Players can't see custom content. Other content takes a long time to load.

[GoldBunnyFox]

Players can't see custom content that I add to Fantasy Grounds Unity. Such as custom notes. Custom text is just replaced with "type". We're playing the Curse of Strahd module.

Players can see module content. But it takes a very, VERY long time to load (20+ minutes). It takes so long that players quit in frustration.

I have high speed internet, ports are configured properly, etc. So do my players.

[anstett]

First standard things to check would be how much content you are sharing. Then is the problem only with that module?

It should not take that long to load. A good test would be to start a new clean campaign with only that module and see what the sharing time is that way to help narrow down possibilities.

[LordEntrails]

So first, how are you creating this custom content? Share time is really all about file size and number of players. And if one player has their bandwidth throttled, it affects everyone.

I'm guessing that you are modifying pages etc in the CoS module itself and then having players load that module? You don't want that.
Second, what content are you adding? I'm guessing high resolution large maps and images. Recommendations for map image are 2MB file size if static, 10MB is animated, 4k x 4k pixels. Other details here: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/2037547009/Developer+Guide+-+Product+Guidelines#Development---Product-Image-Guidelines

Make sure you are not sharing DM facing modules, only share the player modules and then only stories, items, images as needed. And if you do a lot of custom content creation, see the link in my signature about creating your own custom modules in a development campaign and then exporting that and loading it into your campaign. You can also make a player facing module and have them each load that independently of each other.

[Zacchaeus]

As others have said a lot depends on what and how much of it you are sharing. Do your players need access to multiple modules? Do you really need 25 50Mb Images?

Also whilst your machine may be quick it's the network that is the bottleneck either yours or one of your players. Check that you don't have any kind of QoS switched on (and your players may also want to check this). You mentioned ports but if you are usnig the Cloud (which is recommended) you don't need to worry about ports; so if you have been messing with those then I'd suggest you try connecting via the Cloud.

Anti virus is also often a culprit (either yours or one or more of your players).

Here's some things to check out https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1303052290/Whitelisting+or+Creating+Exceptions+for+Antivirus+ Applications and https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1981349889/Network+Troubleshooting

Also if you want to hop onto the official Discord we may be able to help more directly. (fg-support channel).

[GoldBunnyFox]

Players can't see custom content that I add to Fantasy Grounds Unity. Such as custom notes. Custom text is just replaced with "type".

This is what I most need an answer to. Why do my players just see "type" when I make a custom item such as a note in FG? Can anyone help?


First standard things to check would be how much content you are sharing.

I don't know how to answer this succinctly. Is there some kind of data summary in FG? I have 256MB of custom images for D&D. That doesn't seem like a lot.


So first, how are you creating this custom content?

I put images into the image folder. And, I make new items, NPC, parcels, etc. in the FG desktop. I copy/paste text for that. It all looks fine on my end. But, my players can't see it.


Do you really need 25 50Mb Images?

I only have 8 images larger than 5MB. The largest is 13.5MB. Yes, I like higher resolution. It looks nice. 2MB seems pretty small...


Also if you want to hop onto the official Discord we may be able to help more directly. (fg-support channel).

I posted in the channel.

[MsKayeTonic]

Hello.

I'm a player in Bunnys game.

Some things I can say they've dealt with is their ISP tends to throttle them/prevent them from sending the images at all if they don't use a VPN, but the VPN is slow when they try to share stuff - even their smaller images.

They also are having issues with things beyond just images, though those can be slow (and I'm trying to help them lower the size of some of their images), but an issue they seem to be having is they are trying to share text files to me (notes, letters from NPCs, that sort of thing) and they just appear with stock text like "Type."

Weird that text should have a hard time being shared.

[damned]

If GBF internet is being throttled then big images are not going to be helping.
Run /flushdb to unshare content.
Unshare any books that are not essential to share.
Have one player connect and test.
If working get a second player to login and test at the same time.

[Trenloe]

This is what I most need an answer to. Why do my players just see "type" when I make a custom item such as a note in FG? Can anyone help?
I'm note sure what could be causing "type" to just appear, nor what that could be. Please get one of the players to take a screenshot of this and post that here.

[GoldBunnyFox]

I'm note sure what could be causing "type" to just appear, nor what that could be. Please get one of the players to take a screenshot of this and post that here.

Okay, one of my players will post a screenshot of what they see. The item in question is a note that I created using the "Add Item" button in the Item menu. It is named "A note addressed to Rose and Thorn". Attached is a screenshot of what I see. I can see the note in the parcel and the party sheet. I can read the note from the party sheet. The note can't be found with a search in the Items menu. :confused:

61159

[MsKayeTonic]

I'm note sure what could be causing "type" to just appear, nor what that could be. Please get one of the players to take a screenshot of this and post that here.

61161

This is what I see. Bunny can see the actual text on their end. Other items so far seem to be OK but I remember this occurring with other notes they've tried to share in the past. But its mostly story notes that I think Bunny created that are doing this, they don't have the text the others have - they just say "Type"

[Zacchaeus]

Can you screenshot what else is in the item other than the notes section. Did you for example give it a type or subtype?

[GoldBunnyFox]

Can you screenshot what else is in the item other than the notes section. Did you for example give it a type or subtype?

There is nothing in those fields. I would've expected a search for "All" in the Item menu to find the item regardless.

61162

[Zacchaeus]

Try adding something into the type field. I think that is the problem. Without a type FG won’t know what kind of item it is.

[GoldBunnyFox]

Try adding something into the type field. I think that is the problem. Without a type FG won’t know what kind of item it is.

I tried writing "something" in the Type field - It didn't work.
I tried writing "uncategorized" in the Type field - It didn't work.
I tried writing "treasure" in the Type field - It didn't work.
I tried locking and unlocking the item - It didn't work.

I noticed that a book from the module was categorized as "treasure" in the Type field.

[damned]

These Notes - have you tried creating them as Notes or as Story and sharing those?
The way you are using Items as Notes is not how items ere intended to be used.
I understand why you have set them up as an Item - they are an object/item of some sort.

Try setting the non-Id name to the same as the Id name.
But better yet - Notes should be setup as Notes or Story entries.

[Zacchaeus]

I tried writing "something" in the Type field - It didn't work.
I tried writing "uncategorized" in the Type field - It didn't work.
I tried writing "treasure" in the Type field - It didn't work.
I tried locking and unlocking the item - It didn't work.

I noticed that a book from the module was categorized as "treasure" in the Type field.

I'm not sure what is going on here. I've now had a chance to test this and it doesn't matter if there is anything in the type field. Here I've created an item with just a description and added it to the party sheet. As you can see it is searchable in the items list and is visible and opens correctly from the party sheet. So I don't know why your one isn't working. Perhaps you are or were using some extension which is interfering? You could try recreating the item in a new campaign to see if that works as a first step to diagnosing the problem.

[Mike Serfass]

@GoldBunnyFox Are you creating this note from the item window, then dragging it into the party inventory, or are you creating the note directly in party inventory?

[Trenloe]

Okay, one of my players will post a screenshot of what they see. The item in question is a note that I created using the "Add Item" button in the Item menu. It is named "A note addressed to Rose and Thorn". Attached is a screenshot of what I see. I can see the note in the parcel and the party sheet. I can read the note from the party sheet. The note can't be found with a search in the Items menu. :confused:

61159
1) If you create an item directly in the party sheet then the item exists only in the party sheet (and can be transferred to a PC sheet) - you won't see it in the campaign data list. If you want it in the campaign data list, create it there first and then drag that to the party sheet inventory. But note that this will create a copy of the base record in the party sheet and any edits to the base record won't reflect in the party sheet copy (and vice versa) as this is now a new item existing only in the party sheet. The same would be the case for items within Parcels.
2) "Notes" in an item are only displayed to the player when the item is unidentified, I can see from your screenshot that the item is identified so the players won't see the "Notes" text - details on this field in the Wiki here: https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/996641969/5E+Item+Sheet+and+Treasure+Parcels#Create-A-New-Standard-Item If you want information to be visible when the item is identified, put it in the main descriptive area of the item.

[Zacchaeus]

Ah, sorry. I totally missed that they were adding it to the notes field rather than the description field.

[GoldBunnyFox]

Perhaps you are or were using some extension which is interfering? You could try recreating the item in a new campaign to see if that works as a first step to diagnosing the problem.

I'm not using any extensions. I 've re-made the campaign 3 times in an attempt to get these problems to stop. The last remake was about a month or two ago. It doesn't make any difference.


@GoldBunnyFox Are you creating this note from the item window, then dragging it into the party inventory, or are you creating the note directly in party inventory?

I'm creating an item. Then I add text to its description. I think of it as a book or note. Then, I put the item in a room description on the DM map. You can see that on the parcel in my screenshots. Then I copied it to the party sheet like you would for any other item they found on the parcel. But my players can't see its description. They only see "type".

[damned]

If you use Notes for this it would be much simpler for you.

[Trenloe]

Then I copied it to the party sheet like you would for any other item they found on the parcel. But my players can't see its description. They only see "type".
I've explained the reason why this is happening - see post #18, bullet point #2 above.

[GoldBunnyFox]

I was finally able to playtest the fixes on most of this today. Thank you for the support.

My players were able to see the custom notes. To anyone with the same issue: You have to type the notes for players in the only unlabelled field of the item. Don't put notes for your players in the section of the item that is labelled "Notes".

I still have a player that can't get content. In their case, they can get custom maps, but not the module maps. They confirmed that their antivirus isn't blocking Fantasy Grounds. I confirmed that I'm sharing everything. All the other players can get content. I'm stumped about how to help them. Can anyone help?

[Mike Serfass]

There's a way to clear the locally saved files on the player's side. I don't remember off the top of my head how to do that, but it's on the forum somewhere.
The player could have an old file not being overwritten, or a corrupt file.
They'll lose settings, but this may fix it.

[GoldBunnyFox]

There's a way to clear the locally saved files on the player's side. I don't remember off the top of my head how to do that, but it's on the forum somewhere.
The player could have an old file not being overwritten, or a corrupt file.
They'll lose settings, but this may fix it.

Good idea. But, this is a brand new player that just got FG today. So, that can't be the issue.

[Moon Wizard]

Unfortunately, not only antivirus software can block data from being transferred. Other settings that they may have configured on their machine or router can block incoming data, such as internet filtering software (parental control, ad filtering, etc.) or router settings (quality of service, bandwidth throttling, SPI filters, etc.).
More information on the wiki:
https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1981349889/Network+Troubleshooting

You can force a cache clear on the player side by having them delete the cache subfolder within the FG data folder; and you can clear all shared items as a GM by using /flushdb command while in your campaign.

Regards,
JPG

[GoldBunnyFox]

Unfortunately, not only antivirus software can block data from being transferred. Other settings that they may have configured on their machine or router can block incoming data, such as internet filtering software (parental control, ad filtering, etc.) or router settings (quality of service, bandwidth throttling, SPI filters, etc.).
More information on the wiki:
https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1981349889/Network+Troubleshooting

You can force a cache clear on the player side by having them delete the cache subfolder within the FG data folder; and you can clear all shared items as a GM by using /flushdb command while in your campaign.

Regards,
JPG

They can see custom images that I've added to the campaign. For example, they can see a custom map that I drew a grid on. We play tested this before they joined to be sure that they could receive files.

They can see the party sheet and combat tracker with NPCs and loot from the CoS module. But, they can't see the map from the CoS module. I don't understand how this can happen due to a network issue or whatever on their end.

Again, it's only module map content that they can't see and it's only them that can't see it. My other players all got the module maps. But, this player only gets a black screen with a grid on it. Is there something intrinsically different about how the module maps are coded? Maybe that could be a clue as to what is happening.

Anecdotally I've noticed a lot more sharing issues with the Curse of Strahd module in FG Unity. I ran Lost Mines of Phandelver before this on FG Classic and didn't have nearly so much trouble with sharing.

[Moon Wizard]

Do they have a player token on the map that they own? If they do not, they would not have any vision to see anything.

To make sure they have an owned token, make sure their character has been added to the combat tracker, and then drag the token to the map from the combat tracker. That should set up the ownership of the token to match the character.

JPG

[GoldBunnyFox]

Do they have a player token on the map that they own? If they do not, they would not have any vision to see anything.

To make sure they have an owned token, make sure their character has been added to the combat tracker, and then drag the token to the map from the combat tracker. That should set up the ownership of the token to match the character.

JPG

Yes, they own their player token and it's on the map when we test. I tested clearing ownership and having them re-own it. It made no difference.

I had them clear their cache. I ran the /flushdb command thrice. It made no difference.

They can't see the player's map of Death House or the DM map of Barovia.

They can see custom map images that I imported and put grids on. They can see the DM map of the Blue Water Inn, the DM map of Death House, and the player map of the Village of Barovia. They haven't progressed far enough in the campaign to have reached these locales but I shared them just to test.

So, what's up with the player's map of Death House and the DM map of Barovia? All of the other assets that we've tested seem to work. I added some effects to the DM map of Barovia. But, I confirmed that it was properly visible for another player. And, I didn't alter the player map of Death House at all.

[Zacchaeus]

Can you post your and your players log files here (Make sure that they are the latest files - you may want to have them connect again and then compile the logs after that).

https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1242136781/How+to+Compile+Logs

Please also let us know how much memory the player is using when Fantasy Grounds is running,

[Moon Wizard]

You said that you had modified those maps to add FX. Can you try reverting those maps (using right click in Images list) to the default setup, and see if you still see the issue? Maybe something in the FX is causing issues.

Regards,
JPG

[GoldBunnyFox]

Can you post your and your players log files here (Make sure that they are the latest files - you may want to have them connect again and then compile the logs after that).

https://fantasygroundsunity.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/FGCP/pages/1242136781/How+to+Compile+Logs

Please also let us know how much memory the player is using when Fantasy Grounds is running,

The player is in a much different timezone than me. So, we can only test on weekends. And, this weekend hasn't worked out.

How can they tell how much memory they are using?

[LordEntrails]

The player is in a much different timezone than me. So, we can only test on weekends. And, this weekend hasn't worked out.

How can they tell how much memory they are using?
On Windows, its called the Task Manager. CTRL-ALT-DEL or right click on the task bar and open it. The Memory column is the one of interest.