Updates not working

[ddavison]

Hello D3nnis3n,

The link you shared from Reddit was for a momentary issue we had with servers 4 months ago when we released the new FGU beta to all 8000+ of our backers. That issue was resolved in a day or so and it was affecting nearly all of our users at the same time. You are getting the same sort of message, but we are seeing all of our other users updating from all around the world with no pattern of outages.

We get maybe a few of these reported every week and nearly all of them are resolved by changes on the client's end. Discussing particulars of your account is probably handled via email with [email protected], but I see several purchases over the last few months. If it is not a global outage and it was working on your system earlier, then I would focus attention on what might have been added to your system between that time or any updates that ran between that time and now.

If you would like to proceed with a refund, it looks like most of your purchases fall within the 30 day window. We can extend somewhat beyond that as well. Obviously, we would rather find some way to get you up and running -- but it's not always easy to guess what software on a customers home network or PC could be interfering.

Some final suggestions:
Look for a VPN that you are running and try disabling it, if you have one
If not, try running a free VPN and then running an update to see if it works
Log onto your router and check for security features there that you can try accessing
Reboot your router

[theslothman182]

Hi,

I've never had an issue with updating any of my Fantasy Grounds content before, but I have actually been having the same issues this evening with the updates really playing up.
I started trying to update my stuff about 3 hours ago and am still having issues.

After having a quick poke around google and trying a handful of things I came to the conclusion that my best bet was to backup my campaigns and do a full uninstall and start from scratch.
This didn't go all too well, and it was then getting stuck instantly when downloading the 'rulesets/2E.pak'.
I found this thread and started looking through my Inbound Rules for the Firewall and there wasn't any for anything Fantasy Grounds related. I've tried adding some new rules but it was to no avail.

It has since after leaving it going for a long time started updating, but very slowly and with many 'ERROR -GetPacketFiles: Network: time out' messages.
Thought I better add my issue to show it's potentially not a one person thing, and I don't think it's my internet as I'm currently getting 35mb/s.

[damned]

D3nnis3n Im pretty sure you are in Germany. Are you 100% sure that the German Youth protection Filter or whatever it is called is not active on your router/connection?

[damned]

In Germany, providers are not allowed to block stuff, so it's not possible that this is the case. (Well, despite the FG Updater does something that would destabilize the network of Vodafone and be deemed an attack, but then we've got a different issue ...)
There is only a single case in which they can and must block stuff and that is a court order, for example for kinox there is one.
That is done via DNS blocking though, hence i'm simply using Google DNS to still visit court-blocked sites.

You write above that German providers are not allowed to block stuff but from what I read that might not be the case...
https://www.fsm.de/en/online-youth-protection

Can you rule this out as a possibility?

[D3nnis3n]

Hello D3nnis3n,

The link you shared from Reddit was for a momentary issue we had with servers 4 months ago when we released the new FGU beta to all 8000+ of our backers. That issue was resolved in a day or so and it was affecting nearly all of our users at the same time. You are getting the same sort of message, but we are seeing all of our other users updating from all around the world with no pattern of outages.

We get maybe a few of these reported every week and nearly all of them are resolved by changes on the client's end. Discussing particulars of your account is probably handled via email with [email protected], but I see several purchases over the last few months. If it is not a global outage and it was working on your system earlier, then I would focus attention on what might have been added to your system between that time or any updates that ran between that time and now.

If you would like to proceed with a refund, it looks like most of your purchases fall within the 30 day window. We can extend somewhat beyond that as well. Obviously, we would rather find some way to get you up and running -- but it's not always easy to guess what software on a customers home network or PC could be interfering.

Some final suggestions:
Look for a VPN that you are running and try disabling it, if you have one
If not, try running a free VPN and then running an update to see if it works
Log onto your router and check for security features there that you can try accessing
Reboot your router

Hello ddavison,
i know that the issue was for a momentary issue, but it showed the exact same error, despite nothing was blocking those apps. I wanted to tell you that - despite what Moon has been saying - this Error actually CAN appear when the issue is not on the computer of the one running the Updater which until now you categorically declined.

Obviously i do not want to refund everything. I had a great time with Fantasy Grounds and my friends when it worked. Yes, there were some really offputting issues, but all of those could be solved easily in some way. I've now been searching through each and every post regarding this error on this forums, steam and reddit and still wasn't able to solve it.
I only want to refund if we are unable to fix this issue, as then i will not be able to use my newly bought Ravnica product nor any future ones. Probably people will also no longer be able to connect to my Fantasy Grounds instance to play with me, when their version some day is too far away from mine, i don't know. If i can use the program up-to-date i definately want to keep it. But i have a DM session tomorrow and wanted to use the new Ravnica stuff. Now i have to tell my players that i cannot update my client for some unknown reason.

I do not have any VPN. What i do have is a SSH Tunnel that i open via command line, but it's not activated. And i'm using it explicitly so that my connection is not disturbed by VPN, because the SSH Tunnel allows to keep my network connection normal while still being able to reach the server i need to connect to specifically.
I did reboot my router once again, without success. The idea with using a free VPN from somewhere else is actually a good one and i'll try that one now. Maybe i can even bump up a small VM on my NAS to see if FG can run there.

Hi,

I've never had an issue with updating any of my Fantasy Grounds content before, but I have actually been having the same issues this evening with the updates really playing up.
I started trying to update my stuff about 3 hours ago and am still having issues.

After having a quick poke around google and trying a handful of things I came to the conclusion that my best bet was to backup my campaigns and do a full uninstall and start from scratch.
This didn't go all too well, and it was then getting stuck instantly when downloading the 'rulesets/2E.pak'.
I found this thread and started looking through my Inbound Rules for the Firewall and there wasn't any for anything Fantasy Grounds related. I've tried adding some new rules but it was to no avail.

It has since after leaving it going for a long time started updating, but very slowly and with many 'ERROR -GetPacketFiles: Network: time out' messages.
Thought I better add my issue to show it's potentially not a one person thing, and I don't think it's my internet as I'm currently getting 35mb/s.

This is EXACTLY how it started at my PC. First downloads just got ultra-slow. It's only since a bit over 24 hours that i get these timeout messages! I'd be very happy if you could also provide any info you have for us to get a solution for this issue. I'm still not convinced it's one on our PCs.

D3nnis3n Im pretty sure you are in Germany. Are you 100% sure that the German Youth protection Filter or whatever it is called is not active on your router/connection?

Yes. See my attachments. The youth filter is only active for profile guest, and my PC is not using profile guest and has no additional restrictions. The last time i had the issue with the filter i was presented with Error 404 and NOT "Network Timeout", then i saw my PC was set to "Guest".
I changed to "Standard" and Updater worked again. Please note the different errors!

[D3nnis3n]

You write above that German providers are not allowed to block stuff but from what I read that might not be the case...
https://www.fsm.de/en/online-youth-protection

Can you rule this out as a possibility?

This is something different. "Online provider" in these terms does not mean the ISP, but the owner of the website.
So, if you would now present porn to me, YOU have the obligation to ask me if i'm 18 first and am ready to see what i'll be seeing.
YOU will have to find acceptable means to verify i'm actually 18. That might be a simple number from the passport (though this is no longer sufficient by some court orders) or can check it via SCHUFA Age Check or PostIdent or something else.

The only other list we have is the youth protection bpjm list, but that one is a list that routers can offer to activate, which is not activated by default (but for guest profile) and i didn't activate.

The providers itself are not allowed to block anything if there is no court-order to do so, but as i already said, that is done via DNS and i do not use my provider DNS for exactly that reason.

I'll report back if i can get a VPN to do something.

[D3nnis3n]

Okay, used a free VPN, did choose a US Server and it works immediately with very fast download.
It's not my computer blocking it.

Do you want to check if you blocked my IP-Address now?
And no, my router does not change it's settings on it's own ... Especially as it allows me to download the files from your web just fine.
Maybe Cloudflare has a ban for my IP-Range or something, but i'm even more sure now that this, with the fact my connection first got slower, is something on your end to fix.

(At least i can for now play the game again, but i should not need a VPN. I'm living in Germany, not in a third-world country that needs to be blocked for some reasons!)

Thanks for saving my session tomorrow.

[D3nnis3n]

Well, one product didn't update - how to fix that?

//EDIT: Did fix itself on a second updater try.

//EDIT 2:

Then i did disable VPN again, removed my data folder, trying to redownload stuff and ... didn't work.
So i've gone ahead to rule out my Router, i simply made my PC an exposed host, everything and anything can then connect to my PC, as the whole firewall is disabled.
Result: I can't download.

So, now what? I still can download your files via direct link in the browser.

Oh, btw. I can actually now verify it's not Vodafone, too - as one of my players is in the same area and using the same provider and was nice enough to try downloading, which worked for him. It would be weird if Vodafone illegally blocked your downloads just via the updater and only for me.

//EDIT 3:
My Fantasy Grounds actually runs 24/7 as my PC does, so my players can connect at any time. Maybe thats causing issues that could have got me blocked?

[damned]

Hi D3nnis3n

Please can you do the following:

on your primary connection post the results of tracert server.fantasygrounds.com and then do the same on your hotspot or any other connection that works for updating.

[D3nnis3n]

Sure.

Version 1, without VPN, Updates not working:

C:\Users\Dennis>tracert server.fantasygrounds.com

Routenverfolgung zu server.fantasygrounds.com [70.35.199.236]
über maximal 30 Hops:

1 <1 ms 1 ms 1 ms fritz.box [192.168.178.1]
2 12 ms 6 ms 10 ms ipb21b55fe.dynamic.kabel-deutschland.de [178.27.85.254]
3 9 ms 11 ms 8 ms ip53a98986.static.kabel-deutschland.de [83.169.137.134]
4 9 ms 10 ms 8 ms 88.134.193.219
5 15 ms 11 ms 11 ms 145.254.3.102
6 10 ms 11 ms 13 ms 145.254.2.201
7 18 ms 15 ms 17 ms ipv4.decix-munich.core1.muc1.he.net [80.81.202.30]
8 19 ms 19 ms 18 ms 100ge14-2.core1.fra2.he.net [184.105.223.109]
9 16 ms 19 ms 26 ms 100ge16-2.core1.fra1.he.net [72.52.92.85]
10 52 ms 29 ms 31 ms 100ge6-1.core1.lon2.he.net [184.105.80.37]
11 96 ms 99 ms 99 ms 100ge13-2.core1.nyc4.he.net [72.52.92.166]
12 117 ms 121 ms 120 ms 100ge9-1.core2.chi1.he.net [184.105.223.161]
13 125 ms 124 ms 123 ms 100ge2-2.core1.mci3.he.net [184.105.81.209]
14 130 ms 140 ms 133 ms 100ge0-52.core2.mci1.he.net [184.104.193.254]
15 * 135 ms 131 ms 1and1-ionos-inc.port-channel2.core2.mci1.he.net [184.105.16.22]
16 135 ms 135 ms 135 ms ae-10.gw-distp-a.slr.lxa.us.oneandone.net [74.208.1.101]
17 136 ms 146 ms 134 ms 74.208.141.21
18 133 ms 139 ms 132 ms 74.208.138.71
19 131 ms 131 ms 127 ms fg-web.fantasygrounds.com [70.35.199.236]

Version 2, with US VPN, Updates working:

C:\Users\Dennis>tracert server.fantasygrounds.com

Routenverfolgung zu server.fantasygrounds.com [70.35.199.236]
über maximal 30 Hops:

1 120 ms 115 ms 119 ms us-central-032.whiskergalaxy.com [161.129.70.66]
2 152 ms 160 ms 144 ms 161.129.70.65.static.quadranet.com [161.129.70.65]
3 124 ms 119 ms 122 ms unassigned.quadranet.com [104.223.91.255]
4 119 ms 116 ms 118 ms te0-4-1-19.ccr42.atl01.atlas.cogentco.com [38.104.3.137]
5 118 ms 119 ms 119 ms be2848.ccr41.atl04.atlas.cogentco.com [154.54.6.118]
6 * * * Zeitüberschreitung der Anforderung.
7 139 ms 139 ms 140 ms dls-b22-link.telia.net [62.115.120.113]
8 152 ms 151 ms 146 ms kanc-b1-link.telia.net [62.115.125.158]
9 148 ms 162 ms 149 ms 1o1internet-ic-323279-kanc-b1.c.telia.net [80.239.196.110]
10 146 ms 149 ms 150 ms ae-11.gw-distp-a.slr.lxa.us.oneandone.net [74.208.1.229]
11 150 ms 145 ms * 74.208.141.22
12 147 ms 147 ms 146 ms 74.208.138.71
13 146 ms 146 ms 145 ms fg-web.fantasygrounds.com [70.35.199.236]

//EDIT:
Option one was done as exposed host with the whole firewall turned off, see attachment.