PS3 - Bug Enter initials screen - new game starts instead

When the PA's overlay for entering your initials comes up, if you start pressing the flipper buttons before Taxi's display is ready to accept the input, a new game will start instead. All the while, the PA's overlay for entering your initials stays on the screen. I don't imagine your score would get saved in this case.

Edit: Your score will never register. If you were the new king of the table, too bad.

The workaround is to make sure you don't press any flipper buttons until the ROM is ready to accept your initials input.

Edit: this bug apparently exists in ALL versions and now I have confirmed on the Vita that it can happen even if you do not press any buttons during the sequence.

phreaker47 said:

When the PA's overlay for entering your initials comes up, if you start pressing the flipper buttons before Taxi's display is ready to accept the input, a new game will start instead. All the while, the PA's overlay for entering your initials stays on the screen. I don't imagine your score would get saved in this case.

The workaround is to make sure you don't press any flipper buttons until the ROM is ready to accept your initials input.

Click to expand...

Managed to make this happen on Android today as well.

An additional note is that the select button acts like the start button, and will add a new player for each press. You need to return to Android home and restart the game to fix it.

Okay, this now happened to me on the VITA last night, and I was pretty upset about it...

I had over 36 million... it would have brought me closer to the top 10... so, knowing about the bug and that it has been reported on more than just the PS3 version, I made sure not to press any buttons at all during the sequence leading up to entering my initials... and then, IT HAPPENED ANYWAY.... the TPA "Enter initials" overlay came up, but I was still waiting for Taxi's display to catch up so that I could start cycling through the letters. But BEFORE that could happen, the game decided to start a new game all on its own. The display sets to "00" and a game starts... TPA's overlay is still on the screen... and ANY button I press acts as the machine's "START" button, so I end up with a 4 player game started.

At that point, I'm completely screwed. My 36 million point game can't be registered. It's gone.

Is this going to get fixed? It's evidently affecting ALL versions.

Can it be that TPA is somehow sending the start button to the ROM? If that were the case, it should be fixable... seemingly similar to the Monster Bash Frankenstein bug that was fixed a while back.

Another quest for a high score tainted or ruined by a game ending bug. First Elvira, now this.

Wait for it to show the letters to enter. I complained about this waaay back on CV when it came out it does it on others too. I think that would not be a game ENDING BUG but a game STARTING BUG! Ease up on the X button.

SKILL_SHOT said:

Wait for it to show the letters to enter. I complained about this waaay back on CV when it came out it does it on others too. I think that would not be a game ENDING BUG but a game STARTING BUG! Ease up on the X button.

Click to expand...

No dude... that's the point... I DID wait. It happened on its own without me pressing ANYTHING. I was already fully aware of the bug and was conscious about NOT making it happen.

Perhaps I grazed the touch sensor on the back side and that caused it? I don't know, but I am 100% positive I didn't press any buttons, sticks, or the front screen.

I guess next time, I'm going to literally set the thing down when I lose my last ball so I am not in any contact with it whatsoever... with the back touch screen, accelerometers, etc... I guess you are always setting off SOMETHING in the damn thing just by holding it. Heh. It was only 3 million higher than my current, so no HUGE loss... but if I reached the number one score and that happened... I'd lose my mind.

Okay well... just surpassed that score anyway... set the Vita down like it was toxic when I lost my last ball, heh... and it didn't happen. I'm thinking more and more that touching the back sensors actually trigger that bug. That's the only way it could have happened to me last time.

I'm coming for you, Actionball! (Sooooo close)

I didnt know you were on a vita, update your devices

Updated it... yeah, first, I encountered this on the PS3, then on my new Vita I got a week ago.

Arghhhhhh...just doubled my high score on PS3 and had this happen

Yeah , when your game ends just set your device down like it has the plague and don't touch anything until you see that blinking underscore. That is all you can do

Same thing happened to me yesterday on Android ... don´t like Taxi too much but have it another shot yesterday and managed to get to the highscore list just to discover I simply can´t enter my initials because it starts adding players for a new game instead... WTF? Googled my way up here to the forum just to find out this bug is present in other platforms too, and HAS NOT BEEN FIXED for over half a year? Speachless...

It's still happening...

Captain B. Zarre said:

It's still happening...

Click to expand...

yup, just happened to me on the PC beta version 0.030 :-(

Very annoying bug indeed.

Just got this today on Kindle Fire (Android). Over 3 million better then current high score. Had a SDTM on the last ball, so I probably had the flippers held up. Will try the 'set it down like the plaque' from now on. Is it any high score or just the top high score? I haven't seen it before and have the rest of the high scores..

Just had this happen on iOS.
Arghhhhh!!!!

This can happen even after you enter the initials. the simple rule here is do NOT touch the enter button until you have selected a letter, and do NOT touch it again until the enter initial screen goes away.

On PC i was able to work around this. hold the middle button with the mouse, and play an entire game with that mouse button down. Keep it held down until the initials screen go away. It will go to the normal game over, and then the software is unconfused.

Hello Forum Members,

Basically we put in a fix to get past this bug so that it would stop game progression. The fix is the Skip button that will allow you to get pass the locked screen. The initials entered still save the the local high score. This is an emulation bug that we cannot fix because on the real tables emulation, hitting the select button is like hitting the start button. If you hit the start button during the number match during free play on a real taxi machine it will add players and that is what the game is doing. So in order for our initial entry screen to work we had to implement the skip function. If there are still any issues related to this feel free to send me a private message or contact our customer support at support@pinballarcade.com

FlippyFloppy said:

Hello Forum Members,

Basically we put in a fix to get past this bug so that it would stop game progression. The fix is the Skip button that will allow you to get pass the locked screen. The initials entered still save the the local high score. This is an emulation bug that we cannot fix because on the real tables emulation, hitting the select button is like hitting the start button. If you hit the start button during the number match during free play on a real taxi machine it will add players and that is what the game is doing. So in order for our initial entry screen to work we had to implement the skip function. If there are still any issues related to this feel free to send me a private message or contact our customer support at support@pinballarcade.com

Click to expand...

Thanks for the response... but I will say, I am certain I have activated the new game with the flipper buttons before as well, without ever hitting start... simply by tapping on them early before the game was ready to accept the initials input.