No one can load character portraits.

[eltonjock]

We started a new campaign and no one can load a portrait. We all get this message:
"Could not complete file transfer of file campaign/portraits/id-00001 (HTTP/1. 1 404 NOT FOUND) Check your network configuration."

Any ideas what we need to do?

Thanks.

[Oberoten]

You have tokens created from dragging a character-portrait somewhere on a map. This is generally not a good thing if the same character is not connected since Character portraits are not stored on the host but at the client. IE, FG tries to share an image it doesn't have.

Go through the maps, remove all character-portrait tokens and it should solve the problem.

- Obe

[Valarian]

I would imagine that the problem is the same as with tokens. The portrait copy isn't being transported back down from the host to the clients. The host takes a copy of a portrait for a character when the player assigns it to a character. This resides in the campaign portraits folder and is numbered the same as the character id in the db.xml. I think this is a transport failure error, not an image problem. It could be to do with bandwidth. Are you using a wireless connection to host the game?

You might also want to replace the id-00001 portrait in the hosts campaign folder in case this has corrupted. Replace with a small (64x64) PNG file. Remove the .PNG extension. Check the existing file by adding a .png extension and see if it opens

[phantomwhale]

You have tokens created from dragging a character-portrait somewhere on a map. This is generally not a good thing if the same character is not connected since Character portraits are not stored on the host but at the client. IE, FG tries to share an image it doesn't have.

Go through the maps, remove all character-portrait tokens and it should solve the problem.

- Obe

Ah wonderful - had this issue myself - glad to have it explained.

Is there a recommended approach to avoid it ? E.g. should I always be removing PC tokens from all maps at the end of each session ? Is there anyway I can leave PC tokens on a map an avoid the error, as sometimes we need to break the session mid-combat ?

Regards,
Ben

[Wargamer777]

Ah.. that explains our issue with this as well. I will remove the tokens from certain maps and see if the issue clears up. I will drag them from the combat tracker instead.

[Oberoten]

Ah wonderful - had this issue myself - glad to have it explained.

Is there a recommended approach to avoid it ? E.g. should I always be removing PC tokens from all maps at the end of each session ? Is there anyway I can leave PC tokens on a map an avoid the error, as sometimes we need to break the session mid-combat ?

Regards,
Ben

Drag tokens from token-box instead, it will help a lot. Use smaller maps with lower resolution.

- Obe

[phantomwhale]

Drag tokens from token-box instead, it will help a lot. Use smaller maps with lower resolution.

- Obe

Thanks for the reply, Obe.

When you say tokens from the token box, just to understand, would these be created offline (perhaps using the PC portrait files) and used rather then the auto-created tokens generated from dragging from a PC portrait ? Which would be good for avoiding the hack-your-ruleset-to-modify-default-token-size thing.

But then would you not need to manually put these new tokens into the combat tracker every time ? As otherwise it will have the auto-generated tokens associated with the PCs ? Equally, wasn't sure, but do the default tokens, when dragged from the combat tracker (rather then a PC portrait) avoid the loading errors I'm seeing ?

Finally, I understand smaller maps help with loading speed, and are a good idea overall, but not sure how they apply to this problem ?

Ah questions, so many questions :)

[Oberoten]

Small maps is just a "best practice".

As for the tokens, that is ruleset dependant. But yes, it will avoid the loaderrors for character-portrait generated tokens.

Tokens from the tokenbox are loaded from GM to all players whereas the portrait files are loaded from the player to the GM to all other players and if the players aren't logged in when the map is displayed (all players present in token-form at that and with the same portrait) you will get the error some rulesets work around this by incorporating a token-slot on the character-sheet.

- Obe

[Bidmaron]

Can we get this behavior added to the bug fix list? It is hard to imagine why the program couldn't cache the portrait token on the host and then, if the client owning the character doesn't connect, the host could use the cached token. It is not rare for a player to be able to make a session and for someone else to run his character. Using portrait tokens should continue to be an option because the player can change his portrait and his token gets automatically updated. Well, as long as the player changed his portrait while connected to the host (since players can't edit their characters in local mode [assuming the ruleset even supported local character creation to start with] once the character is transferred to the host).

[ddavison]

I forwarded the topic to Moon_Wizard to include on our list.