Token problem..

[Wargamer777]

Played our second session last night and had some problems with tokens.

We had 7 players, and some of them couldn't see the tokens on the map. Some would see all 7, others 6, and one person would only get 4. I decided to close FG and then reboot the computer and have everyone connect again.

Same thing happened, except for this time, one person that had previously seen all 7 tokens, this time could only see 4. Some others could see all 7, or 6. Really weird and frustrating...

My players did comment that they were receiving some error relating to couldn't retrieve tokens on connection. It also mentioned a network error.

Any idea?

[Griogre]

The token transfer failed to some of the characters. The players get an error message saying such and such file failed to transfer each time a token times out - but I find few mention those type of errors (which can be equally annoying to the GM). This is most common when you start using a ruleset the players don’t already have cached, I have noticed.

FG apparently gives a lower priority to token transfers and times out fairly easily. You can help by not transferring tokens when the server is doing other uploads like maps or rulesets. Large file size tokens are more likely to fail to transfer, too.

If a player blows a token transfer, sometimes closing the map for everyone and reopening and resharing it will sometimes force another transfer attempt. You have about a 50/50 chance of it helping. If some still can't see the token - then use a different token for that monster.

The good news is almost always the tokens do eventually transfer after a session or two. Players cache your campaign and the tokens are cached too so once they get the tokens they don't need to have them transferred again.

[Wargamer777]

Same thing happened, except for this time, one person that had previously seen all 7 tokens, this time could only see 4. Some others could see all 7, or 6. Really weird and frustrating...



Well, wouldn't the player that had previously seen all 7 tokens have them cached? If so, why could he only see 4 after we closed FG and restarted and reconnected to the server? Shouldn't he have already had them cached and therefore been able to see all 7?

[Griogre]

Yes, I believe so - except I am not sure host only tokens cache - I'm pretty sure shared ones do.

[Wargamer777]

Good point.

I'll put all the party tokens in the shared folder then. Maybe that will help.

[Chandley]

Im having exactly this problem as well, and I get it with both host only and shared tokens.

It doesnt look like ANY of my clients cache my tokens. They are downloading them fresh every session. So its a real crap shoot with 6 players to find out who can see what. I even have players not getting some of the alphabet tokens that come with FGII, which should have been put in their token folder by the installer!

Any way to distribute tokens to my players outside of FGII such that FGII will honor them? Or any way to open a bug report with the devs to get the timeout adjusted, or add a "/reload tokens" option or something? Id love to use my pretty tokens, but its a real drag to constantly have players dropping and reconnecting trying to get a usable set of tokens for the fight they are in.

Chandley.

[Oberoten]

Make a module with the tokens in it. Loads them faster at a different priority. Also lets you switch which tokens are used and not.

- Obe

[Wargamer777]

That's a good idea, Oberoten.. but I still think we need the devs to look at increasing the timeout on token loads or either provide a /reload tokens option. It is a real pain and almost killed my game Friday night.

I'll look at creating a module with the tokens to see how it will work out in the meantime.

[Griogre]

If you do follow Obe's advice make sure you follow Xorn's advice on how to correctly link tokens to modules. You can't just drop them in a module - there is a file pathing problem. I encourage you to write tech support with a polite note expressing your problem and you might want to add a comment to the Wish list Thread Ged started.

When FG2 first came out and I switched over, I had a bunch of tokens that caused problems on both of my games going at the time - but after several weeks of games most of the problems went away except for host only tokens (which is why I believe shared cached). My guess is you just started a new game with a new ruleset.

I started running 4 Ed a few weeks ago and did not have nearly the same problem with tokens I had in the conversation to FG2. But yes my players report token transfer errors from letters, ect (which are part of the ruleset - and do have to be transferred unless you are using the d20 default ruleset) and I get a few questions about are we going to be using a bear or wild cat this session because some of the 3.5 tokens I used for summoned monsters I have in shared are failing to transfer. One of my players started laughing at the start of last session (my third with that ruleset) and proudly told me he finally got that letter "T" token.

I personally keep several groups of generic tokens of various sizes in host tokens in case I end up running a monster I don't have a token for. I also use them if someone can't see a certain monster token.

[Astinus]

Re Obe's token module suggestion, are tokens in a module considered shared, and therefore will all transfer across? Or do they only transfer when the GM activates them?

I wish tokens would load from the client, like images in modules can.

[Wargamer777]

Griogre: Yes, I followed Xorn's Excellent module guide in making sure the tokens are linked properly. Xorn rules!

I'll look at adding my query to the wish list.

[JMnITup]

Issue I run into here is that, if I have a local image with tokens on it, but any of those tokens are in a module, they do not get saved to the db.xml, and disappear once I restart FG2 ... doesn't happen with local tokens.

I have the same problem creating an adventure module with tokens within it and personalities linked internally to the module tokens... everything works, except the tokens do not save to the image properly and disappear once FG2 closes

[Wargamer777]

JmnITup:

I think Xorn addresses this problem in his module guide. Check it out.. you have to export the module first without linking the tokens. Close FG, reopen it, and THEN link the tokens to the personalities and then drag the tokens to the export module box. Then export the module once more.

[JMnITup]

JmnITup:

I think Xorn addresses this problem in his module guide. Check it out.. you have to export the module first without linking the tokens. Close FG, reopen it, and THEN link the tokens to the personalities and then drag the tokens to the export module box. Then export the module once more.

no, no, as mentioned, that part works fine... all the personalities from the module properly have their tokens set from the module, etc.. the PROBLEM is that if you put token instances of them onto IMAGES (local images), none of them save to the db.xml. They go away once you close and restart FG2... local tokens stay... (also, if you had put this on one of the MODULE images instead of token images, NONE of the information saves.. tokens, masks, pointers, etc, all of it goes away)

Xorne's fix only addresses tying the token's to personalities, which can also be accomplished by direct modification of the outputed module file xml, but his method allows it without having to resort to that.

[Xorn]

Right, you're talking about FG2 not "remembering" where stuff is on an image. (It's a pathing issue also, but not one with a workaround.)

But going back to the tokens not loading issue... it did kill my game today.

People just could not see the tokens, or it would take 10+ minutes for them to see them.

I went back to previous rulesets, I batch resized all of my tokens to 50x50 pixels (all 932 of them), I tried putting the tokens into the campaign tokens folder, and into the base host and shared folders.

Each time, it didn't matter, if I had four or more people connected, I had token timeout issues, or people flat getting booted whenever I drug a token to the map or combat tracker. It was hell.

What's really weird is I've never had issues like this with so much frequency. I've had crashes from a player when I open a new map, but this was crazy. Just one crash over another, and tokens not appearing for 15 minutes (or at all) no matter what I tried.

I don't know why I had so many problems with the tokens today, but it sure sucked. :(

[unerwünscht]

I think part of the issue you are facing here is the sure number of tokens you have. I was having a ton of issues testing my new tokens out when I had all of my old tokens loading with FG. I trimmed the old ones out, so I could just get the new ones, and almost all of the issues went away.

In the end, I think the only solution is going to be to wait for an update to FG to be released in which they address some issues with maps and tokens. Its a shame really, I was just getting into the swing of things again.

[Xorn]

If I had all 932 tokens in my token folder, I'd agree right away. However, I keep all my tokens I've made tucked away in a My Documents subfolder. I only copy over the tokens I'll actually use for an adventure. But you're right, the issue is that tokens are distributed very poorly by the software.

I think my workaround for exporting tokens with modules has compounded the issue, however. I need to get 4-5 people together to test it for sure, but I think the issue arising now is that not only are the tokens distributed very poorly, they aren't cached anymore, either. So even though eventually (in a single session) you'll finally get the tokens, the when I start the game up next week, you have to redownload all those tokens again, from what I'm seeing.

I've started having more token issues since I started using the workaround, but I hadn't considered that was something that changed. Downgrading to 50x50 tokens instead of 100x100 has had no visible impact to the issue though.

[Wargamer777]

Yeah.. I'm still having the odd token problem here and there as well. Really weird.

I'd be glad to help you test out any theories, Xorn. Just PM me.

[Xorn]

I think we've pretty much hit all the talking points on the issue. The biggest problem is that FG2 distributes the DM's tokens poorly at best. While my workaround to keep tokens in the modules is handy, it suffers from the other issue in FG2--information in modules is not cached correctly.

So with the old method of making an adventure module, you put your tokens in the campaign folder, linked them, export the module (there's no need to export the tokens then), and copy the same tokens into the campaign you intend to use the module with. You still encounter the fickle token distribution (which gets worse the more players you have connected), but after they've downloaded the token once, they don't need it from you anymore.

With the new method, they have to receive the token every time they connect, and I've found I see more issues with tokens not loading (and even players crashing) really badly with 5+ players connected.

I'm actually considering just using the letter tokens (which are part of the ruleset, so require no uploading during play).

Still, the issue arises that I used to use 128 pixel tokens with 6 players connected, and not have these problems. The possibility is not eliminated that this could be a ruleset issue in 4E_JPG. Tomorrow I'm hoping to get 5-6 people connected and see if I'm having trouble sharing tokens in d20 as well.

It's frustrating, as I've only recently started having trouble with tokens.

[Foen]

Have you tried creating a client-side (client.xml) helper module with the tokens in it? If you have regular players in a campaign, they can each have a local module installed without it being too much fuss. I'm not sure whether you can draw on them locally (like you can do for images) but it might be worth a try.

Stuart

[Xorn]

I might look into that, based on how my tests go tomorrow.

It's so weird that I used to be able to distribute tokens to 6 players with few timeout issues, but now I'm having trouble distributing them to 4 people.

[Xorn]

I'm curious about an idea I had. Export your tokens for an adventure module into a second module called "AdventureName Tokens" and make it a Common file (and force load). If I link to those tokens, which are automatically shared with players as they connect, would they be essentially preloaded? It's an idea I'm curious about.

Possibly a workaround to the token distribution issues?

All 50 tokens for my KotS module are only like 200 KB, that shouldn't be that bad to transfer.

[Griogre]

Foen's idea is better - if it works. I'm not real confidant that one works, though because they specifically changed FG2 to always get tokens from the GM's machine to stop the "token spam" of FG1.

Last week you started using JPG's lastest ruleset though? Right? I've found the issue seems to happen most with a new ruleset (and a changed ruleset is a new one) and decrease afterwards which is why I always believed there was some sort of caching going on. But it could just be a side effect of caching by the other elements making more bandwith available for token transfers.

I have had pretty good success with getting "failed" token transfers to transfer about 2/3rds of the time by closing out the map with the token and resending it. If that doesn't work then telling the player to log out and log in again and refreshing the map once he's back in. If that doesn't work I just usually use a different token.

Because of the token spam prevention, for third party rulesets the letter tokens are any better than any other token as far as the ruleset is concerned so there is no advantage to using them other than they are small and easy to transfer and get moved over in the ruleset transfer. On the inital JPG ruleset transfer my players tell me they often get transfer errors on those tokens.

My players really get a high number of errors on the JPG ruleset transfer - so much so - I always tell them to get the inital transfer then log out, log in and get the things that were missed the first time. I have one guy (why *is* there always "one guy?") who sometimes needs to do this three or four times.

[Xorn]

How many people using my "module tokens" workaround are experiencing issues with rampant token timeouts and players crashing.

What I really need to find out it if this is unique to one session (my internet could have been buggy that morning)? I'd like to see just how many people this has affected. From what Griogre is saying, I'm concerned that even if I go back to the normal token linking (and copying them to the campaign folder) it might not help.

For my game, players were crashing when I would drag a token onto a module map frequently, and several players could not see the tokens for 5+ minutes, and some never saw them. Closing and reopening the map didn't help, nor did reconnecting. It was literally just dumb luck when the tokens would load.

I did not have rampant token problems like this before I started using my module tokens workaround, but I've also changed rulesets weekly (with 4E_JPG in heavy development), and used the module tokens for several sessions before this started freaking out.

[Wargamer777]

Just a note to let you know, I've experienced the tokens problem since 4th ruleset .98. I have players telling me they get the token transfer errors before. They will disconnect and reconnect and it will usually work.

But still, from time to time, I'll get players that can't see tokens. This problem will show up more with more people connected... say over 4. The majority of my token problems have been the tokens that the characters are using to represent themselves. Previously I was just assigning a token from the host folder to each character sheet. I could see the token on the top right corner of the player's sheets, but no player could see them.

What I have now done, is move the party tokens to the shared folder, logged in as each party member and drag their associated token to their character sheet's top right corner. Hopefully this might help on my next game session. We'll see.

Are any of the developers following this thread? I'd be interested to hear any input from their side of things and if a possible fix could be in the works.

[Griogre]

Just in response to Xorn, there is some problem with transparency in tokens causing some clients to crash. Smiteworks made a fix a while back but it still seems to happen fairly rarely (it happened in a game I played in two weeks ago one of the players crashed out when the DM put that token on the map). You can isolate these tokens and just loading and re-saving them fixes the problem. It is only certain tokens and it only seems to effect certain clients. I suspect you may have triggered the issue when you did that mass batch resizing down to 50 pixels on your tokens.

Xorn, for what it's worth I think you may have hit a "perfect storm" on that very bad session for you. IE new ruleset, new transparent tokens after your re-size, lots of players. Were all you players logging in at the same time? Or did you manage to stagger the ruleset transfer?

I think the odds are very good if you went in with no ruleset load things would be much better this week.

[Xorn]

Hmmm. Interesting.

Yes, they downloaded the ruleset that day, I did a mass resizing of the tokens, and the crashes were happening with certain transparent tokens.

By loading and resaving, do you mean resaving them in an image editor I assume? Nice tip if so.

[Griogre]

Yeah, I meant any picture editor. Not my tip, I think it came from DevinKnight a while back.

I'm fairly skeptical you method of incorporating tokens into modules really affects token transfers adversely.

[Wargamer777]

My party got to the Keep dungeon.. and what happens? Token problems galore. I'd place a token on the map and it would crash 1, 2 or 3 clients. They'd reconnect.. I'd place another token. Another client crash.

This is no fun at all.

[Griogre]

If you have transparency in the tokens then just load them up in a art program and resave them.

[Xorn]

My party got to the Keep dungeon.. and what happens? Token problems galore. I'd place a token on the map and it would crash 1, 2 or 3 clients. They'd reconnect.. I'd place another token. Another client crash.

This is no fun at all.

I was having the same issues, but it went away when I stopped using my parsed PHB (which was common.xml) and switched it to client.xml.

I just finished KotS last week, had only one token give me any issues at all, and that was only one time.

[Wargamer777]

I was having the same issues, but it went away when I stopped using my parsed PHB (which was common.xml) and switched it to client.xml.

I just finished KotS last week, had only one token give me any issues at all, and that was only one time.

Huh? You talking about the parser that Tenian made to create the PHB mod? Or something in your mod of the keep? Seems weird that that would cause a problem, but I'll give it a check.

[Griogre]

It really sounds like the root of at least some of the token problems is it either just times out too fast, and when there is a lot of traffic like from a common module it just gets out prioritied.

[Xorn]

Huh? You talking about the parser that Tenian made to create the PHB mod? Or something in your mod of the keep? Seems weird that that would cause a problem, but I'll give it a check.

See if the PHB mod you have is a common.xml or client.xml. I'll be it's common.xml. You have to unzip it to check. I'll send you a PM with more specifics.

[Wargamer777]

Yeah, I changed it in the mod file. It didn't make a difference. Looks like I'll have to try the open and resave the tokens trick and see if that fixes it.

[kodama]

Hello there,

We're in 2011 and I still encounter the same trouble about wich your customers seems to complain here.

Some of my players definitely can't see tokens.

Either the ones that came out of the "miscellaneous" box or the ones from the "standard" (letters and numbers).

It's pretty weird because we've been loading the game many time but it never seems to upload any better than that.

At least, I'd like to know if there is a directory in wich my players could copy/paste the tokens I could have been sending them by mail?

Thanks a lot!

PS:I forgot to tell that me and my players are upgrading FG each and every time it's possible and that we use it (once a week).

[Trenloe]

Some of my players definitely can't see tokens.

Either the ones that came out of the "miscellaneous" box or the ones from the "standard" (letters and numbers).

By default the tokens are not available to the players - they are probably in the <FG app data folder>\tokens\host directory or stored in a module (FG V2.8 has the "Letter Token" module that even if shared with the players they can't see).

Put any tokens you want your players to have access to in a folder under <FG app data folder>\tokens\shared

[phantomwhale]

I've still been getting this problem.

I've got my tokens in my ruleset directory (exploded, not a PAK file), stored in SavageWorlds3/tokens/letters directory. When I try and share maps using tokens from this directory, the players quite often can't see them (but not always.... odd caching from various attempts to work around this ? Not sure)

An example:
https://i.imgur.com/lOG8kl.jpg

My workaround has been to move a copy of them into the APPDATA\tokens\shared directory, or use a "letter tokens" module I picked up from JPG a while back, which seems to share the tokens fine.

I am running v2.8.1, and had assumed all tokens problems are fixed now. But this one keeps coming back for me. I'm tempted to remove the tokens from the ruleset anyway (to reduce size, and allow people to only bring in the tokens then want via modules or copying into the global directory) but worried this might break older module that assume there existence.

[kodama]

Ok thanks you for your directions Trenloe.
I followed it and tried with one of my players yesterday and it works. :D

But anyway phantomwhale is right: I still don't understand why the FG directory works so well and not the ruleset one?

Well I don't care anymore, let's play!

Thank you.

[phantomwhale]

Looks like other SWEX 3.1 users are getting this problem too :

https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forums/showpost.php?p=115860&postcount=54


I've still been getting this problem.

I've got my tokens in my ruleset directory (exploded, not a PAK file), stored in SavageWorlds3/tokens/letters directory. When I try and share maps using tokens from this directory, the players quite often can't see them (but not always.... odd caching from various attempts to work around this ? Not sure)

[zackspacks]

Just to add to PW's comment, our group have been experiencing this for a few weeks now. Forex we had about 8 different tokens on the map. Some guys could see all, some could see none, and people like myself could see some of them.

This exact same problem extended into the Savage Worlds combat tracker with initiative cards.

Go back 2 months and everyone could see everything, no problem. Any news on this ?

Regards
Paul

[Moon Wizard]

I was finally able to track this down. The earlier fix only partially solved the issue. The updated patch will be part of the v2.8.2 release.

Regards,
JPG

[zackspacks]

Thanks for the reply, and looking forward to the update:)
cheers
Paul