Praise Gone Bad

[meek75]

So, I was attempting to export from two realms and create new realm from the data. The first export and import when well. I was about already planning to come on the forums and give some praise to LWD. I have been critical lately and wanted to give praise where it was due too. Alas, it was not to be. The second realm is a bit older and has had a host of issues. After an hour or so of repeated crashes and frustration I have been beaten. I will have to upload my whole realm (it is large and can't be emailed) to google drive. This will take a long time and be an extra hassle. I then will submit the issue to LWD and wait for them to get around to figuring out a fix. I have had two main criticisms of RW for quite a while. The first is the slow pace of the promised features. That has been hashed out elsewhere. The second, and more serious, is stability and usability. I have had a slew of crashes and problems over the years. I have had to submit my realm to LWD multiple times (half dozen maybe?). I know others report no such issues, I'm just lucky I guess. RW has a lot to offer, but I just can't recommend it to people anymore. Now, I tell people that RW is a good tool with some great features, but "buyer beware" because you should expect frustration and realm crashes.

If and when my issues get fixed I will report it back here. In the past LWD customer support has usually been reasonably quick. That is a definite point in their favor. I don't think the problem is bad people at LWD. All the LWD staff seem like great and talented people. It is simply hard to build and fly a plane simultaneously, and it feels like RW has engineers turning bolts with the engines running. I think my issues this time are related to the "source" tag and the fact that it was added more recently, while I had the same tag already in the realm. I attempted to remove the tag, but issues persist.

 

[daplunk]

Doesn't sound like you are lucky at all. Crashes were quite regular in 2016 but 2017 has seen them reducing significantly.

Now... it seems crashes are always caused by something very specific. Like I have a topic that I simply cannot complete linking on. It always generates a crash. The only way I can get the tool to crash on any sort of regular basis is to try and complete linking on that topic knowing full well that only idiots repeat actions expecting a different result yes i'm stubborn.

When you say your realm is large. Is it just one realm or do you have multiple?

My database file is about 25gb currently so I understand the issue of not being able to upload that to anyone. I tried once and gave up after a week.

Davidp gave me some good advice that I'm trying to find though. It involved syncing all my realms up to the server and closing realm works. Taking a manual backup of the database file. Restarting realm works and deleting all of the other realms other than the broken one from YOUR PC ONLY. Exit Realm Works and take a copy of the database file which should now be a lot smaller. Send that to LWD for troubleshooting. Move the original database file back to where it belongs and restarting Realm Works.

I suggest you reach out to LWD for the proper instructions though as this is obviously something that could go very very wrong for you if you don't follow the instructions exactly.

Older realms certainly seem to be more problematic.

 

[meek75]

Davidp gave me some good advice that I'm trying to find though. It involved syncing all my realms up to the server and closing realm works. Taking a manual backup of the database file. Restarting realm works and deleting all of the other realms other than the broken one from YOUR PC ONLY. Exit Realm Works and take a copy of the database file which should now be a lot smaller. Send that to LWD for troubleshooting. Move the original database file back to where it belongs and restarting Realm Works.

I suggest you reach out to LWD for the proper instructions though as this is obviously something that could go very very wrong for you if you don't follow the instructions exactly.

Older realms certainly seem to be more problematic.

That is helpful advice - thanks a bunch. I wish LWD had a way of accessing my stuff that is stored on the server.

 

[kbs666]

I've found that if a realm starts giving me consistent trouble deleting the local db and letting RW sync down the whole thing from the cloud has solved things several times.

You need to make sure that the cloud is up to date of course. and be prepared for how long this will take if you have a lot or big realms.

 

[meek75]

I've found that if a realm starts giving me consistent trouble deleting the local db and letting RW sync down the whole thing from the cloud has solved things several times.

You need to make sure that the cloud is up to date of course. and be prepared for how long this will take if you have a lot or big realms.

Yea, I tried that. I'm feel like the issues are all from a "source" tag I created way back before LWD used it. Just being difficult to fix.

 

[Parody]

That is helpful advice - thanks a bunch. I wish LWD had a way of accessing my stuff that is stored on the server.

They probably do, but that may not show the problem if something has gone wrong with the local database. (They'd get the same thing kbs666 does by deleting/moving the master.realm file and downloading everything again.)

 

[Silveras]

Consistent crashes indicate, to me, corrupted data. It may LOOK fine to you, but it may be corrupted in a way that, only under some circumstances, does it crash. For those, you need to really send a crash report EVERY TIME (because sometimes you can't see the cause from 1 report.. it may take several to see a pattern).

If you are not getting the opportunity to send a crash report from RealmWorks as it happens, THAT needs to be put in a support ticket.. LWD won't know they're happening otherwise. They will likely ask you for a copy of your local database, and for information about your machine - the OS, hardware, and so on.

 

[kbs666]

Yea, I tried that. I'm feel like the issues are all from a "source" tag I created way back before LWD used it. Just being difficult to fix.

I had a source tag when they added that. It caused me no end of grief, no crashes but it borked all my importing and exporting. I finally renamed it and that straightened things out. Not sure if that is a viable option for you.

 

[meek75]

I had a source tag when they added that. It caused me no end of grief, no crashes but it borked all my importing and exporting. I finally renamed it and that straightened things out. Not sure if that is a viable option for you.

I tried to rename it but it didn't fix it. The issue may be that I not only created a "source" tag, but also added a labeled snippet to the articles to display the tag. I went into a small subset of articles and manually removed the labeled snippet. I was then able to successfully export/import the articles. I can now continue this, but the level of work required on my part is much greater. Going into each article and manually deleting the snippet is going to take some time. I will also loose the source information unless I want to create a new snippet with a new name to show it (I do not want to spend that time).

 

[kbs666]

I know there would be some technical headaches but this sort of thing would be solved if you could simply modify a template and the program then, with your approval, updated every topic in that category to reflect the updated template.

 

[meek75]

I have been working on rooting out the issue. I did a series of smaller exports/imports in order to narrow down where the problem is hiding. I have now managed to export and then import everything in the mechanics section of the Savage Worlds Realm into the Savage Westeros Realm with one exception. The issue is somewhere in the Weapons>Ranged Weapons>Ammunition container. When I try to import any file with the ammunition included the import fails.

This was a lot of work, but I have saved most of the data at least. Fortunately this particular realm was not large. Perhaps the LWD team will see the issue and I can still get the rest. I jusst have to accept that for a very long time to come this sort of thing is going to be par for the course. I have a lot of realms and with every major update (and a couple of small ones) I have had issues and frustration. Perhaps things will settle down eventually and be less bug infested. I still value RW enough to hang in there (although a bit salty), but I can't really champion it either.

Thanks for all the helpful input.

 

[Acenoid]

I also agree, the constructio nbehind RW should be more stable and just be able to cope with the data users are able to enter (and work with different identifiers under the hood) or at least continue help with fixing the issue.

 

[meek75]

Update:
There is a bug in the numeric snippets. It seems that a zero in a numeric snippets is causing the issue. I took out the zeros and the export/import went off without a hitch. The bug has been noted by the development team and will eventually be fixed.

I want to commend the quick and helpful response I got from the LWD customer support team. They do a great job, and in this area run circles around every other software company I have ever dealt with in the past.

 

[wurzel]

Other than it used to be for a while I rarely had crashes in the last weeks. There is just one thing that still annoys me, the Out of Memory crash I always encounter during game sessions. I understood that pictures and maps use a lot of memory. But I use RW to show quite a number of them to the players. To avoid memory problems I close them immediately after using so that just one or two stay open. But still after a few hours the crash occurs regularly. To me, this indicates that allocated memory is not freed completely after closing the pictures. But memory management is something nasty where bugs are sometimes hard to find so I will start complaining not earlier than after content market is finished

 

[kbs666]

RW is built using C# and the .NET framework. the .NET framework is supposed to handle memory management. It is notoriously bad at it. Most .NET apps are small stuff or things that don't run for hours on end with lots of resources opening and closing. Those work fine. It's just the rare app like RW that really has trouble.

There really may not be much the guys at LWD can do about the memory problems, except break down and go to 64 bit.

 

[Silveras]

RW is built using C# and the .NET framework. the .NET framework is supposed to handle memory management. It is notoriously bad at it. Most .NET apps are small stuff or things that don't run for hours on end with lots of resources opening and closing. Those work fine. It's just the rare app like RW that really has trouble.

There really may not be much the guys at LWD can do about the memory problems, except break down and go to 64 bit.

My colleagues and I built an industrial platform of 10+ applications, some of which ran 24/7 for months at a time processing updates at rates of millions of updates per day.. on the .NET 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x Frameworks. We had no issues with memory.

 

[Acenoid]

That's comparing apples and oranges. I suppose that only certain function calls or specific ways of handling stuff in a program could be prone to memory leaks.

I second 64 bit upgrade! Its SOTA (state of the art)


And.... I think memory leaks must really be fixed expecially with a software like realm works!

 

[kbs666]

My colleagues and I built an industrial platform of 10+ applications, some of which ran 24/7 for months at a time processing updates at rates of millions of updates per day.. on the .NET 1.x, 2.x, and 3.x Frameworks. We had no issues with memory.

I have no idea what your apps did. I know what the stuff I wrote did. I know I could easily track the ongoing leak. I know reports of leaks causing crashes are common place in 32 bit .Net apps. I know that in discussion of this here LWD says they have no solution beyond switching to 64 bit which they are reluctant to do for reasons internal to RW.