Character sheet updates. (Where is the information stored)

[Devistation]

I'm running my first group with fantasy grounds and before we started playing all my players made characters on my laptop (this is a work group, we all play in person) On the first game they took ownership of this characters and on the next session we leveled two times to level three. I opened FG to check the character sheets today and add skills the got with the level advancement from the "Complete Character Class" pack found right here on the FG forums! (shameless plug) and all the character sheets are at level 1!!! what happened? Is the leveling info on there personal computers? I figured it would be uploaded to my PC. We play with laptops and I'm not sure my players will use the same ones each time.. They might have too. But where is that data we played with that night?

[Trenloe]

Did all of the players connect to you over the network when you were playing? i.e. they used the "Join Game" functionality. Or did they just run FG as a "campaign" on their own laptop?

The data is stored within the campaign ran by the GM. If all of the players connected to that campaign then the data will be in that campaign. If this is the case - i.e. the players all connected over the network with "Join Game" then make sure you've loaded the exact same campaign that you had loaded when you played. If this is the case, look at the character selection screen - do any of the characters there show "Owned by: XXXXX" (where XXXXX is a player name)?

[Devistation]

Yes,. I started the campaign on my laptop, they all connected over my home network. They leveled up using my PHB that was shared with them and it shows as owned by the player on the portraits on the PC screen. But they all show as level one not level three

[Trenloe]

But they all show as level one not level three
Is this the only thing that's not showing correctly?

Is the XP showing correctly? If so, maybe they didn't level properly?

FG doesn't automatically increase the level when XP reaches the next level threshold. That is up to players to do. If you have the PHB then drag the relevant class to the character sheet, to add one level per class drag.

If this isn't the issue, please provide a screenshot showing the issue - and list what's missing. Thanks.

[Devistation]

They all leveled up when we played Friday night with dragging and dropping. They picked skills and areas of expertise, spells, etc. It was a pain. I was trying to help all of them at the same time and I had 8 people, 8 separate laptops. So the leveling sucked adding skills and class traits for all of them. So yeah, when we ended they were all showing 3rd level.

[Devistation]

Screenshot 20020

[Trenloe]

Open a couple of the PC sheets. Click the magnifying glass next to Class and Level entry to show more details on exactly what's been done on the PCs. Then please provide a screenshot of these PCs and their class and level windows.

Check the skills and class traits - do the changes you made to these appear correct, or are they at what they were before the players levelled?

What I'm trying to determine is if nothing at all has saved from your updates, or if there's some things that weren't changed. Just looking at the level on the Character Selection screen doesn't tell us much about what hasn't been saved, or what's actually not been saved (or not done correctly).

You can also look at the chatlog.html file in your campaign data directory - see if this shows the changes that the players made. This is really just an audit trail, but it might help us to see what went on.

[Nylanfs]

Just making sure, you did run from your laptop for the game didn't you?

[Devistation]

So I figured it out, It was user error. We leveled up in the game and everything looked right I was seeing they were level three. When we finished the game we all closed out of the play session. I closed mine as well. So it seems there is some information transferred when you exit and my FG program must have been closed or in process so no updates sent. That is my guess. Does that sound right?

[Trenloe]

So it seems there is some information transferred when you exit and my FG program must have been closed or in process so no updates sent. That is my guess. Does that sound right?
That's not how it works. FG is specifically designed that the GM instance owns all the data and any changes the players make will be immediately sent to the GM. It doesn't wait until some point in the future. This is specifically to avoid data loss if a player crashes, loses Internet, etc..

So, we still don't have an explanation for your issues.

Have you checked what I asked in post #7? Was absolutely no data at all saved from when the players levelled up? How about information during your session from before that? Check chatlog.html in the campaign directory - do you see a full representation of your last session there?

[Devistation]

I saw the level up in the chat log for three players. but not the rest. One odd things is two people were using one laptop. One character running on that laptop showed the level up in the log and the other did not????? In our first session it save all the gold and XP but they did not achieve level 2 till the 2nd game session. I'm still at a loss. I have been updating the character sheets all night

[Devistation]

So even though it showed we played in the log, players leveled up, got items, gold etc when we played on Friday. When I opened up the game today all the information looked like we never had the session.

[Trenloe]

In your campaign directory, have a look at the various files. There will be a few db.session.XXXXXXXXXX.xml files (where XXXXXXXXXXX is a 10 digit number). Look at the dates for these files - was there one created at the beginning of the session that had issues? Has there been one created since then?

Additionally - are you using any active sync application (DropBox, One Drive, Google Drive, Box, etc.) to automatically back up your FG data?

[Devistation]

In your campaign directory, have a look at the various files. There will be a few db.session.XXXXXXXXXX.xml files (where XXXXXXXXXXX is a 10 digit number). Look at the dates for these files - was there one created at the beginning of the session that had issues? Has there been one created since then?

Additionally - are you using any active sync application (DropBox, One Drive, Google Drive, Box, etc.) to automatically back up your FG data?


I am not using Dropbox or anything as a backup. Yes there is a session file on the 28th that has the time we ended the game. I will post a screenshot 20024

[Trenloe]

I am not using Dropbox or anything as a backup. Yes there is a session file on the 28th that has the time we ended the game. I will post a screenshot 20024
There's quite a bit of a change in size from the db.session.1501567200.xml file on 7/28/2017 and the current database file db.xml - about 150KB in data. Suggesting that a fair amount of data has been added since then.

With FG completely closed down. Try the following. This will roll back the FG database for this campaign to the one on July 28th:
1) Make a backup of the whole \campaigns\Storm Kings Thunder (work) directory. Call it something like "\campaigns\Storm Kings Thunder (backup)"
2) Then, go into this "\campaigns\Storm Kings Thunder (backup)" directory.
3) Rename db.xml to db.old.001.xml.
4) Copy and paste db.session.1501567200.xml in the same directory. It'll create db.session.1501567200 - Copy.xml
5) Rename db.session.1501567200 - Copy.xml to db.xml
6) Start Fantasy Grounds and load up the campaign called "Storm Kings Thunder (backup)"

Then check the data and try to work out what has changed between this data (the older) and what the campaign was showing before you rolled the data back.

[Devistation]

I did all of that and it loaded with everyone at level one, and no data saved from that night.

the 8/1 session was me going in and putting it all back in manually.

[Trenloe]

Then I'm afraid the data is probably lost.

I'm not sure (other than file access rights at the time) why the data would not have saved. But it appears to be saving OK now? The db.backup.xxxxxxxxxx.xml file suggests that you had a FG crash earlier that day. Did you have any issues when you were playing?

Info on the different db... files here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?39364-Large-numbers-of-db-session-files-in-campaign-folder&p=347617&viewfull=1#post347617

[Devistation]

It seems to be saving again. When we were playing it was without any issue. Everything looked good. I will be more aware on the next session, make sure everything looks right. I'm nervious but this does not seem to be a problem for a lot of players. so fingers crossed. Thanks for all the help

[Trenloe]

FG should save the campaign every 5 minutes and when the GM exits. So the data should be up-to-date. If any of the 5 minute auto saves fail, the console window will appear with an error message.

You shouldn't have to do this as the auto save should be up-to-date or you'll have already been informed of any errors - before you exit during your next game, type /save in the chat window. Check in the campaign directory and make sure that db.xml has been saved at the current timestamp. If there are issues an error message should appear.

[Devistation]

That is better, I will do that

[Devistation]

Good idea, Thank you