Problem with maps not loading for players

[Geometer]

DM, Curse of Strahd 5e, FG Unity. Extensions loaded: FG pack, Rob Twohy's Effects Coding and One-click Druid.

The game last Sunday ground to halt when shared maps stopped loading for the players. Testing this afternoon with one of the players, all he can see when a map is shared is his token, the grid, and LoS effects. The actual image doesn't load at all.

This seems to apply only to maps provided with the module, including maps with just one layer, maps that have been pre-shared, and maps that the PCs have already visited and show in the Player cache.

Maps I've drawn myself load successfully. I may be missing something but I've tried all combinations of Masks and LoS I can think of but nothing fixes it.

Any ideas?

[Zacchaeus]

I can't think of anything obvious. You could have your player clear their cache for the campaign (it's in FGData cache/name of campaign - just delete the folder)

[Geometer]

I'll try that tomorrow. Thanks Zacchaeus

[DoktorPete]

Curious as to if that worked or not? I had the exact same issue with one of my players during our last Curse session (also on a module provided map using unity).

[Moon Wizard]

Make sure that the players run a Check For Updates to make sure they are on the latest version as well.

Regards,
JPG

[Geometer]

Update.

One of my players logged on this afternoon and we tried the cache-clearing thing. Unfortunately we were unable to test whether this fixed the maps issue because re-downloading the campaign and relevant modules caused him issues and took so long that we had to give up. Hopefully he'll be along shortly to describe things from his point of view.

The cache was reinstated and he successfully logged on to the campaign, but another issue occurred. He is running 2 characters; one of them loaded successfully but the other one loaded with the token showing on the character sheet for me, but not for him. I've tried assigning a new token but it still doesn't register on his character sheet nor does he see it on a map, but I do. All other characters in the party loaded successfully and completely. We're baffled. We're no nearer solving the maps issue and now there's another inexplicable problem.

Just to reiterate, the map issue appears to be campaign-specific, and occurs only with module or third-party maps. The player sees the party's tokens, the grid and LoS effects, but the background image doesn't load. Maps I've drawn myself with Smiteworks assets load up fully without problems.

The campaign is currently unplayable.

Further advice would be welcome.

[Moon Wizard]

I've seen two scenarios where this has happened. Clearing the cache will usually fix the issue, if it is a client issue. However, if the player has some sort of security setting on their computer or router which is interfering with the file transfers, then they will continue to see issues.

We could look at the logs from both of you from the exact same time after a transfer fails to see if it's being sent. (/console and Compile Logs button) However, when we've seen a transfer failure in the past, it has almost always been a security package/setting that is blocking/throttling.

Regards,
JPG

[Geometer]

However, if the player has some sort of security setting on their computer or router which is interfering with the file transfers, then they will continue to see issues.

Maybe so, but settings wouldn't change in the middle of a game, would they? And if it was to do with security settings wouldn't they be blocking the whole map, not just certain elements? And if one player somehow changed their settings so that maps were blocked, it wouldn't affect other players, would it? And if it was my settings that changed somehow, it wouldn't stop stuff being sent from my pc, would it? And if it's to do with security settings, why is it only blocking "official" module maps and not maps that I've drawn myself?


We could look at the logs from both of you from the exact same time after a transfer fails to see if it's being sent. (/console and Compile Logs button) However, when we've seen a transfer failure in the past, it has almost always been a security package/setting that is blocking/throttling.

Regards,
JPG
I'll try and get one of my players to log on this week and we'll see if we can get those logs for you.

Edit: Just an afterthought, both I and at least one of my players had big Windows 10 updates before the game. My player subsequently discovered that his webcam driver needed updating, which may or may not be relevant. Is it possible the update could be a factor?

[Zacchaeus]

Am update to Windows would certainly change many things including security software if you are using Windows Defender as your antivirus.

[Geometer]

Am update to Windows would certainly change many things including security software if you are using Windows Defender as your antivirus.

None of us are using Windows Defender as far as I know, but I'll make further enquiries

[Game Hamster]

Sounds similar to something we've had happen. Usually some combination of re-applying the token to the map from the Combat Tracker, the player closing the map and re-sharing it to them, and the player clicking on their token to load their LOS has fixed it.

[flipperb16a2]

Update on maps loading issue. I am one of the players in Geometer's campaign. We have had some progress on our map availability issues. It seems to be a case of extremely slow download speeds. We logged in to FGU tonight and immediately opened up my console to find shared maps coming through but VERY slowly. I have a network widget that shows upload and download speeds for my computer and found the maps, tokens, pictures etc only downloading at around 125K/s! I started another download in steam and the download speed shot up to about usual speeds (approx 5-10Mb/s). Pause the download to allow FG all the bandwidth but still only 125K/s. It has taken about an hour but all files have finally finished downloading. It cant be my connection as all other internet operations are working fine (gaming, streaming HD movies, browsing etc). We are hopefully getting another player to connect soon to see if their downloading is also very slow. The relevent log should be attached to this message

[Geometer]

Update on maps loading issue. I am one of the players in Geometer's campaign. We have had some progress on our map availability issues.

Postscript to the above;

It appears from the log that one of the reasons for the long download time may be the fact that almost every Player's map in the campaign also downloaded. I want to emphasise that most of these maps were not pre-shared, and I have no idea why they loaded.

[Moon Wizard]

Try running /flushdb on the GM client after loading the campaign (and make sure the modules affected are loaded). This will unshare any records in the campaign or current modules. Then, you can reshare anything actually needed.

Also, make sure that the module is marked with the red X in the Modules window, so that players are not trying to load directly (should be default for GM modules).

Regards,
JPG

[Moon Wizard]

Also, the download speed is based on the upload speed of the GM's computer as shared by all connected users.

Make sure that you don't have any software on your computer, or settings on your router, that may be throttling network speed. (quality of service, packet inspection, etc.)

Regards,
JPG

[Aglovale]

I'm having the same issue with Strahd. It is affecting about a third of my players. It started about 3 updates ago.

[LordEntrails]

I'm having the same issue with Strahd. It is affecting about a third of my players. It started about 3 updates ago.
Have you tried all the things outlined in this thread? Can you please attach GM and a player log?

[damned]

Another GM recently reported similar issues. They had a VPN running. They turned that off and everything worked. Can you confirm that you are not running a VPN?