db is reverted to previous version on Hibernate

[Philip Cohen]

Hello all.
I am not sure if this is an issue with Fantasy grounds of my computer but I am hoping someone here can give me a hand.

First of all, I have been using this program since the 9/12/15 with very few issues. I have previously had to hard boot my computer due to computer troubles and backups of the Fantasy Grounds db have been successfully created. 2 days ago I finished a several hour update of a campaign I am creating, exported it as a module (chat log reports success) and shut down Fantasy Grounds. I put computer in Hibernate mode, and shortly after (~30min) restarted fantasy grounds and opened the module from another campaign and found it had reverted to a previous version. I reopened the campaign I created the module from and found it also had reverted.

I have done the following things to try and diagnose the problem;

1. Make a change to campaign and use the /save chat command reports successfully saved. Exit campaign. Reload campaign, changes present. Quit Fantasy grounds, hibernate computer, restart Fantasy grounds and then Campaign, changes lost

2. Make a change to campaign and use the /save chat command reports successfully saved. Exit campaign. Reload campaign, changes present. Quit Fantasy grounds, restart Fantasy Grounds, changes present. Quit Fantasy Grounds, Hibernate computer, restart Fantasy grounds and then Campaign, changes lost

3. Make a change to campaign and use the /save chat command reports successfully saved. Exit campaign. Save db to desktop. Hibernate computer. Restart Fantasy grounds and then campaign, changes lost. Restore db from desktop, changes restored.

4. Images (e.g. maps) that are added are not lost on Hibernate, neither are the “mask” images from the maskedimages folder. However the link between these two images is lost. In addition any grid data is lost on hibernate as is any encounter linked to an image.

From this I think that something is happening when I Hibernate the computer that resets the db file, but not the entire campaign directory. I have not got it linked with Onedrive/dropbox or other cloud services, at least as far as I can tell and I would assume that if something like that was going to happen then it would happen to the entire directory not just the db file.

I can use a workaround of independently backing up my db file after I work on a campaign but that is a bit of a hassle and seeing as I wasn’t having this issue previously I would like to see if I can fix it and make the program work like it was previously.

Any help is welcome and thanks for reading

[damned]

hey Philip Cohen.
please check if you are storing your data directory on a cloud/sync drive location like OneDrive/DropBox/Copy/GoogleDrive etc? If so - move it back to a default location and retest. Sync/Cloud drives will at some point mess up and corrupt your DB.
also please try right click Fantasy Grounds and running as Administrator and retesting.

[Philip Cohen]

Hey damned
Thanks for your prompt reply

I have double and triple checked that I am not connected to a cloud/sync drive and I am sure I am not. Also, as mentioned above, any file added the campaign directory remains unchanged (e.g. images/tokens/maskedimages). The only file that is reverted is the db.xml
In addition the tests I ran above have remained consistent with or without an internet connection meaning that it would have been impossible for the computer to sync as it was not connected to the cloud.

I have also changed the settings so that it always runs the game as an administrator and there has been no change to the above tests

It still seems to revert to a previous db, not on quiting/restarting FG, but only on hibernating/waking the computer. very odd

Philip

[damned]

From your description the changes/reverts can happen even when FG is not running. Eg in your first example. You close FG and reopen FG and changes are present. Close FG and hibernate. Wake computer and changes lost. You may have some other application, data guard, malware protection or something that is rolling back changes made by Fantasy Grounds....

[JohnD]

Where is FG installed?

[Philip Cohen]

damned: thanks I will check that when I have a minute

JohnD: Fantasy ground installed at C://programs(x86)/fantasy grounds
Fantasy grounds data in c://programdata/Fantasy grounds
(capital letters may be a little different)

[Philip Cohen]

damned I added the c:/programdata/fantasy grounds folder to the windows defender exclusions list (new computer so that is currently the only antivirus type program) I can't think of anything that comes standard on a Windows 10 machine that would do that, am I missing something obvious that you can think of?

something odd happened which has happened before but I thought I was imagining something: Hibernate, turn back on immediately and the changes persist. Hibernate again but leave for a few minutes before turning back on and the changes are once again lost.

Thank you to both of you for giving up your time on Christmas to help me out
(MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!)

[damned]

what brand computer are you using?
this doesnt sound like its FG thats doing it but it seems to be reproducible for you. I use sleep all the time (I rarely use hibernate) and havent seen anything like this before.
if you fire up task manager are there any processes that run after resuming from hibernate that could be the culprit?

[Zacchaeus]

Isn't campaign data stored in C/Users/Appdata/Roaming/Fantasy Grounds/Campaigns/Name of Campaign?

I have nothing in ProgramData

[Philip Cohen]

Hello again

so odd thing happened. I was going over a number of different settings and then all of a sudden it was fixed. I didn't find any problem processes with task manager, It wasn't a steam backup problem (I changed that setting anyway) I can't think what the last change I made was I just restarted the computer and now it appears to be fixed.

I'll definitely be backing up my db a bit more carefully after big changes and I'll update here if it happens again.

Thanks for all your help guys
Philip

[damned]

Isn't campaign data stored in C/Users/Appdata/Roaming/Fantasy Grounds/Campaigns/Name of Campaign?

I have nothing in ProgramData

Windows 10 data location.


so odd thing happened. I was going over a number of different settings and then all of a sudden it was fixed. I didn't find any problem processes with task manager, It wasn't a steam backup problem (I changed that setting anyway) I can't think what the last change I made was I just restarted the computer and now it appears to be fixed.

it would be good to know what the cause of this is/was... do let us know if you find out more.

[Andraax]

This doesn't happen to be an SSD drive?

[Zacchaeus]

Windows 10 data location..

I'm on Windows 10 and my data is still where it always was (I upgraded from Win 7 - so that might be the reason). Are you saying I should manually change that?

[Philip Cohen]

it would be good to know what the cause of this is/was... do let us know if you find out more.

Will do. thanks again for all the help

[damned]

This doesn't happen to be an SSD drive?

I was thinking possibly a SSD Cache drive. Something in the cache could have been messing up and not actually writing?


I'm on Windows 10 and my data is still where it always was (I upgraded from Win 7 - so that might be the reason). Are you saying I should manually change that?

Are you having any issues? Dont change stuff thats working :)
On a new install of Win10 that is the data location.

[Zacchaeus]

I was thinking possibly a SSD Cache drive. Something in the cache could have been messing up and not actually writing?



Are you having any issues? Dont change stuff thats working :)
On a new install of Win10 that is the data location.

Nope, no issues - at least not with Fantasy Grounds. I ate too much yesterday but that's the only problem I have at the moment :)