Campaign not saving

[Gutless]

So I'm really trying to hold back my rage on this one but I have had it twice now not save my campaign. Before I logged off I even typed the /save command and when I came back I have now lost about 5 hours of work. Now I am new so maybe I am doing something wrong but at this point Im about to ask for a refund and go back to Roll20.

So is there a special command I need to type to get my campaign to save? The only thing I did between then was run an update and purchase a module.

[Mask_of_winter]

Are you running the free version? Do you have admin access to your app data folder where the files are saved?

[dulux-oz]

Hi Gutless,

I'm sorry to hear about you frustrations. The only time FG doesn't save a campaign (normally) is when you are running under the Free/Demo License, or when the directory where you are trying to save to has been set Read-Only. Would either of these two cases be relevant? If not, we'll try to see how we can get you running/saving.

Cheers

[damned]

1. Make sure you have entered your license key and it shows the license type in the top right hand corner.
2. Make sure you can write to the FG folders - on the splash screen click on the windows explorer folders and then go to the /campaigns subdirectory and then your campaign name. Try and create a text file. Then try to Edit it. If you have security prompts or warnings then you dont have sufficient permissions to your data paths.

[Gutless]

It says 3.1.4 Ultimate in the right hand corner. And the issue is sometimes it saves and sometimes it does not the first time I experienced the issue wasn't a big deal only had a minor edit this second time it happened I had 5 straight hours of work in on my campaign. I have read a few thread about this issue and will try some of the resolutions I have found later. Was just frustrating to see 5 hours of work disappear. Thanks for the replies and Happy Thanksgiving.

[Gutless]

So further testing has shown the following

1) upper right hand corner 3.1.4 Ultimate

2) I can edit a file in my campaign folder under my campaign name just fine

3) I've tried going into the cmd prompt and setting the net user adminstrator active:yes

4) I can't even change the campaign details extensions on the splash screen

5) I made a new campaign which seems to work just fine

This problem has kind of appeared out of no where it was working just fine when I first purchased this.

[damned]

Hi Gutless. I imagine this is frustrating the heck out of you. Id try and /save and reload FG every 30mins so you can test your saves until we can work out what is causing this.
Another thing to try would be to right click FG and choose Run As Administrator whenever using FG.

Do you recall when you installed it - did you install for All Users or This User Only?

[Gutless]

I am not sure if I chose all users or this user only

I have windows 10 I don't get the option to run as administrator

I have been doing 15 minutes of work and saving then going back has worked just fine under a new campaign so far.

[Mask_of_winter]

Any chance your campaign name had non alpha-numerical characters?

[Gutless]

No it is named Boomtown

[Trenloe]

I have windows 10 I don't get the option to run as administrator
This should be available via: right-click -> More -> Run As Administrator.

[Gutless]

Quick update on this I have started a new campaign and have worked all night without a single problem my only guess is that my old campaign folder had become infected or something. I will consider the issue as a problem on my end somehow but will update this in the future if it happens again. Just in case someone is looking into this I still can not save anything in my old campaign but if I go into the folder i can create and edit documents so it is not read only kind of weird.

[Gutless]

So out of no where it started again not sure what happened but now my new campaign doing the same thing doesnt save any changes. At least I only lost about 5 minutes of work this time.

My options when I right click are Open, Print, slimcleaner, restore previous versions, send to, cut, copy, create shortcut, delete, rename, properties dont have a more option.

[damned]

Gutless - what AV are you running? This behaviour is quite strange.
This is what Win10 looks like on the Right Click for me...

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[Trenloe]

My options when I right click are Open, Print, slimcleaner, restore previous versions, send to, cut, copy, create shortcut, delete, rename, properties dont have a more option.
In that case, right-click -> Properties -> Compatibility tab -> click "Run this program as an administrator" -> OK

Then run FG as normal, this should give it Administrator rights.

Hopefully that will work. But, it sounds like something is changing the permissions at some point:

What drive location is your FG data directory pointing at? From the FG startup screen, click "Settings" - what is the "Data Directory" value?
Do you use any active backup/cloud sync applications - Box, Drive, Dropbox, etc.?

[Andraax]

I have windows 10 I don't get the option to run as administrator

Really? I have it on my Win10 on my drop down. Did you try try right-clicking, select "Properties", then "Advanced", then checking the "Run as Administrator" button?

[Gutless]

Alright so I am running AVG Zen and spybot for my Antivirus. And I have discovered that since I downloaded through Steam none of my steam apps let me run as administrator. I have tried running the Steam app as administrator then running Fantasy grounds that did not work. Here are some screen shots to show that the options you guys are giving do not exist. My Data Directory is C:\ProgramData\Fantasy Grounds

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11959

11960

11961

Thanks for the help so far guys I tested it this morning still will not let me save

[Trenloe]

Your system is seeing the shortcut you're using to start FG as an Internet shortcut and that is reducing your options, and is probably causing the issue by reducing access rights.

Go to the installation directory: probably \Program files (x86)\Fantasy Grounds and right-click on FantasyGrounds.exe and select run as administrator directly on the application executable.

[Gutless]

Your system is seeing the shortcut you're using to start FG as an Internet shortcut and that is reducing your options, and is probably causing the issue by reducing access rights.

Go to the installation directory: probably \Program files (x86)\Fantasy Grounds and right-click on FantasyGrounds.exe and select run as administrator directly on the application executable.

DING DING DING This fixed the problem thanks to everyone for the help. Back to world building.

[RagingCeltik]

Out of nowhere, this frustrating problem reared its head for me as well. I downloaded and installed FG direct from here, not steam. Have an active Ultimate license (v3.1.4), and my campaigns save to C:/Program Data, not a cloud drive. Using Windows 10 Home.

From install two weeks ago until today, everything worked fine. No issues with the software saving the campaign on close. But today I just spent two hours with a new player creating a character and closed the program. Nothing saved. Work and time wasted. I tested minor changes and looked at the campaign files' timestamps and confirmed *none* of them were updating when exiting FG.

I find this forum post and try executing as admin. That seems to have solved the problem.

It's really confusing why everything worked fine for weeks without executing FG as an administrator up until now, and suddenly now it requires it to save my campaign properly.

Now I'm paranoid that it will fail even with admin privs after a long 5-6 hour session. Maybe you guys should consider putting a "Save Campaign" button into the software rather than only trusting the software will save on exit when its too late for users to do anything about it at that point and everything is potentially lost.

[Trenloe]

Maybe you guys should consider putting a "Save Campaign" button into the software rather than only trusting the software will save on exit when its too late for users to do anything about it at that point and everything is potentially lost.
Type /save in the chat window to force a save.

However, if there is an underlying rights issue with the file access to where the campaign is saved this won't make much difference as this won't work either as it uses the same mechanism that is used when exiting. In addition, FG saves the campaign automatically every 5 minutes - not just on exit.

[damned]

Out of nowhere, this frustrating problem reared its head for me as well. I downloaded and installed FG direct from here, not steam. Have an active Ultimate license (v3.1.4), and my campaigns save to C:/Program Data, not a cloud drive. Using Windows 10 Home.

From install two weeks ago until today, everything worked fine. No issues with the software saving the campaign on close. But today I just spent two hours with a new player creating a character and closed the program. Nothing saved. Work and time wasted. I tested minor changes and looked at the campaign files' timestamps and confirmed *none* of them were updating when exiting FG.

I find this forum post and try executing as admin. That seems to have solved the problem.

It's really confusing why everything worked fine for weeks without executing FG as an administrator up until now, and suddenly now it requires it to save my campaign properly.

There have been many posts of people who's campaigns dont save - and they have been related to permissions. This behaviour where it did work and then after some period of time stops working is new or hasnt been reported (afaik) before. Modern operating systems are more and more security conscious and often do not obviously tell you what they are doing in regards to security. Fantasy Grounds cant adjust the security settings on your computer and there are an almost infinite number of combinations of software and settings that each person has that make having a foolproof system pretty darn difficult.


Now I'm paranoid that it will fail even with admin privs after a long 5-6 hour session. Maybe you guys should consider putting a "Save Campaign" button into the software rather than only trusting the software will save on exit when its too late for users to do anything about it at that point and everything is potentially lost.

As Trenloe points out teh system saves every 5mins and on exit. At least - it processes the save routine - it doesnt at this time check that that it can actually save.

[dulux-oz]

Maybe you guys should consider putting a "Save Campaign" button into the software rather than only trusting the software will save on exit when its too late for users to do anything about it at that point and everything is potentially lost.

You can always type "/save" into the Chatbox to force a save (as I've pointed out in the Tutorial Videos) :)

Cheers

[Mask_of_winter]

You can always type "/save" into the Chatbox to force a save (as I've pointed out in the Tutorial Videos) :)

Cheers
Yep. And before you hit enter you can drag the text to a hotkey box. Now you have an almighty Save button!

[Andraax]

Microsoft pushed a patch for Win10 that screwed up permissions on many computers.

[stucco33]

I just got this problem on Windows 7. A pretty fresh campaign (made about a week ago) became unable to save reliably. My test was:
Launch (via Steam)
Load campaign
Open PC panel
Rename a PC with some new addition to remind me what I was trying at the time
Use R-click to exit program entirely
Launch again to see if PC name change stuck

I did this with my week-old campaign and the change only stuck once, and I never found a pattern why. Most of the time the change never stuck.

I started a new campaign. My changes always stuck through several test, with different conditions (launching by exe instead of Steam, not typing /save, etc)

So I am guessing that something in a recent update made saving go bad, but a new campaign made after the update does not have this problem. So it may be quite tricky to bugfix.

Cheers,
Matt

[Trenloe]

@stucco33 - this is more than likely a file access/rights issue. Either FG needs administrator rights to access the files with an issue or there is something blocking access to those files.

Are you running any backup/cloud sync software (DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.) on your FG data directory? If so, disable this for the FG data directory as it can cause data loss/corruption.
Try running FG outside of Steam and run as administrator - right-click on the FG start icon and select "Run as Administrator".

[damned]

also make sure your product is showing as licensed

[stucco33]

@stucco33 - this is more than likely a file access/rights issue. Either FG needs administrator rights to access the files with an issue or there is something blocking access to those files.

Are you running any backup/cloud sync software (DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.) on your FG data directory? If so, disable this for the FG data directory as it can cause data loss/corruption.
Try running FG outside of Steam and run as administrator - right-click on the FG start icon and select "Run as Administrator".


Hi Trenloe, thanks for the reply.

The tl;dr is: launching as administrator does fix the problem, thanks! But I found something that may help you fix it. In short, a campaign can enter a bad state in which it's necessary to launch as admin, while at the same time another campaign has no problems saving, even without the admin launch.

Here are the exact steps I am taking with each campaign, which I will call the "good" campaign and "bad" campaign-- the bad one being the one that does not save. I've worked in software for 20 years so I'll describe this in a suitably anal-retentive way to try to illuminate the problem. :)

* Launch FG via Steam
* Load campaign
* Highlight campaign and click Start
* See loading screen
* See FG desktop
* Click "PCs" button
* Click a PC character
* Under "Name" label, change the name of the character to something distinctive (such as "test save")
* Click X on the character panel
* Click X on the "Character selection" panel
* In chat window, type and enter the command /save
* Right-click on FG desktop
* Click Exit program
* Click Exit program again
* Repeat above steps with same campaign

On the bad campaign, the change to the character's name *does not remain*-- did this at least 2 times with the exact above steps and many more times with slight variants. Once the name did update but I cannot reproduce it reliably.

With the exact same steps but using the good campaign, the change to the character's name *does remain*-- did this 2 times with the exact above steps and a few more times with slight variants. It never failed to save.

With the same steps but launching directly from the exe with "run as administrator" *the bad campaign then was able to save properly-- this fixed the problem*. The save was successful 2 times out of 2.

But the question remains why, when launching from Steam, one bad campaign had the problem while one good campaign did not. Hopefully this analysis helps you pin down the problem. I can provide the data files if you like.

After this, I went back to launching FG from the exe but not "run as administrator". The bad campaign once again failed to save. So temporarily using the admin launch did not cure the bad campaign.

The bad campaign was one I made about a week ago. It saved several times successfully before it turned bad.

The good campaign was one I made last night.

To answer possible questions brought up earlier:
* Purchased full version of FG (not ultimate). Using 5E ruleset plus purchased monster manual.
* Neither campaign has any special characters-- all letters and numbers
* Windows 7
* FG was recently updated, using the GUI button to update.
* I used to launch exclusively with Steam. Before I noticed the problem, I had started launching directly from the exe to save some time, start multiple instances, etc.

[Trenloe]

Thanks for the detailed info. There's nothing obvious there, especially as you appear to be following the exact same process for each campaign. Are you running any backup/cloud sync software (DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.) on your FG data directory?


I had started launching directly from the exe to save some time, start multiple instances, etc.
How many instances are you starting at one time? What are you using them for? For example, 1 x GM and 1 X Player, 2 x GM, etc..

[damned]

you might send an email to [email protected] and see if they would like a copy of your DB to see if they can see what went wrong....
of course they might not want it either!

[stucco33]

Thanks for the detailed info. There's nothing obvious there, especially as you appear to be following the exact same process for each campaign. Are you running any backup/cloud sync software (DropBox, OneDrive, Google Drive, etc.) on your FG data directory?

How many instances are you starting at one time? What are you using them for? For example, 1 x GM and 1 X Player, 2 x GM, etc..

No synching on my directory.

I only did the multiple launch once, to see what it was like to have a GM and player instance. In all my testing above it was just a GM instance.

[Moon Wizard]

It still seems like file issue (either corruption or permission).

You can try this to fix:
* Launch FG with bad campaign. (Make sure to run as normal user, NOT as administrator)
* While FG is running, remove the db.xml from the bad campaign folder. (i.e. move to desktop for backup just in case)
* Type /save in FG, and make sure new db.xml is saved.
* Make changes.
* Exit and restart to check changes.

This should reset the permissions on the file to be the active user.

Regards,
JPG

[stucco33]

It still seems like file issue (either corruption or permission).

You can try this to fix:
* Launch FG with bad campaign. (Make sure to run as normal user, NOT as administrator)
* While FG is running, remove the db.xml from the bad campaign folder. (i.e. move to desktop for backup just in case)
* Type /save in FG, and make sure new db.xml is saved.
* Make changes.
* Exit and restart to check changes.

This should reset the permissions on the file to be the active user.

Regards,
JPG

That worked too! Now can launch FG without admin privs and the bad campaign now saves. Handy to have this fix (even though launch as admin works too) in case I forget. Thanks all.

[Pkunky]

Hey guys,

I guess I'm another user experiencing the same issue.
- Windows 10
- Launching from Steam primarily, but the behaviour occurred when launching directly from the executable as well
- Application shows as correctly licensed, and I'm only using the base 5e datasets and the 5e core character pack
- My campaign was originally saving correctly (and I could see the save events in the log file), and allowed me to create and modify characters; this probably all occurred in my second usage of the program, but first usage of the campaign (I can't be sure though)
- The next day I added 4 new characters, played for several hours with the app open as I ran a pen and paper game; I then exited as I had previously when making content for the campaign, and discovered today that there were no saves during that entire time

I then started testing, and modified the existing character and attempted to manually trigger saves in console, and no saves committed then either, although as noted above it happily advised me the campaign was saved.

I confirmed I've got full access to both the folder, and to all of the files inside it; current user context is an admin, but I know Windows sometimes requires explicit elevation for some functions.

Much like the other users have said, launching explicitly as an admin does allow me to commit changes to the db.xml file and save correctly... but there doesn't SEEM to be any active limitation that should prevent me from doing so as a non-elevated user. This looks like the kind of thing that used to happen when UAC virtualised or protected certain files in Win7, so they became limited to the user context of the user running them, and were obfuscated away... but I've got to admit, I don't really know how Win10 works in that regard.

I guess I'm getting lots of practice with creating characters in the tool now, and thankfully I didn't really lose too much because I'd only just converted across from 3.5, but it would be nice if this issue didn't hit anyone else. :D

Is it possible to have the save campaign function (whether called manually or automatically) compare the modified dates on the output file or use some other method to confirm it actually does commit a save? If there's a detected permissions issue, could the db.xml also be saved to an alternate location for recovery, perhaps somewhere inside the user's personal folders? Is the save action actually committed under the current user context, or does use SYSTEM?

Happy to provide any additional testing or information if it would help... uhm, and hope I'm not necroing something too old. :D

(I mean, I've got my workaround for now, explicit admin, but I'm just not sure that's necessarily going to help any new users coming in the same way I did).

[damned]

Welcome Pkunky.
If running as Admin does allow the save and running without Admin privileges does not save correctly then it is a permissions issue.
Please go to your Fantasy Grounds Data location and explicitly grant your user (or the Users group) Modify and Write Permissions or Full Permissions.

https://www.fg-con.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/permissions.gif

[Pkunky]

Hey damned, thanks for the quick reply. :)

Interestingly, I can see that the write permission at the top of the folder wasn't applied to files; maybe that's why the permissions are screwy?
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I'm still not entirely sure how the folder can be created without the permission required to run correctly, or what would have modified those permissions seeing as saving was working initially. Maybe it's a conflict in the two discreet permissions, where despite being a member of the local admins group (granting me full control), I'm also a member of the users group, which may give me a limited read/execute permission... and I think when they're in conflict, windows gives you the lesser of the two. *le shrug*

I'll explicitly allow full control for now for all users; I was thinking it might be worth investigating more for other users who might get caught by this? :)

Cheers!

[damned]

Windows Allow Permissions are Cumulative - you will gain the highest permissions from all of your groups.

Note:
Windows Deny Permissions are also cumulative and All Deny permissions from all of your groups will be applied.
It is usual to only use the Allow permissions - by not granting someone an Allow it is almost the same as applying a Deny...
https://www.ntfs.com/ntfs-permissions-allow.htm

[Pkunky]

If my permissions are the highest of the combined permissions, then changing USERS to have full control shouldn't have any effect should it, as I'm already a member of ADMINISTRATORS as well? (Also confirmed that I am currently in the admin group as well... just to be safe! :D ) I also confirmed there were no deny permissions listed... and no manually set permissions changes to that folder either.

As a member of ADMINISTRATORS group, my current user has full control all the way down the tree; I confirmed this by explicitly testing permissions on folders and files with effective permissions on my user. The result was always that my permissions were full control, and not limited in any context. Tested against the campaign folder, the db.xml and campaign.xml files and a few others I've forgotten.

Yet when saving inside the application (and maybe only inside the application?) my access became limited. I was able to create, write, and save files without explicitly elevating my permissions in explorer, as well, which suggests my permissions were elevated as reported in Windows? Does the application save using my user context?

I don't doubt you when you say it's a permissions issue, but based on what that article says, I don't see how my user which is currently a member of the ADMINISTRATORS group on this workstation could have anything but full control for all files and folders? :/

Maybe it's just something unique to my machine... but this whole thing seems strange. I installed the demo, and was able to save and modify. I purchased the application on steam, and was able to create, save and modify. I then lost that permission on next launch without making any changes on my end... I literally launched it again from steam, same way I had last time. I had not at that point manually modified permissions or configuration of any kind.

I've made the permission change now anyway, and removed the "launch as admin" tick on the executable; I'll let you guys know if any changes fail to commit again. :)

[damned]

Its not unique to your computer. Several others have reported similar issues occurring including it working for X period and then stopping working. It has been suggested that maybe a windows update has changed things. I have helped someone create a new User account on a W10 computer with this issue and the permissions were correct. Ive manually applied the permissions and it has worked. Your point about being a member of Administrators already is interesting. Is it possible at all you installed the application using a different user account?

[Pkunky]

The install would have been in my current admin user; there's only this user account on the machine, outside of the default system ones. I was also an admin before installing the demo, as well.

I guess it could be an update that modified permissions on the folder, but this machine probably wouldn't have processed any updates yesterday. There's also the annoying part that even today when it was also failing to save, my effective permissions on my user account still showed as full control for what I believe are the key files at least. :/

Just in case it's important later, I created my original character and campaign on the 29th, and then ran the live game on the 30th, and in that window of time whatever the permission change was happened, saving was working fine until I closed the program the first time after creating the campaign and character, and the log file confirmed multiple save events for the 29th, but none for the 30th.

No reboots in that time window either, but there would have been a few sleep events as the laptop had a nap.

Maybe steam is a factor in the permissions changing/being limited? I didn't notice any cloud save settings for fantasy grounds, but I'll take another look now.

[damned]

An update in approx 2 weeks time will provide better warnings about SAVE issues - eg the game will check to see if the SAVE worked and will report if it didnt... it cant fix a permissions issue but it will alert - or at least I believe that will be in the upcoming 3.1.6 update.

[damned]

Hiya all - if any of you are running Win7/8 or a Wineskinned version and have some time to do some testing.... Moon Wizard has identified the likely cause and a probable fix but it needs more testing on these versions.
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?28451-Request-for-helping-test-updater-installer-changes