Steam ID Update (August 2014)

The Steam ID update of late 2014 is a distinct event in the TinyHuge server, as well as every non-Valve server with functioning plugins that require use of player IDs (such as player status, banning, etc.). The ID's changed from STEAM_0:0:000000 (SteamID 2) to [U:1:00000000] (SteamID 3). This disrupted and broke all plugins that required player ID's, thus resulting in a total loss in everyone's status, and an unbanning of everyone that had been banned. This caused chaos on the server for about a few days to a week. Later, the problem was fixed and all player status was automatically restored. The problem was announced as "fixed" on TinyHuge Productions as of August 26, 2014. The TF2 ID change was contained within the August 21, 2014 update, but was never publicly documented by Valve. This was not the last time an event like this would occur.

General
The community of the server was caught by surprise by this unannounced change in ID format. Upon realising what happened, many regulars refused to go on the server in order to avoid the chaos, or meating a previously banned person. When a moderator joined, Mafiaboss had to re-grant them [moderators] mod status, and upon leaving, the status would reset, and they would no longer be moderator until granted again. When banning someone, the banned person would be able to join back immediately, since their "banned status" would reset on server-exit. Once the issue was resolved, order was restored and the banned players were automatically re-banned, VIP/MOD/SD status returned, and the regulars came back on.

Staff
The TinyHuge Staff did some research on what was going on when the confusion first began. Once concluded that it was an undocumented ID update, some researched for a fix while others suggested to wait for the ID plugin to update. When finding other servers no longer had this problem and used a different version of the plugin, it was suggested that the plugin be updated onto TinyHuge from it's [the plugin's] website once more. When that happened, the server was back to normal and statuses were automatically restored.