Roll20 lag issues (character sheets?)

Good morning all, I've been using Roll20 since last February as a player and a DM and it works brilliantly most of the time when used correctly. However I have recently (in the last month or so) started getting a lot of lag issues that seem to be related to sheets (both character and NPC). I have poured through countless forums and have gotten no closer to resolving this issue. As suggested on the forums I will answer the following and hopefully get closer to solving this frustrating problem... Detailed Description of the Problem Roll20 works very well for me (as stated above) whether in or out of game. The only issue I seem to be running into is VERY VISIBLE lag issues when opening and modifying sheets. My campaign is D&D 5e and we are using the standard sheets for this built into the system. When loading these (by clicking on them from the right pane of sheets) the browsers stops responding for 2-8 seconds (and often shows "not responding") before catching up and then I am able to modify or review the sheet. The lag then seems to disappear until the next interaction. There is no other visible lag apart from this in my browser or game. It should be noted this happens only in this campaign after tests I've done on others - so it could be something I've inadvertently done myself. Steps to Reproduce the Problem I have followed the steps outlined in the "solving technical issues" page of Roll20 and nothing seems to correct this. I have very few apps or add-ons and my system is fully up to date. My anti-virus does not visibly interfere with my browser. Description of Your Setup (Browser + Version, Operating System, etc.) Here is a copy paste of the requested items. It should also be noted this is a fairly recent build and is a mid to high tier PC with no gaming issues. Operating System Windows Windows NT 10.0 Screen Resolution 1920 x 1080 Web Browser Firefox 42.0 Browser Size 1920 x 947 IP Address XXXX Color Depth 24 Javascript Yes Flash Version 19.0.-1 Cookies Yes Any help is appreciated to help resolve this. I love Roll20 and want to keep using it. Thanks for your support!

Jay said: My campaign is D&D 5e and we are using the standard sheets for this built into the system. To be clear, you're not using the "Shaped" sheet, right?

Correct. Using the standard D&D 5th ed. sheet Author: John Myles.

Does this happen to just you or does it affect your players as well? Additionally, just to confirm, you said this only affects one of your campaigns, correct? If you make a new campaign using the same sheet, the issue does not persist. I am hoping I can help you figure this issue out, just want to narrow down the root of it.

It seems to affect the players as well, but since they only control the one sheet, the initial lag for opening it up goes quickly. Yes it only affects the one campaign and another test campaign with the same sheet doesn't seem to slow or lag. One thing I have noticed (and maybe this is just a gut feeling) can the interaction between tokens and sheets be causing this? I sometimes create a monster or NPC type to be duplicated and assign different tokens to each duplicate. If I were to make changes and alter token and sheet and get them mixed up, could there be duplicated code that binds more than one token to a sheet or vice versa? This is just a thought and might be nothing but I started noticing this when I started to use duplication methods for common enemies in my game... Hope this helps move this issue forward. Thanks!

I am having a similar issue with the 5E sheets. Also, now the macros no long functions for the weapons tab when you hit "Attack". It gives an error message: <SyntaxError: Expected "(", ".", "[", "abs(", "ceil(", "d", "floor(", "round(", "t", "{", [ |\t], [+|\-] or [0-9] but end of input found.> It worked fine last time we were on here and had to re do the character sheets due to a mod not of our choosing. Now it appears to be broken again and we are having the same lag issues as Jay. This does not happen in our 13th Age campaign (but then we do our own macros for that one and avoid the built in sheet). Thank you, Cory

Cory G. said: I am having a similar issue with the 5E sheets. Also, now the macros no long functions for the weapons tab when you hit "Attack". It gives an error message: <SyntaxError: Expected "(", ".", "[", "abs(", "ceil(", "d", "floor(", "round(", "t", "{", [ |\t], [+|\-] or [0-9] but end of input found.> It worked fine last time we were on here and had to re do the character sheets due to a mod not of our choosing. Now it appears to be broken again and we are having the same lag issues as Jay. This does not happen in our 13th Age campaign (but then we do our own macros for that one and avoid the built in sheet). Thank you, Cory Make sure you have the crit damage input for the weapon attacks. 

Jay said: It seems to affect the players as well, but since they only control the one sheet, the initial lag for opening it up goes quickly. Yes it only affects the one campaign and another test campaign with the same sheet doesn't seem to slow or lag. One thing I have noticed (and maybe this is just a gut feeling) can the interaction between tokens and sheets be causing this? I sometimes create a monster or NPC type to be duplicated and assign different tokens to each duplicate. If I were to make changes and alter token and sheet and get them mixed up, could there be duplicated code that binds more than one token to a sheet or vice versa? This is just a thought and might be nothing but I started noticing this when I started to use duplication methods for common enemies in my game... Hope this helps move this issue forward. Thanks! My understanding is that sheets, especially the 5E ones, are very resource heavy. Also, if I understand what you are doing - making a duplicate sheet for every critter and linking a token to it, even though the critters are the same, you are creating very resource heavy environment with all those character sheets. What I do is make one sheet, assign/link a token to the sheet to get the attributes you want in the bubbles (use one of the bubbles for HP). Then unlink the token (they become 'mooks). Then I duplicate the token by right clicking/copy and then paste as many mooks as you want. They will all have the same HP but you can adjust that if needed. The sheet has buttons to launch macros for attacks, saves, etc. I drag the most common buttons to my macro bar (i.e. critter weapon attacks) then close the sheet! Hope this helps. I, too have been experiencing lag issues but after the game has been going and especially when I have sheets open and the turn tracker up. Sometimes with only the turn tracker up. My players haven't had any issues that they have reported. I blame my laptop - it's old (VISTA) but I'll be getting a new, more powerful desktop soon so we'll see.

Thanks Ed, that made it work awesome. 

Editing characters and clicking 'Save' locks the UI for 30-60s for me (latest Chrome). Tokens become unresponsive. I occasionally have to force quit Chrome. JS console is littered with '...took until ~500+ms'. This is with 7 characters in a new game on a 25x25 board. If I remove the default 5E character sheet from the game, performance returns to normal. :/

I was having a performance issue with the 5e sheet after I had upgraded to Windows 10. The task manager showed the system process was taking up a lot of memory and CPU cycles when dealing with character sheets in Roll20, especially sheets with spells. I found a solution by disabling the pagefile and setting the virtual memory to 0. With 8 gigs of RAM the computer runs fine but the old CPU couldn't handle the way Win10 was doing the pagefile. It actually zips and unzips applications in real time, took some real searching to find all of this out.  Anyway try disabling your pagefile if you are using Windows 10. My sheets are running much more smoothly now. 

Ed: I'm on a mid-2014 MacbookPro that performs adequately, with no token lag or 5e character sheet lag, when I'm logged in as a player instead of a GM. The lag is only present with 5E character sheets enabled in GM-mode. I suspect it's an inefficiency on roll20's side with handling many objects and not a platform-specific bug. The gameboard has never supported right-clicking for macs so I assume they've never actually tested on one. ;)

I do know it is something they are working on, it has to do with the way tokens link to the number of attributes on a character sheet. The spells in the 5E sheets are attributes, so the number gets larger with each one. I suspect there is memory leak somewhere based on the behavior. So for me changing the way the memory was handled fixed the problem, there is still slow down as time goes on, but it's manageable. edit-The OP did say they used Windows 10, so that is why I was sharing my findings with that.

Chris J. said: The gameboard has never supported right-clicking for macs so I assume they've never actually tested on one. ;) I work mostly on a Mac and context clicking is supported. If it's not working for you then there is a different problem at play. Jay said: Correct. Using the standard D&D 5th ed. sheet Author: John Myles. Jay, if you remove the 5E sheet from your game do the performance issues stop?

Steve K. said: Jay, if you remove the 5E sheet from your game do the performance issues stop? I tried this with a cloned campaign (I was having 4-8 second lag when opening sheets and in Chrome the jukebox would stop playing while the sheet was loading, while in Firefox I would sometimes get the browser message, "...not responding". I'm using the 5E shaped sheet. After removing the sheet I no longer get the lag! Tested in Chrome and the jukebox plays without a hiccup. I can't test the issues I have with the turn tracker because it only happens in game with other players logged in (essentially everything I do is bogged down and there is considerable lag between clicking on something and seeing anything happen).

Jay said: Correct. Using the standard D&D 5th ed. sheet Author: John Myles. Jay, if you remove the 5E sheet from your game do the performance issues stop? Yes, when removing the sheet template it also removes the lag issue. It does seem like there is either something wrong with the sheet or its very resources intense. I can hardly believe though that it would be that much of an issue, this computer I'm using is top of the line desktop...

The issue is that the 5E sheets have a magnitude greater number of disabled fields than any other character sheet, except maybe the Pathfinder one is close. This means every time you open it, and to a lesser extent whenever you change something, thousands and thousands of calculations run. Browsers by default limit the amount of memory they'll take from your computer to keep something malicious from seizing up your whole computer. Even if you had a monster top of the line computer, your browser can still be bottlenecked in memory. We are currently testing a solution on the Development Server right now. Web Workers that should remove the need for the vast majority of these disabled fields as well as better repeating section support. It's just a matter of time before these improvements get picked up by the 5E sheet authors and implemented for use on the live servers.

The Pathfinder team is already evaluating these changes and seeing how we can leverage them. I'm drooling with anticipation.

Can I also add that I get similar issues, but not with character sheets. I as the GM, get massive lag when modifying the Turn Order. I am also using the 5e character sheet, and I get about a solid minute or two or lag that basically prevents me from doing anything. It happens when I add a character to the turn order, when I type an Initiative number in, and when I sort it to Descending.

Steve K. said: Chris J. said: The gameboard has never supported right-clicking for macs so I assume they've never actually tested on one. ;) I work mostly on a Mac and context clicking is supported. If it's not working for you then there is a different problem at play. I apologize for derailing the thread on character sheets bottlenecking the browser. In GM-mode, control-click works in Firefox and in Chrome on the right side bar, but not in Chrome on the map. It never has for me. Control-click works on every other web page I visit regularly, and on the same page that it doesn't work on the map, so I have trouble believing it's a problem with my standard browser setup. Right-clicking with an external mouse also works correctly.

Nick said: Can I also add that I get similar issues, but not with character sheets. I as the GM, get massive lag when modifying the Turn Order. I am also using the 5e character sheet, and I get about a solid minute or two or lag that basically prevents me from doing anything. It happens when I add a character to the turn order, when I type an Initiative number in, and when I sort it to Descending. I'm having the same problem as Nick mentions. Using chrome and Windows 8 on a strong Desktop with very good internet connection. None of the players seem to have any problems, though another one has said that he's getting the lag as well when DM-ing for another group. It all started a few months ago and it seems to get worst. Refreshing the page seems to reset the lag but it slowly builds back up to unmanageable and have to refresh it again. There is also a thread on reddit.com/r/roll20 with people complaining about the same thing.

There is also a thread in the Pro forum about lag. I have the same problem I have optimized everything, still get an almost unplayable lag, did not have the problem a few months ago. Big or small champing does not make a big difference. If the character sheet is a problem, maybe an idea is to have a two character sheets option, one complicated one for PCs and one simple sheet for NPCs?

Reading more through his and it's apparent the 5ed sheet for one has problems that causes lag to the actual in game service. I'm wondering if its something that can be fixed now that we seem to have a consensus on this... I'm ready to assist any way I can for testing etc. Thanks to those who brought ideas and perhaps we can now fix this.

I know there are changes coming to the way sheets can be built, and that there are discussions on the dev server about how to handle things like the current repeating sections. I don't have a pro account so I don't know what exactly is changing, but that is where things are happening if you want to look at what can be done.