What's the scariest thing you can see just before a game?

[daplunk]

Your realm is out of sync with the server... Would you like to spend the next 8 hours downloading the server copy or uploading your local copy :(

Thank god for offline mode.

[Vargr]

And here I thought the thread would be about what movie one should see right before playing a horror game... :-)

[rob]

This state is accomplished by...

1. Entering your realm on Computer1 and making a tiny (or big) change.
2. Choosing to NOT sync your changes.
3. Entering the same realm on Computer2 and making a tiny (or big) change. Even the SAME change as on Computer1.
4. Sync your changes on Computer2.

At this point, you've got two different versions of your realm between Computer1 and the server, and the server sees that there are new changes both on Computer1 and on the server.

To the best of my knowledge, it should not be possible to get into this state without either pilot error or an as-yet-unreported bug in the syncing logic. If you don't believe this is pilot error, make sure to open a support ticket and provide us with all the details you possibly can. I don't expect it will be easy to determine whatever bug you've uncovered.

[Vargr]

Would it be possible to have a date and time of the latest local change for each realm in the list?

I imagine it might help you determine which version you have most faith in.

Like, Version A is from the day before yesterday when I corrected a little topic and version B is from yesterday when I added five plot lines and 110 NPCs (yes, yesterday was a busy day...), so I will let version A go and keep version B.

Not sure though if the hassle of adding that (also GUI-wise) is worth what little benefit you would get from it.

[wurzel]

To be honest, the scariest thing I can see just before a game begins has nothing to do with RW.

[daplunk]

Thanks Rob,

I have no idea what was happening. I was only working on one machine when the issue began (had synced at that machine earlier, made a change, tried to sync and received the sync error).

I had multiple sync issues over-night with the network connection possibly causing a few to fail. Not to sure to be honest but I have woken up today, synced my files back up to the cloud and tested since. It's back as it should be and all is peaceful in the world.

Just one of the reasons this December patch is going to be amazing. Syncing right now is a painful experience for me due to the size of my realm. Really looking forward to cutting that up into chunks.

[ruhar]

The players looking at me with expectation and knowing I had not had a chance to go over the notes for that night's session nor researched the questions from the last session.

[Viking2054]

All the wives marching up the driveway with stern looks on their faces... /shivers

[Joe]

All the wives marching up the driveway with stern looks on their faces... /shivers

In my case, my wife is the GM, who crit me from full HP to 0 in one hit last weekend...

[daplunk]

:eek: good time for the wife to crit you... Guilt trip her up and get that stocking full of treats.

[daplunk]

Update

Everything is back to normal now. Any attempt to sync my PC was failing with sync time outs. I eventually deleted all local content and completely redownloaded the Realm again. What ever the bug was... It's dead.

[mazzy]

Awesome! So that means new video soon right?!?! :P

[daplunk]

Oh there's new videos in the pipe line alright :D

Due to the nature of the content and subject material however the release will most likely coincide with the big December patch ;)

[Viking2054]

So, January then? ;) Just kidding.

[kbs666]

Thanks Rob,

I have no idea what was happening. I was only working on one machine when the issue began (had synced at that machine earlier, made a change, tried to sync and received the sync error).

I had multiple sync issues over-night with the network connection possibly causing a few to fail. Not to sure to be honest but I have woken up today, synced my files back up to the cloud and tested since. It's back as it should be and all is peaceful in the world.

Just one of the reasons this December patch is going to be amazing. Syncing right now is a painful experience for me due to the size of my realm. Really looking forward to cutting that up into chunks.
How big is your realm? Syncing my realm takes a while sometimes but it's never that bad.

I'm concerned that if really big realms are a major problem then we could start running into problems after the CM goes live and people start building Golarion.

[daplunk]

My backup comes in at 3.42Gb

Keeping in mind that I'm in Australia. Data is travelling half way around the world.

I dread seeing that sync issue message. Mainly because it means I lose a day of prep and productivity. I'm one of those guys that really enjoys just tinkering with my realm ;)

I experience a few issues that appear to be related to the size. Changes tabs there is a visible delay. Clicking on features that allow you to link to other content (relationships, map pins, etc) is slow and clunky. I figure this is because it has to load up all the articles when those features are called.

I don't experience these issues on smaller realms.

So yeah, looking forward to cutting it up into more manageable chunks. I don't need all the content I have loaded in my campaign. Have used bits and pieces for one-shot sessions and I have 3 of the main 5e modules loaded in which are all used across 3 separate groups. So makes no sense to keep it all together.

But yes... if someone is going to create Golarion then they need to be prepared to see the response time taxed in some places.

[kbs666]

3.4 Gigs?

Even with a lot of smart images that's a lot of images. Do you get a lot of warnings about too big images? Or did the bloat come from something else?

[mazzy]

:eek: good time for the wife to crit you... Guilt trip her up and get that stocking full of treats.

Hey! I resemble that!! :p I haven't killed my husband yet, though not from lack of him getting into some bad situations!!

Oh there's new videos in the pipe line alright :D

Due to the nature of the content and subject material however the release will most likely coincide with the big December patch ;)

/happy dance

Even though you're flaunting your awesomeness ;P, you still get a woo AND a hoo. I'm very much looking forward to your next set of videos.

[Kendall-DM]

In my case, my wife is the GM, who crit me from full HP to 0 in one hit last weekend...

Just think if she had crit your character...

;) :D

[daplunk]

3.4 Gigs?

Even with a lot of smart images that's a lot of images. Do you get a lot of warnings about too big images? Or did the bloat come from something else?

It's a combination of alot of things. The images are all resized per the guidelines Realm Works throws at me when it errors. There is alot of images though. Monsters, npcs, locations, overlay maps. Then there is a huge amount of snippets. Of course the database of audio clips probably doesn't help either.

[kbs666]

It's a combination of alot of things. The images are all resized per the guidelines Realm Works throws at me when it errors. There is alot of images though. Monsters, npcs, locations, overlay maps. Then there is a huge amount of snippets. Of course the database of audio clips probably doesn't help either.
Don't worry about the text. In this sort of thing text is functionally irrelevant.

A fairly standard and reliable rule of thumb is a page of plain text in HTML is probably about 1k of storage.

What eats up storage is images and audio. I haven't looked too closely at Syrinscape but if it stores every clip in the RW DB, which it probably has to, that could blow up a realm really fast.

[daplunk]

It's not Syrinscape. That manages the sound itself. Pretty sure that downloads as it plays.

The sound is all local files. Absolutely part of the problem but also having it all in Realm Works is the attraction of the program in the first place.

[Avi]

Syncing is incremental (changes only) so the size should not be a problem only the amount of changes.
So either that's not the issue, or the compare/synch mechanism needs a hard look by LWD.
If I understood correctly (BIG if :p) originally the intention was to do the compare server side, in order to support all kinds of funky merge scenarios. Maybe with the change in the way the Market will work this has to be looked at as well?
(my background is MS SQL server so Replication - Push/Pull/Subscribe come to mind, not sure if any of these is implemented in Firebird)
I'm sure Rob is having plenty on his plate, but will get to it at some point...

[Joe]

What eats up storage is images and audio. I haven't looked too closely at Syrinscape but if it stores every clip in the RW DB, which it probably has to, that could blow up a realm really fast.

Syrinscape stores all it's own sounds. None of that is in the Realm Works database. The only data stored on our end is URI links to play Syrinscape sounds. If Syrinscape is not installed, or if Syrinscape doesn't have that soundset available for some reason (not downloaded, not purchased on that Syrinscape account, etc), the link will do nothing when clicked in Realm Works.

So we do store some data, but it is a minuscule link that's only a few dozen characters of text to serve as a link into Syrinscape, not the complete sound files themselves.

[rob]

Syncing is incremental (changes only) so the size should not be a problem only the amount of changes.
So either that's not the issue, or the compare/synch mechanism needs a hard look by LWD.
If I understood correctly (BIG if :p) originally the intention was to do the compare server side, in order to support all kinds of funky merge scenarios. Maybe with the change in the way the Market will work this has to be looked at as well?
(my background is MS SQL server so Replication - Push/Pull/Subscribe come to mind, not sure if any of these is implemented in Firebird)
I'm sure Rob is having plenty on his plate, but will get to it at some point...

The issue that @daplunk got into was what we call a "sync conflict". Basically, Realm Works thinks that here are changes waiting on BOTH the client and server. At that point, the only option is to pick one to keep and then send everything up/down to the other end for a complete overwrite. That obviously necessitates everything being transferred, which can take a very long time for a multi-gigabyte realm, depending on transfer speeds and server load.

Edit: Normally, the only data transferred is whatever has actually changed, which is pretty fast.

[daplunk]

Yeah standard syncing is fine... Which is why this is a scary message to see ;) Usually a couple of minutes max depending on how out of control I get with the 'just one more article'...