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View Full Version : Issue loading map files created by Dungeon Alchemist that previously worked



Rasorow
May 22nd, 2023, 01:42
Good evening! (at least it is evening somewhere :-)

I have a campaign that is winding down after close to 3.5 years of play. It is a homemade campaign using D&D 3.5 ed. ruleset. We were in person but switched to Fantasy Ground due to COVID.

In October of 2021 I began using Dungeon Alchemist as a mapping software to put together my locations, dungeons, etc and it worked fine. This month I put together the dungeon the party had to enter using Dungeon Alchemist again. Yet when I shared it with the party, they could see the icons for their characters and nothing else. Just a black screen even after 5 minutes. Several flat screen shots of the view in the dungeon (like the view down a particular hallway or a view over a pit of lava) loaded fine and with reasonable speed (also created in Dungeon Alchemist). The map did not. The map did load fine on my computer and my screen, just not my players after sharing the map. We tried reconnecting, resharing, and finally ended up doing the session by me sharing the map over Skype.

As a test at the end of the session I loaded up a map they had already gone through previously that had many of the same elements as the new map. That map had worked previously in Fantasy Grounds and the group had played through it. I figured that if the old map worked then Dungeon Alchemist changed something. Problem was the old map no longer loaded in Fantasy Grounds either. Oh, it loaded fine in the DM view on my screen but when shared with the players all they saw was their tokens and a black screen.

No one has changed internet connections, bandwidth testing the same for me and one of my players as it has for the prior years we have done this. Two players are even on LAN.

Finally the new Dungeon file is 30 megs which I realize might be an issue, but if it was size why didn't the other file which has not been altered since play through work?

Any ideas?

Rasorow

LordEntrails
May 22nd, 2023, 02:09
Players seeing black images for maps is usually because; a) Lighting is enabled on the map and the players do not have darkvision or light sources. b) LOS is enabled on the map and the players do not have any tokens they own on the map or token selected.

The easiest way to check this is to disable both LOS and lightning on the map and see if a client (you can start a second instance of FG and connect to your own game as a player) and see if you can see the map.

Griogre
May 22nd, 2023, 04:36
Another quick way to see is to just Turn on Player preview and if it is dark then there is no light sources.

Zacchaeus
May 22nd, 2023, 08:30
Another possibility is that the layer is set to invisible or visible to GM only.

A screenshot of the map in question unlocked and showing the right hand panel would be helpful.

And welcome to the forums.

Sausmikat
October 17th, 2023, 23:10
hi, sorry to bring up this topic from dead, but I didn't want to open a new one so similar

I'm having a problem, when I export the dungeon alchemist map, after following steps 4 and 5, I can take the image of the asset map to the image folder. The map opens perfectly.

The problem is that the map disappears after I close its window, forcing me to delete the image and place it again.

In other words, I cannot leave a map prepared in advance.

I noticed that the problem happens when there is the xml file in the folder, when it is just the jpeg file it works normally.

It worked yesterday, today it stopped, maybe it was after I updated FG - V4.4.4 (2023-10-17)

Can anyone help me?

pindercarl
October 18th, 2023, 01:14
hi, sorry to bring up this topic from dead, but I didn't want to open a new one so similar

I'm having a problem, when I export the dungeon alchemist map, after following steps 4 and 5, I can take the image of the asset map to the image folder. The map opens perfectly.

The problem is that the map disappears after I close its window, forcing me to delete the image and place it again.

In other words, I cannot leave a map prepared in advance.

I noticed that the problem happens when there is the xml file in the folder, when it is just the jpeg file it works normally.

It worked yesterday, today it stopped, maybe it was after I updated FG - V4.4.4 (2023-10-17)

Can anyone help me?

We're currently tracking a bug with images not rendering when maximized and potentially closed and reopened. This is only occurring when lighting is enabled, which would line up with your experience when the XML file is not present. (Lighting is included in the XML).

Moon Wizard
October 18th, 2023, 02:31
We have pushed a hot fix for images appearing blank when maximized and lighting is enabled. Can you please run a new Check for Updates, and let us know if you're still having the issue?

Regards,
JPG