Are Steam licenses transferable?

[Shaun]

I know that FG licenses bought elsewhere will be recognised on Steam, but does it work the other way round? I got the basic rules module from Steam and am thinking of using FG as a DM's aid in tabletop games, but I won't have internet access in the venue we're using, and am worried about the 5E stuff disappearing from FG (as it sometimes does, and then seems impossible to restore without connecting to Steam again).

[Trenloe]

You can use FG offline. Content shouldn't disappear if you don't run an update while not connected to Steam. Stay away from update when not connected to Steam and you should be OK.

[Shaun]

Thanks Trenloe, but updates don't seem to be the cause of the problem, at least not so far as I can tell. I've tried disconnecting from the internet and running the updater, but that doesn't cause the 5E stuff to vanish - it's all still there. I don't know what the exact circumstances are, it just seems to disappear sometimes and only becomes available again if I run the updater. Is there any way of backing up the Steam content in the same way you can the usual PAK, MOD, & EXT files? If I could save a copy of the relevant files somewhere that should solve the problem (?)

[Trenloe]

The only thing that will have FG touch the base files is doing an update.

Are you running any sync software (DropBox, On Drive, Google Drive, etc.) or an active backup application on your FG data directory?

[Shaun]

Onedrive is installed on the computer, but it isn't backing up anything automatically, and has no connection with the FG directory. Tried the updater again with no internet connection, and it definitely doesn't reproduce the problem. It's only an occasional and intermittent thing, but it's sod's law that it's bound to happen just when I need the 5E material and can't get it back. Is it possible with a Steam license to download a "normal" version of the 5E module? Or to manually back up whatever files Steam downloads?

[Trenloe]

If it's just the 5E content then you can backup <FG app data>\content.dat

If you have other purchased material, backup the <FG app data>\modules and <FG app data>\extensions directories.

[ddavison]

There is nothing that should change the modules availability if you are offline or online unless you run an Update. The only thing I can think of is if you have two separate installations of Fantasy Grounds installed to different locations and you are inadvertently running a different copy one time. If you log on to your computer with a different account name, for instance, it would most likely have the content stored in a different user folder.

[Shaun]

Thanks Guys, making a backup copy of the content.dat file should hopefully do the job (I tried deleting it and it produced a situation identical to the problem I'd been experiencing, and copying the backed up version back into the directory solved it). There's definitely only one user and one installation of FG on this computer, and nothing I do seems to be reproducing the problem (other than deleting content.dat).