Using an UNC path for the game data

[Milmoor]

I'm new to FG and trying to find out the technical setup which works best for me. I'm thinking of hosting the game on my HTPC. That way, it's reachable outside the sessions for character maintenance, checking notes, etc. But during the session, I'll run the game from my laptop. This allows me to GM with the delays of using remote desktop to the HTPC, and connect an extra display tot the laptop with the map for the players. For this, I'm storing the game data on an UNC path: \\HTPC\games\FantasyGroundsData. This allows me to use the same game data folder on my HTPC and my laptop. As long as I don't start it on both machines at the same time, I should be fine suggest some reading and testing. I will need to change the port forwarding though during sessions otherwise people will end up trying tot connect to the wrong FG instance.

A few questions:
- what happens if I do run FG simultaneously on both machines using the same game data folder via the UNC path? Does it matter if I run it as a GM or join a game as a player? Since connecting to localhost works for both GM and a player, I would think FG can support a GM/player combo on the same game data folder without issues. 2x GM seems like asking for trouble, but it could happen by accident.
- I did some early testing, and when using an UNC path, everything works so far, but for saving the hotkeys_host.xml. After I ran it locally, I can switch back to UNC without further errors. The missing hotkeys_host.xml is created that way. It seems unlikely this is the only file with issues while using an UNC path. One can test this by starting a new campagne, and returning tot de FG launcher from within the campagne. You'll get a white Console window with this error. Any other files/issues I'll need to take into account? Edit: I got an error when selecting the picture for a character. It couldn't save this. I tried with access rights for everyone. Still not good. I'll start a separate post for this. Three questions in one posts is asking for at least one to be ignored .
- I'm still doing quite a lot of reading/testing to find out how stuff works. Any comments on my setup so far?

[LordEntrails]

I thought I remember a discussion about UNC paths previously, but I can't find it or remember the details now. And I haven't tried running it myself, but my expectations/knowledge is as follows;

1) You can run a player and GM instance on the same FG Data folder at the same time. This should be no different than starting a second instance of FG on the same computer and connecting as a player since the client uses a cache file and not the campaign folder directly. Two GM instances in running the same campaign... I would expect campaign corruption. Probably not immediately, but if they were left running long enough. Note that both instances would perform auto-saves every five minutes and upon exit, so it might take awhile for corruption or lost data to become apparent or to even happen.

2) This is probably what the previous UNC discussion was about... I'm guessing teh official answer is that UNC is not going to be supported. Maybe you can use a mapped network drive instead?

3) Can you try a mapped network drive instead? Note, like most Windows things, make sure two programs are not trying to write to the same files at the same time, hence the suggestion not to put FG Data on a automatically sync'd cloud drive. Same thing with your setup if you run automated backup software, make sure it doesn't run while FG is running.

EDIT: Oh, and welcome!

[Trenloe]

Welcome to the FG forums.

I use a mapped network drive (i.e. it has a drive letter) for my campaign data (stored on a NAS). Other than a little slower to show the campaigns in the load campaign screen, it works fine for me.

[Milmoor]

I'll retry with a mapped network drive, my first attempt was not successful, but also rather improvised. Good to hear chances are this will work. Thanks both.

Using a mapped drive on the hosting Windows machine didn't work. It already fails at the updates I do after changing the folder location. I'll try if it does work on the laptop, since that's where I need it. There is quite a difference between shares in Windows and shares on a NAS. But lacking a configured NAS, I'll check that later. If this experiment fails, I could copy/paste or sync using robocopy.

[trev6730]

Welcome to the FG forums.

I use a mapped network drive (i.e. it has a drive letter) for my campaign data (stored on a NAS). Other than a little slower to show the campaigns in the load campaign screen, it works fine for me.

Could you offer some guidance for that?

I've installed FG Unity, but cannot manually change the address to my mapped network drive, nor does it show up it the folder browse.
FG Issue.PNG

[Trenloe]

Could you offer some guidance for that?

I've installed FG Unity, but cannot manually change the address to my mapped network drive, nor does it show up it the folder browse.
FG Issue.PNG

Ah, yes, sorry I didn't provide full info.

I have a network drive mapped to a drive letter and I move my FG campaigns folder to that drive. Then I create a folder shortcut in the <FG app data> directory and call it "campaigns" and point that to the campaigns directory on the mapped drive. You could do the same for your whole FG app data directory.

Here my campaigns are stored in L:\campaigns and so I setup the <FG app data>\campaigns folder shortcut to point there:

[trev6730]

Ah, yes, sorry I didn't provide full info.

I have a network drive mapped to a drive letter and I move my FG campaigns folder to that drive. Then I create a folder shortcut in the <FG app data> directory and call it "campaigns" and point that to the campaigns directory on the mapped drive. You could do the same for your whole FG app data directory.

Here my campaigns are stored in L:\campaigns and so I setup the <FG app data>\campaigns folder shortcut to point there:

I've attempted to follow your steps, but Unity insists on recreating the campaigns folder in the <FG app data> folder when I create a campaign. Else the campaign does not show up if I move the folder and create the shortcut after creating the campaign.

I also attempted to have the entire FG App Data folder be linked, but Unity does not see the folder shortcut in the data path settings, and I cannot change the dropdown to include other types. Manually typing does not allow me to save the changes.
FG App Data Folder.PNG
FG Issue 2.PNG

[Trenloe]

I've attempted to follow your steps, but Unity insists on recreating the campaigns folder in the <FG app data> folder when I create a campaign. Else the campaign does not show up if I move the folder and create the shortcut after creating the campaign.

I also attempted to have the entire FG App Data folder be linked, but Unity does not see the folder shortcut in the data path settings, and I cannot change the dropdown to include other types. Manually typing does not allow me to save the changes.
FG App Data Folder.PNG
FG Issue 2.PNG

Oh, right. I seem to remember I had to create it with the mklnk command, using /d for a directory symbolic link. Sorry, it was quite a while ago. Info on that here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/win...ommands/mklink