Image Sharing Problem...

[Stargrove]

I am creating a module (3.5e/Pathfinder) to run for my players while learning about FG2. In my module I have around 10 .png Players (larger sized) maps and 10 .png GM maps (smaller sized) in my Campaign Images directory. When I try to share a map with a locally connected client on my computer all I get is a blank map page. I can draw using the drawing tools on either end and see that, but the background map never shows up on the client. If I draw a grid on the GM side the client can see that. If I place NPC or player tokens, those also show up fine. I am pretty sure that I had tested things last week while working on maps and things were working, now they are not. I have tried to deselect all extensions I was using but that does not change anything. I have tried the /flushdb command to clear things out...no change. I tried converting one of my .png maps to .jpg maps...no change.

The last thing I was working on tonight was adding 50 story locations, pinning them to the city map, and adding text to each location. This was the first map I tested tonight when I noticed this happening. It does affect all the maps I have though.

If I close out my module and open the included "A Tale of Dinor - 3.5E" map sharing works fine from GM to Client.

I am running:
Win8 x64
FG2 2.9.2

James

[saithan]

i have notice that deleting the camapign cache and reconnecting fixes this for me!

[Zeus]

Using the PNG format for maps over JPGs is not going to be efficient in terms of transfer times. PNGs tend to be better for smaller graphics (like icons, frames) where you require the detail and more importantly support for transparency.

However seeing as you have tried JPG format and still have problems, its not the root cause of your problem.

How large are the large maps that you are sharing, what's the average size of the maps, under 1MB, over 1MB? If the maps are very large (several MB) then try reducing the quality and size until you get the map size down to between 400Kb-1Mb. The idea here is you want to balance quality against transfer times to clients. You can also try converting your PNGs to 8bit JPGs, this will reduce the colour depth but unless your using photorealistic maps, you shouldn't notice any difference.

Does the 'image loading' glyph ever show up in the image window when you first share it to clients? If not, you could try deleting the campaign cache file on each of the clients (its located in the cache folder on the client under the AppData folder).

Finally, make sure you have the console window open on the host and clients when you next test, there maybe a useful error message that may also help point us in the right direction.

[Stargrove]

I have some drawings that are only 150k but a few that are around 2MB. I will see what I can do to get them smaller. I already did some of that in Photoshop, but will endeavor to make them even smaller and in JPG format. I am seeing the image loading glyph on my clients when I share pictures. You suggest bringing up the console window to look for errors. How do I do that? I will keep an eye on it and look for any errors onece I know how to open it.

response to saithan/DrZeuss: clearing out the campaign cache fixed my problem for now. Is this a known bug? Seems like a work around if you have to clear it out manually.

Thanks for the help though.

James

[Trenloe]

Stargrove - when you were testing your campaign, had you used the same image names and then updated the images later? OR, had you deleted some images from the images directory in your campaign?

Based on clearing the cache fixing the issue, I'm guessing something like this may have happened. The player cache will have stored sections of the campaign you shared before. If you then change the images on the GM side (with the same image name or delete and replace files directly in the images folder), the client side will try to access the cache and will now be out-of-sync and so may result in the issues you were seeing.

I haven't actually reproduced this - I'm just guessing that as the issues have occurred while you're writing/testing the campaign this might be an explanation.

[Moon Wizard]

This has happened intermittently for me as well. It's only one user, and he is known to have a poor network connection. (Always trying to connect over WiFi hot spots from his boat.)

However, I haven't been able to pinpoint the issue yet. I'm reworking the image caching code as part of the next major version, so I'm hoping this issue just goes away. ;)

Regards,
JPG

[damned]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Using the PNG format for maps over JPGs is not going to be efficient in terms of transfer times. PNGs tend to be better for smaller graphics (like icons, frames) where you require the detail and more importantly support for transparency.

.png efficiency doesnt really have anything to do with the dimensions - if the maps do not have gradients they may well be more efficiently displayed with png. jpg is best for gradients - but not efficient for block colours.