Connection lag and Host crashing

[uMike]

I've been playing in a 4ED game using FG2 for almost a year now and we started out without having any problems. Suddenly, a few months ago we started seeing a slow building up of lag during our sessions which ultimately leads to a Fantasy Ground crash on the host machine.

The lag itself hits different clients in different amounts, but once it starts it builds up to a several minute delay between typing something and seeing it on your own screen. The host would always see it virtually immediately, so the lag was definitely in the data going from the host to the clients. And eventually, the host would crash.

We're using the 4E_JPG 1.5.1 ruleset, and this has been happening for a few versions of Fantasy Grounds.

We're stumped. Any suggestions on where to look for the problem would be much appreciated.


~uMike

[Tenian]

This sounds like a infinite loop problem. Usually this happens if the DM and player both have the same character sheet open and certain changes are being made.

It also used to happen when the host would delete a CT entry.

Typically the host will see an item "blinking" in and out of existence. Such as a blank ct entry that appears, deletes itself, and then reappears. Players will often have that with a power/effect.

The loop is choking off FGII and eventually it will just crash.

Depending on how old your campaign is (if it predates 1.3 or 1.4 specifically) I recommend recreating it at a good point. This has fixed a similar issue for many players that was caused by some internal changes in newer versions of the ruleset.

[uMike]

Thanks Tenian! I know the GM has a tendency to look at our character sheets a lot, so it's quite likely he was watching when we made some changes to powers or hit points, etc.

We just rebuilt the campaign after the last session barely got through two rounds. It's our last resort unless someone else has another idea. I have more hope now that someone else has suggested rebuilding though.

Thanks again.

[Tenian]

4E really doesn't require you to add much to your character sheet as you play. Just when you level or if you loot new items. I can't think of a reason the DM would need to keep looking at your sheets.

Really during a session the only time I go onto a character's sheet is to take a look at a problem they are having or to correct/add an effect. Not all of my players have the same level of understanding of the ruleset and the required structure of effects.

Most weeks I play twice a week, once as a DM and once as a player. It's been quite a while since the infinite loop problem cropped up in either session. I've had some map issues in the session I DM (hint: Don't delete the campaign's Temp directory...it's important!) but other than that the sessions run smoothly.

If your DM builds his own modules via the parser, I recommend he tests/debug them in a campaign other than the one he has player's use. There appears to be a directory which stores module differences in each campaign and it gets quite large if you are updating your reference modules regularly.