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View Full Version : 4.6.x Issue - GUI Resizing when loading and unloading modules



Artrem
December 20th, 2024, 04:05
Issue:
Certain official D&D modules are causing visual distortion (horizontal shrinking) when loading and/or when players are connecting to the campaign.

Background:
We are currently running a weekly PotA campaign and have been for past 6 months. As discussed in previous thread about 4.6.0 issues, these issues didn't occur until this patch. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?83426-4-6-Issue-Recurring-Frequent-freezing-with-Maps-opened
We took last week off to allow for more bug fixes and hopefully limit frustrations we were feeling as a group and mainly myself as a DM. I tested with one of my players on Sunday (12/15/24) prior to our gaming session last night (12/19/24).

Problem:
This issue was occurring when I was starting up the campaign during our testing Sunday (v4.6.1) but was brief and would happen for a slight second or two. It also happened when the player testing with me was logging in to the campaign on Sunday.

Last night, (updated to v4.6.2) the issue was much more prominent with long (10-30 seconds) of the distortion when anyone would connect to the campaign (4 players). We also had our first issues of two separate players at two different times of the night having their Fantasy Grounds Unity lock up and having to do a restart of the unity program (this has never happened in the past and been playing with same players, same PC's weekly for a long time (months for one and literally years for the other) and one player had to completely reboot their system last night.

I do run on an ultrawide monitor in it's native resolution (3840x1080) (ironically actually purchased it years ago specifically for fantasy grounds use in 2018) and have never had this occur in the past. NVIDIA 3060 card. Drivers are all up to date.

I did make sure everyone had updated their fantasy grounds to v4.6.2 prior to last night's session.

Reproducibility:
Today, I loaded the same campaign and again had the distortion issue during campaign loading. So, I created a new campaign, no extensions and there was no distortion on loading in. I then, opened the modules and started activating/loading the modules I use in that campaign and when I loaded the PotA official module the issue was reproduced. If I unloaded and then reloaded, it would recur.

So, I exited completely out of unity, opened yet another test campaign and only tested the D&D official adventure modules and found that three that I own (own many, but remaining didnt' reproduce the issue) caused the issue.

Here is a video to demonstrate what is being seen: https://youtu.be/LuBxzJJFcdA

A bit of customer service advice:
As I've said all along, I appreciate all the hard work going into these issues and despite the frustrations, continue to stick with Fantasy Grounds.

But, I would recommend to Smiteworks and anyone that speaks for them (moderators included), before telling someone essentially there is no way there is an issue please confirm that is actually true. As I stated almost a month ago in this post, I asked if the PotA module(s) were part of the issues (post #6). https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showthread.php?83426-4-6-Issue-Recurring-Frequent-freezing-with-Maps-opened&p=731234&viewfull=1#post731234

I was assured that it was in no way the module not being optimized was causing the issue (post #8). So, I trust moderators speak the facts when they are not corrected by official employees of Smiteworks.


None of the maps in PotA come even close to exceeding the recommended size for Unity. As you say this is an old adventure - which I did not convert btw - and it was developed for Classic where the limits were actually about half of what they are for Unity.

My assumption is nothing was done with the PotA module since it was reported to in no way be the issue at hand. So, it may not have been causing the issues, but it's clearly involved in this new problem and probably involved with previous issues I reported.

My request:
If this issue is related to that specific module and isn't a high priority for fixing a purchased Smiteworks product by the team currently. Please, just tell me what is the issue with these modules and I'll just put the time and effort to re-create a personal module myself to prevent the week in and week out headaches, frustrations that we are having with our campaign.

We are taking the next two weeks off for holiday (typically we pick another day in the week to play each week during this time of the year but we're not doing that to see if FGU will be fixed by then [that'll be over 7 weeks since the issues started]).

Respectfully,
Artrem

If you need campaign files happy to share, just ask if needed.

Zacchaeus
December 20th, 2024, 08:42
So from the video when you open a module it shrinks your screen size? Is that what I'm seeing in the video?

I'm unable to reproduce this but it may have to do with the screen size; we'll need to wait until someone with a similarly wide screen can reproduce the issue to see if it's general or specific to your system I think.

Moon Wizard
December 20th, 2024, 21:21
@Artrem,

Appreciate the extra information, and the video. During that time, I was definitely stretched thin trying to push out fixes and try to handle the volume of information. We definitely lean on our moderators to help out, and escalate if they see something. Apologies if any of the issues got lost in the translation, like the screen resolution one.

It appears that the issue has nothing to do with maps; but with some sort of resolution reset occurring. The strange thing is that we didn't touch any resolution items for this release; except a very small one on Dec. 9 for the blue line on the right edge.

Are you running in maximized mode in the video?
Also, is this a multi-screen setup or a single screen setup? And do you have other screens running too?

Regards,
JPG

Moon Wizard
December 20th, 2024, 23:24
I just tried running through a similar scenario with FG maximized on 150% UI Scale on a 3840x2160 screen; but I couldn't get the issue to appear.

In addition to the questions above, please make sure that any video drivers are up to date, just in case.

Regards,
JPG

Artrem
December 20th, 2024, 23:45
Thanks Zaccheaus and Moon,

Zaccheaus, The 'shrinking' is happening inside the borders of the unity window, but the borders do not change. One of my players wondered if it was trying to scale to 1920x1080 for some reason during the load times for those modules. It also would happen if a player would try to connect to the server or when I loaded a campaign with one of those modules loaded. The Scourge was the longest in that state. This has never occurred until the 4.6.1 and 4.6.2 updates.

I have one monitor connected and it's a single monitor with 3840 x 1080 which is the native resolution for the monitor.

I am running in maximized windowed mode (sorry I know it's hard to see the video if you don't have the 3840 resolution, but wanted you to see what was occurring).

Maybe it was something with the Dec 9th update as we took that week off to see if things would improve, I did not update to 4.6.1 until this last weekend (12/1). So, that may be what is linked to the issue or what I am seeing.


I tested all the products I own that are adventure campaigns as the books didn't seem to cause it. It would only happen when I would click load on three modules separately with no other modules loaded that i own, and would repeat if I unloaded them then reloaded:
D&D Out of the Abyss
D&D Princes of the Apocalypse
D&D Scourge of the Sword Coast



It did not happen when I tested each of the following modules on their own:
D&D Baldur's Gate Descent into Avernus
D&D Curse of Strahd
D&D Dragonlance Shadow of the Dragon Queen
D&D Dungeon of the Mad Mage
D&D Ghosts of Saltmarsh
D&D Hoard of the Dragon Queen
D&D Lost Mines of Phandelver
D&D Storm Kings Thunder
D&D Tales from Yawning portal (all modules checked)
D&D Rise of Tiamat
D&D Tomb of Annihilation
D&D Waterdeep Dragon Heist

I also tested with Pathfinder Kingmaker 2e (i know it's a huge module) and it did it for just a split second or two. I couldn't reproduce it with any other modules.


I understand that many probably don't run at that native resolution, but it was definitely a change that I had noted this week and was reproducible on my end. It's jarring to me when it occurs, but we can still play the game. However, we did have players locking up which we've never had in the past, hence why I wondered if it was related.

Thanks for taking a look and I recognize it may be only something on my end or a small population of users, but wanted you to know what was being seen. I also know I may sound like a curmudgeon sometimes, but I am just trying to keep my group playing in the fantasy grounds universe :)

Thanks again,

Anything else to help, test, etc, please let me know.
Artrem

Moon Wizard
December 20th, 2024, 23:51
I'll have to see if Carl has any ideas. I literally only took out a couple "- 1"s in the coding; so doubtful that would affect the issue.

I do know that those modules seem to have the longest load times; probably because their maps are older and having to be updated when loaded each time. Perhaps that will help narrow the situation.

What UI Scale are you running at?

Regards,
JPG

Artrem
December 20th, 2024, 23:55
Great point, and again don't know much, but I think it may have something to do with the LOS points, there's a lot as we were all learning how to do LOS effectively back then. I did recreate one of the maps myself as webp with less points and seemed good on it's own, but of course loaded the module for the encoutners, stories, etc which I know probably doesn't matter. I also try to close out any shared images not needed before each session, as I know that leads to longer load times for my players if there is a bunch of images to be shared.

I am running at 100% UI Scale, drivers are all up to date.

Thanks for giving it a look,
Artrem

Artrem
January 9th, 2025, 06:22
After a few weeks off, my group has just completed their first game back since I last posted here. I wanted to let you know that this has been resolved.

I also want to say Thank you to the Smiteworks team.

I have been critical and frustrated since the 4.6.x patches and the loss of play ability within my group using Fantasy Grounds. This session tonight was back to what we had prior to 4.6.0. We didn't use lighting, but LOS was used. I did also upload updated webp PotA maps that I created, added LOS and imported into the campaign.

My group said it ran without issues this session and my joy was back to running games within Fantasy Grounds.

So... Thank you for your hard work on working on the bugs and issues, I know you've been working tirelessly to address all the issues.

Respectfully,
Artrem

Moon Wizard
January 9th, 2025, 16:00
I'd love to take credit for fixing this issue; but we have not released a new client since Dec. 17 (partly due to the holidays, and partly due to some extra testing needed on some of the upcoming fixes).

I'm guessing that a reboot or some other action in the last few weeks caused things to reset. Since we hadn't been able to recreate the issue, we weren't sure what was causing the issue in this case and not hearing other reports.

We'll keep an eye out, if it comes up again.

Happy gaming,
JPG