I created a feat, and looked at it with a character to see if it worked right. I did NOT publish it to the world.
I went back and made changes.
When I returned to my character sheet to see how the updates worked, I still only see the first version.
How long does it take for DNDBeyond's servers to update? This is crazy. It's been 30+ minutes. I've tried logging out/back in. In the Homebrew feats page, my feat shows the current updates - it just doesn't show up on my character sheet. Help?
The devs are aware. They have been for months now.
Some have said adding a level and then removing it can help, but I've never gotten that to work. It's a waiting game and I've yet to get anything make it faster.
Yes, this sucks and is a very big issue and needs to be given very high priority. But, months after the devs have been informed and with no improvement it seems they have made the decision to put this low priority.
All we can do is wait, and scream into an unhelpful void.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Thank you for your wisdom. I will continue to scream into the void with you. I updated my feat again, and created another new feat, in case it was the creation of another feat that triggered the update, AND I'm waiting another 10 minutes or so. Blows my mind. I work with computers all day long as part of my job, and have designed webpages, and have never seen something so slow...
It’s typically <20, but there’s been additional lag the last few weeks.
We have very different experiences.
It's never been less than 20 for me, since it began.
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Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond. Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ thisFAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
It’s typically <20, but there’s been additional lag the last few weeks.
We have very different experiences.
It's never been less than 20 for me, since it began.
Really? Average for me has generally been 2-10 mins, 1-2 as rare as 11-15, and 15-20 as rare as <1 min. Until this past couple of weeks, I could count on one hand the number of times it took 20+ minutes. I wonder why…. I almost exclusively (98ish%) use Safari on iOS, but rest is on Safari for macOS. I also almost never log out, and when I do I log right back in. In fact I usually have DDB open on somewhere between 2-10 tabs across phone and tablet. I am genuinely OCD (diagnosed) and save everything every which way I can working bottom up. So if I add a modifier to an Option for a Feature to a Subclass I [SAVE] the modifier, and then [SAVE CHANGES] on the option, then the feature, and then the whole subclass in order. I wonder if that make any difference?
Yeah, for this type of stuff, server lag should be < 20 ms, not < 20 min (even if that were true - which it hasn't been for me).
Originally it was that fast when DDB was on a Monolith. However, the monolith was also what was making any attempts to fix or implement anything so difficult. We see the menu bar across the top with a list of dropdowns: Collections, Rules, Sources,Tools, Marketplace, etc, and under each of those dropdowns we see a list of different things. To the monolith, it was all just one thing, “DDB.” (Kinda like the Borg, pre Hue.) So any “fixes” could have actually just broken everything. As an example, if they had added Actions to Magic Items it could have cracked every preexisting magic item which had been built (official and homebrew) which could have potentially caused every character sheet with any magic item added to it to crash. (That, like, what, >80% of tall characters?!?) So the first half of that 22 month backend overhaul was making the character sheets separate on their own server(s) and adding the capacity to query outside of the monolithThe other half was untangling all of the content (official and homebrew) from the content creation platform (aka homebrewer) and putting them on different servers too. So now, saving something in the homebrewer means it has to filter through the caches for server(s) housing the content, and then again through the caches for the servers housing the character builder/sheets.
Right after the changeover, the mods were telling people 15 minutes or less depending on when during the cashing cycle the user hit save changes. I immediately paid a debt to 20 minutes knowing that if someone tells me 20 and it’s only 15, I will be happy if somebody told me 15 and it’s 20 I will be unhappy. In less than two weeks the official estimate was raised to 20 minutes. I had heard reports of it occasionally taking an hour for some users. I had no idea that some folks like Cyb3r always saw delays with a minimum of 20, up to an hour! If that had been my experience, with the way I ‘brew… ! I am subscribed to every Mod, Staffer, and Insider I know to exist, and have time to PM them. All of them.😤 After all, a fairly significant part of the reason I spend as much money here as I do is to unlock templates and spells in the homebrewer.
Wow. I respect your experience, but I seriously hope this status quo doesn't last much longer. I've never seen something like this. I work in a hospital setting, where data is input constantly on patients, we query across servers as we go from system to system, and updates happen constantly (as, it seems, rules change constantly). I've enjoyed the DDB experience, mostly, and hope DDB gets its act together and fixes this soon. Seems it's making some steps.
My experience yesterday: I worked on one Feat from 0900 to 1600 ("ish"), to get it in working order, because it took (on average) 25-35 minutes to update EVERY TIME. I created a new character, hoping that would help speed things along (nope). I logged out and back in (nope). I updated other homebrew things (nope).
As much as I thank DDB for the product it has so far, having a lag 1000x appropriate is exactly that - not appropriate. It's an emergency to fix.
I just found this thread while searching why this is taking so long. Even a takeover of the site by wizards hasn't fixed this issue. I know "server propagation" is a problem, but this shouldn't be taking as long as it is. Unless they have to rebuild all of the homebrew content on a regular basis each time a change is made or something like that.
Ironically, found this thread also because im creating an item and one of my parties changed their mind about longbow to short bow... i find it quicker just to bloody delete the item and start again.
It has been said that there are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation and naming things.
IIRC, last time I was debugging a homebrew thing (species, specifically), it updated pretty promptly, but I was removing it from the character and re-adding it.
I'm just googling the delay time while waiting. The first 4 changes hadn't appeared in more than an hour, then a 5th one was instant, and the 6th has been 15 hours and counting. The homebrew section registers the changes, the character does not. There's gotta be something very wrong in their implementation, no way around that. Borderline unusable, gonna turn back to spreadsheets at this rate.
I've actually found Beyond is far faster with updates than it was when the thread was opened. However. You have to remove the option from the character, close the page, then open the page again and the updated option should be available. Basically, without loading a fresh copy, it doesn't recognize the change. (For subclasses, removing the subclass, opening the sheet, then returning to the editor sometimes works.)
That seems to work. Still not ideal since you have to reselect all choices, but at least you have a way to force the update when you need it to. Thanks!
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I created a feat, and looked at it with a character to see if it worked right. I did NOT publish it to the world.
I went back and made changes.
When I returned to my character sheet to see how the updates worked, I still only see the first version.
How long does it take for DNDBeyond's servers to update? This is crazy. It's been 30+ minutes. I've tried logging out/back in. In the Homebrew feats page, my feat shows the current updates - it just doesn't show up on my character sheet. Help?
It updated at >36 minutes, and only after I published another feat. This has got to be a bug.
From 20 minutes to an hour.
The devs are aware. They have been for months now.
Some have said adding a level and then removing it can help, but I've never gotten that to work. It's a waiting game and I've yet to get anything make it faster.
Yes, this sucks and is a very big issue and needs to be given very high priority. But, months after the devs have been informed and with no improvement it seems they have made the decision to put this low priority.
All we can do is wait, and scream into an unhelpful void.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Thank you for your wisdom. I will continue to scream into the void with you. I updated my feat again, and created another new feat, in case it was the creation of another feat that triggered the update, AND I'm waiting another 10 minutes or so. Blows my mind. I work with computers all day long as part of my job, and have designed webpages, and have never seen something so slow...
It’s typically <20, but there’s been additional lag the last few weeks.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
We have very different experiences.
It's never been less than 20 for me, since it began.
Click ✨ HERE ✨ For My Youtube Videos featuring Guides, Tips & Tricks for using D&D Beyond.
Need help with Homebrew? Check out ✨ this FAQ/Guide thread ✨ by IamSposta.
Yeah, for this type of stuff, server lag should be < 20 ms, not < 20 min (even if that were true - which it hasn't been for me).
Really? Average for me has generally been 2-10 mins, 1-2 as rare as 11-15, and 15-20 as rare as <1 min. Until this past couple of weeks, I could count on one hand the number of times it took 20+ minutes. I wonder why…. I almost exclusively (98ish%) use Safari on iOS, but rest is on Safari for macOS. I also almost never log out, and when I do I log right back in. In fact I usually have DDB open on somewhere between 2-10 tabs across phone and tablet. I am genuinely OCD (diagnosed) and save everything every which way I can working bottom up. So if I add a modifier to an Option for a Feature to a Subclass I [SAVE] the modifier, and then [SAVE CHANGES] on the option, then the feature, and then the whole subclass in order. I wonder if that make any difference?
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Originally it was that fast when DDB was on a Monolith. However, the monolith was also what was making any attempts to fix or implement anything so difficult. We see the menu bar across the top with a list of dropdowns: Collections, Rules, Sources,Tools, Marketplace, etc, and under each of those dropdowns we see a list of different things. To the monolith, it was all just one thing, “DDB.” (Kinda like the Borg, pre Hue.) So any “fixes” could have actually just broken everything. As an example, if they had added Actions to Magic Items it could have cracked every preexisting magic item which had been built (official and homebrew) which could have potentially caused every character sheet with any magic item added to it to crash. (That, like, what, >80% of tall characters?!?) So the first half of that 22 month backend overhaul was making the character sheets separate on their own server(s) and adding the capacity to query outside of the monolithThe other half was untangling all of the content (official and homebrew) from the content creation platform (aka homebrewer) and putting them on different servers too. So now, saving something in the homebrewer means it has to filter through the caches for server(s) housing the content, and then again through the caches for the servers housing the character builder/sheets.
Right after the changeover, the mods were telling people 15 minutes or less depending on when during the cashing cycle the user hit save changes. I immediately paid a debt to 20 minutes knowing that if someone tells me 20 and it’s only 15, I will be happy if somebody told me 15 and it’s 20 I will be unhappy. In less than two weeks the official estimate was raised to 20 minutes. I had heard reports of it occasionally taking an hour for some users. I had no idea that some folks like Cyb3r always saw delays with a minimum of 20, up to an hour! If that had been my experience, with the way I ‘brew… ! I am subscribed to every Mod, Staffer, and Insider I know to exist, and have time to PM them. All of them.😤 After all, a fairly significant part of the reason I spend as much money here as I do is to unlock templates and spells in the homebrewer.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
DDB Buyers' Guide
Hardcovers, DDB & You
Content Troubleshooting
Wow. I respect your experience, but I seriously hope this status quo doesn't last much longer. I've never seen something like this. I work in a hospital setting, where data is input constantly on patients, we query across servers as we go from system to system, and updates happen constantly (as, it seems, rules change constantly). I've enjoyed the DDB experience, mostly, and hope DDB gets its act together and fixes this soon. Seems it's making some steps.
My experience yesterday: I worked on one Feat from 0900 to 1600 ("ish"), to get it in working order, because it took (on average) 25-35 minutes to update EVERY TIME. I created a new character, hoping that would help speed things along (nope). I logged out and back in (nope). I updated other homebrew things (nope).
As much as I thank DDB for the product it has so far, having a lag 1000x appropriate is exactly that - not appropriate. It's an emergency to fix.
It's been nearly a year and this is still an issue. Updating homebrew feats or items is as infuriating as the pace at which the dev team works.
I'm guessing they're avoiding touching homebrew until the refactoring starts, but that has also been dragged on for so incredibly long…
Yup, still as slow as molasses in winter….
I just found this thread while searching why this is taking so long. Even a takeover of the site by wizards hasn't fixed this issue. I know "server propagation" is a problem, but this shouldn't be taking as long as it is. Unless they have to rebuild all of the homebrew content on a regular basis each time a change is made or something like that.
Still incredibly slow, upwards of an hour at a time.
Ironically, found this thread also because im creating an item and one of my parties changed their mind about longbow to short bow... i find it quicker just to bloody delete the item and start again.
Three years later and it's still slow to the point of never sure it's quite working :/
It has been said that there are two hard problems in computer science: cache invalidation and naming things.
IIRC, last time I was debugging a homebrew thing (species, specifically), it updated pretty promptly, but I was removing it from the character and re-adding it.
I'm just googling the delay time while waiting. The first 4 changes hadn't appeared in more than an hour, then a 5th one was instant, and the 6th has been 15 hours and counting. The homebrew section registers the changes, the character does not. There's gotta be something very wrong in their implementation, no way around that. Borderline unusable, gonna turn back to spreadsheets at this rate.
I've actually found Beyond is far faster with updates than it was when the thread was opened. However. You have to remove the option from the character, close the page, then open the page again and the updated option should be available. Basically, without loading a fresh copy, it doesn't recognize the change. (For subclasses, removing the subclass, opening the sheet, then returning to the editor sometimes works.)
That seems to work. Still not ideal since you have to reselect all choices, but at least you have a way to force the update when you need it to. Thanks!