GM Fantasy Grounds session crashing

[presence]

I have FG 3.2.3 Ultimate and am the GM for our gaming sessions.

Today when my group joined we had two separate crashes when my FG application crashed, and the players apps didn't. Relaunching seemed to help, and the last time, it didn't crash for several hours afterward.

It suggested that there might be corruption in the DB, but we noticed nothing off...figured maybe it was memory allocation for Java?

I wish I had copied the console.log off after this happened, but I didn't realize it was a rotating log, so I didn't capture any detail in the log.

The two times the crashes happened were when I was trying to share an NPC image with the group, and sharing a map. We are using the "Storm King's Thunder" module. The first time I had tried to share a map of the triboar trail with no icons/players/montsters on the map. The second crash happened in the middle of the very large conflict in Triboar (chapter 2).

[Trenloe]

A few questions:
1) Is your operating system 32 or 64-bit?
2) Which modules have you shared with the players?
3) How many other modules do you have open?
4) What extensions are you running?

[Spin-Man]

I also had a crash yesterday when I shared an image. I had two other players connected (both with demo licenses, each controlling 2+ characters). I didn't think anything of it at the time, but it may be related.

I have a 64-bit operating system.
I shared PHB deluxe and Elemental Evil Player's Guide with the players.
I had Princes of the Apocalypse and DMG open.
I had no active extensions, but I had used the L5R ruleset with all the included dice extensions a couple hours earlier. I don't remember if I had closed the program or just quit to the launcher in between.

[Trenloe]

...but I had used the L5R ruleset with all the included dice extensions a couple hours earlier. I don't remember if I had closed the program or just quit to the launcher in between.
The underlying LUA and memory management in FG is not super efficient and doesn't clear out memory fully when you exit to the launcher. Maybe in future try a clean start of FG just before you play (exit fully, not just to the launcher) and see if you have issues after doing this.

What image did you share? Was it from one of the modules or an image you imported? If an image you imported, what is the resolution (width x height in pixels) and the file size of the image?

Also - are you actually crashing - you get an error message and FG closes? Or, does FG report as "Not Responding" and gives you an option to close or wait? If it is reporting Not Responding then select "Wait" - FG in it's current architecture is a single threaded application which can go unresponsive for a while if it's doing some intensive operation (like when players connect, sharing a large map, adding some complex NPCs to the combat tracker, etc.). It hasn't actually "crashed" during this period, it just can't accept any user input and doesn't respond for a while.

[Spin-Man]

The underlying LUA and memory management in FG is not super efficient and doesn't clear out memory fully when you exit to the launcher. Maybe in future try a clean start of FG just before you play (exit fully, not just to the launcher) and see if you have issues after doing this.
I am brand new to using extensions, and I think that one hasn't been updated recently, so I figured that might have been the problem. I'll be sure to exit completely when changing rulesets from now on. Thank you!

What image did you share? Was it from one of the modules or an image you imported? If an image you imported, what is the resolution (width x height in pixels) and the file size of the image?

Also - are you actually crashing - you get an error message and FG closes? Or, does FG report as "Not Responding" and gives you an option to close or wait? If it is reporting Not Responding then select "Wait" - FG in it's current architecture is a single threaded application which can go unresponsive for a while if it's doing some intensive operation (like when players connect, sharing a large map, adding some complex NPCs to the combat tracker, etc.). It hasn't actually "crashed" during this period, it just can't accept any user input and doesn't respond for a while.
I shared the Red Larch player map from the PotA module. It kicked me out of the program, but without an error message. My screen just went black for a moment and the program closed. I had to relaunch and my players all had to connect again.

[Trenloe]

I am brand new to using extensions, and I think that one hasn't been updated recently, so I figured that might have been the problem.
Which extensions are you using?


My screen just went black for a moment and the program closed. I had to relaunch and my players all had to connect again.
Hhhmm, that sounds more like a graphics driver issue (the screen going black). Might be worth checking in the Windows event log (application and system) at the time that it happened to see if there is anything specific mentioned.

[Spin-Man]

The L5R ruleset came in a zip with a bunch of extensions. I have used Wild die, dice mechanics, and FGRandom. It also came with Weather, MoodLighting, and Locations Database, but I haven't activated any of those. I did put them in the extensions folder and they show up on my launcher; I just haven't ever selected them.

I'm not sure how to check my Windows event log. Honestly, installing rulesets and extensions is about as deep as I've gone into my pc's inner workings.

[Trenloe]

I'm not sure how to check my Windows event log.
Try this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6vUOyxmU1o

[Spin-Man]

I found the following error under application, with a timestamp that lines up:

Error running a Casl GET EmbeddedController.AuditLog.JSON command: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.

[Andraax]

The underlying LUA and memory management in FG is not super efficient and doesn't clear out memory fully when you exit to the launcher. Maybe in future try a clean start of FG just before you play (exit fully, not just to the launcher) and see if you have issues after doing this.

This is an OS feature. When memory is allocated to a process, and the process later "releases" the memory, the OS does not immediately reclaim it. It will leave the memory attached to the process. If the process later requests more memory, the memory requests are filled first from the already allocated memory. All OSes that I have worked with operate in this fashion (so don't even blame Windows - Linux, Unix, MacOS, BeOS, etc all do this). Memory is not reclaimed by the OS until the process exits completely.

The historic reason for this is the construction of the heap manager in C, BTW.

[Trenloe]

This is an OS feature. When memory is allocated to a process, and the process later "releases" the memory, the OS does not immediately reclaim it.
It's more than this with FG. The underlying code/libraries don't fully release memory - if you run a campaign, return to the launcher, start the same campaign again, return to the launcher, start the campaign again, etc. you'll see the memory increasing. It releases most when you return to the launcher, but there is some that is not released and this doesn't appear to be reused.

This has been improved in FG v3.4.4, but there is still some there. Still, if users are concerned about performance and/or crashes then the recommendation is to do a clean start of FG before the gaming session.

[Andraax]

It's more than this with FG. The underlying code/libraries don't fully release memory - if you run a campaign, return to the launcher, start the same campaign again, return to the launcher, start the campaign again, etc. you'll see the memory increasing. It releases most when you return to the launcher, but there is some that is not released and this doesn't appear to be reused.

This is a symptom of a "memory leak" - memory is allocated, then forgotten about, never released. If you never release it, then neither the memory allocation libraries nor the underlying OS can do anything about it - they have to assume you're still using it.

[Trenloe]

This is a symptom of a "memory leak" - memory is allocated, then forgotten about, never released.
I agree. Like I said: "The underlying code/libraries don't fully release memory..." Hence the recommendation is to restart FG before a gaming session.

[presence]

A few questions:
1) Is your operating system 32 or 64-bit?
2) Which modules have you shared with the players?
3) How many other modules do you have open?
4) What extensions are you running?

For #1 In my case, its x86_64 windows 10, but I believe FG is still 32bit.
For #2 I am sharing "DD PHB Deluxe" and "DD5E SRD Magic Items" shared to players.
For #3 I have "Calendars", "DD PHB Deluxe", "DD Storm King's Thunder", "DD5E SRD Bestiary", "DD5E SRD Magic Items", "Default Fumble and Critical Hit Tables" and "FG Battle Maps" enabled.
For #4 I have "5E Theme - Wizards", "D&D Player's Handbook Desktop Decal", and "D&D Storm King's Thunder Desktop Decals" enabled.

[Trenloe]

For #1 In my case, its x86_64 windows 10, but I believe FG is still 32bit.
For #2 I am sharing "DD PHB Deluxe" and "DD5E SRD Magic Items" shared to players.
For #3 I have "Calendars", "DD PHB Deluxe", "DD Storm King's Thunder", "DD5E SRD Bestiary", "DD5E SRD Magic Items", "Default Fumble and Critical Hit Tables" and "FG Battle Maps" enabled.
For #4 I have "5E Theme - Wizards", "D&D Player's Handbook Desktop Decal", and "D&D Storm King's Thunder Desktop Decals" enabled.
Nothing untoward there. As you're running on 64-bit windows FG will have around 3.5GB of memory to play with, with it approaches that you'll start to see issues. So, I'd recommend keeping Windows task manager open and if you start to experience issues check how much memory "FantasyGrounds.exe" is using. If you're above 3GB then that will probably be the cause and we can look at ways of reducing that further.

Also, when you say "crash" is FG actually crashing, or saying "Not Responding"? See more details in post #4 of this thread.

[Nylanfs]

Isn't PHB and the SRD Magic items duplicating info?

[Trenloe]

Isn't PHB and the SRD Magic items duplicating info?
Nope, there's virtually no magic items in the PHB, they're in the DMG.

[presence]

Nothing untoward there. As you're running on 64-bit windows FG will have around 3.5GB of memory to play with, with it approaches that you'll start to see issues. So, I'd recommend keeping Windows task manager open and if you start to experience issues check how much memory "FantasyGrounds.exe" is using. If you're above 3GB then that will probably be the cause and we can look at ways of reducing that further.

Also, when you say "crash" is FG actually crashing, or saying "Not Responding"? See more details in post #4 of this thread.

In my case I received an error message and the FG application closed, disconnecting all of my players.

[Trenloe]

In my case I received an error message and the FG application closed, disconnecting all of my players.
If you get an error message in future please quickly check the amount of memory being used by fantasygrounds.exe (although it may be too late) and take a screenshot of the error.

[Moon Wizard]

* Can you provide the size of your campaign images folder for that campaign, and the resolution of the image files (height/width in pixels)?
* Can you tell us how many files and what the total size is for the tokens/shared sub-folder under the FG data folder?

You can reach the FG data folder quickly by pressing the folder button in the upper right of the launch screen.

Cheers,
JPG