Tokens not transferring

[Function]

We have been playing every sunday for a long time now and last night we had an issue we couldn't figure out how to fix. I will list out the play by play just incase we screwed something up.

1. The DMs router (embarq 660) was reset and gave his hosting pc a different ip.
2. We messed with portforwarding on his router for awhile trying to figure out what was wrong.
3. Realized that the NAT setting was what needed to be fixed and changed it to match his new IP.
4. Everyone was able to connect. We then realized that only one player got any tokens.
5. Reset router. Rejoined. A different player got tokens the rest received none.
6. Checked that tokens are in the ruleset folders and deleted half of them to see if the folder was too large. No tokens for any players.
7. Loaded a 3.5 campaign from ages ago. Tokens transfered fine.
8. Copied campaign and changed the name still using 4e ruleset. Long transfer time, no tokens.

We are going to try and fix this tuesday night so any ideas would be great.

/limit

[Griogre]

It sounds like there was a lot of data being transfered. Tokens apparently have the last priority on data transfers so they may well have been out prioritized and thus timed out on the transfer. If everyone had cleared their cache then the server would have begun to rebuild it on the clients and on a long running campaign this could be a *lot* of data though usually only image data matters, practically speaking. Similarly, if the Host did something that made the client caches obsolete they would have failed CRC checks and would have been considered corrupt which may have started a re-building process.

Try having everyone log in with different IDs and see if the problem persists also have the Host double check his token folders shared and host and make sure he doesn't have a lot more in there than he thinks. This includes module tokens (library or adventure) too by the way.

Does the GM keep everything in one campaign or does he just keep the characters in the main campaign and use modules? Is the GM using any common modules or has he changed anything with modules lately? What ruleset is the GM using and has he modified it?

[Function]

Well we transferred the cache ahead of time and the tokens didn't show up. However, after chatting for about 10min all the tokens transferred. Looks like we wasted out night by not waiting long enough for them to transfer.. sigh.

/limit

[Griogre]

Tokens are not in the cache if they are not from a module, as you found out. :(

[Function]

Our game is taking upwards of 30min to transfer everything which is a real time suck especially for people who crash mid session and must rejoin or people who join late. I am going to have our DM post his issue on this thread. He said something about not being able to load the tokens in the campaign because it causes a ton of extra work on his end. Obviously we need to get the tokens and the map into the cache to speed this up.

/function

[tdewitt274]

He may consider adding the tokens to a Module. This would allow for the GM to open only the needed modules and choose the appropriate tokens.

A couple of scripts are out there that pull down the DDM minis from WotC. One that I created adds them to a module.

[rukkia]

So I'm the DM that Function is referring to in his messages.

The campaign that I am running is in fact a rather large 1 and full of images, though the majority of them are true image files in the folder of the same name, which I thought would only be transferred to the players once they get shared during the game not at joining. If that's the case so much the better, I love the easy fixes and have already removed much of the obsolete data after moduling it. We'll see how that works.
I do in fact use modules rather extensively, but as I do all of my data entry myself it is not at all unusual for me to have to make on the fly modifications during combat, you know so that formulas and the like will actually work. This unfortunately makes it impractical to have the NPC's on their own separate module as this prevents on the fly modifications and means leaving your main campaign any time you want to add a new mob to your list.
My compromise has therefore been to keep the characters and monsters in the main campaign and build everything else as a module. This when combined with using the main token folder rather than in one of the rules specific ones means that when i do chose to backup my MM such as it is--which I do after each campaign-I don't have to go through and transfer all of the tokens into the module in order to keep the links with the character sheets.
If the modules treat their tokens the same way as FG proper, i.e. no cache, why would exporting them into a module affect my load time?
Is there a way to force the tokens into the player cache?

[gmkieran]

Rukkia, this isn't directly relevant to your load-time question, but speaking to your assumption that having NPCs in a module isn't practical, I'm not sure your reasoning that doing so prevents on-the-fly modifications is correct. I built a module for the campaign I'm currently running ahead of time and then play out of a campaign folder where my PC's actually reside. Any time I've had to wing an encounter or NPC, I've simply created that in the campaign; as long as I've still got the game module open, I can even use NPCs from the module in that encounter and have them populate correctly. Last week I was even able to modify an NPC from the game module and have it retain the modifications through a re-start of FG. Not to say creating a module for your NPCs isn't a lot of front-end work, but you may find it more practical than you think.

Just my $.02 Hope you get your issues worked out and can get back to enjoying FG ASAP! The Devs have been really great about helping me with my issues - I'm sure they'll be able to resolve yours.

[Moon Wizard]

I still need to do some research on how tokens are transferred internally between host and client, but I believe that module tokens are supposed to be treated exactly like tokens in the host folder.

If anyone can get me a test campaign that they can reproduce any token issues on the same machine or a local network, then I should be able to track it down fairly easily. Otherwise, I will be looking into the token code over the next few weeks to see if I can find anything that might help.

Thanks,
JPG

[rukkia]

When you speak of a test campaign moon_wizard, do you mean a time when I could open my machine, give you the IP and let you join to experience the fun first hand or are you speaking of some actual files I can send? Either way, I'm game.

Thank you gmkieran, you are in fact correct about being able to pull NPCs in from a module and adjust them on the fly, the problem is that none of the fixes are applied to the module file itself, and since that is the bit that you can open regardless of your campaign, it's back to re-exporting from the module's source campaign.
I'd tried playing around with pulling NPCs from a module into a campaign adding new monsters, deleting the original page tab so that all of the creatures, be they from the module or the campaign appear on the same tab and that tab is the only available one and then exporting the whole, but that didn't fool it so...
Of course should it turn out that module tokens are cached and that having my NPC's separated out that way will fix our load time issues I'll bite the bullet and rebuild them all in their own setting. I'm still looking at that as an undesirable option right now, but I might just have to get used to disappointment...

Thank you all,

[Moon Wizard]

I'm talking about a sample campaign that consistently has the issue, which you can then send me all the files associated with. Debugging a scenario by connecting to an existing campaign would be a challenge, because it could take some time to track down the issue (i.e. hours) where I would need someone to share images, move tokens, etc.

Of course, the simpler the sample campaign, the faster I can identify any issues.

Also, on the module situation, modules are designed to be read-only entities, not as ways to compartmentalize the campaign. If you are purely looking to compartmentalize campaign records, you should use the category functionality instead. You can override module information within a campaign, but the information is stored in an 'override' file that gets loaded with the module.

Thanks,
JPG

[rukkia]

Gotcha on the module info.
Thank you.

We play today, so we'll be able to see if the cleanup I did of the image files has had any effect. With luck that will have taken care of things, if not then I'll get you a copy of those files.

I'll let y'all know either way.


Thanks again.

[rukkia]

Well, it looks like it was an overfull image bin that was slowing things down. Gotta love an easy fix.

Thank you all for the helpful suggestions you offered.