Bug List for Handouts and Token GM Notes

My strategy for DM'ing is to place "info tokens", for a lack of a better word, in the gm layer near points of interest. That way I can just click on the token, when the players get near one, and read it out loud. After a long hiatus, I ran a scenario today and noticed many tokens had their GM notes blank. The info was gone. I believe I also had issues with handouts, although at first I thought it was human error. In any case, is there a list of known issues/bugs somewhere related to GM Notes? I came across a post that said colored text might disappear. Is there a more comprehensive list somewhere so I know what not to do? I'll be the first to admit I'm not an Oscar winning script writer but it kinda sucks to have your work disappear. If someone could point me to a list of bugs or best practices for Handouts or GM Notes, I'd love to read it. Thanks.

Were ya using bump api by chance?

Hi Robin! I have some very old fallow campaigns that still retain GM notes, so I don't think that time or code updates are the issue here. I make huge use of info tokens, and can't remember losing notes due to a systemic error. The action of a script might be the cause. Do you use anything that creates or duplicates tokens? Anything that uses the API to write to her token GM notes field? In any case, I don't think it's likely you are doing anything wrong--I'm not aware of any list of best practices for preserving the content of token notes. DM Eddie: I've not run into Bump removing GM notes before. Is there an issue? The original token retains its notes in my experience, though the temporary bump token lacks them, of course.

Theres a rare circumstance with transmog and bump that can lead to people thinking their mapnotes are deleted but its really just a rogue unslaved bump token.  

I just subscribed to pro two months ago so I didn't have access to API stuff prior to that. I haven't really explored that aspect of Roll20 yet. I mostly upgraded for the extra space. I do work from multiple computers depending on the day and time of the week. Is there a chance maybe that's affecting something? At first I really though it was user error, eg I forgot to click save. I no longer think that's the case. I'll see if I can collect more info. Thanks for the reply, its super appreciated.

If you did not have the API, were you accessing the notes via opening the token and reading them from the GMnotes field, or pulling them from a token bar using a macro? The latter is a fairly common practice for those without API methods of pulling the notes.

honestly i don't know what a token bar is. i go to the gm layer, click the token i want, double-click on it to bring up the popup box with details, go to the gm notes, read them. am i going to discover there's easier ways?

Super easy, with the API. Map Pins  - keithcurtis ( More info  - Airsickhydra) ( More info  - Matthew T) That first link talks about Supernotes towards the end, which if you are used to storing info in token notes and have the API is probably the best way to go. Just select the token and run !gmnote (you can put this on a button). It will whisper the contents of the token's GM notes into chat, complete with formatting and images. There's a lot more it can do ( particularly when combined with Reporter ), but that's the simplest implementation.

Oh, and token bars are the fields displayed in the bubbles that pop up around a selected token.

I will definitely check out your suggestions. Thank-you for taking the time to help me out. I appreciate it and my players will too. :)

Robin said: honestly i don't know what a token bar is. i go to the gm layer, click the token i want, double-click on it to bring up the popup box with details, go to the gm notes, read them. am i going to discover there's easier ways? Super notes is super easy for what you described you did.  Instead of clicking it and opening the box, it spits it out to you in a private message but you need to read his syntax notes when you install the oneclick of Supernotes.  There is also an Editnotes API floating around somewhere.  Which enters stuff into DM notes automatically, great for copy/pasting without having to open the window to edit notes.  

I use tokens on the GM layer for notes as well - and I've recently had a couple that have reverted to earlier text and I've lost notes. I know there was one specific one I edited and then looked later and saw that I had lost all my edits.  I figured I had just opened two copies and saved the wrong one or something.  So I made very sure to hit save a bunch of times as I was editing and closed it and reopened it again to confirm once I was done. But I just checked back now after seeing this thread and the same token has again reverted to the text that was there a few weeks ago. Apparently I need to stop keeping notes that way or this may get real annoying.  No idea if there is anything particular to avoid since I'm pretty sure the replication steps were just "edit gm notes on a token, log off for a couple days, check gm notes on token and see that it has the old text again" :(

Sean, sounds like you're having the same problems that I am experiencing. Maybe I'm not crazy afterall... :)

This is an unusual problem, in that there have not been a lot of reports of this. Sometimes you can lose data by working on two games simultaneously in the same browser, but even that shouldn't affect token notes. I've got token notes that are years old, and notes on literally hundreds of tokens. Those of you who are losing data, are you using any extensions or unsupported browsers that might be affecting Roll20 functionality? Any APIs that create, destroy or alter tokens or their attributes?