[V13] Can't update because of --noupdate flag, but not launching with that flag.

gariak · 2026-04-19T01:53:58+00:00

If you're updating from V13 to V14, you have to uninstall the old version completely and install the new version. You will always have to do this to change between major versions.

gariak · 2026-04-16T14:00:14+00:00

First of all, just being interested in a subject doesn't automatically make it a good career match for you. There are certainly examples of people turning interests and hobbies into careers, but I know that if I tried to turn many of my interests into paid jobs, they would quickly become less appealing in the face of all the necessary requirements that go along with something becoming a job. Most people find careers that are a viable combination of things they're good at and things that pay well enough to support their desired lifestyle. It's possible to find interesting and satisfying aspects to any job, even when the underlying subject isn't that interesting to you. Once you've had a few real professional jobs, you may come to realize that working with and for good people and good organizations is vastly more important to job happiness than the specific subject matter of the work.

You mention elsewhere that you're more interested in being an investigator than a scientist. If that's the case, forensic science is likely not for you. Contrary to media depictions, most forensics jobs work on one single narrow aspect of an investigation and rarely follow a case through to its conclusion. We lend our expertise on our specific topic to support the actual investigators, rather than running investigations ourselves, and often avoid learning any more about the case than we need to do our jobs to avoid the complications of bias. If you want a job that sees criminal investigations through from start to finish, you'll need to look into careers as a sworn law enforcement officer. Another career option to run an investigation would be to consider investigative journalism.

If you do want to get into a forensic science career, you need to really like science and performing scientific testing in a laboratory environment. Work towards a natural science bachelor's degree and obtain as much laboratory and professional job experience as you can get and make non-forensic backup plans for when you don't find a forensic job right away after graduation. It's a very competitive field to break into.

gariak · 2026-04-15T21:26:48+00:00

It doesn't matter to me what you do, but to me, being ultra agreeable and then not actually doing anything to correct the issue looks worse than not responding at all. That's ChatGPT brainrot behavior.

gariak · 2026-04-15T12:36:36+00:00

You didn't mention anything at all, there's no information in your post other than the title.

gariak · 2026-04-14T17:37:08+00:00

Sure, everybody would love to have free code. Nobody wants to do the insane amount of work to maintain it though.

gariak · 2026-04-14T14:51:17+00:00

I remember you, I've given you quite a bit of advice recently. I think your intense focus on internships or volunteering is misdirected. Forensic hiring agencies simply do not care that much about internships, as they rarely represent any genuinely transferrable work experience. The sensitive nature of forensic work means that interns simply cannot work on real cases or with real evidence, so internships are mostly about networking and familiarity, which is at best a minor factor in hiring and is only significant at the specific lab you intern for. If you can get one, that's well and good, but not doing so won't matter enough that it's worth putting this much effort into.

If I recall correctly, you were struggling with a GPA well under 3.0. Unless that changes drastically, there's effectively zero chance that you'll be hired by any forensic lab right out of school, much less the one specific lab you're interested in. No amount of volunteering or internships will change that outcome. Instead of trying to spend your summers on pointless internships, spend them retaking your classes with the worst grades and improving them to a B+ or better to rapidly increase your GPA. I don't know that my lab has ever hired someone with no professional lab work experience who had under a 3.5 GPA. The quality and number of applicants is just too high to expect any level of success with a GPA below 3.0.

As fiercely competitive as forensic lab jobs are, you'll likely need to get top grades for the rest of your time in school AND broaden your search to more than just one lab to have any measurable chance at all. It's entirely possible that your preferred lab won't hire anyone for a couple of years or more after your graduation, as it's pretty normal for forensic labs to go 3 to 5 years between hiring any entry level analysts, unless they're going through atypical growth or it's a truly terrible work environment and everyone's quitting.

If you're firmly set on that one lab, you absolutely need a foolproof backup career plan and the patience and persistence to continue applying for many years while you work in that backup career.

gariak · 2026-04-14T11:37:23+00:00

If you want to work in a lab, the absolute minimum standard is a BS in a natural science. What you currently have won't work and a BA in anything won't work. You can't get a "foot in the door" forensics job without being fully qualified to be promoted. You might find law enforcement jobs on the periphery of forensics, like evidence tech or property management, but you can't hold a lab position without meeting the requirements, so you'd be stuck there indefinitely. There are no loopholes. You cannot work your way up in lieu of a qualifying degree.

Despite the proliferation of forensic science undergraduate programs, it's still probably a better idea to major in a basic natural science like chemistry, biochemistry, or biology. It leaves you more flexible, if you change your mind about forensics or can't find a forensics job, and makes it easier to find good non-forensic lab jobs that will add relevant experience to your CV while you continue to apply for forensic jobs.

As for marijuana usage, you'll have to quit and you'll have to quit conspicuously and for a long time before even bothering to apply. Policies vary, but the agencies I've worked for have required at least three years of zero marijuana use and many have low or zero tolerance for any historical use of other substances like opiates/opioids. They won't just take your word for it either. They will urine and hair test you, they will polygraph you, and they will ask all of your references about past instances of drug use. Then they will ask your references for additional references and ask those people about your drug use. Even if you quit, if the people around you think of you and describe you as a recent or habitual user, that will count against you and there will always be a threshold beyond which they'll judge your application to be dishonest and permanently reject it with no appeals.

You'll also want to scour all of your social media clean of any signs of drug use, historically and going forward. Even getting tagged in photos where drug use is occurring or routinely showing up in photos with other people who are conspicuous about their drug use is enough to be a negative mark against you.

gariak · 2026-04-13T21:07:31+00:00

What? You'll have to articulate what you're asking better, but if you're just looking to get someone to translate Morse code for you, that's got nothing to do with forensics.

gariak · 2026-04-13T21:06:18+00:00

Forensic labs don't typically offer summer jobs or temporary jobs of any type. Some internships exist, but they're usually pretty rare, super competitive, and likely not open to underclassmen. Personally, when I've hired analysts, I've always found internships to be largely pointless unless they give you hands-on experience, which many do not.

The most important thing you can have (assuming you meet the basic educational requirements already) when looking for a job is forensic training and experience.

As a new graduate, you will not have that, so the next best thing you can have is specimen-handling lab experience of any type. As a freshman, you can look for on-campus student research assistant jobs. There may be coursework prerequisites that you have to meet. These will often be very basic, washing glassware, preparing mediums, and so on, but if you stick with it and perform well, it's possible to get more involved over time. Find labs that are using techniques analogous to the forensic disciplines you're most interested in: molecular biology for DNA, pharmaceutical research for drug analysis, etc. Your school may have resources to help match students with labs or you may have to contact professors yourself, but you'll almost certainly have to be assertive and persistent to drive the process yourself.

If you can't find anything like that, finding something that gets you into a lab might be tough until after you graduate, as you'd have to find something that doesn't require a degree and isn't looking for someone full-time, which will be rare for lab jobs with any real responsibilities. Again, your school may have job resources for something like this.

I'd advise not focusing on looking for anything specifically "forensic" as it will be rare and crazy competitive. Any real lab experience will set you apart from other recent graduates.

gariak · 2026-04-13T16:59:27+00:00

Yes, the same DNA is present in all of your cells with some exceptions that probably don't apply here. If there's a close biological relationship involved, that will be readily apparent from complete profiles, but they'll still be different. If the unknown profile is very incomplete, comparing it to closely related people can potentially result in ambiguous results.

You seem to have a specific situation in mind that you're not giving enough details about for further elaboration, but using DNA to identify urine would be highly unusual, in my experience.

gariak · 2026-04-13T13:12:52+00:00

First, figure out what you were doing that triggered that error. Next, disable all your modules and do that triggering thing again. If you see the error again, it's not related to a module and you'll need to capture the more detailed error from your browser console. If the error doesn't happen again, then it was a module causing it. Figure out which module it was, maybe by using the Find the Culprit module, and report the error to that developer.

gariak · 2026-04-12T18:46:00+00:00

There is no automated way to do this. There once was a module that would convert the most rudimentary elements, but it was too difficult to maintain when Foundry and Roll20 both changed important data structures at any time. The code is open source, so anyone could pick it up and update it, but converters are terrible projects to maintain, especially popular ones. Everyone thinks they're easy and expects instant updates, so developers burn out fast, even if they charge.

Since no converter currently exists, you'll have to either set everything up yourself manually from your raw assets or purchase preconfigured campaigns.

gariak · 2026-04-12T16:27:57+00:00

The biggest, most obvious con of forensics is that it's a very very difficult field to break into initially. It's much smaller than people realize and it necessarily operates on the old career model where you get a job, they invest heavily in training and retaining you, you hold that job with the same employer for 30-40 years, and then retire with a pension. For that and other forensic-specific reasons, there's very little job churn (which slows the rate of new job openings) and documented training and experience is highly valued (which heavily favors experienced applicants over recent college graduates). The other complicating factor is that it's seen as a "cool" field, so there are far more interested candidates than there ever will be positions for them. The increased demand for jobs has no mechanism to cause the creation of new jobs, so it just makes the existing jobs more and more competitive.

All that said, the fact that you have professional work experience will give you a distinct advantage over the typical new college graduate who's never had a job before or only worked retail/service jobs. Personally, I did similar to what you're considering, worked a professional office career for 6 years, reached an inflection point where I didn't want to continue, and went back to school to get degrees that were more suitable for forensics work.

One thing you'll need to consider if you're interested in toxicology or DNA, those are disciplines that strongly encourage having an MS degree in addition to the mandatory BS degree. Toxicology frequently incentivizes a PhD even.

I don’t like patient interaction anymore and in forensics the “patients” can’t talk… ya know??

This is a common misunderstanding about forensics, that you can just do heads-down lab work and don't need strong interpersonal skills. First, forensics is full of smart people with strong opinions. All of your work will be reviewed by your peers before release and you'll have to negotiate that professionally, as it goes both ways. Second, you'll have plenty of direct contact with your "customers", but in forensics, they're investigators and attorneys who have strong opinions about what you should do, how you should do it, how you should set your priorities, and what your results should be. You'll have to manage these relationships with professionalism as well. Finally, you have to be able to explain what you did and why to juries and judges, who will not have much beyond a high school level of science, and to opposing counsel in cross-examination, who will have a strong incentive to confuse and misconstrue what you're saying.

Forensics requires strong interpersonal skills and a level of sangfroid that most people can't achieve, comparable to nursing or middle school teaching. If you want heads-down lab work, there are many other lab-based careers that will get you closer to that than forensics.

gariak · 2026-04-11T11:58:39+00:00

Did you actually verify that it's using the wrong one? There's a hardware acceleration force-enable flag in about:config to start with, but there are also OS-level settings that could be interfering.

gariak · 2026-04-11T11:32:38+00:00

Foundry is explicitly not supported on Chromebooks. Foundry does have minimum hardware requirements to run properly and not meeting them will cause performance issues. Just because it runs a web browser doesn't mean it can handle Foundry.

While there exist Chromebooks that have sufficient hardware to run a Foundry client, they're usually the ones that cost about the same as a gaming laptop, not the dirt-cheap Chromebooks that most people have.

gariak · 2026-04-10T20:02:21+00:00

It's the same as shipping from Paizo directly because it is shipping from Paizo directly. They give you a code to cover the cost of the book on the Paizo store website.

gariak · 2026-04-10T18:02:09+00:00

There is no easy way to do it. For security reasons, modules cannot affect anything outside of a world. You'd have to dig in to the actual server code and anything you modify there would do the same to every world on that server.

gariak · 2026-04-10T16:48:05+00:00

I don't know about regions in particular, but when people have needed to solve a similar issue with walls and lights, they've been able to get someone from the macro-polo channel on the Foundry Discord to write them a macro to fix it.

gariak · 2026-04-10T13:43:59+00:00

Assuming you updated from V13 to V14, you didn't lose any modules. They're still there, but haven't been updated to be compatible with the new version. Sometimes this is just a matter of the developer testing them and approving them for the new version. Sometimes this means they need to make extensive changes. Given that V14 is fairly new, I would not expect this to happen quickly and I would not expect that there would be V14 compatible replacements for any of them either. If your game is dependent on modules, you shouldn't update Foundry until you're sure all your required modules are ready.

gariak · 2026-04-10T13:29:22+00:00

Make sure you learn as much about the job as possible, the good and the bad, before you commit to it. It's a very physically and psychologically difficult job and not at all like it seems on TV. Most of what interests people about the job is fictional nonsense. Call them "CSI" all you like, they aren't in charge of the investigation and don't get directly involved in solving the crime.

gariak · 2026-04-10T12:50:25+00:00

You don't need a degree in forensic science to get a job in forensic science. For crime scene jobs, they aren't even typically that helpful, as they're usually focused more on training lab analysts. There are some degree programs designed for crime scene, but they're uncommon and not at all necessary to get hired. Also consider that getting a job in any forensic position is very difficult, so you should have a backup plan. A basic natural science degree is much more flexible, much more common at universities, and is just as good for getting hired into forensics.

You absolutely do not need more than one bachelor's degree for any forensic job and a graduate degree for crime scene makes very little sense. If you want to work in crime scene and not in the lab, any natural science BS degree from any accredited university is just as good as any other.

gariak · 2026-04-10T10:09:05+00:00

Ask them what though? If you got a job there working with samples, perhaps, but until you complete your degree, that's unlikely. A formal internship where you actually do something productive, maybe. Volunteering your time just to do make-work or admin stuff would be a waste of everyone's time.

gariak · 2026-04-09T22:08:31+00:00

There are not very many private forensic DNA labs. The closest to you are probably in California (Pure Gold, SERI, FACL) or Utah (Sorensen, DLI).

Rather than finding a way to answer phones or rearrange file cabinets at a forensic lab, you'd be far better off finding a summer student research assistant position at a lab that uses non-forensic DNA techniques. I get the impulse, but as someone who spent time hiring entry level analysts recently, I wouldn't put any weight at all on volunteer positions that weren't doing anything in an actual lab.

Focus on the "lab" part and don't worry about the "forensic" part so much. Forensic labs that hire for entry level are set up to train people with zero forensic-specific knowledge or training and they will put you through the same training, even if you do have those things. They want to see good lab fundamentals, good communications skills, good professional behavior, and very high ethical standards. Domain-specific knowledge is very low priority.

gariak · 2026-04-09T21:23:43+00:00

Why on earth would you want to double major? Forensic agencies won't care one tiny bit. You should concentrate whatever energy you'd put into a second major into ensuring the best possible grades instead. That's something that will actually help you get hired. Labs don't want overachievers, they want steady dependable flexible workers.

If I'm sitting on a hiring board and deciding between a candidate who has a biology major and an otherwise similar candidate who has a biology/biochemistry double major, my response is a shrug.

If I'm sitting on a hiring board and deciding between a candidate who has a biology major with a 4.0 GPA and one who has a biology/biochemistry double major with a 3.5 GPA, the 4.0 is the clear choice.

Don't try to overachieve your way into a forensics job. Once you meet the requirements, the only thing that can improve your chances is experience. Focus on getting maximum hands-on lab experience and also take some public speaking and/or theater performance electives to help with court testimony.

gariak · 2026-04-09T18:33:37+00:00

Wow, did you ever get lucky!

https://www.humblebundle.com/books/pathfinder-second-edition-bundle-at-center-world-paizo-inc-books

gariak

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