Steam just forced an update for FG and I have lost EVERYTHING!

[Slagmoth]

What gives?

All my custom campaigns literally hundreds of hours of work lost!!!

One of the biggest reasons I moved to Fantasy Grounds over Roll20 was that with some of the custom sheets over there I had issues with data reliability. I didn't think I would have even worse issues with this platform.

I am livid that all my mods and extensions are simply GONE!

Has anyone else experienced this? Is there some sort of recovery possible? All my players' characters are gone too so not only am I shafted but so are all my players.

I posted this on the general too, not navigating properly in the forums.

[esmdev]

Did you check the physical directory where the FG datafiles were located? I can't see steam having the ability to erase your data directories with an update. It is possible that it somehow changed your data directory location but hopefully your data is still there.

[Slagmoth]

I opened FG through Steam and it brought up the Update dialogue for FG without a prompt, I figured there must be an update so I hit the next and such, the dialogue brought up the file paths and password dialogue too which admittedly should have given me pause. But it wasn't Steam per se... it was FG that updated completely almost as though it did a factory reset on the platform. Data is all gone out of the files, all that is there is the base mods for sample 5E campaign.

If I put in code that could or would do that without prompting at work I would be fired so this irks me.

[Trenloe]

Sorry you seem to have lost your data. Please give a bit more information :
- What operating system are you using?
- What kind of update did Steam do?
- Where is your FG app data pointing to? Click on the folder icon in the top right of the main FG launch screen - what location is opened?
- If you had a bunch of custom stuff already developed, you're probably familiar which where that data was stored - is it the same location as the current FG App data? If not, is the data still in that previous location?

[Slagmoth]

Windows 10 Professional
Steam didn't update but FG updated when I launched from Steam (sorry for the miscommunication) the dialogue was different than normal though.
F:\game\FantasyGrounds\FantasyGroundsData

And the above should have been where everything was inside the Campaigns directory.

I am doing a system-wide directory search right now to be sure that directories were simply not changed, long-shot but I will try that.

Also, getting a file recovery installed to see if I can find them.

I am also looking up settings to mirror my campaigns folder to my OneDrive to prevent such a loss again.

Pretty livid right now, so please forgive any brusque comments.

[Trenloe]

Pretty livid right now, so please forgive any brusque comments.

Yeah, can understand the frustration.

I am also looking up settings to mirror my campaigns folder to my OneDrive to prevent such a loss again.

Just as a FYI for the future - don't mirror your data directory to a live backup/cloud storage solution. This can corrupt your FG campaign data as the backup/mirroring solution can prevent FG updating key campaign data. There are various ways to backup the data offline, which we can discuss once you get your original data back.

[Slagmoth]

Well, the file recovery system says it is 28% done but says it has 4+ hours to go so I will let this run and get back to you likely tomorrow after work.

All my other searches for known file names that were in that folder have come up with nothing.

[MooCow]

I see that there's a FG update queued for me as well, but I'm going to refuse to update until there's confirmation that there's no global hack going on. I don't want to lose my stuff as well.

[Trenloe]

It's recommended that users perform regular backups of their FG App data directory - how regular depends on how often you use FG and how often your data changes. Don't use an active backup/cloud sync solution as this can cause campaign data corruption. It is also recommended that if you haven't performed a backup for a long time you don't update FG without performing a backup beforehand. This is standard IT best practices. I know this doesn't help @Slagmoth, this is more for others reading this thread.

[LordEntrails]

I see that there's a FG update queued for me as well, but I'm going to refuse to update until there's confirmation that there's no global hack going on. I don't want to lose my stuff as well.

There is no hack. I updated yesterday with no problems or loss of my data.