Posted 23rd Sep 2026 at 13:13Weird, my time doesn't show in either column - I think it was nitro that had this problem recently too.

Posted 23rd Sep 2026 at 14:26I checked and the server hasn't received a completion notification for the puzzle, so that's why in this case. Usually this means that the player didn't successfully connect to the server once it finished. It displays a message while it is waiting for confirmation, and eventually an error if it fails. This can be caused by a temporary loss of connectivity, either at the server end or anywhere between you and the server. I checked the database and it seems to be fine so I think this is almost certainly the correct explanation.

Posted 24th Sep 2026 at 19:41Yes, I had this issue too. Sometimes I guess a packet gets lost on the way? I'm not sure what the netcode looks like to handle that, but it certainly wasn't a problem caused on my end (I have had issues with times/scores not uploading due to issues on my end, but those were very much separate and acted differently).

Posted 24th Sep 2026 at 22:38
Last edited by gareth 24th Sep 2026 at 22:45The player doesn't know your completion time but must fetch it from the server, so as long as you wait for your completion time to display once you finish a puzzle then it is guaranteed to have saved your completion status because the action that stores it is the same one that also retrieves it to send back to your browser.

If you aren't online, the player shows a message at the top: "Sorry - time not saved: unable to connect to server" along with a 'Retry' link that you can click to ask it to send a new request once you go online. Or, if the server doesn't respond for a certain amount of time, it will tell you it is still trying - but also provide a Retry button to force it to send a new finish request. If at this point you can't get it to connect then it doesn't store that information locally on your browser until next time you play - it is lost once you close the window.

I hope this helps!

Posted 24th Sep 2026 at 23:49Yes, that's exactly what I experienced, and what you're explaining makes sense. When the issues were on my end, naturally I couldn't connect to the server to fetch a time (I'm guessing opening the puzzle window also triggers some sort of message to the server to tell it I've started and start the timer server-side, rather than client-side). What has confused me is when a time does show up, I close the window, and it is not conserved. Perhaps what catkin experienced too. That being said, it seems rather rare. I've been subscribed for what... 4 years now? And this has only ever happened twice

Posted 25th Sep 2026 at 00:22
Last edited by gareth 25th Sep 2026 at 00:24When you open the player window it loads the puzzle with the window, and the time starts immediately that fetch happens - there isn't a separate stage when it notifies that you have begun (as there would be now if I were to write this with modern web technologies, instead of in 2005 - Puzzlemix [which originally was hosted at dokakuro.com and dosudoku.com for its first year] was one of the first websites to allow you to save state asynchronously while playing, back when the ability to contact the server in the background was new). If the time shows up but the result isn't saved, the explanation can only be that MySQL failed - for example that the server happened to crash at the exact point it responded but before the database table data had been saved. I will say, though, that I haven't restarted the server for a long time, and I checked and none of the tables were crashed, plus the code hasn't changed since I had to abandon pop-up completion windows when ever browser started blocking them, so whatever the cause then I don't think there is likely to be anything I can do about it, I'm afraid. If you remember a solution time that fails to get stored then I can manually put it into the database along with use of tools etc if you wish.