Field Filters for All Libraries

[Minty23185Fresh]

... to see if the problem actuall WAS one of the (paid) pathfinder modules, and I was right....

Okay. I'm out of luck now Would you mind working with me on this? I'd like to address it, but at the same time not notify everyone subscribed to this thread every time one of us comments. It bloats the thread and everyone's emails. I'd like to move over to PMs. Attachments are slightly more problematic there though.

The free pathfinder modules were fine, instead.

Thanks for trying this. I was going to suggest it.

It's not a blocking bug, after all, after the first time, you don't get it again unless you unload and reload one of the official (paid) pathfinder modules with NPCs

This looks like some sort of load issue as the data in the module(s) are processed during startup. Typically when this happens the field filters are not present and neither are the records (see screenshot).
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[Minty23185Fresh]

I have finally been able to address Chronodt's concern about FFAL.


First I'd like to thank Chronodt for using my extension and for coming to me when a problem arose with the extension. Chronodt was also instrumental in pointing me in the right direction so that I could find the issue in an efficient manner, once I had the time to investigate.


I believe the problem boils down to trying to open incompatible data sets. One cannot open the PFRPG Essentials: PFRPG Bestiary in the 3.5E ruleset nor should one try to open the 3.5E Essentials: 3.5E Monsters in the PFRPG ruleset. Some of the data fields are just too incompatible. When FFAL tries to sort the fields, patterns used to sort don't match up with the data present and, in this case, the extension crashes.


Below is a screenshot example. The panel on the left is from the 3.5E Monsters module, the panel on the right is from the PFRPG Bestiary.
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[Lilly Fireblade]

Hey minty when I use this plugin I get the following error when I open the NPC's menu:

Script Error: [string "FFAL/scripts/FFAL_data_library_common.lua"]:468: invalid order function for sorting

It even does it when it is the only extension loaded, and it has the odd side-effect of making it where my npc's menu doesn't show new npc's that I add during the session until I reload the table then it shows up.Screenshot (1).png

[Minty23185Fresh]

Hey minty when I use this plugin I get ..[an].. error when I open the NPC's menu:
It even does it when it is the only extension loaded, and it has the odd side-effect of making it where my npc's menu doesn't show new npc's that I add during the session until I reload the table then it shows up.

Hi Lilly. Thanks for ensuring the use of multiple extensions isn't the problem by unloading all other extensions.

Two questions that I need answers to:
1) How many modules do you have loaded? For instance from the screenshot you provided, I see that Xanathar is probably loaded. Are there others? I do not have Xanathar, Volo and many others. I have tested FFAL with Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide and Monster Manual, plus a few other campaign modules like Princes... and Hoard... Please try to find which is the offending module by loading only one module at a time (save PHB, DMG and MM for last since I've already tested those).
2) What does "new npc's that I add during the session" mean? Have you created custom NPC's, for, say a homebrew campaign? Have you "copied" or obtained NPC stat blocks from some other source, say the internet? They may contain offending data.

Let me know what you find, so I can proceed. This weekend is pretty much filled with other non D&D things (a travesty right?) so I won't be able to fully address this until next week.

[Lilly Fireblade]

1) I had only Players Handbook, Monster Manual, Dungeon Master's Guide, and Volo's. And Verified that it doesn't throw an error when the other three are loaded at the same time. so Volo's guide to monsters appears to be the culprit.
2)by adding npc's during a session I mean hitting the new npc button in the npc menu or dragging an existing npc into the npc menu to create a copy. without Volo's loaded it works normally.

[Zacchaeus]

I just tested this and I can replicate the errors mentioned. And it does seen to be confined to Volo. Which may point to a monster in Volo having an error of some kind which is casing the issue. But I've no idea of where to start looking. I'm assuming that the error means that there is something in the order in which the stat block is presented which is unexpected. I can't think of what that would be though.

[Lilly Fireblade]

I have found somewhat of a workaround for now. If you have the npc menu open when you first load Volo's in a session it will still let you use the plugin and shows any new/copied stat blocks that are made during the session. It does still throw errors all over the place and the view has to be refreshed for added/deleted npc's to update but it is still usable.

[rushl23]

I believe I have discovered the issue with the "Script Error: [string "FFAL/scripts/FFAL_data_library_common.lua"]:468: invalid order function for sorting" issue, and a workaround for now. I haven't built a proper fix, as my LUA is rusty. But I'll share what I've found.

Going into technical mode now. If you just want the workaround, see below.

Basically, it looks like the issue is in the regex parse of strings coming from the FFAL_sortGen method. In 5e, this is called by item damage, and NPC saves, sense, and skill. The middle capture group is looking for a number, but some entries don't parse as such. They likely don't have any digits at all, or have a "-" as the entry. (Note that the FFAL_genericSortDataCapture method weeds out blank/empty data. But it doesn't handle instances where data is present, but not a number.) In those instances, in seems the sorting process fails to compare a string to a number, and throws the error. I could be off on that assumption, but I'm pretty confident that if the system could treat any failed number parses as a "0", things might work as intended.

In any case, the workaround (at least in 5E) is to change the second parameter's type from "number" to "string". That prevents the sort from trying to compare a string to a number, and all works without error. Of course, that means that numerical items are in string-order rather than number-order (i.e. 1, 2, 20, 3, 4... rather than 1, 2, 3, 4, 20...), but I can live with that.

Returning to a less-technical mode now.
The specific edits I did were in the file FFAL_data_library_5E.lua. Simply search for "return FFAL_sortGen" and locate the brackets which list the expected types (it'll be toward the end of the line).

For the ["dmg"] property, it will look like: "{"number","number","string"}". Simply change the middle "number" to "string". It will look like: {"number","string","string"}.
For ["saves"] and ["skill"], change {"string","number"} to {"string","string"}.
For ["sense"] change {"string","number","string"} to {"string","string","string"}.

Reload, and you should no longer receive any errors.

I hope this helps!
Tim

[Minty23185Fresh]

I believe I have a fix. The issue seems to be the Skill: Sleight of Hand. My "generic sort" routine crashes when there are multiple NPCs, as in Volo's, with that skill. This occurs because the sort expects a single word followed by a space followed by a signed bonus value (numeric), as is the case for every other Skill. There is only one NPC with the Sleight of Hand skill in the Monster Manual and that evidently doesn't present a problem.

I will provide a Debug copy of the extension here for your use Lilly, Zacchaeus, rushl23 and whomever else needs it. If after about month I haven't heard to the contrary I'll consider the code bug free and post it as the current copy of the extension. The reason I am going this route is I still don't have a copy of Volo's and probably won't be obtaining one anytime in the near future, so I can't honestly say that I believe I have the bug removed.

Thanks for using the extension and reporting the bug.

[EDIT (May 16, 2022)] Removed the Debug version from this post.

[paladiusdarkhelm]

I was having some major server stability problems in that whenever I went into "Items" more than once, it would crash my FG GM game session while this one was enabled. I'll revert back to the 3.3 version and hopefully do some more testing sometime over this weekend with the mix of other extensions I've been running.