extension problems after last update

[Niles]

I have a few community made extensions. After the last update, I'm getting script errors. I know it's the extension because I deleted them, then I didn't get the script errors. Is this common and if so, how do I fix it? Thanks for any info you can provide.


Mike

[kalaolani]

I had this same issue. Here's the best practices and expectations that have been communicated to me.

1. Don't update if you want community extensions to continue to work.
2. If you want the update, always disable community extensions to proactively avoid problems.
3. If you are not satisfied with the support of a community extension, then take on your own community extension project.
4. Provide feedback to the community extension provider to make the changes to fix the extension easier, and be patient for the community to update the extensions.

Cheers,
Kalaolani

[Zacchaeus]

Until the author of the extension updates it there's nothing you can do until they do except disable the extension. Keep an eye on the extension thread to see when (if) it gets updated.

[dulux-oz]

I had this same issue. Here's the best practices and expectations that have been communicated to me.

1. Don't update if you want community extensions to continue to work.
2. If you want the update, always disable community extensions to proactively avoid problems.
3. If you are not satisfied with the support of a community extension, then take on your own community extension project.
4. Provide feedback to the community extension provider to make the changes to fix the extension easier, and be patient for the community to update the extensions.

Cheers,
Kalaolani

Actually, a better version of (1) is: Check to see if the Community Dev has updated and/or cleared the Extension to work with the new version of FG, and if so, feel free to update. Otherwise, make a decision on how "required" the Community Extension is and then Update accordingly.

While I can't fault the logic behind (3), this might be out of reach of some (most/the majority) of people to do, so might not be especially useful advice.

@The Community as A Whole => There has been quite a bit of... vitriol... showing up in the Forums over the last couple of days surrounding Extensions. While I understand peoples' frustrations (having suffered myself from errors, etc, in my early days), the Community provides the Extensions, etc, as is, voluntarily, and its always been the recommended practice to disable Extensions if issues occur after an upgrade.

For those Community Devs who are "on the ball" we know about pending updates weeks in advance (normally) so that we can test our Extensions to see how things will work with the new versions. Unfortunately, not every Extension Dev does this. People who engage with the Community even "lightly" (ie keep an eye on the forums) soon learn which Devs are consistent with their updates and so which Extensions that can feel comfortable with - but even they sometimes make a mistake or "life" gets in the way and so they can't spend their limited time on Extensions as much / any more. In other words, "buyer beware" - do some research and see which Devs are responsive in fixing reported bugs, etc.

So, with all of that in mind it might be worth while to remember that people are getting Community Extensions for free, from volunteers, and so any "I deserve this" and "My way is best; why can't people do what I want" attitudes would be best left elsewhere, OK?

We've got a really good Community here - one of the great strengths of the software, in fact - let's not poison it and drive away Devs or people who use the Devs' "stuff" because sometimes things don't go as well as we've planned / hoped / whatever.

Cheers

[TheMookNet]

This seems to be the exact model of Add-Ons for "World of Warcraft," to pick an example I'm familiar with. I use dozens of Add-Ons to tweak my game UI to be precisely what I want it to be. And every single time there's a large-ish client patch and some Add-Ons cease working, the community erupts into chaos. Some authors pay close attention to the code development and have updated versions before the patch even drops; some make quick updates in the first day or two as they start getting reports of errors; and some Add-Ons just never get updated, so we users have to simply wait and watch for a replacement (that may or may not ever materialize).

But in all cases, I'm never anything but grateful to all those who freely volunteer their time and energy to make my game experience better. You rock. :cool:

[Talyn]

I also used World of Warcraft as an example earlier today. Fantasy Grounds is far from the only product that experiences this "problem." It looks like from here on out, the launcher is going to forcibly disable all extensions after a client update. That said, I'm trying to convince them to also include a big notification stating that extensions have been disabled, why they have been disabled, and to go check for extension updates before re-enabling them.

[Bidmaron]

...It looks like from here on out, the launcher is going to forcibly disable all extensions after a client update....

Is this FG or WoW? I have seen nothing in these forums for FG other than discussing possibilities, but nothing that says this is true for FG (maybe I missed it? Has happened before).

[Talyn]

Is this FG or WoW? I have seen nothing in these forums for FG other than discussing possibilities, but nothing that says this is true for FG (maybe I missed it? Has happened before).

No, you didn't miss it -- it was from an email discussion. As it turns out, disregard that whole notion anyway -- for now. In order to do it, they'll have to patch every single extension in all the DLC plus get all the community extensions patched, so this plan is now off the table for the current architecture so they can focus on Unity, which will hopefully have some sort of notification to users after client version upgrades.

[Bidmaron]

Seems to me they could do it easily. Introduce a new tag ('Upgradability'?) that must be set to 3.2.2 (or whatever the newest is) or the extension won't load after upgrade. The only downside to this is that if there is an extension that is compatible (but how would you even know that because without testing of the extension with the new one, you wouldn't know, and if there were testing, the guy who did the testing could add the 'Upgradability' tag).

So, the system checks extensions at campaign startup time:
Any extensions with the tag that are enabled, stay enabled
Any that are missing the tag are disabled if they were enabled, and the program advises you of that fact (maybe encouraging you to check with extension author to encourage an update).
Oh, and the program could also encourage you to check the extensions page to see if an update is available so you can run up-to-date extensions.

[dulux-oz]

Actually, I've already commented on this in another thread a few days ago. See here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?40250-Tuesdays-update-destroy-my-campaigns-PC-s&p=355834&viewfull=1#post355834) for details. :)

[Bidmaron]

Actually, I've already commented on this in another thread a few days ago. See here (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?40250-Tuesdays-update-destroy-my-campaigns-PC-s&p=355834&viewfull=1#post355834) for details. :)

The problem with your solution is that it requires coders to put that into their extensions for it to work. it is not failsafe. My proposal is failsafe. If the coder doesn't put it in then it simply won't work in the upgrade. The goal would be that the coder on every upgrade tests his extension (either in test mode or after live) and either adds the 'Compatability' tag with 3.3.2 or changes the value of the tag to 3.3.2 if it was there after some previous upgrade.

[dulux-oz]

My post wasn't a critique of yours, it was a compliment - and a bit of "history" for context :)

[Bidmaron]

Sorry, Dulux. I think the issue is we are getting a lot more folks who are more 'plug-and-play' oriented. Back when you and I joined, we were all mostly FG geeks, and we knew what to do on upgrades. Now, we are getting more from other places who aren't accustomed to the down-side of the extensibility of FG. So I think it's encouraging that SW needs to consider this change.