FG items not loading after internet provider change

[ret]

I recently switched internet providers (Xfinity to T-Mobile) and in some preliminary testing, my players are having trouble loading things. With xfinity, I was getting around 400 Mbps down/20 Mbps up. With T-Mobile I am getting 100-170 Mbps/4-20 Mbps. However, the latency is much slower - closer to 50 ms. I doubt the speed is the connection, rather the connection type, but I wasn't sure if anyone has had any issues so thought I'd see.

The issues my players are having preceded today's update, but has persisted after it.


The characters window on start up appears empty for a long time
Images from the adventure path I'm running are black with a red question mark (i'm running the strange aeon's adventure path in pathfinder which I've purchased through FG in FGU)
Images that I have added via assets load properly


I've loaded the adventure as a player parallel to my instance as a GM and the character window pops up - empty - then the custom background image I've added comes up a second or two after that, and then the message of the day pops up, AND THEN the PC shows up in the characters window. I had no issue loading the images as my players have expressed. I also created a brand new campaign, loaded the module we're using (Book 3 of Strange Aeons), and my player tonight was able to view the map I placed his token on. I'd be ok with doing this but I've taken some liberties and made changes to some of the maps and encounters that they will be getting into in the next session.

Full disclosure: I have not chased down every lead as of this post. I am creating this thread partially out of curiosity if T-Mobile (or any other mobile) internet could be the source of a problem. I have not disabled every extension so far, just because it's a player client that is experiencing this issue and my player's don't have the availability to troubleshoot.

Thanks for your help in the midst of all the troubleshooting around an update. Let me know what information I need to provide and I'll get right on it if I can.

[Moon Wizard]

It sounds like something on your Internet provider is blocking or slowing some or all of your content. We've put together a wiki article that covers some of the typical sorts of things to check in these situations, since the situation is unique to every person's network settings, network hardware, and Internet provider.

https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1981349889/Network+Troubleshooting

Regards,
JPG

[LordEntrails]

Do be aware, if you are hosting, it is your upload speed that matters. Download speed is practically irrelevant. Latency has minimal impact on FG.

[ret]

Thanks. It looks like the link Moon Wizard provided recommends 50 Mbps upload - is that really accurate? I've never been anywhere close to that and have not been told of any problems, but it definitely sounds like the fact that my upload speed is less consistent could be the problem at first glance.

[Moon Wizard]

That is the recommended upload speed for GMs as the GM is the "server" providing all the content to each player. Our servers are not involved in the connections after helping with the initial connectivity steps.

Regards,
JPG

[damned]

Connection speeds in Australia are almost always in the 4-20mbps range and we dont generally have issues.
The mobile connection is more likely a culprit.

Do you have a lot of things shared? Could you cut down on how many reference books you are sharing to see if that helps at least in the short term?
Do you have a VPN connection you could try testing with?

[ret]

That is the recommended upload speed for GMs as the GM is the "server" providing all the content to each player. Our servers are not involved in the connections after helping with the initial connectivity steps.

Regards,
JPG
I understand as the host I become the server, I am still curious as to the 50Mbps aside from that becoming the ceiling for download speed for the players. Especially since it obviously will work below that and 50Mbps upload speeds are still fairly uncommon outside of major cities.


Connection speeds in Australia are almost always in the 4-20mbps range and we dont generally have issues.
The mobile connection is more likely a culprit.

Do you have a lot of things shared? Could you cut down on how many reference books you are sharing to see if that helps at least in the short term?
Do you have a VPN connection you could try testing with?
I have disabled which books I have loaded but come to think of it I haven’t changed the modules I’ve allowed my players access to, such as rulebooks. Are these loaded at the point of use or are they loaded when the player wishes to load them? I’ll try thinning this out and seeing if that helps.

Is there any reason that images that I’ve added to the adventure would load seamlessly, yet images from modules would not load, just show up as black with a red question mark? This is the biggest disconnect I’m having right now in reconciling these answers this problem.

[Zacchaeus]

As regards images this will depend on the resolution and size of the image. The higher the resolution and bigger the size the more time it takes to upload - especially if your upload speed is low. You can ameliorate this by pre sharing images. That is right click on the image and select share when no-one is connected to your game. Then, when players join, they'll download the images. Since players likely join at different times this will ease the time it takes to upload the images since only one or maybe two are calling for the data at any one time; rather than all of them all at once.

It's difficult to give exact information since we aren't seeing what images you are loading; but it's possible that images you are adding are smaller in resolution and size than the ones in the module you are using.

Module data is loaded when players first join; but additional data is uploaded when they open a module for the first time. So, again, if a number of players are opening modules at the same time then more data needs to be pushed to the clients.

My upload speed is way less than 50Mbps at times; so it can take a while to upload data to players. So I always preshare images and ask players to connect well before start time. Generally I've not had any issues with players not being able to see something unless I forget to share a map beforehand and they all have to upload at the same time then.

Bear in mind as well that when players connect they need to download a bunch of stuff; such as the ruleset, decals, extensions, modules, the state of the campaign database (characters, Combat Tracker, Party Sheet) as well as images.

[ret]

As regards images this will depend on the resolution and size of the image. The higher the resolution and bigger the size the more time it takes to upload - especially if your upload speed is low. You can ameliorate this by pre sharing images. That is right click on the image and select share when no-one is connected to your game. Then, when players join, they'll download the images. Since players likely join at different times this will ease the time it takes to upload the images since only one or maybe two are calling for the data at any one time; rather than all of them all at once.
I should mention that the images I have attempted sharing so far have been images the players have already loaded, including a map that they are currently on. These are all images from the Strange Aeons adventure, from pictures of monsters and NPCs to other maps. The map they are currently on is populated with line of sight and lighting, so I can see that taking some time to load being the issue, but for portraits of an npc that they have already loaded before… I guess I don’t know enough about how the client side stores the data as to whether it has cleared from the cache or not.


It's difficult to give exact information since we aren't seeing what images you are loading; but it's possible that images you are adding are smaller in resolution and size than the ones in the module you are using.

I can say that my files definitely tend to be larger. Maps created from dungeon alchemist and pngs for player tokens for example. I’m happy to share anything I can but it will be at least 7 hours from now since I’m at work.


Module data is loaded when players first join; but additional data is uploaded when they open a module for the first time. So, again, if a number of players are opening modules at the same time then more data needs to be pushed to the clients.

My upload speed is way less than 50Mbps at times; so it can take a while to upload data to players. So I always preshare images and ask players to connect well before start time. Generally I've not had any issues with players not being able to see something unless I forget to share a map beforehand and they all have to upload at the same time then.

Bear in mind as well that when players connect they need to download a bunch of stuff; such as the ruleset, decals, extensions, modules, the state of the campaign database (characters, Combat Tracker, Party Sheet) as well as images.
This is helpful, thanks. My players have noticed a difference between how long it takes to join the SA campaign where I have the first 3 books loaded and the Dragon’s Demand adventure that I’ve made from scratch. I will continue to play around with it this evening.

The good news is the T-mobile internet is just a trial and we haven’t canceled xfinity yet, so worst case scenario I keep on paying what we’ve been paying and continue to run FG as before - but I sure would love to narrow down this issue so everyone knows in the future.

[Zacchaeus]

Make sure you go through the list of things that is in that article that Moon Wizard linked in post #2 above. Makes sure also that you have an up to date exception in your antivirus. See here https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1303052290/Whitelisting+or+Creating+Exceptions+for+Antivirus+ Applications

[Laerun]

It may need to provide the required bandwidth overall. Especially if not hard-wired. My wife wanted to change to this, and after researching the service, it was a no-go for the kids and me.
It might be okay for Email, and YouTube was okay.
56359

[damned]

If your individual images are sharing OK but not so much images in modules my guess is that the module containing those images is much larger and the tmobile is not completing the upload of the larger file before something is changing on the connection.

Go to https://ipwhois.io and check your IP Address every 5 minutes for 30minutes. Is it changing? That could be impacting things.
If you have just one player connect can they get the content downloaded?

[ret]

I will double check the IP. I switched Xfinity back on since I have the game tonight and I wasn't able to sort anything out this afternoon. I've been testing it with only one player and module images have not worked for him at all.

[damned]

You might also with your test player have them delete the cache for this campaign in case a file in the cache has become damaged.

[ret]

If your individual images are sharing OK but not so much images in modules my guess is that the module containing those images is much larger and the tmobile is not completing the upload of the larger file before something is changing on the connection.

Go to https://ipwhois.io and check your IP Address every 5 minutes for 30minutes. Is it changing? That could be impacting things.
If you have just one player connect can they get the content downloaded?
I checked the IP address and while it does say I am on the opposite side of the US, it did not change.

You might also with your test player have them delete the cache for this campaign in case a file in the cache has become damaged.
I thought about this, but as soon as I switched xfinity back on and restarted FG, my player who couldn't load any images from the module was able to view everything and we could continue to play normally. All signs point to T-Mobile just not being sufficient for FG, which is weird because my upload speeds have averaged higher than Xfinity, just with less consistency.

[ret]

After continuing to dig into this I came across this (https://www.reddit.com/r/FoundryVTT/comments/wzz9pe/comment/im8xvkq/) thread. The subject of that is foundry’s port forwarding, not FG, but would this still be applicable? Does Fantasy Grounds port forwarding work differently? If the port forwarding itself was the problem, I would think my players couldn’t connect at all, not that I would have difficulty sharing images.

I’ll continue testing this in my evenings but appreciate any technical info that can help guide me here.

[Zacchaeus]

You only need port forwarding if you are using the LAN for players to connect. If you use the Cloud option (which you should) then you don't have that problem.

[Dakadin]

Hi ret,

I recently change to Verizon 5G and a similar issue in a game that I am in. Images would stop updating. I tracked it down to the DoS protection setting being on for the router. Once I turned that off things started working so I would check for something equivalent with T-Mobile.

Dakadin

[ret]

You might also with your test player have them delete the cache for this campaign in case a file in the cache has become damaged.
I got some help testing tonight and both he and I cleared the cache and the images would load properly. I'm still not sure why switching back to Xfinity forced those images through correctly, though, if the cache was corrupted. I have the logs for both myself and the player if it would be helpful to troubleshoot that.

Hi ret,

I recently change to Verizon 5G and a similar issue in a game that I am in. Images would stop updating. I tracked it down to the DoS protection setting being on for the router. Once I turned that off things started working so I would check for something equivalent with T-Mobile.

Dakadin
Thanks for the tip. I dug around a little and it does not appear to be an option with T-Mobile. The settings are pretty much limited to frequency and WPA version.