Asset Database Backup: Wow! Over 20,000 files!

[MasterTracklayer]

Wow, that was quite an old (relatively) post that you just Liked, JCitron! I`m kinda wondering why you Liked it now, instead of earlier.

Meanwhile: I`m assuming that you mean don`t ever use them for anything but file-transfer and such, like they were designed for. Agreed, they are not suited for frequently-accessed files, but I wasn`t intending to any of mine for anything relating to this: I was merely mentioning what hardware I *have* so that people wouldn`t try to get me to use hardware I haven`t, and I am seriously *not* considering any significant hardware (or software) purchases anytime soon.

I`m under the impression that the Win7 build is old enough that the packaged assets were unlikely to be identical to the latest Win10 packaged assets. Do you *know* that they`re identical? When/if my current download terminates successfully, I can verify whether or not the data in question matches. At least this will answer the question definitively (at least for this package). If it does, I`ll do as you suggest and just copy over the other packaged-asset downloads rather than downloading *them* again. I think I understand the procedure well enough, but I reserve the right to come back here and ask for clarification. <wink>

As for re-downloading the DLS content, that isn`t bothering me nearly as much. I am prepared to jump through those hoops if necessary, as I have "only" around 5500 assets in question, and downloading some of them will automatically pull in some of the others, and some of them already have newer versions which I will get without a separate update-old-assets operation. No big deal, just tedious.

Status update: 5787MB of 7904MG, 464 minutes remaining. I`m not sure, but I think that this may have just passed the point where it barfed the first try. Yup, just checked, and it certainly looks like it is.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

Ya liked that one that much, RetroRails12? Interesting. It wasn`t *intended* to be funny, but that`s perfectly ok. Mind if I ask what struck your metaphorical funnybone? I hope not, `cause I`ma askin`. ;P

Edit: fix typo, and to add:

Status update: 6054MB of 7904MG, 447 minutes remaining.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

Status update: 7904MB of 7904MB, 0 minutes remaining.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE!

Unfortunately, this is not a good time for me to proceed to the next step, as I have to be AFK for a while. I`ll be back in a few hours to let you know if the two downloads match, and whatever follows from that.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

Hi, JCitron! I`m back, and already was when you Liked the above post; I just hadn`t gotten around to checking in *here* yet.

Combination Test Results and Status Report:

The two copies of that file are indeed byte-for-byte according to a simple-minded file-compare program I just cobbled together, and I`m in the process of copying the remaining items in the old ".../packages/" directory into the new packages directory. Last time I looked, about two to five minutes ago (I am **horrible** at estimating times; my time sense is apparently somewhat screwy), the copy dialog was estimating ten minutes remaining. I went back and checked again just now, and it said over an hour momentarily before changing to about half an hour. Now it says 17 minutes. Windows is apparently legendary for having its estimate of remaining time to completion of something being overly-sensitive to small changes in circumstances. Now it says 9 minutes, and I`m waiting for it to ask me what to do with the duplicate file.

Load up Trainz and trigger a rebuild of the index, I believe someone said, is the next step; is that right?

Edit: Status update: Copy finished. Unless someone says "No!" here before then, next time the parts of the forum I`m lurking in slow down enough, I`m going to start Trainz and run the rebuild asset index operation.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

The rebuild has completed in 492 seconds.

There were a censored heap of "<kuid> has been found in a new location", a pile of "<kuid> has been added", and several "<kuid> has been found in multiple locations, ignoring one" (paraphrased).

There were also a few of what look to be errors: "Failed to download precached data for package 'name' at version 'number' for platform 'standard-9'". There were probably other notations as well that I missed as they flew by, but filtering down to errors and warnings, but Multiple Locations and Failed to Download were the **only** commentary to survive the filtering.

I`m pretty sure that this is nothing to worry about, but I would appreciate confirmation while I am looking at what happened here while I was typing this.

 

[JCitron]

The errors failed to download precached data for package blah can be ignored. These have something to do with the version installed being newer than the cached information on the server.

I highly recommend setting up filters to sort content. There are four I use most often, meaning daily when I download content from the DLS or install assets from third-party sites.

1) Missing Assets.

Installed = true
Missing assets = true

Faulty - only.

I customized the Faulty Assets filter to be Faulty - only. The reason for this is if there are missing dependencies and everything else in the list this becomes confusing and I only want to see what's faulty.

Installed = True
Faulty = True.

KISS

Obsolete and NOT DLC.

Installed = True
Obsolete = True
Packaged = False
Authorised (sic) = True
Payware = False

The reason for this is to delete downloaded or installed from third-party locations, any obsolete content. This helps keep the database clean and save disk space by removing unused content.

The related filter - look at this first before the obsolete assets.

Installed - Out of Date - not DLC*

Installed = True
Out of Date = True
Packaged = False

*I will change the Packaged to true and check for any updates to the packaged content because that does come through fairly often. I will most likely set up a filter for this as well. Packages can't be altered directly, however there are periodic updates to individual assets that can be updated. These are in addition to full package updates found in Content Store.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

Thank you, JCitron. I had assumed that those errors and warnings were of the harmless variety, but it seldom hurts to have your assumptions confirmed, if only because they are confirmed to be erroneous.

As for the filters, those by-now-infamous lost filters I had written before upgrading, I had some similar filters in my list. I had modified a couple of the built-in filters and added, oh, about 40 to 50 custom ones. I didn`t have any exactly like the ones you suggest, perhaps because I use the DLS exclusively for my downloadable content. I still get occasional missing assets of unknown location, which I am sure shocks you not at all, but that`s not your fault, unless you uploaded the dependent asset, of course. Even then, it still might not be your fault, as I hear it, because of N3V occasionally taking down assets that other assets depend on.

Anyway, the tediousness of processing the filters themselves is the only issue with having to recreate the filters. Saving and editing filters has always been glacial. I think that the slowness is on the order of N squared -- or worse -- where N is the number of filters. Can we get N3V to work on this?

Speaking of which: I had an idea regarding their possible migration:
1. Scan and record the timestamps of all of the files in the data directory.
2. Start Trainz and Content Manager, and exit without doing anything.
3. Repeat Step 1.
4. Compare the two sets of timestamps, and throw away the records of any files whose timestamp has NOT changed.
5. Start Trainz and Content Manager and create or modify ONE filter.
6. Repeat Step 1 again.
7. Look for any files whose timestamps do NOT survive Step 4, yet were modified by Step 5.
8. If the result of Step 7 is EMPTY, take a closer look at the files that DO survive Step 4.

I could easily write something like that in Python, and it would certainly have its uses beyond this, but I don`t think that it is worth the bother at this time.

 

[blueodessey]

blueodesesy, thank you for liking my two earlier posts, however some of the information in one of them turned out to be inaccurate: Of the five asset directories I had in my Open for Edits directory last time I had looked, only three are still there. (Did I *move* them somewhere and forget?) Of those three, only one is at all usable. While waiting for my endless download to complete, I turned a copy of that one into something vaguely resembling the Hello World scripting tutorial on the Wiki. I don`t wish to jiggle the metaphorical arm of the downloading process, so I`m not going to test it until *much* later. Regarding the sharing of that information, I`m glad that it could entertain AND inform you at the same time. As I have said several times, in this and other threads, I can handle the impossible fairly easily (most of the time); it`s the easy stuff that throws me for loops, because it has been so long since I last used it. Actually, I think that most of my LIFE has been somewhat like that. :|

Edit: Status update: the self-restarted download now reports as 988MB of 7904MG, 994 minutes remaining. Great googly-moogly, it was *far* past this before it spontaneously restarted.

Edit 2: "Did I *move* them somewhere and forget?" Yes, I did; they are on my desktop, and the ones that I can understand even look usable!

No worries my friend, such is life as we age, I forget where I have put things at times.

And when you haven't done something in a while, it does escape, how was this done, I need to remember.

Also one needs to remember, we live in a high tech and extremely socially oriented world. Much different than the world I grew up in the 1950's yes, I am old. But still make sure, I continue my personal education to learn as much as I can.

Thank you for sharing.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

Friend? Really? I find it difficult to make friends, if only because my definition of "friend" is significantly different from my definition of "acquaintance", and most other people treat them as nearly synonymous. A true friend will go out of their way to help you with stuff that nobody else would even THINK about touching.

Agreed. As I have said elsewhere, for me, "The impossible is easy, while the easy is impossible", to reparaphrase myself.

Likewise.

No, thank YOU.

Trying to get back on something resembling the ambient topic, I have to load up the Content Manager and see what IT thinks of the current state of affairs.

 

[JCitron]

Thank you, JCitron. I had assumed that those errors and warnings were of the harmless variety, but it seldom hurts to have your assumptions confirmed, if only because they are confirmed to be erroneous.

As for the filters, those by-now-infamous lost filters I had written before upgrading, I had some similar filters in my list. I had modified a couple of the built-in filters and added, oh, about 40 to 50 custom ones. I didn`t have any exactly like the ones you suggest, perhaps because I use the DLS exclusively for my downloadable content. I still get occasional missing assets of unknown location, which I am sure shocks you not at all, but that`s not your fault, unless you uploaded the dependent asset, of course. Even then, it still might not be your fault, as I hear it, because of N3V occasionally taking down assets that other assets depend on.

Anyway, the tediousness of processing the filters themselves is the only issue with having to recreate the filters. Saving and editing filters has always been glacial. I think that the slowness is on the order of N squared -- or worse -- where N is the number of filters. Can we get N3V to work on this?

Speaking of which: I had an idea regarding their possible migration:
1. Scan and record the timestamps of all of the files in the data directory.
2. Start Trainz and Content Manager, and exit without doing anything.
3. Repeat Step 1.
4. Compare the two sets of timestamps, and throw away the records of any files whose timestamp has NOT changed.
5. Start Trainz and Content Manager and create or modify ONE filter.
6. Repeat Step 1 again.
7. Look for any files whose timestamps do NOT survive Step 4, yet were modified by Step 5.
8. If the result of Step 7 is EMPTY, take a closer look at the files that DO survive Step 4.

I could easily write something like that in Python, and it would certainly have its uses beyond this, but I don`t think that it is worth the bother at this time.

You're welcome, Sir! Yeah, they're annoying messages that eat up processing time, I think due to the constant checking on the server. The more DLC content you have the longer it takes to process.

40-50 of these little filters is a real lot of them! I thought my mere handful was a lot. I agree they're time-consuming to put together and unfortunately, they're still very restricted due to the locked parameters we can use. As I've said before, I'd love to be able to create a filter to sort out assets that are a dependency of something else. This would help with database clean ups since old content still gets downloaded as dependencies of routes and other assets.

The unknown assets aren't always due to N3V removing them. There are cases, yes, where someone has illegally uploaded copyrighted assets without permission, or has blatantly claimed ownership and uploaded someone else's content under their own ID, but for the most part, these cases are rare. What happens is someone has a customized asset that isn't uploaded to the DLS, and then others downloading the route, session, or something else, ends up with a missing dependency. Other cases are due to assets coming from elsewhere such as third-party websites, or including DLC that others don't have. N3V is working to resolve this latter issue by ensuring assets are up on the DLS, but that doesn't help if there are custom assets included in the DLC that can't be uploaded to the DLS.

There's a useful source for this: www.trainzkuidindex.com that has a crawler to seek out assets. The site doesn't host any assets and only provides links to their sources based on availability. That availability has changed unfortunately from the time the crawler has searched until when the user goes looking and we've ended up getting caught out, but for most part it works.

There is a bug in Content Manager. In Content Manager if you were to install a route that looks for a base KUID-asset and installed is the updated version either through DLC or not, the route or session will still see the original KUID and not the KUID2 version causing a missing dependency. I reported this to N3V but they can't seem to find the issue.

There is also a case where the assets have been hidden on the DLS directly but can still be downloaded anyway as dependencies. This is due to older assets being hidden so that the Content Repair Group (CRG) can repair or update the older assets. Currently this list is huge... There is a way to find the assets, though. Login to the DLS website and manually download the asset via an FTP client.

Your Python scripting and thoughts on exporting the filters is way above my paygrade. My programming consists of taking various languages as required classes while in college.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

JCitron: In order,

I agree.

When running Trainz 2009/2010, I had so many filters that the filter tabs alone covered half of my standard-sized-monitor`s full-screen real estate. I`ve seen messages here that suggest that other people might have almost as many, but it is difficult to compare when one person`s "just a few" can easily be at least twice as many as someone else`s "huge pile". On my current screen, which is a little on the wide side but probably of standard height, the drop-down list of filters not only scrolled, it was near, at, or perhaps slightly beyond the point where the bottom filter when at the top of the list was above the top filter when at the bottom of the list. Still, just a handful compared to that other Trainz installation, I think. Or mebbe not. Yeah, I think the numbers were probably comparable. I don`t quite recall what filters I had then, but this time --for Win7 Trainz22-- I had --for most asset categories-- All, Only Installed, and Available for Download. I also had a few like Update Available that ignored the category of the asset. That is enough for you to estimate how many I have in the Win7 edition content filter. With the older setup on the other computer, my elaborate keywording allowed me to write filters that could select assets based on a much finer grade of categories than N3V provided at the time. All flora, regardless of issues like spline vs object? No problem. Only box cars? No problem. Only all animals? Just livestock? Specifically cattle? No problem. You say the asset you want is miscategorized and the standard filters can`t find it? No problem. The asset claims to be what you`re looking for but isn`t? (Fences claiming to be track, for example,) No problem. Trying to edit the filters themselves? BIG problem. The filter you say you want? We can do exactly that, just not as a filter. Hiss. Boo.

I never claimed that that was anywhere neat the top of the list. I just gave that as an example of why it might not be YOUR fault even if you had uploaded the asset requiring it.

That site is useless to me: If it isn`t on the Download Station, I either make it myself or do without, but it sounds like a life-saver for people who do use off-site content. I`ve heard about that site, but this is the first I`ve heard about how it finds the stuff.

I believe I have heard of that bug, It doesn`t "bug" be, though, as I rarely download whole routes. Does that bug exist in trainztool.exe too? I hear that Content Manager uses it for all of the gruntwork, so I wouldn`t be surprised.

Now THAT is interesting. Is there any (convenient) way to LIST those assets? Thar would be very interesting.

Hmm. One year in "junior college", I signed up for a class in BASIC for an easy A. They talked me into switching to the Advanced BASIC (oxymoron if I ever heard one) instead. To this day, I am convinced that I knew more about THAT version of BASIC on THAT machine before the class started than the instructor did after it was finished. Most of my programming skills and programming languages are self-taught. I have Asperger`s Syndrome, which makes stuff like that easy and social skills difficult. Chatting online gives other people most of the same social difficulties that people like me have ALL of the time. If I screw up socially here, I`m not trying to be difficult; it just comes naturally. ;P

 

[MasterTracklayer]

Ok, JCitron, I`m done now.

Edit: Oh, he`s gone now. I had asked him to not reply to the above post until I had finished typing it, because I had accidentally posted it half-way through. <shrug>

P.S.: The packaged assets have, as expected, survived the transfer.

Edit 2: I just created a filter, as yet unsaved:

Installed: True
Out of Date: True
Or
Installed: True
Obsolete: True

I figure that this should list all assets that I need to "download", expecting Content Creator to download the current version instead.
How many assets came up on my relatively fresh install?
483
Does this sound reasonable, given how old the current release is?

 

[JCitron]

Installed True
Out of Date True are fine.

The other

Installed True
Obsolete True

Are used to clean up anything that had updates. I have a feeling they're working against each other because you should have more than 483 to update given how old your install is.

For DLC, that'll need to be updated via the Content Store and any packaged assets will need to be updated manually, meaning you need to view asset versions and download the downloadable assets.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

It`ll do for a start, JCitron. It wasn`t a saved permanent filter at all. I`ve been selecting the results of the above, running them through Show All Versions, sorting THAT by Status, selecting the ones in THAT list that are on the DLS and neither out of date nor obsolete, but ARE available for download, and using the right-click pop-up menu to download them. I have found a number of updates this way, and some of them have pulled in additional assets. When the current download terminates, I`ll go have a look to see what else I might need.

Somewhat tedious, I know, so I recreated one of my more important filters:

Name Downloading:
- Picklist: downloading
- Installed: False
- Obsolete: False
- On Download Station: True
- Out of date: False
- Or
- Picklist: downloading
- Installed: True
- Missing dependencies: True

This one lists everything I`ve tagged as wanting to download that either is available for downloading but not yet downloaded -or- has been downloaded, but has dependencies that haven`t. It also updates as the download proceeds. After selecting assets elsewhere, the downloading picklist is optionally cleared (be sure to clear it occasionally) and the selected assets are added. When done adding assets to downloading, show Downloading and select whatever assets you want to download in a single batch, followed by selecting Download from the pop-up menu. If everything works properly, the filter will show empty when the entire download is finished. It occurs to me that I may need more than one downloading picklist to automate more of the process.

I will be adding other related filters as I remember or discover needing them. What is your best filter to help select assets in need of updating? I had a good one, but I don`t recall full details at the moment.

Meanwhile, the temporary filter I listed previously would list any asset that falls into either category. I know that the result is less than ideal (especially since you reminded me), but that would have made the list LONGER, not SHORTER. Besides, what I have installed currently was the latest Trainz22 available when I started downloading it about three-quarters of a day or so before starting this thread.

How do I update out-ot-date or obsolete assets that do NOT have a version available for download from the DLS? I have already found one, and there may be more. Also, I have at least one packaged payware asset that has an update that is available for download on the DLS, except that THAT is also labeled payware, and Content Manager will not let me download the update to the paid-for asset. How do I get the update for THAT?

Also, have you read the whole EDITED post before the one you quoted? That ended up being a fairly long post, about twice the size of the accidental post, and you have not addressed anything in either part of it. If you have nothing to say about it, fine, but if you haven`t seen the whole thing, please go back and look at again. For what it is worth, that is NOT the first time that an unfinished post posted spontaneously. I think that I`m having issues with the touchpad and/or mouse deselecting the edit widget while I`m typing. Other times, I suddenly find myself typing into the wrong part of the message, as if I had accidentally clicked there. <shrug>

Edit: Doesn`t an asset that has been obsoleted by an asset that is on the DLS but not installed still show in the filter Installed True, Obsolete True? I think it does, meaning that using it to purge assets that you have updated can be problematical? Similarly, I believe that Installed True, Out of Date is insensitive to the presence of the update at any particular location. I do not believe that what is installed, aside from the specific assets seeding the filter, has any effect on the results.

 

[JCitron]

JCitron: In order,

I agree.

When running Trainz 2009/2010, I had so many filters that the filter tabs alone covered half of my standard-sized-monitor`s full-screen real estate. I`ve seen messages here that suggest that other people might have almost as many, but it is difficult to compare when one person`s "just a few" can easily be at least twice as many as someone else`s "huge pile". On my current screen, which is a little on the wide side but probably of standard height, the drop-down list of filters not only scrolled, it was near, at, or perhaps slightly beyond the point where the bottom filter when at the top of the list was above the top filter when at the bottom of the list. Still, just a handful compared to that other Trainz installation, I think. Or mebbe not. Yeah, I think the numbers were probably comparable. I don`t quite recall what filters I had then, but this time --for Win7 Trainz22-- I had --for most asset categories-- All, Only Installed, and Available for Download. I also had a few like Update Available that ignored the category of the asset. That is enough for you to estimate how many I have in the Win7 edition content filter. With the older setup on the other computer, my elaborate keywording allowed me to write filters that could select assets based on a much finer grade of categories than N3V provided at the time. All flora, regardless of issues like spline vs object? No problem. Only box cars? No problem. Only all animals? Just livestock? Specifically cattle? No problem. You say the asset you want is miscategorized and the standard filters can`t find it? No problem. The asset claims to be what you`re looking for but isn`t? (Fences claiming to be track, for example,) No problem. Trying to edit the filters themselves? BIG problem. The filter you say you want? We can do exactly that, just not as a filter. Hiss. Boo.

I never claimed that that was anywhere neat the top of the list. I just gave that as an example of why it might not be YOUR fault even if you had uploaded the asset requiring it.

That site is useless to me: If it isn`t on the Download Station, I either make it myself or do without, but it sounds like a life-saver for people who do use off-site content. I`ve heard about that site, but this is the first I`ve heard about how it finds the stuff.

I believe I have heard of that bug, It doesn`t "bug" be, though, as I rarely download whole routes. Does that bug exist in trainztool.exe too? I hear that Content Manager uses it for all of the gruntwork, so I wouldn`t be surprised.

Now THAT is interesting. Is there any (convenient) way to LIST those assets? Thar would be very interesting.

Hmm. One year in "junior college", I signed up for a class in BASIC for an easy A. They talked me into switching to the Advanced BASIC (oxymoron if I ever heard one) instead. To this day, I am convinced that I knew more about THAT version of BASIC on THAT machine before the class started than the instructor did after it was finished. Most of my programming skills and programming languages are self-taught. I have Asperger`s Syndrome, which makes stuff like that easy and social skills difficult. Chatting online gives other people most of the same social difficulties that people like me have ALL of the time. If I screw up socially here, I`m not trying to be difficult; it just comes naturally. ;P

I had been using Atari BASIC before I took Data Processing with BASIC. I had a good understanding and ended up writing some good programs except now on a Data General mainframe. I had the opportunity to try punch cards, only once mind you, and it was hell. Using a terminal, either CRT or teletype was much easier and better. I aced the course and had a blast too. By the time I was going to college, I was already working for a terminal manufacturer and had taken night classes in the tech program. I was itching to get into the test and repair department instead of soldering and clipping pins on circuit boards. (Talk about brain mush!).

My first real computer was a CP/M-Plus based machine that came with C-BASIC, WordStar, DR Graph, and Z80 Assembler, meaning no games unless I wrote them. I used to get magazines and type in the code, and learned a ton. Then I took classes in Z80 Assembly where the computer worked well to be followed by C, C++, Pascal, and Java. The thing is I was never really interested in programming because I didn't have, and still don't have the patience for it. As bored as I was with technology, I really liked the hardware and still do even today. I became a lead hardware technician and was assigned some very ancient hardware to repair which I'll tell you about in another thread someday. After a stint in MIS working with Vaxes, IBM 32xxx, Sun Servers, and later Novell and NT, and everything else that comes with it, I've left the industry, retired due to health reasons and while I miss the money, I don't miss the stress.

 

[JCitron]

It`ll do for a start, JCitron. It wasn`t a saved permanent filter at all. I`ve been selecting the results of the above, running them through Show All Versions, sorting THAT by Status, selecting the ones in THAT list that are on the DLS and neither out of date nor obsolete, but ARE available for download, and using the right-click pop-up menu to download them. I have found a number of updates this way, and some of them have pulled in additional assets. When the current download terminates, I`ll go have a look to see what else I might need.

Somewhat tedious, I know, so I recreated one of my more important filters:

Name Downloading:
- Picklist: downloading
- Installed: False
- Obsolete: False
- On Download Station: True
- Out of date: False
- Or
- Picklist: downloading
- Installed: True
- Missing dependencies: True

This one lists everything I`ve tagged as wanting to download that either is available for downloading but not yet downloaded -or- has been downloaded, but has dependencies that haven`t. It also updates as the download proceeds. After selecting assets elsewhere, the downloading picklist is optionally cleared (be sure to clear it occasionally) and the selected assets are added. When done adding assets to downloading, show Downloading and select whatever assets you want to download in a single batch, followed by selecting Download from the pop-up menu. If everything works properly, the filter will show empty when the entire download is finished. It occurs to me that I may need more than one downloading picklist to automate more of the process.

I will be adding other related filters as I remember or discover needing them. What is your best filter to help select assets in need of updating? I had a good one, but I don`t recall full details at the moment.

Meanwhile, the temporary filter I listed previously would list any asset that falls into either category. I know that the result is less than ideal (especially since you reminded me), but that would have made the list LONGER, not SHORTER. Besides, what I have installed currently was the latest Trainz22 available when I started downloading it about three-quarters of a day or so before starting this thread.

How do I update out-ot-date or obsolete assets that do NOT have a version available for download from the DLS? I have already found one, and there may be more. Also, I have at least one packaged payware asset that has an update that is available for download on the DLS, except that THAT is also labeled payware, and Content Manager will not let me download the update to the paid-for asset. How do I get the update for THAT?

Also, have you read the whole EDITED post before the one you quoted? That ended up being a fairly long post, about twice the size of the accidental post, and you have not addressed anything in either part of it. If you have nothing to say about it, fine, but if you haven`t seen the whole thing, please go back and look at again. For what it is worth, that is NOT the first time that an unfinished post posted spontaneously. I think that I`m having issues with the touchpad and/or mouse deselecting the edit widget while I`m typing. Other times, I suddenly find myself typing into the wrong part of the message, as if I had accidentally clicked there. <shrug>

Edit: Doesn`t an asset that has been obsoleted by an asset that is on the DLS but not installed still show in the filter Installed True, Obsolete True? I think it does, meaning that using it to purge assets that you have updated can be problematical? Similarly, I believe that Installed True, Out of Date is insensitive to the presence of the update at any particular location. I do not believe that what is installed, aside from the specific assets seeding the filter, has any effect on the results.

I haven't been able to keep up with the posts! ;-) If I ignored something, that was unintentional.

Back in the old days, having that many filters in TRS2006 through TS12 would cause the tabs in Content Manager to scramble the text. The only resolution was to exit and come back in, if that worked but that didn't and many times people would lose their filters.

I see you like to build complex filters but sometimes, from my experience with databases, the shorter and more concise the queries are, the better and quicker the results. The reason is there are fewer parameters to filter, and also there's less data to sort through.

The filter to find updates, or the one that works for me is this one. The bold is my name and you can come up with your own.

Installed - Out of Date - not DLC

Installed = True
Out of Date = True
Packaged = False

This will display any updates available for your installed content except for DLC which you'll need to change the filter to:

Installed - Out of Date - not DLC*

Installed = True
Out of Date = True
Packaged = True

Once downloaded, you can then remove the obsolete assets since they eat up space.

If you haven't already, add in all the columns and arrange them how you like them by dragging them into position and resize to fit your screen. By default, they're put at the far right as they are added and annoyingly are at full width too. You can click the columns headers and sort by these ascending or descending if you need to. This is helpful for finding content.

You don't know if an asset is out-of-date until there's an update 1) Available on the DLS, or 2) Installed via a CDP file provided from a third-party site and downloaded.

To download an update for assets marked payware:
Right-click on the payware asset, and choose View asset versions from the contextual menu.

A new window will open up and you can then sort by status to get any Available for Download to appear in the status column.

To get the latest content, I sort on the Upload date column in descending order so that the latest date is at the top and work backwards, skipping over stuff I don't like or want such as mobile versions of routes, etc.

If you want to sort on assets themselves, you are going to miss a lot because the names aren't always what they should be. You may want to try changing the asset-category in the filter and searching by asset-type. You can also sort on that column as well but be careful because you can end up downloading really, really old assets with square-block couplers and maybe even the old paper wheels. The thing is, you need to find what works for you. I believe in KISS and I find the program likes that as well.

 

[stagecoach]

The data folder is not associated with Win7 or Win10 it is just a data folder. Built-in and packaged are part of the TRS22 program and not in the data folder. Trainz reads from the database which when you do a DBR reads data from the program (built-in) and also the data folder.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

JCitron, I`ll get back to you. I`m not ignoring you, I`m just dealing with the smaller message from stagecoach first.

stagecoach, the Win7 and Win10 versions of Trainz22 are different builds with different build numbers. Since each build number has its own subdirectory within the main Trainz data directory, I do indeed have two data directories to contend with. I`ve even pointed my Win10 build at the data directory created by the Win7 build. I not only have two distinct data directories, I know where they are, and both are located below the main Trainz data directory, which is what I`m assuming you are referring to. I do not know where the built-in assets are located --I`m assuming that they are located somewhere in the installation directory-- but the packaged assets are indeed located within the data directory, having their own subdirectory appropriately enough named "packages". Since I have one data directory per each build, I have two of these. Copying the *.tzarc files in the Win7 version`s packages directory to the Win10 version`s packages directory followed by rebuilding the trainzbase index successfully transferred the packaged assets downloaded by the Win7 build to the Win10 build. This has all been covered earlier in this thread, just never before all in one post. I only know all of this because I needed to learn it for my upgrade. Not being critical; just trying to help you (and others) learn more about your (their) favorite entertainment software. JCitron, care to confirm this for stagecoach (and others)?

 

[MasterTracklayer]

@JCitron, your turn. In order:

As stated elsewhere, I come from a similar background, but developed an interest in software instead of hardware. I too had an opportunity to use punch-cards. Fun to use for a change in a small class project, but definitely inferior for regular use.

My earliest hardware was all from Commodore Business Machines, if I remember DuckLips` official moniker correctly, starting with the venerable C64. An excellent machine for its time, but mostly just a museum piece these days. I also had no software save for what I typed in from magazines or wrote myself, but my passion was coding, not transcribing or gaming. I took NO classes until college. My crowning achievement for the `64 was a "wedge" that added a single statement to the built-in ROM BASIC. This was written in 6904 assembly language using a typed-from-magazine assembler.

Thanks to that assembler, RUNNING the assembly source created a loader program. My loader program would relocate my actual code to the top of BASIC memory, then lower memtop to point below my code, protecting it from BASIC. When the wedge was triggered, my code called a ROM BASIC subroutine that would evaluate an expression in the BASIC program. If this resulted in a number, it would store it in a ROM BASIC defined location that stored the number of the last "device" used, check for a comma, and execute another call into ROM BASIC to evaluate another expression. This time the result had to be a string. If the original expression returned a string, it would fall through to this point. At this point, it would use the Last Device number, either set by my code or inherited from whatever the user had previously done, and the value of the string expression, and call the BASIC ROM subroutine that would perform an "absolute load", which would load a memory image file to the same address that it was supposedly saved from. You might wonder why I bothered doing this, since the ROM BASIC already had a statement that would do this, but the built-in statement had side-effects that were designed for loading BASIC programs. My statement had different side-effects. After loading the file, instead of messing with pointers and restarting the BASIC program like the LOAD statement did, my code would leave those pointers untouched and perform an unconditional call to whatever code happened to currently occupy a very popular 4K block of memory that was never used by, and immune to the normal effects of, the ROM BASIC. People absolutely loved to code their ML subroutines at that address. Furthermore, if that code ever RETURNED to the caller, my code would then continue the BASIC code where it left off instead of starting at the beginning. This simplified the use of ML subroutines enormously: No more complicated guard code to test the loaded/unloaded state of the ML and branch around the LOAD statement, and no more risk of messing up either your code or variables if you performed the LOAD incorrectly. A tiny little thing, far smaller than the description, but I never got to make much use of it because that was just before I got my first Commodore Amiga, another gem of a computer that was far ahead if its time, but that`s a whole other story. I eventually had a form of nervous breakdown and had to force myself back into computing, what had once been my main interest in life. When I did, I got into IBM PC (R) type machines, which is yet again a whole other story. My preferred OS is KUbuntu, but my favorite games all require Windows.

Oy vey, pardon my Yiddish (or whatever language that is). This post has gotten unintentionally long. I`ll reply to your next post in a separate post myself.

Edit: Corrected an offensive spelling of a brand name. Other minor edits. Also note that the Amiga had some OS features that are still superior to anything else that I`ve ever seen.

 

[MasterTracklayer]

Heh, that happens. I figured that any ignoring was unintentional; that`s why I asked the way I did instead of sounding accusational.

Back in the old days, I had that many filters on a release right in the middle of that range, and I don`t recall ever having that problem. Can`t say for certain that I never had it, either.

I agree. I`m also aware that the ORDER of the operations can have a huge effect on the speed: putting a simple operation that excludes a LOT of records first will greatly speed up the slower, more complex operations that refine the search, because they have a lot less data to process. whole books have been written about this, but you already know this, given your background, I only mention this for two reasons: first to let you know that I am aware of these issues too, and second to help teach other people reading this who might not be aware of this, let alone know why it can be important.

I see no need to have separate filters for packaged and nonpackaged assets; what I do when the asset is out of date (or obsolete) is all the same regardless: I download the replacement from the DLS. The problem is when the updated assets canNOT be downloaded for various reasons.

Out-of-date and obsolete assets are pretty much the same thing, except for one difference: the out-of-date asset is replaced by a newer version of the same asset with an incremented third field in the KUID, while the obsolete asset has been replaced by an asset with a totally different KUID. That`s why they invented the KUID2 format in the first place: to make marking assets as having been "obsoleted" by the same author something that could be automated more easily. NOT removing the old assets can be viewed as a form of backup, in case the new one doesn`t work out, and sometimes you cannot remove them (when the old one is built-in or packaged, for example, which you already know but some might not).

As for payware, that doesn`t work if the replacement is also marked payware; this one has bitten me once already. Then too, how do we know when the separately-downloaded payware packages that come with the purchase price of the game get updated? Updates for whole packages will not show up in Content Manager.

I`ve already enabled most of the columns, and regularly click-to-sort. I also knew that the columns could be resized, but I don`t think that I knew they could be reordered. Thank you for reminding me to try.

I also already know about when one learns that an update is available, but that too might help others reading this in the future.

I don`t much care WHEN an asset was uploaded; if I want it, I want it, and older assets *can* be better constructed than newer ones, especially if the newer ones are constructed by people with less authoring experience. If they are, but are not up to current scripting standards, I can fix that. I can`t fix the models themselves, though. Other people have those skills and tools, not me.

The filters I had with the Win7 version of Trainz22 had separate filters for All, Installed, and something else (Updateable? No, not-installed and not-incompatible.) , for each category separately, so I could go looking for things by category without having to bother with reconfiguring filters. I agree that asset names changing unexpectedly can be confusing at times.

Hmm, that`s about all I can see in your message that I than think of something to say about at this time. I`m going to be AFK for a while now; I`ll see if you`ve replied when I return.