Update 2.3.3: Big Trouble?

[Shimrath]

My gaming group got together for our usual Friday night game, and had big big problems after updating to the 2.3.3 Update.

One player couldn't look at his own character sheet for a long period of time, others couldn't see certain tokens. None of them could see any image on the map, only gridlines. They all complained about 'lag' when rolling dice and typing into chat.

As we played, things seemed to stabilize.

Wanted to post and see if anyone else is having similar troubles? If more info is required, i can provide it.

[Elf]

Using JPGs 4e ruleset. It appears that the mask layer does not transmit at the same time as the main map layer. The main map will appear completely unmasked and then a short while later the mask appears.

This may have something to do with the module the GM shared with the players to speed up downloads when he goes on the road though.

We also seem to have the same issue with the CT not updating correctly. Tokens not matching on a restart and hit point monitor not updating.

[ThunderYak]

I and my friends are experiencing these problems as well and it's halting our game for this evening. No tokens means no maps. Hope this gets looked at by next week.

[Goblin-King]

One possibility here is a large amount of data being sent to the players because they have been tagged as holders of that data during earlier sessions.

A way to diagnose this is to look at the db.xml file in the campaign folder, and see the number of <holder> tags present for a particular username. Something the players might try to do just to check things out would be to connect with a username they have not used before with the particular host, as that will skip all such data transfer. In all cases, giving it a moment for the data to transfer should get rid of all extra lag. The number of players, the network bandwidth of the host and individual players as well as the amount of data sent all affect the actual performance.

There was no change to how tokens work for the 2.3 versions. Any lag caused by data transfer would probably be reflected in the speed of image downloads, chat messages, sheet updates and token placements as well. If giving it a bit to transfer doesn't help with the tokens, it might be a separate issue.

[Astinus]

Using JPGs 4e ruleset. It appears that the mask layer does not transmit at the same time as the main map layer. The main map will appear completely unmasked and then a short while later the mask appears.

This may have something to do with the module the GM shared with the players to speed up downloads when he goes on the road though.

Yes, I share modules with my players and have the same problem. However, there is a workaround.

If the GM opens the map, applies the mask, selects "Preload", lets that chill for a few seconds, maybe five or six, then shares the map, the mask should be in place from the get go.

I learned that the hard way, with players trying to hit print screen before the mask covered the map.

[ThunderYak]

We waited a while and slowly the alphabet tokens began to show up. Then the other base tokens. It took nearly an hour and a half for us to get started, but they did eventually get there. The players and host of the game had not altered since the last we played and we never had to do this before. And if a player got booted he had to wait for all the tokens to show up again.

At one point we try to connect to each other , but suffered the same lag despite who connected to who and no matter where they were located. This was the only reason we thought it had to do with the update.

And we were not using the default ruleset but rather the 4E one. So perhaps therein lies the problem.

[docplutonium]

One possibility here is a large amount of data being sent to the players because they have been tagged as holders of that data during earlier sessions.

A way to diagnose this is to look at the db.xml file in the campaign folder, and see the number of <holder> tags present for a particular username. Something the players might try to do just to check things out would be to connect with a username they have not used before with the particular host, as that will skip all such data transfer. In all cases, giving it a moment for the data to transfer should get rid of all extra lag. The number of players, the network bandwidth of the host and individual players as well as the amount of data sent all affect the actual performance.

There was no change to how tokens work for the 2.3 versions. Any lag caused by data transfer would probably be reflected in the speed of image downloads, chat messages, sheet updates and token placements as well. If giving it a bit to transfer doesn't help with the tokens, it might be a separate issue.

So if there are an excessive number of <holder> tags then everything slows down ??

Here's a sample of what's in my campaign db.xml file...


<holder name="jhsdf" owner="true" />
<abilities>
<holder name="jhsdf" owner="true" />
<holder name="mogur" />
<holder name="warpedways" />
<holder name="Warpedways" />
<holder name="Sentinel" />
<holder name="player1" />
<charisma>
<holder name="jhsdf" owner="true" />
<holder name="mogur" />
<holder name="warpedways" />
<holder name="Warpedways" />
<holder name="Sentinel" />
<holder name="player1" />
<bonus type="number">1</bonus>
<bonusmodifier type="number">0</bonusmodifier>
<damage type="number">0</damage>
<score type="number">12</score>
</charisma>
<constitution>
<holder name="jhsdf" owner="true" />
<holder name="mogur" />
<holder name="warpedways" />
<holder name="Warpedways" />
<holder name="Sentinel" />
<holder name="player1" />
<bonus type="number">3</bonus>
<bonusmodifier type="number">0</bonusmodifier>
<damage type="number">0</damage>
<score type="number">16</score>
</constitution>
<dexterity>
<holder name="jhsdf" owner="true" />
<holder name="mogur" />
<holder name="warpedways" />
<holder name="Warpedways" />
<holder name="Sentinel" />
<holder name="player1" />
<bonus type="number">4</bonus>
<bonusmodifier type="number">0</bonusmodifier>
<damage type="number">0</damage>
<score type="number">18</score>
</dexterity>

So if this normal ? If not, how could I fix this ? By deleting the <holder> tags ? Or would it just be easier to start a new campaign so the db.xml file starts fresh or just have the characters sign in with different names ? If Different names is the way you recommend, would that not just "add" to all the junk that's already there ?

BTW, my db.xml file is 850 Kb in size... Too Large ? Waaaaayyyy too large? Just Right ?

Let me know
Doc

[Goblin-King]

We waited a while and slowly the alphabet tokens began to show up. Then the other base tokens. It took nearly an hour and a half for us to get started, but they did eventually get there. The players and host of the game had not altered since the last we played and we never had to do this before. And if a player got booted he had to wait for all the tokens to show up again.
An hour is excessive, for just the database stuff. Keep in mind that images (maps etc.) and non-shared tokens are both delivered separately and are a general consideration when looking at the GM's bandwidth. You get more lag if your images are larger, if you have more players, or if your upstream bandwidth is low. If your players all have their cache files in order and you aren't using a huge amount (hundreds) of host tokens (ones that need to be delivered over the network), the update should not cause problems.


So if this normal ? If not, how could I fix this ? By deleting the <holder> tags ? Or would it just be easier to start a new campaign so the db.xml file starts fresh or just have the characters sign in with different names ? If Different names is the way you recommend, would that not just "add" to all the junk that's already there ?

BTW, my db.xml file is 850 Kb in size... Too Large ? Waaaaayyyy too large? Just Right ?
Doc, your db.xml sounds pretty decent... The fact that you have many holder tags in one node just means that you play with a lot of people and that is not a problem. The entire issue is only a problem if your players experience excessive delays in data transfer. Using different usernames for the clients is the most convenient way of diagnosing the issue. The whole thing is basically just a bug fix, and e.g. all character sheets have always used the same mechanism. I'd only worry if you have thousands of nodes marked for one single user, and that player is reporting delays.

[Tenian]

As a side note since I noticed some of these are 4E ruleset posts. You should really consider switching to client.xml reference modules instead of common.xml reference modules if you haven't already.

The modules output by my parsers for 4E can be quite large and certainly don't help your transfer speeds. I played in one game where the players all had to delete their cache (I forget why). The ensuing ruleset download, map download, token download, and module download cost us about 45 minutes, 20 of those minutes were spent in game waiting for tokens and maps to appear.

[ThunderYak]

I really appreciate the time and attention everyone is spending on this. I really do. And I don't know enough about the program to say what it is or what is is not.

When we first connected, no tokens were visible in the token box. None. And slowly we started to gain the default tokens. We wondered if it was a GM issue and bandwidth. The GM is east coast along with another player, and the other three (including myself) are Central time zone. However the problem existed when we swapped GMs.

Now... I'm not certain what the GM had in the background loading for our game. I thought all loading of tokens and maps would happen either at the beginning or when you actually loaded it on screen. But when I hosted and the issue arose again (no default tokens) we thought it was something other than bandwidth problems.

I'm going to test it all week with single players and if it is an issue with the 4E ruleset then hopefully we'll know soon. All I can firmly say is that this didn't happen last week. And all five of us were affected us... as players.

[mac40k]

I hate to contradict you ThunderYak, but we probably spent the first hour of our delay trying to troubleshoot the problem, including rebooting PCs, disconnecting/reconnecting to the host, tweaking hosts files, etc. After I discovered the thread that mentioned the necessity of a new download and we decided to just let it sit, it probably wasn't more than a half hour for it to complete for all 4 of us. Now I assume that we won't have to go through this the next time we connect. If we were going to have a similar delay at the start of each session, it would be another thing, but as a one-time glitch, although frustrating at the time, we finally got past it.

[ThunderYak]

Jon and I tested this last night. And he had to download the tokens each time. We tried it on the base ruleset, the star wars ruleset and the 4E. Each time he had to wait for the tokens. Though it was quicker for just him. Maybe we'll stagger the connection of each player this weekend.

[Griogre]

Bear in mind the fix for this appears for everyone to use a different login name and have the GM free all characters. In a Shackled City Game I'm a player that has been ungoing for a year now, it took about 30 minutes for some to get tokens which is just a symtom of a lot of data transfering going on. How long it will really take is a function of how much "up" bandwith the host has how much has to be sent and how many players. For some players the "monster tokens" the were the last thing to transfer I assume because they were a low priority to transfer. We just drew circles where the monsters were for those without tokens and by the time the first fight was over all the tokens could be seen by all the players.

In both of the 4E game I ran I didn't have any real complaints but those are both fairly recent games with minimal cache files.

[Shimrath]

Well, since i opened the thread, i'd like to report that our second game since updating to 2.3.3 went much more smoothly. We had some minor glitches at startup, but everyone was able to see maps and tokens and character sheets.

We have been playing the Shackled City for nearly two years, so, if i'm understanding this all correctly, our glitchy session was a result of all that old data being transferred?

We're all very glad that FG isn't broken, as our Friday night gaming depends on it. Thanks for all your hard work.