Masked Images Issue

[GM BK]

So, I'm having an issue with masked images not behaving properly...

When someone has a mask prepared with areas revealed, and shares it with me, i do not see the revealed areas. It also does not save the masked image to the "maskedimages" folder...

But...

When the mask is revealed in real time i can see the areas on the map as they are revealed and it saves the image to the "maskedimages" directory...

unfortunately...

if i close the map and reopen it, or if we end our session and come back, the mask with the revealed sections does not reapply itself and i am back to an unrevealed mask...

i am at a loss, to say the least.

One thing of note... i originally had the demo of FG from Steam installed, but uninstalled it and reinstalled it with the file directly from the FG site... could there be something with steam interfering?

[Trenloe]

The issues you are reporting - are these with you as a player or a GM? What ruleset are you using? What OS are you running on?

[GM BK]

This is with me as a player, using the pathfinder ruleset, on an i5 machine running Windows 7 Pro 64bit

[damned]

As a first step I would delete the campaign cache on your computer for this campaign.



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[GM BK]

Ya, we tried that... we even deleted the entire campaign folder and let FG recreate everything and still got the same effect.

[damned]

Is the GM or the Player using a Wireless connection?
Switch to a Wired/LAN connection and repeat your test.


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[GM BK]

Yup, tried that... it did the same.

[Trenloe]

What ruleset is being used? Are any extensions being used?

[GM BK]

Pathfinder Ruleset, and we ran it both with extensions and without any extensions and had the same effect.

[Trenloe]

Pathfinder Ruleset, and we ran it both with extensions and without any extensions and had the same effect.
You're both running the same version? i.e. 3.0.12 live, not any test version?

How long do you wait for the mask to appear? I've seen it take upwards of 30 seconds sometimes?

Are the images being masked in a module or in the campaign \images directory?

Get both the GM and player to open the console window before testing (type /console in the chat window). See if there are any warnings being produced.

Make sure both the player and the GM don't have "Enable network diagnostics" checked (in the Settings screen).

[GM BK]

You're both running the same version? i.e. 3.0.12 live, not any test version?
Yes, both running the same version.
How long do you wait for the mask to appear? I've seen it take upwards of 30 seconds sometimes?
The mask loads, but what has been revealed does not. All I see is a blank mask until the GM starts to reveal stuff in real time. We checked the maskedimages directory when the map was initially shared, and no file appeared. A file would only appear in that directory after the GM had started to reveal stuff in real time. Then, if I close the map, or log off the server and come back, the previous mask will not load. all I get is an unrevealed mask.
Are the images being masked in a module or in the campaign \images directory?
The images have been masked and areas have been revealed, prior to the GM sharing them.
Get both the GM and player to open the console window before testing (type /console in the chat window). See if there are any warnings being produced.
noted. I will give this a shot as 'localhost' tonight.
Make sure both the player and the GM don't have "Enable network diagnostics" checked (in the Settings screen).
nope, not checked.

If I get anything out of the console, I will post it here. Thanks for taking the time to respond :)

[Trenloe]

Are the images being masked from a library module or have they been manually added to the campaign \images directory?

[GM BK]

From the \images directory. sorry, misunderstood the question :)

[Trenloe]

When you join the GMs game, make sure *all* of the three rulesets being loaded are 3.0.12:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39085830/Screenshots/Fantasy%20Grounds/PFRPG%203012.jpg

[GM BK]

I'm 99% sure all of those are loading, but will confirm once I get a chance to test things out again tonight.

[Trenloe]

What license does the GM have?

[GM BK]

Full, but I have ultimate.

[HoloGnome]

Hi - I did the debugging with BK last night on this issue, since it has occurred in our campaigns multiple times and he is about to play in my CON games. And, it should be noted that when this issue happens, it does not happen on other connected clients - only BK's.

To me, this bug looks like a file i/o sync bug or other incompatibility.

Here are some of the tests we performed:
- reviewed the device manager and tried alternate video drivers - no change
- turned off all extensions - no change
- all updated to 3.0.12 (everything...and confirmed on load) - OK
- checked FG settings to make sure directories were where they should be
- PFSRD Ruleset on server - OK
- completely deleted the campaign directory and created from scratch, as BK mentioned - no change (except that there were no rulesets on the client, but it worked fine when connecting to server)
- both ran as admin - no change
- otherwise, checked privileges on the directories - OK/no change(+ administrator test)
- reviewed firewall settings - OK/no change
- tried all image types - .jpg, .jpg max, .png8, .png24, .gif - no change
- reviewed memory allocation in task manager - OK
- disabled things that might be interfering with desktop operations and killed all non-essential processes
- verified that there were no anti-virus apps running
- reviewed the registry and didn't find any obvious issues
- rebooted the pc - no change
- tried both laptop and tower machines
- both machines running Windows 7/Pro 64-bit - mine is i7 Q720 with Radeon HD 4650 his laptop is Arrandale i5-460m w/ Intel HD Graphics - should be fine
- we tried al permutations of trying masks stored from the images directory and using live masks. By live mask, I mean I masked the image, then shared it, then unmasked areas in real time. Stored masks from the image directory failed every time, live masks worked every time.
- we directly monitored the maskedimages directory in the campaign folder. We sometimes saw the masks being saved, but they would not load on re-share.
- all it took to make the problem appear was to unclick the public flag, then re-share. partial masks on images never worked in any test
- previously, when I have connected to his server, my client seemed to be working properly...hmmm...but I don't think we used any masks in those games - that is one more thing we can try.

I think that's most of what we did, and we tested for some time to try and wade through the matrix of possible variables. Looking at it as a black box, I suspect there is an issue in FG on initial share, the mask is not being saved on his machine, so it is never applied to the shared image. However, live drawing mode is obviously working. The reason he sees the image fully masked is because the default mask is missing and the only time it seems to be applied is on that initial share. After that, everything syncs in live drawing mode and is saved either periodically or when the image or app closes.

If the developers want to track down this problem, here is what I suggest:
1. Create a build with probe points that will dump status and errors to the script window.
2. Add error handling at all the points where the mask is transferred from the server to the client
3. Add probes to points where the mask is drawn/rendered
3. Make sure there are debug probes on all file system i/o and network driver calls to look for success/failure
4. We run the test in our 100% reproducible case
5. We send you the debug text
6. With sufficient probes, the source of the failure should turn up (but the underlying cause on his machines may not be immediately obvious)

Things we couldn't rule out:
1. The fact that he originally installed the software via Steam
2. Differences in our license types (he is ultimate, I am full)

I hope this info is useful. As above, it feels like a file i/o bug or incompatibility, since the mask data is not being saved. Also, depending on how the mask is being rendered, I guess it could also be a graphics or graphics driver bug of some kind...but just conjecture.

[Griogre]

Is this on a specific map? And how big, file size wise, is this map?

[GM BK]

Thanks for the input and the help, Holo :)

This is with any map, regardless of size or file type.

[GM BK]

So this is the message the console gives me when someone goes to initially share a map with a pre-revealed mask...


Network Warning: Download error for file 'campaign/temp/mask_snapshot_:{ BK }:_1429382114'; HTTP/1.1 404 NOT FOUND
Network Warning: Download error for file 'campaign/temp/mask_snapshot_:{ BK }:_1429382115'; HTTP/1.1 404 NOT FOUND

After this, i receive no further messages from the console, even when the GM starts to reveal stuff on the map.

[Trenloe]

OK, it's the colons in your player name that are causing the issue. Join a game as just BK (no colons, no curly brackets) and see if it occurs again.

[GM BK]

That would just be my luck that it was something so simple... and i've used that logon name in every game i've been in... I have a game first thing in the morning, i will give it a try then. Thanks! :)

[GM BK]

It worked! Thank you! :)

[HoloGnome]

Yes - hooray! An unlikely suspect! Good catch!