A Tale of Two Routes

[HiBaller]

I have two routes I've created. By themselves, they look/run just fine. No errors in either. rt1 is two boards, and rt2 is three boards.

They will NOT merge with each other no matter what. I tried loading rt1 and merging with rt2. Waited overnight and still no merge, just the marching boxes on the screen. Okay, let me try it the other way. I loaded rt2 and merged it with rt1. Same exact thing and no merge even overnight. Is this some bug in build 117009 (TS2019)? Can anyone shed any light on why these two won't merge?

What's really odd is that Task Manager reports CPU usage around 4.5-5.0% usage, but the GPU bounces all over the place from 6% all the way up to 40%. I don't think this is normal unless the merge process tries to use video RAM.

Bill

 

[stagecoach]

Make sure you don't use the same layer names in both.

 

[HiBaller]

Already took care of that. No two names the same. Meant to put that in my initial post. In fact, the "Merge" button won't light up if two names are the same. Plus, there's a big red square highlighting the same names.

Bill

 

[HiBaller]

Have some more strange observations:
1. RT1 will merge just fine with a blank, 1-board route.
2. RT2 will NOT merge, but hang when attempting to merge with a 1-board route.
3. During RT2's attempted merge, the CPU hangs nearly rock-solid at 13.4%. The RAM consumed never changes.
4. The GPU is another matter. It will vary from 25% all the way up to over 90%.

This leads me to believe that, somehow, Trainz utilizes the video RAM when attempting to merge. I watched the GP percentage on item 1. It flashed up to 35% for a couple of seconds, then dropped to 15% as soon as the merge was finished and I was looking at the merged route.

I have also discovered that RT2 has a hidden locked layer. The layer pullout shows just the normal route and session, yet any attempt to copy/paste from one place to another fails with the honk and a message stating "One or more items cannot be pasted because they are a locked layer." I cannot see any locked layer. I have a feeling this is the reason for the inability to merge.

Looks to me that RT2 is toast and I'll have to start all over again because it is unworkable as it stands. A month of work down the tubes.

Bill

 

[stagecoach]

Try merging the session into the route first. Sometimes things like track objects are on a different layer to the track.

 

[HiBaller]

Haven't tried that. I'll give it a go and see what happens.

Bill

 

[HiBaller]

Nope. Didn't work. I tried to merge with a clean, 1-board route just created and the program went off into limbo-land with no return. I don't like killing the program using Task Manager, but that's the only way I can get back control. Then I have to do a DBR. Bummer.

Bill

 

[HiBaller]

I have discovered that over half of my created routes will NOT merge even with a 1-board, blank route. Six out of fourteen tell me they can't paste because of a locked layer, which doesn't exist on the layer pull-out. Somehow, I seem to be injecting this hidden, locked, layer which is screwing up everything. I probably should have stayed with TANE to create routes and only import the "finished" ones into TS2019.

Giant steps backward.

Bill

 

[JCitron]

Try a database repair and see if that works. It's situations like this that warrant a DBR.

You can also try Delete Missing Assets. During the cleanup process, the program resets the data-tables and that may fix the problem.

 

[HiBaller]

Thanks, John. I've been doing a DBR (big and little) after every time I have to kill the program using Task Manager. I'll try the delete missing assets tomorrow morning.

On one of my routes I found five splines (road) and a whole section of track (yard) 5 boards outside the current configuration. I was only able to see where they were by zooming out until just before the gradient went away. Added the five boards, deleted the crud, and then deleted the extra boards and saved once more. Still wouldn't merge. I'm wondering if I have some other stuff even farther out. This route started as one board and I expanded only when I needed to. It was never chopped down to size, so I have no idea where the half-yard and the road came from.

Bill

 

[stagecoach]

Those bits outside the baseboard may have come from an attempted merge which got curtailed early. When you try the merge and a red square shows, it means that the section has something in it. Zooming out with minimap may show assets outside of the baseboard area.

 

[HiBaller]

I thought of that, but I went into my saves and loaded up the route from when I had just built the yard. I added the extra boards in the right direction, and there the errant tracks were. Just for grins, I went back to the real yard and added three more tracks. Then I went back and found the three tracks had been "ghosted" as well. Somehow, my route has been corrupted to it think there are two, identical routes in one, BUT just a piece of one as there is only one ghost board. I'm afraid I'll have to start over again on this one. It seems as if some pointers were duplicated.

I tried deleting missing assets to get the tables rebuilt, but it didn't help. I assume this is because the ghost tracks were already there and were simply added to the tables.

The other route (what I called RT1, above) will now join with three more of my routes, so I know it's fine.

Bill

 

[stagecoach]

You should be able to replace new baseboards under where the ghost assets are and then you may be able to delete them. Don't just delete the board as this won't remove them all.

 

[HiBaller]

What I did was march new boards in the direction of the ghost items, then deleted the items, then deleted the boards I used to get to them. Then I saved. Now, the ghosts are gone. However, the route will still not merge even with a 1-board, empty route. I'm giving up on it and created the route over again.

Bill

 

[JCitron]

Does merging a 1-board blank into RT2 work?

If it does, once merged, save this as a new route. I have found that saving a new version sometimes clears up issues like this. It's better to merge the other way around, but since that's impossible this might work.

If it doesn't, then sadly something broke somewhere to cause this to occur.

 

[HiBaller]

I agree with you, John. The 1-board merge with RT2 will not work, or vice-versa. I can merge a 1-board with another 1-board ad infinitum, but RT2 is just not making it. Fortunately, I've just started putting down scenery on the yard (which RT2 is, mostly) when I tried the first merge as a "see if it fits" move. That's when all this started.

I seem to remember, back when I was just stringing the first yard tracks, I had a tiny power glitch. My UPS held fast and nothing blinked, but there could have been just a microsecond when the route was vulnerable. The UPS is 1500w, so it's robust enough, but one never knows.

Bill

 

[stagecoach]

If you would like to send both routes to me I could see what I can do.

 

[JCitron]

I agree with you, John. The 1-board merge with RT2 will not work, or vice-versa. I can merge a 1-board with another 1-board ad infinitum, but RT2 is just not making it. Fortunately, I've just started putting down scenery on the yard (which RT2 is, mostly) when I tried the first merge as a "see if it fits" move. That's when all this started.

I seem to remember, back when I was just stringing the first yard tracks, I had a tiny power glitch. My UPS held fast and nothing blinked, but there could have been just a microsecond when the route was vulnerable. The UPS is 1500w, so it's robust enough, but one never knows.

Bill

It sounds like something got hosed, sadly. Who knows, that split second may have been enough to glitch the memory or caught the computer at a bad time such as during a disk write.

 

[HiBaller]

If you would like to send both routes to me I could see what I can do.

Appreciate the offer, but there are a lot of non-DLS content involved. Some of which, I can't remember where I got it. I'm thinking that if you don't have everything, it might not merge, or it might, depending on what content you do or don't have.

Bill

It sounds like something got hosed, sadly. Who knows, that split second may have been enough to glitch the memory or caught the computer at a bad time such as during a disk write.

I think so as well, John. UPSs are fallible if only for those few nanoseconds it takes to switch from shore to ship power.

Bill