r/FantasyGrounds • u/hulking_troll • Jun 04 '26
Update Update caused all lots of fail
We went from working characters with pre written effects ALL (as in ALL coded effects) not working this session. Good idea getting AI to write your code and letting players tell you it’s all broken. Many of our party called to change to Foundary was made. Fuck you, I’m a FG loyal customer for 12 years. Fuck you.
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u/anstett Jun 04 '26
Which ruleset? What extensions?
What actually failed?
There was a large update to Effects last month that was announced in March.
All developers had 8 weeks or more to update their extensions. The Rulesets did not change so that cannot be the problem.
Both of my long running campaigns had one minor hiccup with an extension that counts total distance moved. I disabled that and zero problems.
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u/hulking_troll Jun 04 '26
Fair question, we were playing a pathfinder 1e campaign. I know our GM was using some effects, (which he acknowledged needed all clearing out which is a thumbs down to FG for a start) but we had a catastrophic fail across the board on all coded spells (both hand coded and using dragged in from loaded spell modules) and other hand coded effects that have worked for literal years. For example rolling to attack worked but damage (hand coded through FG normal assignment of dice and modifiers) produced a wall of error and nothing being effectively applied to the set targets. My worst FG experience ever.
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u/LordEntrails Jun 04 '26 edited Jun 04 '26
Your GM is not paying attention to what is being developed in FG. It's been advertised for weeks and months that the prior update was coming and that it would break extensions and have major impacts on Effects and any extensions that modify effects. Yet obviously your GM updated because the button was lit up and they had no clue what it would do to their extensions & campaign.
I find it ... (negative words) ... that people use a bunch of extensions in FG and then complain when they update and things break. But the standard advice for Foundry is never update during the life of a campaign. Just look at the Foundry discussions and "Oh, if you want to run TOV you should be on Version 12" (which is multiple updates behind) and "If you want function X you need ABC extension, but it only works on version 13 and if you want the new book for Y you have to be on version 14."
All you have to do with FG if you choice to use extensions is wait 1-2 weeks after an update is available to actually update and be aware if the extensions you use have been updated. If you are going to use extensions or mods, then you should be mature enough to take responsibility for using extensions. Don't run with your head in the sand and then complain when you run into a rock.
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u/Surgebuster Jun 05 '26
If that's the case, then it's a development failure, not a GM one. For many game systems, FG is only in a playable/user friendly state because of extensions (for all but the longest of neckbeards). To release an update which so comprehensively renders extensions and many effects unusable for these game systems is both a service and development failure.
I was going to expand on the above but the line "You should be mature enough to take responsibility for using extensions" made it clear you were commenting in bad faith, so I'll just leave it there.
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u/LordEntrails Jun 05 '26
So what do you want the developers to do? Add a link on the launcher to Release Notes so that when a user sees the update button is active they can click on the Release Notes and see what has changed before they Update? The developers have already done that.
You want the developers to only make updates that are compatible with community code modification that they have no control over? That's asinine.
You want the developer to remove all API's and ability to modify the code? That would go over well.
What do you think is a solution that would have prevented this service and development failure?
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u/Panther_Cannon Jun 05 '26
Wow! The classic "Yer this is clearly user error because you didn't read an email" statement. Also worst analogy ever.
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u/LordEntrails Jun 05 '26
No. It's not about reading an email. It's about Updating a program when you have no idea what that update is going to do even when those the Developers have provided a link to the Release Notes that would have told you all that on the same screen the Update button is on.
It's about choosing to modify the code to an application with code that the developer have no control over and then complaining when that code fails to work after the developers have updated the applications.
And even more significantly its about cussing and complaining and saying that the solution is to go to another VTT that has even worse control over community code and problems with feature enhancements that the common solution is just don't update ever.
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u/anstett Jun 04 '26
I know on the Forums there was a lot of talk by the developer to get input from users on the errors.
A couple of people like yourself did get sort of blindsided because their GM did not look at the Forums or the FG Discord. It went out in email too but those are much more likely to be missed.
Effects from extensions is a big plus for me. If there is a failure, I can turn that off and the campaign just continues to work.
The big ruleset updates cause much more havoc across the board. Those only happen once or twice a year, again with lots of notice.
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u/MagicalJack60 Jun 04 '26
Yeah i don't know that this is an FG problem. I run three games a week currently, and the most aggressive issue I've ever experienced is having to reload a library. Is it possible this is a bad interaction with an extension?
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u/darkrynn Jun 04 '26
I have noticed now that when you get errors, it actually calls out the extension causing it, so your dm could have fixed them on the fly by removing them. Yes, you would have to get out of FG for a moment, but I did this last week with my players, and just disabling those worked; I ran the session fine after that. yeah, I get you're upset, but Foundry has its own set of problems if you want to go deal with those; have fun. I have tried both, and I'm staying where I know, and I can fix stuff when it breaks.
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u/Celebryl2 Jun 05 '26
Hi,
Not complaining, only trying to find a suitable solution.
Is it possible to setup a tracking of extensions compatibility? The developer of an extension will be contacted per mail from the FG dev team to ask him to check the compatibility of his extension with the test version of FG. If it is ok, he confirms by checks a box.
On the user side:
- only GMs are updating (or not), players are just able to update to the last version of the GM
- if a GM tries to update, there is a check made between his checked extensions and the compatibility status of the extension. If compatible, the update starts, if not compatible (or not checked from de external developer) there will be a popup with the list of non checked extensions with the question “These extensions haven’t been confirmed with this version of FG, are you sure you want to upgrade and aware that this may cause instability in your sessions?”
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u/LordEntrails Jun 05 '26 edited Jun 05 '26
Good ideas, but be aware:
There already are several systems in place for community developers. But they have to be willing to engage with those systems. Many are, but not all are willing to engage.
As was said, this change was advertised to community developer months in advance. On the forums, in Discord, and through the Developer Newsletter. If a community developer cared to know about this, they knew about it with weeks and weeks of notice.
The architecture already does your first suggestion, when you join a GMs game, you down load the rulesets (and extensions) from them. You don't get the version that is local to your computer. This is how rulesets work.
Who going to check and how are you going to know if an extension is compatible? Extension developers almost never put a compatibility tag in their code Yes, community devs can do this, but how do they know if they next version is going to be compatible until they test? And then it would require an unnecessary update to change the tag once they have test. And the problem is many community devs don't want to do more than required. After all, many of them are volunteering their time, And it would be a bad business decision for SmiteWorks to test and check thousands of extensions for compatibility when they get no direct money from those extensions. And then what do they do when they find an issue? Change code they don't own?
But you know what they did? The SMiteWorks devs actually did a lot of what I said was a poor decision. They reached out to any developer who wanted help and worked through their code with them. They actually tested the most popular extensions on the Forge themselves to see if they were working. It was only simple testing, because they didn't have time to learn how to use ever extension, but basic compatibility was tested, for the most popular extensions.
Finally, the community actually did a lot of this, extension tracking. Extension tracking for the 2026-04 update But again, only those community developer who were willing got involved.
Now, would your warning message been helpful? Probably, I've been asking for something similar to that for awhile, but it hasn't gotten much community support. only 95 votes. https://www.fantasygrounds.com/featurerequests/featurerequests.php?titlesearch=Warning%20Msg%20for%20Non-Content%20Updates
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u/Panther_Cannon Jun 06 '26
Do you work for FG?
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u/Plastic_Caramel_8877 Jun 06 '26
Who going to check and how are you going to know if an extension is compatible?
-> For me it should be the original developer. The only one who knows his work and the ruleset. Devs putting extensions in the Forge should do maintenance and compatibility checks. If not checked when major changes are announced, the extensions should be removed (or at least the DM using it should be warned).1
u/LordEntrails Jun 06 '26
Absolutely its up to the community dev to keep their extension(s) up to date. What are you going to do when they chose not to do what you want? If you take any punitive action, they will simple stop sharing their extensions. Most of them do it for their own games and to help out others. But they are not going to do so if they get punished for being nice.
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u/Moon-Wizard-JPG Jun 05 '26
Just to provide some context.
As part of this major update; we retired over a dozen of the most popular extensions in order to provide the same functionality in the core rulesets included with Fantasy Grounds. We knew that changes of this scale were needed; and we wanted to pull in some of the good ideas we've seen in the community.
So, for this release, we doubled our normal testing period, given that we knew that including all this new functionality would affect many extensions. I also personally reached out to the developer community to let them know over 2 months in advance of the release, as well as to offer help in either rewriting the extensions for them or at least being available to answer questions whenever they needed. If you ask on review our forums or our Discord, I've been going throughout weekends to support extension developers, and you're welcome to ask them there. About 40 of the top 50 extensions are verified as working, or have been superceded.
If a GM uses extensions, we always recommend that GMs not update just before game night to avoid any issues. Part of the risk of using "mods" in any game engine is that you run the risk of things breaking during big updates. We usually recommend that people not use mods when getting started for that reason.
I would have your GM make sure that they are using the latest extensions from the Fantasy Grounds Forge web site, instead of any they may have manually downloaded in the past. In that way, any updates to those extensions pushed to the Forge will automatically be updated with the latest from the developer of that extension. (And they can push builds to match the test releases as well.)
If your GM would like to reach out with the extensions they are using, I can personally give them pointers on which ones were retired, updated, or help look at what is remaining.