After update module not working.

[Haer]

Im scrambling to get this fixed I have a payed Curse of strahd at 5pm in 40 mins. This has been going for 5 sessions. When I open my short cut key for maps its a blue screen with a Red X and ? in the center I can see the map pins but there is no image of the map. logs says Error Graphic unable to load file(moduels /CoS/DM Maps-Barovia.jpg. Seems to be the DM maps thats only effected. not the players map. What could be the issue?

[arturem]

All NPC images from Curse of Strahd have disappeared here as well. Should be a problem after today's update.

[LordEntrails]

You will need to Revert Changes on the module images and recreate any links.

See the release notes here, particularly: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?75278-Release-Updates-for-September-27th-2022


D&D Storm King's Thunder (D&D 5E)

[Added] Cultist Balloon as a vehicle


D&D Curse of Strahd (D&D 5E)

[Fixed] Some typos
[Fixed] Line of Site in one map
[Fixed] Missing image


NOTE: These modules were updated to use the latest module creation process. If images appear missing in image records,
please Revert module by right clicking on module name in Modules window and selecting Revert (to reset entire module);
or right click on specific images in the campaign Images list and selecting Revert (to reset single image record).

[arturem]

Done that, but it didn't work out.

[Haer]

Thank you, reverting fixed my issues.

[Moon Wizard]

@arturem,

Did you go to the Modules window, right click on the Curse of Strahd entry in the left list, and click the Revert menu item?

Regards,
JPG

[LordEntrails]

Done that, but it didn't work out.
Exited FG, updates, reverted changes on the Module in your campaign?

Can you try creating a new campaign and loading CS in there? Do the images show there?

If none of that works, can you post screen shots?

[arturem]

@Moon Wizard @LordEntrails

Done all that and nothing seems to work. I just started a new campaing and loaded only CoS. Same thing happened. Here' the image.

54523

[arturem]

@Moon Wizard @LordEntrails

Also, I have all the other WotC modules and they all seem very fine.

[LordEntrails]

You mean the icons and such? Not the maps and such in the Images/Map assets window?
That looks to me like a theme problem. Do you have more than one themes loaded? Have you tried with all extensions disabled? Then check your ruleset directory and see if you have any sub-folders in it.

[arturem]

@LordEntrails

Maps are fine, just enemy and npc tokens are missing. Just changed the theme and disabled all the extensions. Again, nothing happens. Check it out:

54525

[Moon Wizard]

@arturem,

I think that was the confusion, we were looking at the maps/images, and you were looking at the tokens. I'll take a look first thing tomorrow morning.

Regards,
JPG

[Moon Wizard]

Thanks for your patience, and helping us figure this out. I was able to figure out the problem, and push a late night update.

Please run a new Check for Updates at the launch screen, and try again.

Regards,
JPG

[arturem]

@Moon Wizard

It's working fine right now. Thanks for all the help and the attention.

Cheers!

[Pieter]

From the notes of the 27 September update: "In order for some of the updates to be visible, you may need to open the Module Activation window from Library->Activation, right click on the module and select "revert changes". Be warned, any edits you've made will be lost."

Can I say that I find it BLOODY RIDICULOUS that the development team makes an update for which they KNOW that it will break many games in progress, and then require you to read the update notes which you can find here on the forums in order to learn that the issues you experience are NOT your fault and are NOT your computer's fault and are NOT caused by a glitch in the download process, and that you can fix them by jumping through a hoop that the developers built into the game engine. Which makes me wonder why (1) this change was made, (2) the issue is not communicated FAR more clearly, and (3) the fix is not run automatically if it can be easily seen that it needs to be applied.

It took my 45 minutes to find this solution, with my whole play group waiting on me. My game time is precious. This kind of thing should NOT happen.

[Zacchaeus]

Yes, sorry about that.

The two modules were created in Classic and it was time to move them to Unity. However that does cause some issues for games currently running using those modules since the way images are handled in Unity is different from the way they were handled in Classic. There isn't a way to fix this kind of issue since it's on your local machine and not something that can be done by Smiteworks.

It's also difficult to communicate it any other way than via the forums and unfortunately not everyone reads them.

I agree it should not happen but moving the modules over to Unity does make sense for the future.

Again, sorry for the disruption but glad you found the solution.

[Haer]

I totally agree with Pieter. I do this for a living as a paid DM and finding this out and scrambling to find a fix before my game starts was quite unnerving. I run 9 games a week. Its bad enough that fantasy grounds updates every week, most of the time not breaking anything. But those of us who run extensions, when some of those updates breaks some extension and I'm once again scrambling to find which extensions are broken and having to disable them once I find them is frustration enough.

[Temmpest]

You guys are great! Love how quickly you respond to issues! Keep up the good work! Been using Fantasy Grounds for almost 5 years and I couldn't be happier with the product and customer service!

[Pieter]

Thank you for the reply. It is appreciated.

I wish to cast some doubt on the statement that there wasn't a way to fix the issue since it is local. I can think of many ways. Have a Unity version of the module next to a Legacy version. Build in an extra check next to error on loading images which falls back on the old version of the image loading. Have a popup when this error is noticed that says: "A recent update to this module needs to load images in a different way, do you want to revert to the old way of loading the images (if you don't, some images will not be visible) Yes/No". Or spend some time and create a conversion program that makes sure that games in progress are fixed automatically and run that conversion automatically.

I also wish to cast doubt on the statement that no better way of communication is possible than via the forum. A simply popup at the start or end of the update process would have helped. Also, put these things in the newsletter that I receive pretty much every week. Or put something on the screen when you start Fantasy Grounds.

Seriously, this is an embarrassing thing to happen. You can count on EVERY GM who is in a legacy module to run into it. Please make sure that in the future you do not confront the customers with such issues without very clear communication about it. And you may even have some extra communication about it right now, because I am pretty sure that many of the FGU users run into this and get as frustrated as I am about it.

[LordEntrails]

Communicating to the any user base is always a challenging process. I have yet to see any program or company do it effectively for all users. Yes, communication for FG can be improved upon, but there is not yet a solution that works for everyone.

But even more important than any given notification of change, is the warning that is placed with every set of release notes and is stated frequently on the forums and is otherwise just good practice; Please do not update right before a game session.

Even with testing, even the most simple of updates has the potential to break something. And if you use extensions, the risk is order of magnitudes higher. Please don't put yourself in a frustrating position by updating right before game play.

[Pieter]

Frankly, the remark that you should not update before a game session is rather ridiculous. I updated several days ago, but I only notice problems when I start a game session. Or do you expect users to test everything every time there is an update? There is an update every week. Moreover, players update as well.

And I do not use extensions.

And, if it matters, I actually DID test the software for about an hour after the update before I got to the session, as I needed to prepare some maps. And that went fine. But the issue raised its ugly head as soon as a player logged on -- right at the start of the session -- as at that point the software tried to sync all the maps that the players used in previous sessions, and my screen was filled with error messages.

Anyway, I don't need to go into a discussion with the developers about this. It is the first time I really have a big issue with FG. But it is one that I think that could easily have been avoided with better communication or a better approach. If you KNOW that things will break due to an update you make, you MUST make sure that you do your utmost best to help players resolve the issue, and not have them discover it because the software breaks with incomprehensible error messages and then just expecting them to find a solution on a forum. This was just handled badly, and I hope that the developers will do better for future updates.

[Temmpest]

Communicating to the any user base is always a challenging process. I have yet to see any program or company do it effectively for all users. Yes, communication for FG can be improved upon, but there is not yet a solution that works for everyone.

But even more important than any given notification of change, is the warning that is placed with every set of release notes and is stated frequently on the forums and is otherwise just good practice; Please do not update right before a game session.

Even with testing, even the most simple of updates has the potential to break something. And if you use extensions, the risk is order of magnitudes higher. Please don't put yourself in a frustrating position by updating right before game play.

Well said.

[LordEntrails]

Frankly, the remark that you should not update before a game session is rather ridiculous. I updated several days ago, but I only notice problems when I start a game session. Or do you expect users to test everything every time there is an update? There is an update every week. Moreover, players update as well.
I'm sorry you feel my response was not helpful. I'm sure the developers do not expect every user to test every change. I also don't expect a small software company with a few developers and limited resources to get everything right every time.



Anyway, I don't need to go into a discussion with the developers about this. It is the first time I really have a big issue with FG. But it is one that I think that could easily have been avoided with better communication or a better approach. If you KNOW that things will break due to an update you make, you MUST make sure that you do your utmost best to help players resolve the issue, and not have them discover it because the software breaks with incomprehensible error messages and then just expecting them to find a solution on a forum. This was just handled badly, and I hope that the developers will do better for future updates.
Just so you know, you are not having a discussion with the developers. You are having a discussion with other users just like you. Users who are trying to help you understand the realities of niche low cost software and provide helpful suggestions. SmiteWorks employees and developers will all have a tag under their username indicating such.

[Pieter]

From Zacchaeus' answer I got the impression that he is at least in contact with the development team.

If not, then I need to find a way to get into contact with the development team, because I really want to bring this to their attention. This sort of thing should NOT happen.

And don't think that I do not understand the realties of (niche) software development. I have been doing that for the last 30 years. And I know that for a niche software developer, customer relations are of utmost importance. Having your customers run into an issue like this without proper communication, when you actually know that the issue will come up for many of them, is bad business practice.

And actually, the "correct" solution to the problem is NOT what the developers suggest, reverting the changes, but found here: (post in different thread) (https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?75291-ERROR-Graphic-Unable-to-load-file-(modules-CoS-Map-Death-House-jpg)-(*)&p=663945&viewfull=1#post663945). Because reverting changes loses ALL the changes I made to the maps of CoS over the last 2.5 years -- changes which I need to keep. And the suggested fix in the listed post not only works and retains the changes, but it is also something that could EASILY have been done with a software update -- it is no more than search/replacing certain strings in ONE file. A very simple fix to the engine could also have worked: "if you cannot find the image in the indicated location, check if you can find it if you add 'images/' to the path, and if so, load the image from there." That's two lines of code.

It truly baffles me that the development team released this update in its arguably broken state, when the fixes are so simple and the frustration heaped upon many users so intense.

[LordEntrails]

If not, then I need to find a way to get into contact with the development team, because I really want to bring this to their attention.
Given that the lead developer (Moon Wizard) has replied in this thread, the one you mentioned and the one you linked, I'm pretty sure he is aware of the issue.

But at any time you want to communicate directly with SmiteWorks, you can reach their customer support (and they can forward to the developers) via the: Help > Contact Support option from the website menu. Often times you can also reach the developers through the Discord channel found from the website Menu: Help > Discord Server. Note that many people are active on the Discord server, so to make sure you are talking with a SmiteWorks employee, look for the appropriate tag.

[Moon Wizard]

Unfortunately, there are no mechanisms within the application client to identify specific data modules; because the application is a generic platform for running multiple frameworks/rulesets.
Also, there are no APIs in the system that allow us to drill in to query or change a single layer from the framework/ruleset coding, which would be able to recognize the specific module.

So, while an automated solution would have definitely been a better experience, we did not have any way to do that without investing a lot more development effort. I had to make the call to let the 5E official modules linger without updates (due to the tools used to make them no longer working), or try to work with users to fix as it came up.

As I have volunteered in multiple threads, if you post the CoS file from the moduledb folder of your campaign, I will fix it myself and provide it back.

Regards,
JPG

[Pieter]

Thanks. I am computer savvy enough to apply the solution myself now I know what must be done.

The offer is definitely friendly and supportive, and I understand the desire to bring the older modules in line with the newer ones. The main issue is the communication -- it is just bad business practice to confront GMs with a screen full of error messages which appear as soon as one of their players logs on (i.e., at the start of a session), and having them figure out by themselves, at that time, what is wrong.

Maybe you did not realize that this would happen. I can imagine that -- sometimes it is hard to forsee the consequences of something that seems to be a small change, and I also understand that with a small team and weekly updates, you are not testing everything as extensively as you would like to. But I am curious to know how many GMs run into this issue.

I still think a fix to the engine could have worked, because it should not be hard to write in the code "if you cannot find an image in the indicated location, attach "images/" to the path and see if you can find it there." But maybe I am overlooking something.

[damned]

There are something like 2500 official products in the FG store plus maybe 1000 in the forge and others on the forums. It is impossible for a team this size to test every possibility.

[Pieter]

(a) If you make a change to one module, you do not need to test everything, you just need to test that module.
(b) A developer who makes a change can think of what this would affect. "If I move all the images from one folder to another folder, and from now on I will load from that folder, what would happen to users who still have these images in the original folder?"
(c) The original release notes actually indicated that these issues would occur, so the developers knew about this. The main thing they should have done is communicating about it better. Not every user of FG is on these message boards. As I said before, this was handled badly.