I thought it would never happen to me

I've been working about six months on Columbia Gorge and have only suffered minor cuts and bruises. However, the RE has finally caught up with me. I have track corruption in at least two locations on the route. Those are the ones I have found. I have tried numerous times to rebuild the tdb but it always fails with the same "Track database error: 'remove_end_end' one non-vector, one vector" error. If I go into RE and try to delete the track sections where the stray blue poles exist, same error. I first discovered this problem after installing distant mountains. However that is not the problem. I have restored a backup before DM was installed and still have the problem. My next thought was that something went wrong when I installed Xtracks, so I ran Horace again. It reported "no changes required".I am in process of restoring the next previous backup as I write this. I don't know when the problem occurred. The only other possible cause that I can think of is that I did a save after applying terrain textures and had an entire tile selected (oops!).I have seven more backups to try. Hopefully I haven't lost more than a couple of weeks work. I'll let you know what happens.Cal Rasmussen
Beaverton, ORColumbia Gorge Route (Blasting tunnels near Lyle, Washington)

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RE: I thought it would never happen to me., Coonskin, Oct-16-02, 02:09 AM, (1) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., highball5, Oct-16-02, 03:06 AM, (2) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., Oz_DownUnder, Oct-16-02, 07:29 AM, (3) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., DRGWK36, Oct-16-02, 08:14 AM, (4) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., sniper297, Oct-16-02, 09:08 AM, (6) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., highball5, Oct-16-02, 11:45 AM, (8) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., calr, Oct-16-02, 12:27 PM, (9) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., highball5, Oct-16-02, 01:12 PM, (10) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., DKlemm, Oct-16-02, 01:45 PM, (11) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., calr, Oct-16-02, 04:31 PM, (12) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., DKlemm, Oct-16-02, 07:56 PM, (13) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., calr, Oct-16-02, 09:01 AM, (5) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., GMOF3A, Oct-16-02, 10:12 AM, (7) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., rjdiii, Oct-16-02, 08:55 PM, (14) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., rjdiii, Oct-17-02, 02:15 PM, (18) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., JohnCS, Oct-16-02, 10:17 PM, (15) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., calr, Oct-17-02, 11:11 AM, (16) RE: I thought it would never happen to me., Coonskin, Oct-17-02, 01:03 PM, (17)

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Very sorry to hear of the woes, Cal.Hopefully, you'll stumble onto something positive.Andre

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Howdy Cal.... For what it's worth, a while back I ran into that
exact error just shortly after I started working on a route. I had
very little track laid at that point, and being a 'green as grass' novice, I had no backups. What I discovered to be causing the problem was a piece of dynamic track I had used in a wye. I could not delete the dynamic piece, nor the standard track sections on either end of it. What I ended up doing was determining which world
tile file contained the offending track pieces, then went into the world file and manually deleted the entry for the dynamic piece.
Once I did that, the route came back to life...what little it had
at that point. The TDB was able to rebuild without incident, and I was able to use RE to delete the 2 track sections that were at either end of the dynamic piece. I then re-added a dynamic piece at the same point and it never burped. I have no idea what caused the confusion,
I can only assume it may have been in the settings for the dynamic piece. I had played with that piece extensively when I originally
placed it. I wasn't smart enough to save the entry I deleted from the world file to do a post mortum to see if there was anything obvious.
Seems like it's not a case of IF the RE will bite your hiney, it's WHEN it will do it. Hope you can recover without too much of a setback, or increased doses of blood pressure medicine.

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I had that same problem......went thru all of my backups and the same error message occourred with the track database.I then uninstalled train sim and reinstalled and had the same problem.I uninstalled again and check the program folder and noticed files still in the train sim folder. So i completely deleted the folder.... of course i had my backups on cd.When i reinstalled train sim and used my last backup, it worked.Maybe you can try this. It seemed the uninstall did not remove whatever caused the problem until i manually removed the microsoft game folder.Hope that helps..i have been working on my route for 3 months and know how you feel.
Sydney CityRail Route Developer

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-16-02 AT 08:15 AM (EDT)

The RE gods have punished you for your optimism! The exact same thing happened to me on the CTSRR. I finally found a rogue blue pole at the point where the RE crashed during the tdb rebuild, but only after several steps. I had the same problem in that I could load the route but could not approach the problem area to remove the error. I tried with the next previous backup, but had the same problem. I had installed Xtracks, too, and went through all the installation steps a second time, re-ran Horace, all to no avail. So I finally renamed the Global folder as Global Xtracks, restored my previous (non-Xtracks) Global folder, and tried again. I still could not take out the problem on the most recent version of the route, but finally could get into the next most recent version (the latest backup). I went to the point where the RE crashed during tdb rebuild and there was the rogue blue pole. I removed the tracks on either side of it, saved, and went through the tdb rebuild successfully. I then went back to the problem area and replaced the track sections I had removed, and again did a tdb rebuild. This time everything went smoothly. I have not gone back to the Global Xtracks folder, so the program is operating as though I'd never installed Xtracks. I don't know if that is part of the problem, but I'm not changing anything until I get this version of the route completed and out the door. On the face of it, I don't think Xtracks itself was the problem. The rogue blue pole was in the latest backup, which was saved BEFORE I installed Xtracks. I haven't gone back to see when the pole decided to appear - for all I know it may be in the initial version of the route. I'm sure it was in version 1.1 that was uploaded, and I have not heard of any users having problems with it. So it may have been a combination of the rogue blue pole and the use of Xtracks that did me in. Anyway, I'm taking the approach that I can build a route with Xtracks or one with dynamic track, but using the two at the same time seems to cause me trouble.Good luck with the recovery!Andy

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Hee-hee, that'll learn ya to brag, Cal. Anyone that ever played baseball as a kid knows that you don't say one single word, not even a hint, when you have a no-hitter going, cuz that will immediately put the whammy on it!Highball, just curious, "What I discovered to be causing the problem was a piece of dynamic track I had used in a wye", was there an actual 10Dwye switch involved? I made most of my wyes using 3 regular 10D manual switches instead of an actual wye switch at the point, since I long suspected there was some kind of bug in the wye switches.One thing I found that sometimes works is deleting all track connected to the culprit, leaving it isolated, then go back in and delete the bad boy himself. One major change between PO&NV1 and V2 was the quad "Coal City" was in, I had that "out of synch" problem and assorted other TDB wierdness, and ended up going into the GEO extractor and nuking the whole quad by deleting that tile. That was in August of '01, didn't know much of anything back then, unfortunately I don't know much more now!

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>> was there an actual 10Dwye switch involved? I made most of my wyes using
>> 3 regular 10D manual switches instead of an actual wye switch at the point,
>> since I long suspected there was some kind of bug in the wye switches.My problem was with a plain old 10D right manual switch. I had 2 10m straights
on the turnout leg, and then the dynamic piece to match up to 10005d curve.
When the error happened, I could go into RE and delete the switch, the first 10m
straight attached to it, but could not delete the second 10m straight, the dynamic
piece, or the 10005d curve on the other end of the dynamic piece. Once I edited
out the dynamic piece in the world file, I was able to delete the the 10 and the
curve. It was like the dynamic section went fubar and took the adjoining pieces at
either end with it.

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I have backups as recent as Monday evening. Can you tell me how to find the offending track section(s) in the world file? If I can restore that last backup and then go in and repair the damage, it would sure save me a lot of time.
Cal Rasmussen
Beaverton, ORColumbia Gorge Route (Blasting tunnels near Lyle, Washington)

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The way I did it was far from scientific. I placed the UFO object (figured it would be
unique) a few yards away from the track sections I couldn't delete, and saved the
route with the UFO. Then I went into the world folder and used a text search utility
to find 'UFO'. It found it in just one world file. I opened that file up in weirdpad and
there deleted the dynamic track entries. Requires a bit of caution... making sure
the info between the brackets, and the brackets themselves are delteted. Deleting
too much, or not enough, can start a whole 'nother poop storm. For example, here's
a 100m straight track piece entry from on of my world files....
TrackObj (
UiD ( 2 )
SectionIdx ( 2 )
Elevation ( -0.00523599 )
CollideFlags ( 527 )
FileName ( A1t100mstrt.s )
StaticFlags ( 00200180 )
Position ( -455.068 295.107 941.824 )
QDirection ( -0.00134337 0.858294 -0.00224701 0.513152 )
VDbId ( 4294967294 )
)The 'right' way might be to note the lat/long of the offending area, then go into the
Geometry Extractor, load the route, and find the same lat/long. Been a while since
I visited the GE, but I believe the name of the world file is displayed at the bottom of
the GE screen when you have the mouse over a square. From there the
same manual editing applies.Of course make a copy/backup of the world file before performing surgery just in case
the operation is a success, but the patient dies anyhow.

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-16-02 AT 01:47 PM (EDT)

Cal and Highball;If you can select the track piece it will give you the object information; Position ( -455.068 295.107 941.824 ) in RE in the object window. Then search for this and delete that piece. Also, you shouldn't need a text search program after adding the UFO object to find the world file. All you need to look for is the file with the latest change date. Or if when in RE you note the world tile values that are displayed, you then know the tile as well.Also, the UID counter, that would have to be lowered by 1 as well, am I right here? I had a piece of scenery last night that I needed to move and everytime I did, I got the send error message. So, I selected it and went to the world file and searched on those values and removed it. I also lowered the UID value by 1 which I found was the wrong thing!!! : ) When I raised it back up I was ok. I'm guessing the UID is for track pieces.

David Klemm
Illinos & St Louis Divisions
IC Version 1.0 uploaded

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Highball and David,
Thanks for the info. If a couple hours work saves me a week of work, it's worth it. I'll let you know what happens.Cal Rasmussen
Beaverton, ORColumbia Gorge Route (Blasting tunnels near Lyle, Washington)

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Cal;BTW, was their a full moon last night? I had a world file all of a sudden give me fits last night. All I was trying to do was move an object and got the send/don't send error and the 1k world file save! After renaming and getting the error 2 more times, found the location of the item by clicking on it and noting the numbers in the object window. Then opened the world file, manually removed and went on. Now today, I go replace the object and all is fine!Funny we both had errors around the same time. I think the program knows a new version is on the way so it is beginning to have errors so we go get the new and improved!

David Klemm
Illinos & St Louis Divisions
IC Version 1.0 uploaded

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Well, I think I found a backup with the tdb intact. It was created on 10/7. The terrain textures I had applied are not there nor is The Dalles Bridge. It appears that the save I did with a whole tile selected caused the corruption.Now I've got a week's work to do over again. It should go a little faster this time. One of the spots that had a track problem was a track leading to the upper deck of The Dalles Dam powerhouse. I've been wanting to redo that track anyway. It has some very sharp curves and was done almost exclusively with dynamic track. I am going to redo it with Xtracks sections.To confirm that the corruption is gone, I will do another tdb rebuild tonight.Cal Rasmussen
Beaverton, ORColumbia Gorge Route (Blasting tunnels near Lyle, Washington)

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Sorry about that Cal..I can only say "I've been THERE before"Of course..you've got your back-ups to rely on and that's good..none the less fustrating, I know.Maybe the new MSTS will be better for route building...but who knows..BTW..I'm looking forward to your route.

Paul...
www.mstsgmo.com

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-16-02 AT 09:04 PM (EDT)

I guess cause it's happened sooooo many times I'll offer a few thoughts on how I get around, or I guess beyond this. Oh yeah, and my stupid computer was acting berserk all weekend too; hangs, auto reboots screen going blank, very annoying.Anyhew, if you do a save and it gives you an error saving track database, backup restored successfully you are safe at this instant. There is something wrong somewhere now you need to find it. And you can't see anything because nothing changed as part of the save. So what I do is exit the editor, DO NOT SAVE ANYTHING!!!! and then reopen the route in the editor. If you saved anything as part of exiting you have now corrupted both the .TDB and the backup TDB. Many times if I now examine the reopened route I can see where the problem is, and it's usually not what I think, sometimes within miles. Look for blue poles where they weren't before or shouldn't be.If I cannot find the offending object I reexit the editor again saving nothing. Then I move the .TDB and the backup somewhere else. Now when I reopen the route all the gray lines over the track are gone. I again look for problems. If I find something I reexit the editor without saving, copy the .TBD back, reopen the route go to that location and see if I can correct the problem by removing objects, saving (looking for that error again) and readding the objects. This has worked about 50% of the time.If I don't see anything I reexit the editor and then try rebuilding the TDB with no .TDB or backup in the route's folder, so it has to create a new one. One of two things usually happens; either the .TDB is rebuilt successfully and you can go back to work or the rebuild will fail with a S/DS. At the S/DS point the camera box will also tell you where it failed (at least I think it does, I always know about where it is anyway, I'm just assuming the camera box is pointing to that location). At this point reopen the route in the editor and go to the location and do whatever to fix the problem. I usually just delete a couple pieces of track; save exit and rebuild the TDB. So far, knocking on wood and crossing fingers, this has always worked.OBTW, big caveat, one very negative side effect of this last tactic is you get to redo all your signals. That is unless someone can figure out how to resynch the the .TDB, World and .TIT files; I ain't.Richard

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Ya know,Sometimes ya just gotta learn to keep your big mouth shut. No sooner did I write the above then last night a blue pole showed up in the middle of the chain of plain old 100 meter straight that refuses to go away. As a matter of fact the .TDB refuses to rebuild even after I delete both the primary and the backup database . And, the camera info is usless, it's showing the problem to be 100 miles away where everything works fine. So in true railroad fashion I built a shoofly around the ^%$#@ blue pole until I can figure out how to delete it from the .TDB manually. Hopefully John's info will help. I am not loosing all those signals again!!!Richard

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Cal:Try searching the archives here on my username and 'database'. I've written quite a bit about this, and many others have added other valuable info to those discussions. I believe you'll find all the answers there.The one thing I've learned is that backups are relatively worthless. Generally the root of the problem goes way back into the route development and its only later that you actually run across it. Sometimes I've encountered database problems in areas I hadn't touched in many months. Learning how to fix the problem is the best solution.

JohnCS
dem_ex@hotmail.com
visit the DEMEX website:
http://www.dem-ex.com

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LAST EDITED ON Oct-17-02 AT 11:13 AM (EDT)

Someone suggested trying to repair the damage rather than going to backups. That is the approach I am taking. I have restored the most recent backup (Monday) and ripped up all the track on the spur leading to the top of The Dalles Dam. This is one of the problem areas with three sections of dynamic track. I re-laid the entire spur with Xtracks and one small piece of dynamic track. I think the problem in this area is gone but need to do more testing. I did find one stray section of a1t10mstrt buried under the dam which I deleted. I don't think that was causing the problem.The problem spot on the BNSF track near Lyle, WA appears to be gone. I think I fixed that before this last backup. There was no dynamic track at this spot. I deleted and re-laid three sections of track.Thus far I have done any editing of world files. I identified the correct file but it looked a bit overwhelming so I decided on a more conventional approach. At any rate, my terrain textures are back along with The Dalles Bridge. At this point I don't have distant mountains installed but I plan to do that tonight.There may be a light at the end of the tunnel...if I can just get the tunnel built! Speaking of tunnels, FYI, there is one tunnel just east of Lyle and four in a row just west of Lyle. These are all blasted out of rock with natural rock faces. I am going to try come up with portals that look like natural rock with a hole blasted in it.Cal Rasmussen
Beaverton, ORColumbia Gorge Route (Blasting tunnels near Lyle, Washington)

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Cal:This is encouraging news. I'm glad for you.In view of my hope to someday start/build my own Kansas City & Gulf route, I've been watching this thread with interest.Good luck and please share your findings with us so we can all profit from your learning experience.Andre

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