Weird thing when exporting

[Mistamichal]

OK. This is weird.

I'm doing Hoard of the Dragon Queen and I had finished putting in episodes 1 2 and 3 with each episode in its own tab. I was doing it on my desktop but I use my laptop at the gaming table. So, I exported everything to a module to load into the laptop. When I opened the module in the laptop, only the episode 3 tab was there and only the NPCs that I'd created in the same session that I exported the module were there. Everything else was gone. So, I thought, maybe I forgot something when I was exporting and went back to the desktop to do it again. Only thing is: when I opened it up on the desktop, I saw the exact same thing - only episode 3 and only the NPCs that I'd created in that session.

What happened? I'm positive I checked everything when exporting. And what do I do to make sure this doesn't happen again? I'm stuck having to enter in all the first 2 episodes again, with only a few hours till game session and I don't want to go through it all only to find I lose everything again.

[Nickademus]

I don't have an exact answer to your question. But what I can advise is to make each episode its own module and never use multiple tabs in a campaign you plan to export. I have no raw data to back that up, but I believe that it only uses one tab when exporting. It could be cropping the other tabs or trying to mash everything in one tab and losing data. I don't know.

[damned]

I second the recomendation to export modules in chapters - load/unload each chapter as required.
However I have never seen anything like what you have experienced.
Perhaps if you have 10mins you could make a test export with 3 story tabs, 3 image tabs and see if it replicates?

[darrenan]

I use multiple tabs all the time in my modules (PFRPG) and they export just fine. It's possible that it is ruleset dependent, but in 3.5/PFRPG it seems to work fine. I've never seen the behavior described by the original poster. Just to confirm, you created a campaign just for the purpose of creating the module containing the data for the 3 episodes? Then you exported it and then tried to load it into your 'main' campaign via the Library/Modules button? And that was where you saw the missing data?

For NPCs, if you drag NPCs directly from another module straight into an Encounter, then you'll need to have the original module containing that NPC loaded along with your module. It's much better to drag NPCs from modules into your NPC window, which creates a writable copy that then is part of your campaign/module. But again, I don't think that would cause what you're seeing.

Were there any errors emitted into the chat window, or in the pop up debugger window, when you tried to load the module?

If you can easily reproduce this issue with a small amount of data and post the exact steps here, then folks here can investigate.

[Mistamichal]

Hi all and thanks for the replies.

darrenan - Yes that's exactly what I did. For the NPCs, I entered them into the NPC window first. There were no errors shown in the chat window or pop up.

damned - Yep I did a test one and it exported no problem with all tabs and info showing up in the module.

So, it's got me completely baffled as to why it worked in the test export and in previous modules I've exported - using D&D 5th and Pathfinder rulesets - but not in this particular one.

[damned]

i have a theory...

possibly you started this module in campaign a.
somewhere along the way you continued the module in campaign b and loaded the module from campaign a.

in campaign b you added your third tab and all teh associated bits n pieces and when you exported from campaign b it exported... tab 3 and its bits n pieces.

check you dont have another earlier campaign and/or a module containing tabs 1 and 2...4

[Mistamichal]

It's always been the same campaign. I checked anyway, just in case, but no, there's just the one campaign and module.