player modules not loading (D&D 5E FGC ultimate)

[jrpettit]

I had two players logged on at the time. Neither player could not see the PHB module (or others even though they had been selected to load) in order to create a character. They could see the SRD but no other options were available (PHB, XGE, etc.).

It appears that this may have been an upload issue from my desktop to the remote players. I ended up creating (finishing up) their characters.

Process question: When a player selects a module, does it upload from me and download to him? If so, can we log on earlier and give time for the process? Does this loading stay on the players PC so the next time we play we don't have to go through this again?

Later, when I was sharing a map, some players could only see gray and some could see parts of the map. When I unmasked small sections, the players could see these. When I showed an image of a monster, all they saw was gray.

I love the program but the apparent performance issues (probably network related) are frustrating.

Any suggestions on remedies?

[Trenloe]

Is this for FG Classic or for FG Unity?

[Zacchaeus]

If any modules show a green tick against them in the module activation screen those will be shared with your players. The players will download these modules when they connect. The players will then see the module in their module activation screen and will need to click on the load button which causes further files to be downloaded. If you have many such modules shared then the download time can be considerable. The number of players, upload speed, bandwidth are all factors which will contribute to the time.

You should consider what modules your players need. For example you have the PHB so there is no need to share the SRD and Basic Rules modules as well. Check your module activation list and change the green tick to a Red Cross by clicking on the tick to disable sharing.

when you share a map this can also take time depending on the size and resolution of the map. The same factors as above are in pla.

You can preshare maps by right clicking and selecting preload. The map will then download when the players join your game.

It is a good plan to have players join well before game time and probably not all at once.

Finally once the players have joined once and downloaded all of the resources they do not need to download again in future sessions.

[Zacchaeus]

Is this for FG Classic or for FG Unity?
I think it’s in the title :)

[Trenloe]

I think it’s in the title :)
Doh!

Sorry...

[damned]

Well... it does say both!

[jrpettit]

I only shared the PHB but it never seemed to get downloaded by the players. The game was still great.

I'm guessing it must have been a network issue on my part.

Now since I know I can have the players preload the data, I can start up my session beforehand and let them download modules.

It's good to know that once in a campaign, players don't have to reload modules for each session.

Thanks all for the information!

[Nylanfs]

Have the player's nuke their cache before logging in, and have them log in one at a time.

[jrpettit]

Have the player's nuke their cache before logging in, and have them log in one at a time.

This would be the specific cache for my campaign, I'm assuming. This would force the re-download of the modules?

[LordEntrails]

This would be the specific cache for my campaign, I'm assuming. This would force the re-download of the modules?
For the players it will clear the caches for all campaigns and they will have to redownload all shared data.

If possible, have your table up early and have players log in one at a time to redownload stuff when no one else is.

[jrpettit]

When everyone says have your table open early or start early, what are we talking about? half-hour, hours? I had another game tonight and one of three players could see the map after three hours.

[LordEntrails]

When everyone says have your table open early or start early, what are we talking about? half-hour, hours? I had another game tonight and one of three players could see the map after three hours.
It depends. When I start a new campaign of my Undermountain I have a few dozen maps marked to preload and several books. I ask player to log in during the week before at random times. Intending that no more than 1 or 2 are logged in at any time. Maybe they are logged in for an hour or two, we don't time it. and it's more of a 'background' or leave it over night thing.

But a regular campaign or one that is up and running and I may only have one map marked for pre-load the books are already all loaded, I ask folks to log in 5-10 minutes early.

It is going to depend upon your upload speed, how many players you have, their download speeds, and how much content you are sharing.

[jrpettit]

It depends. When I start a new campaign of my Undermountain I have a few dozen maps marked to preload and several books. I ask player to log in during the week before at random times. Intending that no more than 1 or 2 are logged in at any time. Maybe they are logged in for an hour or two, we don't time it. and it's more of a 'background' or leave it over night thing.

But a regular campaign or one that is up and running and I may only have one map marked for pre-load the books are already all loaded, I ask folks to log in 5-10 minutes early.

It is going to depend upon your upload speed, how many players you have, their download speeds, and how much content you are sharing.

Thanks. I will plan on having new players work with me to plan on logging on early to get the PHB and XGE and a couple of map preloads the week before the game. This has been the only disappointing part of using FG. I do like the peer-to-peer approach so we are not dependent on a centralized server but it sure would be nice if there was an indicator of how much time/size the download has left.

[tkinzer]

I'm a first time user (hosting) last night and we couldn't ever get our game to really work, same problem, loading forever. We could sometimes get one player in the game but not two. Based on what I'm seeing for the user experience of others here, uploading at other times to avoid long load times, I'm strongly considering asking for my money back and looking for another solution.

If everything is uploading from the host computer, then is your upload speed important? Mine is only 5 Mbps.

[jrpettit]

I'm a first time user (hosting) last night and we couldn't ever get our game to really work, same problem, loading forever. We could sometimes get one player in the game but not two. Based on what I'm seeing for the user experience of others here, uploading at other times to avoid long load times, I'm strongly considering asking for my money back and looking for another solution.

If everything is uploading from the host computer, then is your upload speed important? Mine is only 5 Mbps.

My upload is only 5mbps also, but files are relatively small <1mb up to <10mb, so these should only take minutes. I would guess it has to do with the peer-to-peer protocol possibly? Not my expertise. I wonder if Unity is any better?

I have another new game next week (#3 in the last week) that I'm hosting. My plan is to try and get players to connect this weekend for a data dump.

Has anyone done any testing on this data transfer?

[tkinzer]

FWIW I was using Unity.

[jrpettit]

I'm still not having any luck preloading. I had a character try to load PHB for 3 hours and it still didn't show up. He could see a map when I shared it. I'm having them create characters in DnD Beyond and then I'll convert. I don't think they will need the modules if I put everything on their character sheet. So long as the maps show, the combat tracker and party tracker, I think we'll be okay. My speedtest.net shows 30mb download and 5mb upload.

Can anyone confirm that once the character sheet is built, the players do not need the PHB?
Is there any way to monitor the download of modules?

[LordEntrails]

If players don't have the modules they will be unable to follow links from their character sheets for things like abilities and spells. But, they can use all the actions and abilities etc.

No way to monitor download of modules.

[jrpettit]

If players don't have the modules they will be unable to follow links from their character sheets for things like abilities and spells. But, they can use all the actions and abilities etc.

No way to monitor download of modules.

Thanks for the response. All characters have access to DnD Beyond or real books so they can look them up. I'm hoping at least the maps download so they can at least see what's going on.

[Trenloe]

Is there any way to monitor the download of modules?
The player can open the <FG app data>\cache\<Campaign name> directory and check the size of <module name>.dat file, or sometimes <module name>.tmp (which will rename to .dat once the module is fully downloaded). This will increase in size as the data is downloaded. So you can see if data is actually being downloaded - an increasing in size .dat or .tmp file.

[Trenloe]

Also ask the players to check if they have "Cross-platform compatibility mode for Linux and Mac" enabled in their FG settings. When I was doing some download testing a few months ago on a low spec PC this being enabled increased module load time from 3 minutes to 20 minutes!

[jrpettit]

Ok, for those reading this. I did some troubleshooting with FG discord (fgc_support). Looks like the problem was that my computer's antivirus was blocking the connection. I added everything FG to my AV whitelist and it appears to work! Thanks to Talyn on the discord.

[jrpettit]

Correction: This did not solve my issue. I played a game last night and the modules still would not load for players. One player had a partial load of one of the Players Guides, but no luck with PHB or XGE.

[jrpettit]

Solution Found:

Bottom Line: VPN solution solves the download issue

When you look at my tracert 8.8.8.8 (to google), you can see that there is an issue with the second hop (as it always has a timeout, then slowly responds). I have AT&T but the issue may be applicable to other ISPs. The issue appears to be related to the hop leaving my external gateway (vs. the internal router - which I have port forwarded). I spent an hour on the phone waiting for AT&T technical support (to modify this external firewall) and finally gave up. In the main menu of Fantasy Ground, the Run Test is successful (so something is getting through).

LogMeIn Hamachi looked the “easiest” in the old forum posts so I opted to try it. The setup has changed a bit so I created another set of notes for my players. I’ve genericized this for the public on a google doc here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1F41LD48LZ6l5BqGQE3UMZhSF3yjoWhnag2Uf9BGnupI/edit?usp=sharing

I’ve had four players connect and download books and didn’t have the gray map issue while playing. I’ve got two more games over the next ten days where I’ll transition players to this setup. Hamachi is limited to five total for the free version. There are notes about creating multiple virtual networks but I opted to purchase the base VPN for up to 32 players (since I’m running three games with a total of twenty or so players).

More technical stuff. When you set up your virtual network, the software creates another network adapter (Hamachi one) that you can see with an ipconfig command. Since the existing network adapter is still in place, this may explain why the Run Test command still works.

Let me know if I can help to explain this better or to get the word out to other players having issues like these. Fantasy Grounds, though it has a steep learning curve, is a fantastic program and the community is great. I’m glad I opted for the FG VTT route.