UniqueIDs...

[Danvs]

Anyone else having problems with these. I know I'm following the parameters, yet the editor won't accept the items I keep trying to enter.

[Mathias]

Could you give me some examples of what hasn't been accepted?

[Danvs]

Well, after waiting four hours for the system to "compile data" I uninstalled it (which took awhile also) and reinstalled it. Now, after inputting gear in the editor the "test Now" tab isnit functioning and saying OK, but is sending me to a doc file on my hard drive to save! This is getting frustrating.
I was planning on getting at least two more game systems, but after the past five hours or so, I'm beginning to regret buying this one!

[Mathias]

The "compile data" process is pretty quick (5s at most) - I'm afraid to say that was a freeze.

When "Test Now!" failed, it should have popped up an error message - when that happens, you can right-click on the message and select copy, then paste that message here. The text file it created is simply a duplicate of that error message.

I also realized there's another likely cause of the "Invalid Unique ID" message - did you copy any existing things to look at them before you tried adding your new thing? If so, did you delete them before testing? Copies start out with a unique ID of "?", and are invalid IDs.

[rob]

Before you can test anything, the new content you've created must be saved to a data file. When you press the "Test Now" button, if you have not yet specified a file in which to save your data, you are prompted to do so. That's why you are being asked to specify a file. Once you provide a file, your data will be saved into it and you will no longer be prompted. All further data you add will be saved into the same file until you close the Editor.

Have you taken the time to go through the tutorials and review the documentation yet? It sounds like you may have skipped over important information that is now causing confusion for you. Information on the "Test Now" button will be found in both those places. It's quite possible that spending another 30-60 minutes to go through the documentation and tutorials could save you hours of frustration and confusion.

[Danvs]

Things are going pretty good as I've got it figured out but now, a new issue has come up. while loading items or assets (several at once), out of the blue after following the exact same procedures I start getting the unique id problems warning again. The exact messgae I keep getting is:

Hero Lab was forced to stop compilation after the following errors were detected:
File: equipment.user (line 198)- Thing – Invalid unique id

I inputted several pieces of gear and several assets. Now, after the above message on ONE item, NONE of them are assesible in Hero Lab. God this is ticking me off because after spending so much time entering stuff, none of the items are available.

[rob]

First of all, you must add each new item with the Test Now button - one at a time. If you want to add multiple items, you need to use the Test Now button on each of them. *OR* you need to perform a "Quick Reload" on the data files. You can do the quick reload via the Develop menu. Doing things one at a time is much easier, since any errors will be guaranteed to be within the one thing you just modified, so finding the error is relatively quick.

If you add multiple things and don't use the Test Now button on each, you can run into problems when one thing (Thing1) references another (Thing2). If you have not used Test Now on the Thing2, you'll get an invalid unique id error when using Test Now on Thing1.

Adding a thing in the editor does NOT add it to the running program until you use Test Now.

[Danvs]

I "Test Now " every item individually, then outta nowhere, I get an id error message on an item, can't proceed any further and when I log out, nothing I've inputted previously isn't there anymore. How do I fix this as I'm going on five times I've completely deleted the file and started over???

[rob]

The data files are recompiled when you load the game system whenever a change is detected in the raw data files. If no change is detected, no recompile is performed. So the compiled data files will be in the same state when you reload as when you last ran them within Hero Lab.

However, whenever there is an error in the data files during compilation, the data files cannot then be loaded. So Hero Lab goes back to a "safe" state, which ignores all of the user-added content. When you load the data files, you should be seeing an error message that says there was an error loading them and that Hero Lab will retry by ignoring the user-added content. You data is not "lost" - it's simply being ignored so that you can actually load the game system into Hero Lab.

Once you have the game system loaded, you can then get back into the Editor and modify your data file to fix the error. If Hero Lab didn't fall back to a safe state, the error would prevent your from loading the game system, which means you wouldn't be able to access the Editor to fix the error. So that's why it's handled this way.

When you launch the Editor, the last file you were working with is still present and is listed on the File menu. Load it and all your work is right there. Now you need to figure out the error and fix it. If you only modify things in small increments before testing them, you'll always know where the error is. However, if you modify multiple things, the error could be in multiple places, so you'll need to figure out where the error is.

If you aren't sure where the error is because you changed multiple things, you can switch to Plan B. Load the data file you created into a text editor that displays line numbers. All data files are simple text files that conform to the XML standard (it looks a lot like HTML). You can then go to the line number specified within the error message and identify which thing contains the error, as well as what aspect of the thing is incorrect. This should allow you to then return to the Editor, select the broken thing, and make the proper correction.

When you restart Hero Lab with data files that have errors, there's an important detail to remember. Hero Lab has loaded the data files *without* any of your custom content. So *none* of it is currently present. Once you fix the problem, you probably want to have all your content loaded. This is accomplished by using the "Quick Reload" feature within Hero Lab that I described above. The data files are recompiled to incorporate your change(s) and then fully reloaded.

So to sum up:
1. Your data file is still intact and simply contains an error that needs to be fixed.
2. When an error exists, Hero Lab ignores all your user-added content so that it can load the game system and give you access to the Editor to fix the error.
3. Once you fix the error, use Quick Reload to recompile the files and reload the game system with all your custom content included again.
4. Make changes to only one thing at a time until you get comfortable with how everything works - else you'll run the risk of getting confused when errors arise.
5. If you can't figure out where an error is occurring, you can use the line number listed and a text editor to identify where the problem resides.

Hope this helps!!!

[Danvs]

YES IT DID!!! followed your guide, figured out the problem and the editor is working great! Cannot thank you enough for the info. Turned the answer was right in front of me, but you told me where to look. Can't tell you how pleased i am at both the product and the help.

Thanks again.