Duplicate elements created each time a mood current state is saved - RESOLVED

Online Player Public Beta
#1

So I’m new to Syrinscape in general, and so far the interface for creating new soundsets and campaigns already has a huge learning curve because the controls aren’t organized super well (for example - why do I need to leave the online master interface in order to add a soundset to a campaign?)

But I digress.

One thing I’m running into is that when I’m creating moods in a soundset, any time I click the “save current state” button, extra copies of certain SFX elements appear. If I delete those elements, they just come back the next time I save the new mood changes again.

The one pattern I’ve noticed is that the elements being duplicated on that save action appear to be elements that are used in other moods within the same soundset.

I certainly haven’t mastered the interface as I mentioned, but I can’t think of anything I’m doing on my end to cause this since it shows up only when I’m attempting to save the changes I just made. The behavior doesn’t seem to be affected by whether or not I made changes to the elements that are duplicating themselves.

Little help?

#2

I’m having this same issue. It makes quickly creating custom moods impossible, which is a big aspect of why I pay for the subscription. It seems to be getting worse recently as well.

No explanation for why.

#3

This should not be the case. Can you elaborate? The campaign manager was around before the online player, and has not changed a lot since the online player.

This sounds like a bug that we already fixed. The “save current state” button will copy (duplicate) elements that are currently playing that belong to OTHER soundsets, into the current soundset.

For example, if you go to Bugbear Battle and play a mood or element, and then create a new (empty) soundset and a mood, and then click “save current state”, those Bugbear Battle elements that are playing will be duplicated into your new soundset.

We intend to make it easier to identify when elements from other soundsets are playing in a future update.

The bug that we fixed would occur when the online player crashed or was quit WHILE playing. The server would then think those elements were still playing, and duplicate them every time you clicked “save current state”, until you manually started and then stopped them to reset their playing state on the server.

That should not be happening anymore, because we reset the playing state when the online player first connects. But there might be another reason why an element from another soundset is playing, or the server thinks it is playing.

Either way, if elements are playing in other soundsets or the server just thinks they are, you should be able to fix it by either navigating to the soundset that contains the playing elements and manually stopping them, or quit and re-launch the online player.

Let me know if this helps, and if the issue happens again. Any steps you can provide me to reproduce the issue will be a great help in identifying and fixing any bugs.

1 Like
#4

Thanks for the reply @sonofconan. Hopefully we can sort this out :slight_smile:

So first let me say I have zero experience with the app. I signed up for an account specifically to use the online player so I don’t really have a point of reference for any of the interface or behaviors there.

That’s problematic just because the documentation for the online player account is… lacking. As I’m sure you’re aware.

I mean… the “Help” link in the drop-down menu of the master interface literally loads a blank screen.

¯\(ツ)/¯

I understand that it’s still a beta product, but as someone who has only ever interacted with the online player, the workflow isn’t clear at all - which is frustrating.

Regarding soundsets & campaigns: The only way I can see to add a soundset I’ve created to a campaign is to leave the online master interface, open a new browser window and go to the “Your Campaigns” link on the website, make a new campaign entry, search for a soundset (and hope that the one I created shows up) and then add it.

What I’m saying is that I see no way to add a soundset to a campaign (or create a campaign) without leaving the online master interface… and that’s majorly annoying.

Since I can create a soundset from within the master online interface, I don’t see why I shouldn’t also be able to create/manage campaigns from there, or at the very least add a soundset to an existing campaign.

And again, having no frame of reference from working with the app versions of Syrinscape, it took me a good 45 minutes to figure out that I needed to exit the master interface to do those things since there is no indication anywhere within the master interface as to how I could do those things.

Additionally (while I’m already airing grievances ha) - my private soundsets show up at the top of the soundset list by default from within the master interface (which makes sense and is convenient) but from the campaign manager they show up either at the very bottom. This is also silly and annoying. Particularly if I don’t remember exactly what I named a soundest, so searching doesn’t help much.

Duplication of SFX Elements: Let me see if I can break this down a bit, because the issue I’m experiencing only somewhat lines up with the bug you said has been addressed.

I’m definitely not having issues with the Online Player crashing (at least not while doing this, but that’s a different thread that I haven’t started yet).

Here’s what I’m doing (via Firefox v69.0.1 on MacOS 10.14.6 in case that matters):

  • Create new campaign via “Your Campaigns”.
  • Launch the online master interface.
  • Click the “plus” button to create a new soundset
  • Either searching the library for SFX/Music elements and adding them to the new soundset OR copying moods from existing soundsets into the new soundset I created.
  • Closing the existing soundset(s).
  • Open the newly created soundset that has the moods/elements I previously copied over.
  • Clicking a mood (or creating a new blank mood - doesn’t seem to matter) within that soundset.
  • Activating the elements I want playing in the mood I’ve selected, modifying them (volume levels, delays, reverb preset etc)
  • Once I’ve got that mood doing what I want, I click the “Save Current State” button in the property inspector
  • The interface refreshes, and suddenly one or more of the elements in the soundset have been duplicated. And occasionally, some elements that I had made a point of deleting from the soundset entirely not only re-appear, but they start playing when I activate that mood even though they had been stopped or deleted when I saved the current state of that mood.

Once I’ve saved the mood state, and then deleted of the individual duplicated elements, things seem to go fine so long as I don’t make further changes to the mood and then click “save current state” again.

The only time I’m using the “copy mood to soundset” function is when I’m initially populating the new soundset by using a few existing moods as inspiration. After that I may add one or two elements individually by searching the library.

Hopefully I’m dense and there’s something I’m doing wrong that you can point out to me that I missed because just wasn’t in the documentation.

I believe that covers it, but certainly let me know if you need further info. I could probably make time to do a screen recording or something if that helps.

#5

@sudonem Thanks for this detailed feedback.

Oops! Thanks for pointing that out, I can definitely see how that is most un-helpful! I’ll remove the link for now. We do intend to improve the on-boarding experience with better contextual help.

In the meantime, the best source of information when getting started with the creator and online player is this series of video tutorials by @benjamin (note there are 11 videos in the playlist).

My bad, I misunderstood your earlier message. You are correct. The campaign manager functionality already existed before the online player, and is used by people who do not use the online player to get campaigns into the fantasy, sci-fi and board game players.

I understand that it is a bit clunky if you’re wanting to add your own creations to campaigns and are only using the online player, but thus far we have chosen not to duplicate that existing functionality in two places, nor to move it into the online player which would require users who only use the fantasy, sci-fi and board game players to use the online player to manage their campaigns. I’m not saying this won’t change, just explaining why it is the way it is now.

We did recently improve fix some bugs that were preventing private soundsets from appearing in the campaign manager, and preventing soundsets from being properly tagged for the search filter, and we have concrete plans for additional improvements to the existing campaign manager.

Thanks for bringing this up. We recently changed the fantasy, sci-fi and board game players to use the same soundset ordering as the online player (private sounsets at the top). I’ve just done the same for the campaign manager.

I followed your steps exactly, and I was able to find a problem.

When saving the current state (to the current mood), we were NOT stopping elements that were duplicated from other soundsets (as we should have been). Then, when saving the state a second time, those elements were again duplicated into the current mood.

This problem did not happen when saving the current state as a NEW mood. I think I’ve fixed it now. Let me know if it’s working better for you?

#6

Hey @sonofconan, I’ll do some further tinkering over the weekend and make a serious attempt at breaking things again, but so far the duplication of elements issue does seem to be resolved.

Thanks!