Constant Crashing for players connected to campaign - about to throw in the towel

[Arinath]

Hopefully someone can help. I am a player in a three person 5th edition campaign and we've been using FG since July of last year. While we have had the occasional crash periodically, lately the program is basically unusable due to crashes. Myself and the other Player that are connecting to the DM's campaign get kicked to desktop multiple times an hour.

I have seen in other threads that this could be about memory usage - that seems ridiculous to me as this program shouldn't be using THAT much memory. Our DM does NOT have a ton of tokens setup so its not that, as I have seen suggested in other threads.

Its gotten to the point where we are ready to give up on Fantasy Grounds all together. We are extremely disappointed in a product we've all paid good money for (Basic License + Player's handbook for all of us.) In my opinion, it shouldn't be the user's responsibility to tweak things in order to make the game playable, it should just WORK.

That said, if there is a way to make it work we'll take it since we can't get a refund at this point. Our DM is trying the following: Removing old maps and clearing out everything from the campaign he thinks we'll no longer need in order to reduce the footprint of his own files. We are also migrating back to the TEST area, as we started there and since moving to PROD/LIVE a few weeks back the crashes have gotten a lot worse.

Anyone have any advice before the three of us leave in disgust? Roll20 wasn't nearly as robust as Fantasy Grounds (we used it for our 4th edition campaign from 2013-2015) but at least it WORKED.

[Trenloe]

Please provide this information: open FG, click the folder icon in the top right of the first screen, navigate to the "cache" directory and then the directory with the name of the campaign you've just crashed out of. What is the total size of all the .dat files in that directory? Also, please provide a list of the .dat file names (a screenshot would be cool).

Then, the next time you are about to game: all players should clear their cache before the join the GM next time. On the "Join Game" screen click the Nuclear icon in the top right.

Then, after you have a crash (if this repeats itself): check the cache data again (as above).

Are you running 32-bit or 64-bit operating systems?

[ddavison]

Another thing to check is whether or not your DM and players have the Data Directory set to use an automatically synced drive like OneDrive or SkyDrive. If so, we recommend not running your live campaign from this location and instead manually copying stuff out to there from time to time. We have had reported issues of data loss and corruption for people using these sort of synced drive locations.

Also, check the console.log file immediately after crash to see if there is an indication or error message present. You can ask your DM to email those and screenshots of their Settings to [email protected] and we would be happy to review it.

[LordEntrails]

Some other things to keep in mind or consider (after Trenloe's advice):
- Is the GM's Fantasy Grounds crashing? Or just the players?
- Is FG closing/crashing or are you just loosing connection?
- Have the GM and the players both check the size of the FG process using the task manager prior to a crash

[Fendy]

I am the GM in said campaign.

I believe everyone is running 64bit OS' with at least 8G of memory.

The hard drive is not sync'd. The drive is not the same as my windows system drive or disk cache. I do run Malware Bytes and Kaspery's(?) Virus protection.

As a GM, I believe I've only crashed two to five times in the past 9 months. The players seem to crash at least one a session. Last session we had nine crashes in two hours. On the GMs side, I only see players connecting and disconnecting, but in voice chat they say they crashed and have to restart. I do not see any errors popup on my screen or anywhere besides the disconnect message. I have not checked the log file however.

The few times I crashed as a GM, I believe it was with a large map when revealing the mask.

The players did both clear the cache out a few times. When they come back in, they were missing maps and downloads took a while. We also started to be missing tokens at that point as well, which never happened before. The players could see the red token outline, but the token graphic was completely missing on the battlemap. As a GM, I don't have a way to clear the cache out.

I have also had reports from my players that...
They have crashed navigating to their "Actions" tab on their character sheet.
The player's clients have crashed trying to stretch it across two monitors.

As well, this last time, there was something up with the Party Sheet window, where the shared party inventory is. With no maps open an manipulating the shared treasure; ex splitting gold; they were crashing out.

Opening tabs with lots of info seems to be a problem.

Our net connections are all good. We have run speed tests and are in voice chat with normally very little used bandwidth due to the voice chat.

I'll check more tonight.

Fendy

[Arinath]

Confirming 64 bit Windows with 8 GB of memory.

And crashing is indeed crashing to desktop - no warning, no errors, just dumped out of the program all together. Sometimes we get the blue busy circle for a bit before the crash but more often its just *poof*

As Fendy says, it often happens when trying to open a PC's action tab or the party window's inventory tab, where there is a lot of data. We (the PCs) have tried clearing our cache but that seemed to cause more problems, including the token issue mentioned above.

Regarding two monitors: the program really seems to not like it. I make a point now of stretching across BEFORE I connect to the GM; trying to do it after can result in lock-ups/slow downs.

[Trenloe]

I believe everyone is running 64bit OS' with at least 8G of memory.
FG is a 32-bit app, with the large memory flag set, so it will use close to 4GB memory and no more. In most cases you'll start to get "issues" above 3.5GB memory use and at some point it'll crash.


The hard drive is not sync'd.
What about the players?

I'd also recommend trying this: export the campaign data into a module, info here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/wiki/index.php/Library#Module_Export Then start a new campaign with only the base modules and your campaign export module. Get the players to join and see if you have further issues.

[Fendy]

Right now, everything I build is in a sub module which I export and import into my main overall Campaign module. About the only raw item in the campaign module is the PCs themselves.

I am planning on zipping up the whole Fantasy Grounds data directories, removing the old unneeded maps and tokens, creating a brand new high level module/campaign, and importing the characters and modules back into that. I'm also going to try not importing some of the older modules which I hope we don't need anymore.

I have the MM imported into the main module, but not exported/visible to the characters. The PH is visible to them, but I have doubts that exporting the PH is an issue as FG seems designed to share the PH this way with players in case they haven't purchased it.


Fendy

[Fendy]

Duplicate post

[Trenloe]

We (the PCs) have tried clearing our cache but that seemed to cause more problems, including the token issue mentioned above.
Check what is actually loading to the cache - please provide a list as suggested in post #2 above.

Also, after clearing the cache in future, check that it indeed has cleared and then run FG as Administrator (right-click on the startup icon and select "Run as Administrator").

I'm thinking this is potentially a mix of a few things - corrupt data (either locally or on the GM side, or both) and file access rights (the missing tokens and maps suggest this).

So, players should clear the cache, make sure it's cleared and then start FG as administrator. If the cache populates OK and the client memory use is not above 3GB and there is a crash, then it sounds like there is a problem with the data the GM is providing - the GM should look into the module export/new campaign I mentioned above.

[Trenloe]

I am planning on zipping up the whole Fantasy Grounds data directories, removing the old unneeded maps and tokens, creating a brand new high level module/campaign, and importing the characters and modules back into that. I'm also going to try not importing some of the older modules which I hope we don't need anymore.
If you go this route I'd recommend everyone runs on live as well, not test. Create the new campaign in live etc..

[Fendy]

If you go this route I'd recommend everyone runs on live as well, not test. Create the new campaign in live etc..

I have work done already that I don't want to have to redo, but I can if needed.

Do we need to completely re-enter the PCs as well? Or can we import them?


Fendy

[Trenloe]

Do we need to completely re-enter the PCs as well? Or can we import them?
You can export/import them. The problem is if the PC data is causing the issue... It's difficult to tell what is causing the issue at this point.

[justalon]

Trenloe, thank you for working with us to figure this out. I am one of the other players in this campaign and I was the first one to have problems. I can confirm I am on a 64 bit windows 7 and i have 16 gig of ram.
Here is a list of the first issues I had and when they occured.
1) I would crash when trying to click on the actions tab of only one specific character. It seemed to be random, sometimes immediately and sometimes not for 20 successful uses.
2) I would regularly crash when trying to use 2 monitors (same res, same refresh rate) and then try to move stuff around.
3) I would regularly crash when a map was being shared.

At first Arinath didn't have the same issues I did, so it felt like it was my machine. I tested RAM, Disk space, permissions, etc. I finally moved the actually file directory onto another drive and reset permissions. This seemed to help me for a little while. Then shortly after that Arinath starting having some of the same issues and even more often than i did. This last play session monday though, neither of us could play for more than 5 minutes without crashing. These crashes mostly seemed to stem from the player party sheet as fendy mentioned, but i still had a couple issues around images.

Here are some of the message I get right before crashing :
1) Runtime Error: image: Snapshot size (0,0) does not match base size (get this one a lot)
2) Unable to save file (somefile.png) to cache. Please restart Fantasy Grounds and reset cache on launch screen before rejoining game.
3) Script Error: [string "campaign/scripts/charselect_client.lua"]:19: attempt to call global 'createWindow' (a nil value)

I also get these errors in my windows application logs when it crashes :

Fault bucket , type 0
Event Name: AppHangTransient
Response: Not available
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: FantasyGrounds.exe
P2: 0.0.0.0
P3: 56cb80d7
P4: unknown
P5: unknown
P6: unknown
P7: unknown
P8:
P9:
P10:

Attached files:

These files may be available here:

Analysis symbol:
Rechecking for solution: 0
Report Id: 5f7e0df6-e4cb-11e5-aa9e-6cf049ecc3a4
Report Status: 1

In XML :
<EventData>
<Data />
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>AppHangTransient</Data>
<Data>Not available</Data>
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>FantasyGrounds.exe</Data>
<Data>0.0.0.0</Data>
<Data>56cb80d7</Data>
<Data>unknown</Data>
<Data>unknown</Data>
<Data>unknown</Data>
<Data>unknown</Data>
<Data />
<Data />
<Data />
<Data />
<Data />
<Data />
<Data>0</Data>
<Data>1c94bbf3-e4d9-11e5-aa9e-6cf049ecc3a4</Data>
<Data>1</Data>
</EventData>


No System or Security errors during these times.
Hopefully this helps.

[Trenloe]

@justalon

Thanks for the info. This does look like a corrupt cache and file access issues.

Run as administrator, then clear your cache (hit the nuke button) then join the game.

[Fendy]

My dat dir.

Nothing seems overly big actually. All told its just 420MB which is less than I was expecting.


D:\DnD\Fantasy Grounds\modules>dir
Volume in drive D is New Volume
Volume Serial Number is 8CCD-6D5C

Directory of D:\DnD\Fantasy Grounds\modules

03/06/2016 05:01 PM <DIR> .
03/06/2016 05:01 PM <DIR> ..
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 146,218 3.5E-basicrules.mod
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 196,204 3.5E-magicitems.mod
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 305,046 3.5E-monsters.mod
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 268,110 3.5E-spells.mod
05/30/2015 05:53 PM 827,643 AnimalPogs.mod
05/30/2015 05:53 PM 315,864 Animals.mod
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 34,337 calendars.mod
05/30/2015 05:53 PM 2,060,690 CharacterPogs.mod
05/30/2015 05:53 PM 1,155,517 Characters.mod
08/24/2015 06:39 PM 5,871,244 Combat_Battlemaps.mod
07/09/2015 10:01 PM 5,900,187 Encounter Test.mod
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 683,208 FateCoreSRD.mod
03/06/2016 03:39 PM 11,939,960 Feast of Ravenmoor.mod
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 19,637 fumblecrit.mod
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 2,759,891 ks01_ogl_well_met_in_kithtakharos.mod
05/30/2015 05:52 PM 287,427 lettertokens.mod
05/30/2015 05:53 PM 3,910,943 MonsterPogs.mod
05/30/2015 05:53 PM 3,219,833 Monsters.mod
02/08/2016 06:26 PM 171,041 PF-SRD-Basic-Rules.mod
02/08/2016 06:26 PM 214,083 PF-SRD-Bestiary.mod
02/08/2016 06:26 PM 189,367 PF-SRD-Magic-Items.mod
02/08/2016 06:26 PM 274,906 PF-SRD-Spells.mod
09/28/2015 06:07 PM 859,583 RotRL - Druid Forms.mod
03/06/2016 05:01 PM 46,431,199 RotRL - The Skinsaw Murders.mod
10/18/2015 01:35 PM 1,886,658 RotRL Monsters.mod
06/20/2015 11:58 PM 12,275,204 RotRL World.mod
11/02/2015 07:45 PM 208,331,150 RotRL-BurntOfferings.mod
07/06/2015 10:14 PM 5,852,354 RotRL-Campaign.mod
08/26/2015 10:16 PM 3,416,553 RotRL-Choppers Isle.mod
08/11/2015 10:50 PM 12,563,911 RotRL-Harrow.mod
09/28/2015 06:13 PM 3,888,344 RotRL-Rivals.mod
08/16/2015 05:55 PM 103,199,650 RotRL-Sandpoint.mod
32 File(s) 439,455,962 bytes
2 Dir(s) 597,700,341,760 bytes free

D:\DnD\Fantasy Grounds\modules>

[justalon]

@justalon

Thanks for the info. This does look like a corrupt cache and file access issues.

Run as administrator, then clear your cache (hit the nuke button) then join the game.

I have cleared the cache a few times and still crashed, but I don't think I have ran it as administrator yet, so I will give that a shot next. Thanks! I think you are right though, I think it is a combination of a couple issues.

[Trenloe]

That RotRL-Sandpoint module looks to have some pretty big images in it, Burnt Offerings too! Are you using those modules and sharing images from them?

Even if the image isn't open, if it's been shared to the players before, there'll be a (p) icon alongside he image name in the GM list, then the player side will download it and store it in memory.

Check your image lists in he campaign (on each tab) and see how many are still shared with the players. Then check the size of those images in the module itself.

I remember a very detailed (but incredibly large) map of the Swallowtail festival on these boards a while ago, that hasn't been shared before has it?

Also, how big is the db.xml file in your campaign directory?

[Moon Wizard]

Make sure that you have set the player access to the adventure modules to "Block", and definitely not Allow.

If you did have them set to Allow and the player opened the module, then the large graphics are overloading their instance of FG.

The GM will need to make sure that the module is set to Block, then the player will need to nuke their cache from the launcher.

This is a known limit of the current FG architecture (which we are working on replacing). It's usually not an issue, since you typically don't want to share adventure modules or creature modules with your PCs, since they would then be able to read the entire module while you're playing. Individual record sharing is independent if the Allow/Block setting.

Regards,
JPG

[Trenloe]

@Fendy - sent you a PM.

[Trenloe]

That RotRL-Sandpoint module looks to have some pretty big images in it, Burnt Offerings too! Are you using those modules and sharing images from them?

Even if the image isn't open, if it's been shared to the players before, there'll be a (p) icon alongside he image name in the GM list, then the player side will download it and store it in memory.

Check your image lists in he campaign (on each tab) and see how many are still shared with the players. Then check the size of those images in the module itself.
Looks like this was the issue - there were over 150 images shared, so when I logged in all of them were downloaded and FG memory jumped up to 3.5GB before I did anything. Thus, just opening the actions tab on a PC would add more memory use to this (quite a lot if the PC has complex actions/lots of spells) and tip it over the level where FG crashes.

The GM has unshared all of the images, and they'll test in their next session, using just the images they need.

Oh, and some of the images were stupidly big (70+MB, 7000x9000), converting to JPG at 50 quality and reducing the resolution by half got the size under 3MB and good fast scrolling etc..

Hopefully this was the only issue (I'd guess it was)...

[justalon]

Thanks a lot for the help Trenloe, we had arinath join us too and he is good too.

[Trenloe]

we had arinath join us too and he is good too.
Awesome! Game back on. :)

[Fendy]

Sincere thanks for the help Trenloe, it is greatly appreciated. The players did a test log in tonight and we didn't see any problems.

We will let you know how the next session goes!

Fendy

[ddavison]

Thanks for your assistance Trenloe. We are grateful to have you.