Notice to all visitors and members of the Train-Sim.Com message forums: If you plan on using a signature banner in your posts, we would like to remind you that there is a maximum size for banners. That maximum is 450 pixels wide by 120 pixels high, and not to exceed 25k. Your compliance is appreciated. FORUM RULES Problems? There are two common reasons for problems with logging in and posting messages. The first is that you are running a firewall that prevents your messages from being sent to the server. The other is that you have cookies disabled; the DCForum software requires cookies to work properly.
Last night I discovered that the latest version of GM&O crashes the simulator while the program is loading.I can get into the route in Route Editor fine.After restoring an earlier version which was known to work the sim is still crashing on start-up. I looked in all folders for any files that had been updated between 5/12 and 5/16 and found several THM files in the Global/Shapes folder which have been modified on 5/15/04 and 5/16/04. These are all D1 and N1 prefixed shapes which are dual-guage and narrow guage tracks (of which NEITHER is used in the route).When I remove GMONEW from the ROUTES folder the sim loads and runs normally.Restoring a previous back-up (known good, working version!) the simulator still crashes even with a 100% fresh install of the route.What have I missed?I also attempted reinstalling XTracks 3.10 and find that those .thm files were not changed to reflect their original file date-stamp...If I can get the route back to a working shape I can easily restore the past week's additions but at this point I'm bewildered.Anyone have a similar experience with other routes they were/are building and have advice on how to recover?Thanks! JBD
Worst trouble with MSTS is when the game starts it loads the kitchen sink and the starboard anchor just in case it might need them at some point. Let's see if I got this straight, it loads in the route editor, you can cruise around in the route editor without crashing, but the game won't load? Best thing is to narrow it down, without GM&O it loads, with GM&O it crashes. Try deleting all the files in the GMONEW \Activities, \Paths, \Services, and \Traffic folders, run the game. GM&O won't show up since there's no path, but if it loads you know it's something about activities or consists. Curious, did you already try Route Riter's "check route" and "check activities" utilities?
JBD, just as a check-point .. in your last additions in the RE, did you by any chance put a switch in and not connect at least a short piece of track to each leg of the switch. This is normally one of the few things I've run into that will let you get into the RE, but not the Sim. If this is the case and it happened to be a (new) tile not covered by your backup, it would still be there causing the problem to continue. Just a thought since I wasted a couple of days looking for the same problem. RobertR .. ADF-M&RM at http://www.adfrr.com
Robert, et al....I looked for the unconnected switch situation but didn't find any such thing however I DID find track sections where the db line wasn't appearing (shapes, no DB entry). When I tried to correct that I found an end-no end vector at the throat of St. Louis UST.Overnight I deleted the route and did a complete power-down/restart and reinstall of the known good backup. We are back up and running but I've quasi-lost two weeks worth of work but that can easily be re-installedI DID run RouteRiter on the route and found a LOT of track shapes with invalid ESD entries (which surprised me since I'd run RR on the route previously with no such errors!).My biggest concern is the updated .thm files in the global/shapes folder of the game itself which have been modifed over the course of the past two days presumably by RE since I never mess with the global files on my own!Apparently this isn't an issue as we are now loading and able to run again.Over the course of the next few days, time permitting, I'll be putting the newer world files in one at a time (doing a safe-backup each time, of course!) to try and run down where the issue lies.... My gut feeling is that it's at Relay Depot (see the screenshots of the complicated trackwork there in the GM&O 1.5 thread!). There are quite a few instances of Okie's #6 Left and Right switches in VERY close proximity to each other. I suspect this is also the reason that trying to throw a subsequent double-slip outbound from SLUST in explore mode or routing an activity as such is causing a crash.... Looks like I'll have to forego quite a few of the DS's and simplify that trackwork...Weird thing is that I DON'T have that problem in/outbound from Chicago Union or Dearborn where several DS's are employed (CUS especially!)...We labor onward!JBD
I found the problem! Deleted all activities/paths/services/traffic and the sim loaded.Restored them all and checked paths. Found broken paths in SIX different services! OH MY GAWD!!!! Somebody get out the Wouff Hong....Fixed the paths.... Still phoned home...Deleted all Activities. Back up and running...Restored all activities then took out the first six activity files and we came up and ran! Narrowed the process by restoring a few at a time and re-deleting until I narrowed it down to three specific activities.We're now back on track for a v1.5 update release in a few days!!!!FYI: If you have the route you need to delete the following files from the ACTIVITIES folder:* 9WestTest.act * 73test.act * 1970_97.act * 1970_97.asvThanks to those on the Route Design forum for helping diagnose the problem! I can't figure out why those activities are causing the crash and they aren't worth trying to figure out (2 are testing activities and the last one can be easily built from scratch!)Needless to say, I'm breathing considerably better and now I don't have to go to all that manual track/road database rebuilding!JBD