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Thread: It Is All Gone

  1. #1

    It Is All Gone

    Good Evening,

    First, I've been going through and not found anything that matches this threat exactly. I've seen some similar things and checked to see if the suggestions would work for my problem and they didn't. If this is a duplicate, I apologize profusely.

    I had my FGU open yesterday and was prepping for last night's game. A breaker was tripped due to a power issue and I lost power to my computer. When the computer was brought back up, I attempted to sign in and received ERRORS on pretty much everything that Fantasy Grounds usually loads for my campaign. It then took me into the game and EVERYTHING was missing. The Character Sheet was blank. The Party Sheet and Combat Tracker were blank. Maps were missing from my Quick Bar at the bottom of the screen. Nothing was loaded. I attempted to manually load a couple of modules and received hexidecimal errors (I have no idea what that is, by the way.) I hit the Compose File Button so it should be somewhere in my system. Anyway, it was a nightmare.
    Three hours later, the evening's game was cancelled, and I was still going through Google Searches and finally found something that seemed to apply. I had received a corrupt file notice at one point, so I read the fix that I found, outlined below.

    I went into the FGU Folder by clicking on the folder at the TOP - LEFT of my Log-In Screen. I located the Campaign db.xml file. It only had like 7KB. I then located the session db file from the previous day. That file had 4,769KB. I went through the process of copying the Campaign Folder, switching the name of the db.xml in the original folder to 'dbold.xml' and taking the session file, session 20230120, from the previous day, and changing it to db.xml.

    Success. It logged in, BUT all my settings were now different. Normally I'm a Right-Side Toolbar guy. Now, there were the three-button menus showing on the Top-Left of the screen. Okay, easy enough. I changed it. I then found that still, none of my 2E stuff was loaded. Oh, sorry, I didn't mention it, but I'm old-school and mine is a 2E campaign. Anyway, I went in and manually reloaded my books. I then clicked on my maps in the Quick Navigation Bar at the bottom of the screen and got a message that I needed to load a module that I had missed. Fantasy Grounds asked if I wanted it loaded and I checked YES and the system loaded it. It brought up the map in question and boom, NONE of the Walls were drawn in. It was a map from TOEE of the Upstairs of the Inn of the Red Wyvern (I renamed from the Welcome Wench to the Red Wyvern,) but the name had reverted to what was in the TOEE module. All the custom information throughout the entire modue, in fact (and there was A LOT of custom information,) was no longer in the Reference Manual part of the module where I had made the changes. Same with the shortcuts. All gone. It had all reverted back to generic, vanilla TOEE. People's names changed back, missing info. You name it. It was ALL gone.

    Where can I find all this stuff. Yeah, I keep notes, but my modules are tailored to my campaign so the majority of the notes are in the modules. Names are changed, (or added if needed,) the innocent is protected. It's gone. Unfortunately, I can't go in and fix a year's worth of lost material. It's simply too much material and my memory is good, but not THAT good.

    Please, someone, where I can I find all this information? Is it really lost?

    Truly,
    Witless in Atlanta.

  2. #2
    Any edits to modules within a campaign are stored in the moduledb folder of the campaign. If those files were corrupted, then there is no other location where they exist.

    Once you get set up again, you may want to look at setting up a system to backup any files on your machine that you want to save from any computer failure (possibly with multiple versions), in order to prevent anything like this happening in the future. Personally, I run two nightly backups (cloud and local), as well as a monthly backup to a travel drive.

    Regards,
    JPG

  3. #3
    LordEntrails's Avatar
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    Even copying your campaign folder from time to time is better than not having any backups. You really should back up to a different computer or the cloud, but at least a campaign copy would help in this case.

    Note, DO NOT set your FG Data directory to automatically be sync'd or backup by a cloud solution (Google Drive, One Drive, etc) because if a backup occurs while FG is in use you can get corrupted data.

    There is a script created by a community member that can do both of these for you. But it does require some editing to make it match your environment and to pick if you are using Google Drive or One Drive. You can find the info here: https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post308736
    Last edited by LordEntrails; January 23rd, 2023 at 17:09.

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  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Moon Wizard View Post
    Any edits to modules within a campaign are stored in the moduledb folder of the campaign. If those files were corrupted, then there is no other location where they exist.

    Once you get set up again, you may want to look at setting up a system to backup any files on your machine that you want to save from any computer failure (possibly with multiple versions), in order to prevent anything like this happening in the future. Personally, I run two nightly backups (cloud and local), as well as a monthly backup to a travel drive.

    Regards,
    JPG

    Greetings JPG.

    Thank you for your note in response to my post. Apparently I'm in luck. On October 22, 2022, I made a complete backup of the entire Fantasy Grounds folder. I have gone and located the moduledb folder for TOEE from that date. I used WordPad and went in and confirmed that ALL my notes are there. The only thing missing is incidental notes from individual sessions. NONE of the Planning stuff is lost. Now, I have taken the existing TOEE file and moved it to my CORRUPT Folder with the db file. I have moved a copy of the good file and placed it in my campaign folder under the moduledb. I have UNLOADED the Module TOEE. I have shut down Fantasy Grounds. I have closed all my folders. I brought up Fantasy Grounds, went in and opened my campaign. After loaded TOEE, it still has the Vanilla info for the TOEE. Can you tell me what I'm missing? Is there another place that I need to update or change to get the restored TOEE info?

    Less Witless than Before

  5. #5
    damned's Avatar
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    Never move your backups back into production.
    Always copy them so your originals are untouched.

    I think what you have to do here (after you make sure that you have your good backups somewhere safe) is inside FG make some small edit to the TOEE files.
    Close FG and then you will see the edit files.
    Try copy one of your changes from your backup to the newly created files and then test.

  6. #6
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by recook0769 View Post
    I have moved a copy of the good file and placed it in my campaign folder under the moduledb. I have UNLOADED the Module TOEE. I have shut down Fantasy Grounds. I have closed all my folders. I brought up Fantasy Grounds, went in and opened my campaign. After loaded TOEE, it still has the Vanilla info for the TOEE. Can you tell me what I'm missing?
    From these steps it sounds like Fantasy Grounds was running when you copied the TOEE moduledb file to the campaign moduledb directory? If so, that file would have been overwritten when you closed FG. Do your file copying without FG running.
    Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by damned View Post
    Never move your backups back into production.
    Always copy them so your originals are untouched.

    I think what you have to do here (after you make sure that you have your good backups somewhere safe) is inside FG make some small edit to the TOEE files.
    Close FG and then you will see the edit files.
    Try copy one of your changes from your backup to the newly created files and then test.

    Hello Damned,

    Thank you for your help.
    I used a copy of the backup file. I moved the current TOEE file to a folder that I created and named CORRUPT. I then placed the copied backup file to the current campaign\moduledb folder. It the same name, Temple of Elemental Evil, so I didn't have to make a change there.

    To Trenloe's point, Fantasy Grounds was not running when I added the files. I now know the path to the folders in question by heart so I didn't need to have it up to locate the folder. When I say TOEE was LOADED I meant that when I logged in, it would be loaded by Fantasy Grounds.

    After the file move, I started Fantasy Grounds and still have the original TOEE (the one that I moved to the CORRUPT folder) with no changes showing 'in the game.' I UNLOADED it from the campaign. Thought about it and decided to close everything down. I even closed STEAM. I made sure the folders I was using to locate and transfer files were closed, too. Both of them. The one for my Current and the one that was my BACKUP. I logged back into STEAM. I logged back into Fantasy Grounds. I loaded the TOEE module. I opened the module and looked at the REFERENCE MANUAL. Still all vanilla. I logged out. I opened the folder with the button in the top-left corner and checked the TOEE file in moduledb. I used WordPad to look at the content and sure enough, ALL of the information was still there. I'm not sure why the information is not 'in the game' since it's in the file. At this point, I'm just truly stoked that I haven't lost all the notes and information. At that point, I wrote my last update.

    Maybe there's something in the registry pointing it at the old file? I don't know. If there are any more suggestions, I'd be happy to try. Even with the info not lost, it is going to be a major chore adding the notes and background back into the campaign. I have put these notes in over a period of about 400 hours this past year. If I can avoid that, that would be great.

    Again, thank you all for helping.

    recook0769 (Stormgod)


    I have gone back in this morning. I have brought up Fantasy Grounds, looked in the Modules, brought up TOEE, and looked at REFERENCE MANUAL. All still the same vanilla.
    I looked more closely, looked at STORY.

    IT IS ALL THERE.

    Thank you all for your help!!!
    recook0769 (Stormgod)
    Last edited by recook0769; January 24th, 2023 at 14:24. Reason: FOUND IT

  8. #8
    Trenloe's Avatar
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    Please provide a screenshot of the entire contents of your current campaign moduledb folder that includes the TOEE file you've copied over and is showing the detailed list view (that shows date/time modified and file size).
    Private Messages: My inbox is forever filling up with PMs. Please don't send me PMs unless they are actually private/personal messages. General FG questions should be asked in the forums - don't be afraid, the FG community don't bite and you're giving everyone the chance to respond and learn!

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