or there's something like a counter in there .. or something in the end-routine?

Or in the Browser type?

It's looking very random - of the three (all very new) crosswords I played yesterday, one yielded a correct score, one an error and no entry in the score list (but it is shown in my personal play record, with time) and the third with an error message but with an entry in the public score list.

Edit - I just checked back and the missing score entry on the animal crossword has now appeared. It may thus be that this is simply a time delay in the solver page update.

True you do see the green background if you are playing the crossword from the crossword section of FT. Though i think one of the reasons for people seeing the message is if they clicked on a crossword from a players profile, as they are not highlighted. Its an old niggle, one i forgot about completely until i played one from a players profile and got the "you have already" message.

Actaully I've been playing some from a players profile and the ones I have played before of his are all in green and as I am playing them they are going green for me.

One thing that I might have done on some (but definately not all that I'm having a problem with) is go back into a second time (I didn't think about it until WEs mentioned it earlier)

I've never done it deliberately but if you have a power glitch or PC malfaction you lose the amount of the puzzle you've done so you have to put them all in again.

My favourite (which I have done on numerous occasions) is type something I want to research into the search box and forget to change pages before I hit 'enter'. You would think I would learn!

Isn't there some way that you could still be scored for those puzzles as long as you submitted it after a specified time period so you're not trying to beat times or anything?

Hmm I'll do a repair on the database for those results, see if that helps. Perhaps an index there is messed up.

The statement "You have been scored for this puzzle in the past." should certainly only appear if the page loads a 2nd time.

I'm wondering if flash for some reason is submitting the results in the background and then the browser is submitting it a 2nd time a fraction of a second later or something.

Added a status message on a crossword "play" screen that tells you if you have played it before.

Still having this problem. At least 3 I played yesterday gave me the message

It just happened to me today, on a very new crossword that I certainly hadn't played before.

Still happening - I've lost quite a lot of points now

Are you SURE you are not earning points, even though you are seeing that message?

Just checked the log files Midget... indeed, you should be getting scored correctly.

For some reason, your browser is submitting to the "answer" page TWICE, at exactly the same time... within quarter of a second.

What happens is the first time the server scores you, and then the second request (which you see in your browser) tells you that you have already played... because you have, 1/4 of a second before!

So.... I'm not sure what's going on here. For some reason your web browser is sending 2 requests to our answer page. Hm.