Critical Shutdown

Bill69

New member
Hi All,

After about 3 hours of trying I have found a reason for this critical shutdown.



To explain how and why it happened.
I have a layout on which I am running four trains under AI control, two passenger trainz and two goods trainz. I have the goods trainz doing turnarounds at each end of their trip and using the HORNZ command to signal to the supposed shunter that they have seen their signals as in prototypical practice. This causes quite a few hornz to be sounded during the turnaround phase of their trip.
The session will run with no problems for some time but then crash on about the third or fourth trip. At first I suspected the horn sound file buit eliminated it after a short time. I then suspected the HORNZ command of becoming corrupted, but after redownloading the command eliminated that reason. After more running and testing I came to the conclusion that it happened when two locos received the HORNZ command at exactly the same time. I then altered the session commands, cutting out all HORNZ commands and the session ran for three hours without crashing. To prove my theory I inserted a HORNZ command as the very first command on two locos and started them off at the same time, the session crashed imediately. It seams like if Trainz attempts to apply the same command to two locos or two items at the same time this will cause a critical shutdown. I thought others might like to know this as it may be happening quite frequently.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
You know Bill, I have found this to be true myself, just never mentioned it as I never did any tests myself.
Ed
 
G'day Bill69

I have had problems with the hornz myself.

I was doing some session work for someone else and whenever I used the hornz command it crashed the game. Never did find out why though.

The same session ran in the other chaps machine though without crashing.

Difference in my case was that I only had to use one command instead of two to make it crash.

Anyone else have any theories on why this happens, maybe we can track it down.

I suspect it will be hard though, just like the sound in 2006 that works good on some but bad on others.

Dennis
 
Hornz

Hi DeRiCo,

That's new to me. I have used the HORNZ command in qiute a few other layouts, though not as frequently, and had no trouble with it. My system has an on board sound system, can't remember the name of it at the moment, but a PCI sound card may react in a different way. I also use the HORNZ IN TUNNEL function often and have had no trouble with that one or with active whistle boards.

Hi Ed,

When something nasty happens in trainz I like to try to find out why.
Just hope it might help someone else.

Cheers,
Bill
 
Hi, I did quite a bit of investigation into this, and posted my findings in the old forums. The problem with Hornz does not affect all locos, just some. I have experimented on various h/w (sound-card wise) configurations, and got other people to also verify what I was experiencing, and the problem seems not to be limited to one h/w config. (And both in built and DLS locos can be affected). The problem occurs when the Hornz command is issued and the loco is some way off (out of sight). The only solution I have found is to not use Hornz on the affected loco's.

Phil
 
Last edited:
Drat.

That means a heck of a lot of testing to work out which locos then.

Or, just stop using the Hornz command.

I have used another method in 2004 which required placing a red marker at the required spot and then use a whistle command linked to them. But I cannot find it in 2006.

There is another one in there called 'Play a Sound File', I might try that one.

Dennis
 
I have been testing the 'Play a Sound File' in a layout and it works fine.

Next step is to make a selection of sound files for it.

Dennis
 
Critical shutdown

Hi Bob,

The last error message in the jetlog.txt file is in my first post.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
critical shutdown

Hi, I did quite a bit of investigation into this, and posted my findings in the old forums. The problem with Hornz does not affect all locos, just some. I have experimented on various h/w (sound-card wise) configurations, and got other people to also verify what I was experiencing, and the problem seems not to be limited to one h/w config. (And both in built and DLS locos can be affected). The problem occurs when the Hornz command is issued and the loco is some way off (out of sight). The only solution I have found is to not use Hornz on the affected loco's.

Phil


Hi Phil,
Yes I do remember this from when I first got TRS2004. The one that gave me trouble is the DRGW C41. Every time it sounds it's horn when out of camera shot the program crashes.
This time it's not quite the same, I was using two SAR500s, 504 and 500, one D59 class and one Tclass. No matter which ones sounded their horns together it crashed the program. When I removed the hornz command from all but one loco the session run with no problems.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
I have been testing the 'Play a Sound File' in a layout and it works fine.

Next step is to make a selection of sound files for it.

Dennis

The problem with the Play a Sound File is that it's global, in other words, if you issue the command to play All Aboard at Roaring Forks Station, you'll hear it even though you're in Big Horn.
Norm
 
critical shutdown

Hi All,

Thanks to FootplatePhil I remembered the trouble with the DRGW C-41 horn, so went back to my layout to check again, and sure enough it is the hornsound for the SAR T Class loco which is causing the problem.
The remedy:- Open the T class for edit and change the hornsound kuid to kuid2:130855:59002:1 also change it in the kuid table. Save and close the config file. Then delete the file "whistle.tfx" from the T class folder, recommit the loco and bobs yer uncle it works.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
Critical shutdown

Hi Ed,

Well I have never found the hornz command to be wanting. Any troubles I have had have been caused by the loco. However my session is now running well with the hornz command used frequently for shunting etc.

Thanks,
Bill69
 
The problem with the Play a Sound File is that it's global, in other words, if you issue the command to play All Aboard at Roaring Forks Station, you'll hear it even though you're in Big Horn.
Norm

Yes I have found that out.

It does work good though, but with a few tweaks it could rival the Hornz command.

Ah well, back to testing the Hornz command.

dennis
 
Critical shutdown

Hi all,

Well I have done a lot more testing on this problem and have made a discovery.
It is not caused by the Hornz command. It is not caused by the hornsound file either. It is caused by the whistle steam effect file in the loco's folder. In every case I tried, if there is a file in the loco folder called wh_steam.tfx or whistle.tfx it will crash when the whistle is sounded off camera. In every case where I found this file I deleted it and the whistle worked with no problems no matter where the loco is on the layout. I would like someone else to try this to find out if it affects all computers or if it is only on my one. If any one has the Tclass or the D59 class locos please try it out and let me know what happens.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
Hi Bill69

I have just been testing the Hornz again.

I have had 4 steam locos running and 3 of them have the wh_steam.tfx or whistle.tfx in them.

The other was Marl's 38 class which does not have them.

They ran under AI for an hour with all 4 locos having 5 Hornz commands in each circuit of the board.

Not a problem at all. Seems those files are not the problem.

Dennis
 
Crashing

Hi DeRiCo,

Ok thanks for that, it seems it's only my computer then. I guess I will have to look into why.

Cheers,
Bill69
 
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