Help - Some players can't see unmasked areas of image

Hey Everyone,

So my group has been having this issue with FG where some players can't see areas of an image even after I (GM) unmask them. This seems to be happening primarily to just one player, but another player experienced it once as well.

Anyway, the basic setup for this problem is...

1. I will prepare a dungeon map prior to adventure time.

2. I will put a grid and mask layer on the map, and reveal just the first bit I want my players the see.

3. At adventure time, I will share the map, but some players say they can't see anything. One of them sent me a screenshot and the entire image appeared to be masked even though I know I unmasked a lot of it and other players could see the unmasked parts fine.

Also, sometimes the players with this issue can see the unmasked areas but I have to reveal them all over again if they ever disconnect and reconnect. It's like the mask layer for the server and client are out of sync or something.

Has anyone else experienced this problem? Any advice on what to do? As it stands now, I really can't use the mask feature, and that kind of sucks.

Have the players that are having problems check the permissions on their FG data folder. Also, this might be due to download errors, have the affected players "nuke" their cache and reconnect early next time to rebuild it.

Also, use the "preload" feature for maps...

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Originally Posted by Andraax

Have the players that are having problems check the permissions on their FG data folder. Also, this might be due to download errors, have the affected players "nuke" their cache and reconnect early next time to rebuild it.

Also, use the "preload" feature for maps...

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Cool thanks, will try that!

Another possibility is that the player is running low on memory. Make sure that you don't have too much shared with your players. i.e un-share maps and images that are no longer needed, don't have tokens shared and reduce if possible the number of modules that are being shared.

Can you,attach the screenshot you mention in point 3?

Part of the memory issue is size of the map in pixels (not file size). Typically the recommendation for maps' maximum size is 2048x2048 pixels.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LordEntrails

Part of the memory issue is size of the map in pixels (not file size). Typically the recommendation for maps' maximum size is 2048x2048 pixels.

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Ahhh you know what, I bet this is it. The maps in question are typically very large. I think I am giving them too many pixels per square. I'll try trimming them down and see how it works.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trenloe

Can you,attach the screenshot you mention in point 3?

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Sure, here it is. This is from the player with the issue's perspective. The other players saw the unmasked portions of the map fine.

Attachment 19906

It looks like the mask isn't making it to the player machine. It could be related to the size of the map image as you mentioned earlier in the thread, or it could be related to network issues, especially if player or GM is on wifi.

One of the prime motivators for the rebuild we've been working on behind the scenes is related to updating the networking to something more tolerant of error conditions.

Regards,
JPG

Hi, thank you all for your suggestions. I'm one of the players in Creslin's game that has been experiencing these issues, though I haven't seen it in the last couple weeks. I can't speak for the other player having these issues, but I can say the permissions for the folders would have been established by the application which was running as administrator. I can change them, but I believe the program would have Full Control. I've tried nuking the cache completely, which made the issue better, but an occasional crash to desktop would still cause the map to be hidden when I reconnect. Also, I have 32 gigs of RAM and an i7 6700K processor (with no overclocking). The system is extremely stable performing both high intensity processor and video tasks. (though I can't see FG being a video hog) Thank you again all for your help and ideas.

[Edit] Also I can say, as a client, I'm hardwired to my router at gigabit speeds. Internet is 250mbps down, 12.5 up, confirmed by several unrelated speed tests.

FG is a 32 bit application and can only use so much memory no matter how much you have. If your DM is sharing huge maps then that will strain the memory FG has available. I suspect if he chops his maps up and keeps them down to the recommended sizes the problem will be less apparent.

I hadn't considered that and that makes complete sense. Thanks!