A Little Assistance Required, Anyone?

[817TAYLOR]

It has been a while since I have even been on this domain, and now I return in ask for help. It has been two probably going on three months since I have had any operable version of any form of Trainz.

The original problem persisted when I purchased and installed an SP1 ONLY asset into a pre SP1 installation. My game would not let me do anything, for every time I open the launcher and attempt to click on something, it proceeds to do a full EDR, and after it completes an EDR it does another one, and another one, and so on.


Within the past few weeks I had the game working for a little as I one by one installed each folder out of the local folder, after a while it started to continuously freeze. It only got worse and eventually it started doing the EDR thing again so I uninstalled it and here I am.


Is there anyone who can assist me?

If anyone has any ideas, or would like to know any details about my computer, ask and I can display them.

Any assistance or ideas is appreciated.

Thank you anyone and everyone in advance if it is at all possible.


-T.

 

[Falcus]

Do remember which files it was you had just re-installed when it started Freezing/EDR Looping? And what file was it that was SP1+ Only? I would start trying to rebuild without those and see what happens. Also, if they were JR SP1+ Only, you should know that their SP1+ only locomotives tend to auto-install SP1+ dependencies such as, IIRC, Cabs and FX Libraries and such, and those would be more likely to have install wide implications.

Good Luck,
Falcus

 

[pdkoester]

Now would be a good time to try installing build 61388, and move forward. Couldn't hurt, since you had to reinstall it anyway. Do you have boxed copy or a digital download?

 

[Enzo1]

Well the issue is you probably busted the database with faulty assets. What happens is some of the JR stuff deps that you have then, could be overwritten with the 3.7 build. If this occurs, it will cause anything to use those deps to go faulty. It may cause just enough of them to cause total destruction. Oh, and you cannot backdate 3.7 builds. There is a specific reason I will not risk SP1 stuff into TS2010, you can't backdate right. Tried it, and all it does bring out more faultiness. If it says just TS12, there's a good chance you can backdate into TS2010, but you cannot backdate the 3.7. Your only option in this case is to reinstall and pretty well start over again, and patch to SP1, or accept that you wasted your money.

 

[pdkoester]

Just to show you, I feel your pain... turned on TS12 (not used for a week) and look:



This is a database glitch, as you can see whatever is built-in also is having a problem. Not everything, just random whatever. And, I believe I know the cause. I have SSDs, they do optimization (called "trim") occasionally. This is the third time I know of that the optimizing has gone and glitched it. Good thing I am comfortable with reinstalling, this is first time this year, I think. Just keep your content backed up, and use a smaller database. I had bigger database than this before, and way much more problems. Yeah, there will be some minor fixing you might need to do, like the *.WAV files or the missing thumbnails. But, you get good at it, then it gives you no more headache because you get good at that. When T:ANE comes along, we all are in for some more content massages.

Paul

 

[JCitron]

Downloading something that's not your version shouldn't trigger this. It should only show errors its self, or not be installed as it will show up red in the download queue. If this is occurring often, then there's something that's causing the database to put up a dirty flag. A dirty flag is a switch that tells trainzutil to kick in a database repair.

If you are running some kind of disk utility, which operates on the fly while other programs are in operation, this can cause the trainzutil to kick in and run a database. I suggest you turn off automatic trimming, if you are running an SSD with that kind of utility. I had a similar problem with Disk Keeper Professional, which I posted about recently. This utility has an on-the-fly defragmentation algorithm, which moves data that's been accessed to make it faster. This touching of data that gets uncompressed and compressed many times by TS12 only caused trainzutil to have fits as the database was constantly looking for files. In the end I turned this feature off, and have had no problems since. I reported this to both N3V and to Disk Keeper.

Once the database has been flagged, it needs to be done otherwise you cannot start Trainz so perform the complete database repair, you might want to do this in Content Manager instead of Trainz its self. When done, go through and check for faulty assets, view them to remove them, and you should be all set from there.

John

 

[817TAYLOR]

Now would be a good time to try installing build 61388, and move forward. Couldn't hurt, since you had to reinstall it anyway. Do you have boxed copy or a digital download?

I have disc copy.

Do remember which files it was you had just re-installed when it started Freezing/EDR Looping? And what file was it that was SP1+ Only? I would start trying to rebuild without those and see what happens. Also, if they were JR SP1+ Only, you should know that their SP1+ only locomotives tend to auto-install SP1+ dependencies such as, IIRC, Cabs and FX Libraries and such, and those would be more likely to have install wide implications.

Good Luck,
Falcus

I believe I was told it had to do with the texture compressinon why it is SP1 only and he had the SD9 in PRE SP1 TS12.

@JCitron
Is there any specs or anything you'd like to see from my computer that would farther assist my situation?

 

[pdkoester]

Since you have a disc copy, then you just need the one patch that takes it from 49933 ( I think ? ) to 61338. Patching takes about an hour on a fairly newer setup. Worst case scenario, run it overnight when you are sleeping. Got nothing to lose, you have plenty of time.

 

[JCitron]

I have disc copy.



@JCitron
Is there any specs or anything you'd like to see from my computer that would farther assist my situation?

List your specs anyway, but I don't think this has anything to do with what your hardware is unless you updated something recently.

A database issue is usually caused by something killing the database and causing it to crash whether it's self-inflicted by shutting down the machine while running Trainz or in Content Manager, or some hardware issues that have caused the program to crash unexpectedly.

John

 

[817TAYLOR]

Is there anything you can suggest for me?

 

[JCitron]

Is there anything you can suggest for me?

Referring back to your original database problem, I would run some disk checks such as chkdsk (Choose scan for errors from System tools, or right click on your drive and choose properties then tools - this is probably a bit faster to get to. If nothing is found, this will rule out any problems with your drive.

Regarding the fresh install, I did just what Paul suggested. Instead of being an all day job of installing plus patching, I spent the $25.00 at the time and got another copy already patched up. This saved a ton of time and then of course I then had to import or copy my data and install any DLC content I have. That process, of course, ran overnight and into the next morning due to the amount of content I have installed from a decade of Trainzing.

Since my fresh install, knock wood, I haven't had many issues since.

John

 

[pdkoester]

Referring back to your original database problem, I would run some disk checks such as chkdsk (Choose scan for errors from System tools, or right click on your drive and choose properties then tools - this is probably a bit faster to get to. If nothing is found, this will rule out any problems with your drive.

Regarding the fresh install, I did just what Paul suggested. Instead of being an all day job of installing plus patching, I spent the $25.00 at the time and got another copy already patched up. This saved a ton of time and then of course I then had to import or copy my data and install any DLC content I have. That process, of course, ran overnight and into the next morning due to the amount of content I have installed from a decade of Trainzing.

Since my fresh install, knock wood, I haven't had many issues since.

John

Just adding my input on this... assuming you have all your content backed up... start backing up anything else you want to keep from your computer onto an external drive or another hard drive if you have a spare. Put this aside, and look around for your Windows installation or system restore disc. Have this ready in case you cannot refresh your computer. Now, before I give you more instruction, let's figure out what you have for an operating system. Are you using Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8? Is this a brand name computer like Dell, HP, Lenovo, IBM, Gateway, Alienware? Or, is this a home brew, built from various parts in a custom case? I want to make sure we steer in the right direction before the next steps are suggested.


Paul

 

[817TAYLOR]

Referring back to your original database problem, I would run some disk checks such as chkdsk (Choose scan for errors from System tools, or right click on your drive and choose properties then tools - this is probably a bit faster to get to. If nothing is found, this will rule out any problems with your drive.

Regarding the fresh install, I did just what Paul suggested. Instead of being an all day job of installing plus patching, I spent the $25.00 at the time and got another copy already patched up. This saved a ton of time and then of course I then had to import or copy my data and install any DLC content I have. That process, of course, ran overnight and into the next morning due to the amount of content I have installed from a decade of Trainzing.

Since my fresh install, knock wood, I haven't had many issues since.

John

So basically you're saying update


also, specs as of a few minutes ago.

 

[JCitron]

That's a pretty standard PC rating. Most hard drives aren't going to get any faster than that unless you replace them with an SSD.

For the TS12... Is this an upgrade? Not really, but suppose it is because you'll get everything in one package instead of needing to do a piecemeal install.

If you need to rebuild your PC, follow Paul's advice, and I do suggest running a disk check to ensure you're not wasting your time reinstalling only to have the disk kill everything again right after that. Been there and done that a few times with older PCs.

John

 

[817TAYLOR]

My question is if I went to SP1 would the problem resolve itself?

Also, new problem persists. After it started doing the thing again I uninstalled the program and now I went back to do it and discovered this....
http://hostthenpost.com/uploads/1bd1c4221fbe5c33807e361d542e2a58.jpg
(Very large picture didn't know my phone had that sort of resolution)

I hope I can get this reinstalled but if not I am toast. It was telling me it was unable to find something from this disc.

Will post what ends up happening.

 

[817TAYLOR]

Well, I hang my head low and claim defeat to my broken disc.

 

[shaneturner12]

Is that the second disk you put in or did you re-insert the first disk?

Shane

 

[817TAYLOR]

It is disc 2 of installation.

When I put the disc in the drive that pops up now. I honestly think it can't read it because of the damage.

 

[pdkoester]

Well, maybe just before this happened, on your last installation that seemed to work, it probably didn't save something correctly, and hence why you got a problem. I have digital copy of it, discs go bad after a while, unfortunately. You should consider getting a digital copy.