Modules not loading after character selection

[mvpetev]

So here is an interesting problem.
I`m running a campaign with 5 PC`s and everyone apart from one is doing well.
One of the PC`s however has an issue initially we thought it is the usual firewall/network issue but it is not.

Here is what happens - the PC will try to join the game and he will get connected but nothing will show - the modules loading screen is empty, the character selection is empty, if they throw a roll I will see it but the PC will not.
Now here is where it gets interesting - if I clear the character owner from this PC then they will join and instantly everything is there modules load fast, maps show when I share them, rolls appear. And this will stay working until the moment they choose a character. Here is even more interestingly it doesnt matter which character they choose we tried multiples always the same problem.

Further we tried delegating all the folders associated with FCU i.e the one in AppData/Roaming and AppData/Locallow and Program files. Uninstalling the game completely and then reinstalling it. Still exactly the same problem.
We also tried connecting to virtually the same network by using my VPN - no change. We tried creating a new campaign - same behaviour. The logs don't show anything of particular interest

Anyone any idea ?

[damned]

When you connected via VPN - was he connecting via CLOUD or LAN IP address?
Have player check for flood control in their router or software firewall.

[mvpetev]

It was via cloud we just wanted to eliminate the possibility of slow connection. And the player and me both had DMZ enabled to our hosts without any QoS or filtering enabled.

Speaking of which I was monitoring the transfer speeds at the time and before character selection the upload speed on my side was around 1MB/s after that it seemed stopped it was doing around 20KB/s which I could pretty surely attribute to the background traffic to keep it alive as it was the same speed when we didn't try to load modules or do something. I could even see a peak when dice rolling was happening but still the character selection seems to reak something which either stops transfer or bugs the engine.

Do you know if selecting a character it self requires some specific ports etc. I mean it shouldn't be the issue since the dmz test we did but trying to understand the problem deeper

[damned]

If you are cloud hosting there is no need to do any port forwarding or put your device into a DMZ.
Using a VPN wont make the connection faster - it both adds overhead in the encapsulation and it makes the route longer.
It can however bypass some router configurations so it is a worthwhile test.

FGU in LAN mode runs a server on UDP 1802 but for cloud connections you do not need to do any port forwarding

Flood control is not a QoS setting it is a firewall setting - I would double check.

[damned]

You are running 12 extensions and sharing 8 books.
You could try unsharing some of those books - you really dont need the SRD with all the other stuff you are sharing.

You could try running up a new 5E campaign with only PHB and see if the player connects ok.
You might check memory load on players side before and after it stops working

[mvpetev]

You are running 12 extensions and sharing 8 books.
You could try unsharing some of those books - you really dont need the SRD with all the other stuff you are sharing.

You could try running up a new 5E campaign with only PHB and see if the player connects ok.
You might check memory load on players side before and after it stops working

We tested it even with just the default srd books and no extensions the problem persists.

Again the problem only occurs once a character is selected if I remove the ownership of the character and the same player connects just without a character nothing of the above happens and everything runs smooth.

And on top of that none of the other 4 players have any similar experience

I'll try to see if there is specifically flood protection on the router but I don't think so we looked over it yesterday.

[mvpetev]

A bit of an update - we managed to have a successful session with somewhat of a workaround - I`m still interested in figuring out the underlaying reason tho.

So the workaround is the following - the player connects and loads everything - then he selects a character and never disconnects again. If he disconnects I have to reset the character ownership so he can connect again other ways nothing loads.
Anyhow after a character selection for some reason the player always has to do 2 rolls one for a actual roll he is doing and 1 for refreshing. We started calling it do a refresh roll. So essentially anything that i do or the player does including showing maps or moving or anything gets executed after he does a roll which apparently triggers the game to refresh

[Griogre]

I wonder if the player's computer, RAM and video card meet the minimum specs for FGU. Another thing you could check, because while it certainly could be some sort of data transfer problem it might just be his system is struggling.

[mvpetev]

It should be fine unless something drastically changed in the past few months. I mean we have been playing together for about and year now then stopped for some time and now started again and the problem was not there before so i guess the PC should be fine

[LordEntrails]

I wonder if the player has any special characters in their username or the name of the character?

[Trenloe]

This is a weird one. The only think I can think of is that a lot of data has been shared to that character, and once a player selects the PC they start to get the data.

You could try the /flushdb chat command (see the Misc section here: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/996640083/Using+the+Chat+Window#Chat-Commands ) This will remove the sharing of all records the GM has shared from the campaign to the players - if you've done a lot of sharing, and don't want to do it all again, I'd recommend making a backup of your campaign data first, just in case there are other issues or if this doesn't fix it and you want to go back to what you had previously shared.

[mvpetev]

It is a weird one indeed.

We thought of the name having special characters actually as it did but then I tested it by removing the character and the player tried selecting a another one with just a normal name and the problem repeated so I guess it's not that

I have not tested the /flashdb command will do once we host a new session and post back
Thanks for the suggestion!

[Trenloe]

Also, could you post the db.xml file from the campaign with the issue - you'll find this in <FG app data>\campaigns\<your campaign name> - get to <FG app data> by clicking the folder icon in the top left of the FG startup screen.