Got to start fresh.

[shebashetan7]

Hey all,

My TRS19 SP5 install corrupt, so I had to reinstall it and start fresh. Five years worth of content gone. I'm gonna try getting most of my custom stuff back in from a backup. Over time I'll go through the DLS and sites currently around, as well as try to re download my JR and K&L payware. I know there's gonna be many things I can't get back, but it's probably for the best. Does anyone have any tips for when you have to start fresh with a new copy of TRS19 and re-download content? The bright side is that I don't have any clutter and focus on content that I really want, that I know I'll use alot.

 

[SirGreg]

How is it possible this to happen , is something we have to be aware of?

Hey all,

My TRS19 SP5 install corrupt, so I had to reinstall it and start fresh. Five years worth of content gone. I'm gonna try getting most of my custom stuff back in from a backup. Over time I'll go through the DLS and sites currently around, as well as try to re download my JR and K&L payware. I know there's gonna be many things I can't get back, but it's probably for the best. Does anyone have any tips for when you have to start fresh with a new copy of TRS19 and re-download content? The bright side is that I don't have any clutter and focus on content that I really want, that I know I'll use alot.

 

[hotgrove]

Very sorry to hear that and know how you must feel.

Since i started using trainz i've lost about 70/75% of my routes and also had to endure what you have just experienced.

 

[shebashetan7]

How is it possible this to happen , is something we have to be aware of?

My install stopped properly checking for faulty assets at the end of database repairs. It just pauses at the end indefinitely, and the only way out of it is to end TRS19 through task manager. I tried different troubleshooting methods though they weren't successful. Cache clearing, extended database rebuilds, reinstalling, none of that could help salvage my data folder. I'm not sure why but it seems after all this time it stopped working. Maybe cause it was old and got messed up after countless times installation, modification of and deleting of content.

 

[shebashetan7]

Very sorry to hear that and know how you must feel.

Since i started using trainz i've lost about 70/75% of my routes and also had to endure what you have just experienced.

Thank you! I'm sorry you also had to go through that too. It can be so draining to have to start from scratch after couple years with no problems. I know I had a lot of content that is no longer publicly available but at the same time I question if it was worth keeping anymore cause new content is always being made. The best I can do is go through the well established sites and get stuff as I need it.

 

[hotgrove]

I completely get it.
Things seem to be running along smoothly for an extended period of time then BOOM without warning months / years of work are flushed straight down the toilet.

 

[SirGreg]

My install stopped properly checking for faulty assets at the end of database repairs. It just pauses at the end indefinitely, and the only way out of it is to end TRS19 through task manager. I tried different troubleshooting methods though they weren't successful. Cache clearing, extended database rebuilds, reinstalling, none of that could help salvage my data folder. I'm not sure why but it seems after all this time it stopped working. Maybe cause it was old and got messed up after countless times installation, modification of and deleting of content.

For sure not the best situation to face, this has never happened to me and i remember Trainz 12 making automatic data base repair from time to time. Maybe you should wait more for the task to finish or it seemed more like a crash?

 

[shebashetan7]

For sure not the best situation to face, this has never happened to me and i remember Trainz 12 making automatic data base repair from time to time. Maybe you should wait more for the task to finish or it seemed more like a crash?

I tried letting the database repair after trying to import my local content to the reinstall run overnight. It stopped at faulty checking and it hadn't done anything more for a couple hours when I went to check on it. I was successful though in re importing just my own custom content using the editing folder. Now it's deciding what of it I want to keep or get rid of. I also got to re-download DLS and third party dependencies. Take it one day at a time.

 

[shebashetan7]

I completely get it.
Things seem to be running along smoothly for an extended period of time then BOOM without warning months / years of work are flushed straight down the toilet.

Exactly, this! I'm glad I was able go get my own content to import and database repair with no problem. There's all the re-downloading but you can at least choose to just get what you really need or want for the time being.

 

[SirGreg]

I tried letting the database repair after trying to import my local content to the reinstall run overnight. It stopped at faulty checking and it hadn't done anything more for a couple hours when I went to check on it. I was successful though in re importing just my own custom content using the editing folder. Now it's deciding what of it I want to keep or get rid of. I also got to re-download DLS and third party dependencies. Take it one day at a time.

Ok i understand i wish you to recover the most of your losses, is a pain to lose content especially if you have worked hard for it to find it or to create it.

 

[shebashetan7]

Ok i understand i wish you to recover the most of your losses, is a pain to lose content especially if you have worked hard for it to find it or to create it.

Thank you. The hardest part is probably getting some of my older Trainz Forge payware back because it was ordered by relatives on my behalf; I was younger back then and the email used for those old orders is no longer active, plus the download links have long expired. There's a couple things I could try, such as getting ahold of the site via email and trying to figure it out, though it may be simpler to re order the packs at a later date. Otherwise I can reference the TF KUID directory and the date from the order emails to get the content I need from the copy of TRS19 on my PC's other hard drive.

Some routes like White Pass and Yukon, and Sherman Hill from Trainz Italia I doubt I can get back though.

 

[SirGreg]

Thank you. The hardest part is probably getting some of my older Trainz Forge payware back because it was ordered by relatives on my behalf; I was younger back then and the email used for those old orders is no longer active, plus the download links have long expired. There's a couple things I could try, such as getting ahold of the site via email and trying to figure it out, though it may be simpler to re order the packs at a later date. Otherwise I can reference the TF KUID directory and the date from the order emails to get the content I need from the copy of TRS19 on my PC's other hard drive.

Some routes like White Pass and Yukon, and Sherman Hill from Trainz Italia I doubt I can get back though.

Sherman hill one of my favorite ones, i miss it since i moved to Germany and Yukon i remember it was a Christmas gift from TrainzItalia i had it back to Trainz 12 but you can get them back i am not so sure for Yukon, you just need have an account in TrainzItalia and you can have for sure Sherman hill back. For payware only if you can find access to your relatives e- mail accounts, as long of course they have saved the e- mail receipts.

 

[JCitron]

I lost 20 years of content after a recent update that went bad. I was a bit perturbed to say the least. I went into the corrupted database that I was still able to bring up in Content Manager and exported all of my custom content, routes, and sessions. With my extensive backup of all my third-party downloads, I was able to restore my payware and freeware assets I got from various places such as Trainz Pro Routes, Trainz-Forge, Jointed Rail, and K&L Trainz. I came out of this pretty much unscathed with a much happier Trainz program too.

I know it's a tough pill to swallow, but this was a blessing in some ways. I was going through the long slog of deleting ancient content that was long forgotten like the content had been stuck in the back of the figurative refrigerator like lost dishes of moldy peas. Lost amongst the dishes of moldy peas were boxcars and other trains with paper wheels and printed paper-track. Remember that from the early days?

What saved me was my backups of my third-party content, and payware. I can't stress it enough that having backups of everything is what saved my virtual backside. As it so happened, my most recent data backup of my database was far too out of date to be useful. It happens and this is where I got caught short, otherwise I was going to restore from the full backup I had made a few weeks before. Shame on me for not making a backup prior to the upgrade!

When you do finally get your content squared away, back up everything to an external hard drive such as a Backups drive from Seagate or an equivalent from some other brand. You also want to do periodicly, if not more frequent backups to the device as well to ensure you lose very little of your full Trainz database. As I said, I was lucky I was able to recover what I did.

 

[SirGreg]

I lost 20 years of content after a recent update that went bad. I was a bit perturbed to say the least. I went into the corrupted database that I was still able to bring up in Content Manager and exported all of my custom content, routes, and sessions. With my extensive backup of all my third-party downloads, I was able to restore my payware and freeware assets I got from various places such as Trainz Pro Routes, Trainz-Forge, Jointed Rail, and K&L Trainz. I came out of this pretty much unscathed with a much happier Trainz program too.

I know it's a tough pill to swallow, but this was a blessing in some ways. I was going through the long slog of deleting ancient content that was long forgotten like the content had been stuck in the back of the figurative refrigerator like lost dishes of moldy peas. Lost amongst the dishes of moldy peas were boxcars and other trains with paper wheels and printed paper-track. Remember that from the early days?

What saved me was my backups of my third-party content, and payware. I can't stress it enough that having backups of everything is what saved my virtual backside. As it so happened, my most recent data backup of my database was far too out of date to be useful. It happens and this is where I got caught short, otherwise I was going to restore from the full backup I had made a few weeks before. Shame on me for not making a backup prior to the upgrade!

When you do finally get your content squared away, back up everything to an external hard drive such as a Backups drive from Seagate or an equivalent from some other brand. You also want to do periodicly, if not more frequent backups to the device as well to ensure you lose very little of your full Trainz database. As I said, I was lucky I was able to recover what I did.

Maybe is a good chance with this thread to talk about the possible reasons that may lead to data loss? It is a matter of much data to be in a hard disk, a matter of assets to be not compatible any more or just bad luck?

 

[BlackDiamond1964]

I've have lost much content over the years, mostly due to my own backing up issues...deleting the wrong folders and so on. What I found to work good is that the bulk of my Trainz content has been downloaded arranged and edited to my liking. Then I saved the content files onto a external hard drive. Meanwhile I keep my PC Trainz install "content light", using just what I need for what ever current project I may be working on. If something is needed that I have stored on my external hard drive, I just temporary change the location of my Trainz content files to that folder on the external hard drive, open the content manager and save the needed files to a cdp to my desktop. Then change the content file location back to my regular folder on my PC, then import the cdp. It would seem that the less content that is in Trainz, the less likely something going to mess up. I also found that this process also decreases the loading times of the route.

 

[JCitron]

Maybe is a good chance with this thread to talk about the possible reasons that may lead to data loss? It is a matter of much data to be in a hard disk, a matter of assets to be not compatible any more or just bad luck?

It's a combination of factors. My database was hovering around 2.5 TB with content added and removed. I downloaded the bulk of the content during the TRS2006 timeframe when the possibility came up that Auran, at the time, would disappear completely leaving us without content due to this being the time that the crap was hitting the Fury fan. The rest of the content came with routes plus daily grazing on the DLS for content plus third-party sites such as Jointed Rail.

With this large amount of content, on a large hard drive (12.5 TB) and not an SSD, it took forever to load up anything let alone perform bulk update and delete operations. It didn't help that there's an odd bug with Plus and probably TRS22 as well that makes the Bulk Update Delete utility extra slow. The large database also took forever to precache after any kind of update or installation, and also when performing queries in Content Manager.

This large database became corrupted during the last update due to my own doings I think but I was living on the edge with that much content loaded. It's a possibility too that this large amount of data caused the program to literally topple over from the weight. With content that was carried over from version to version to version since my introduction to Trainz TRS2004 in December 2003 in addition to going through multiple hard disks, computer systems and operating system versions, there's a huge possibility that some of this content was corrupted and that contributed to the crash.

As I said there were ancient tracks, those from the TRS2004 and before era that looked like track images printed on paper, roads that didn't sit properly on the ground, and many, many other assets that have long lived their lives with much better versions available today. This is not an untoward comment directed at the content-creators of the times; it's just that we've moved beyond that to what we have today and that stuff has long lived its usefulness.

Without this figurative weight, my routes load up relatively quickly without the horrible performance problems I was seeing with the large database. In the end, my crash was a blessing too because as I said I was going through the pruning and trimming process with great difficulty due to the limited filters we have in Content Manager. If we had a filter or the ability to create a filter to show assets that are dependencies. (i.e. Is a dependency = true), then that content could be filtered out and the rest removed or archived after reviewing what was installed.

 

[frogpipe]

Hey all,

My TRS19 SP5 install corrupt, so I had to reinstall it and start fresh. Five years worth of content gone. I'm gonna try getting most of my custom stuff back in from a backup. Over time I'll go through the DLS and sites currently around, as well as try to re download my JR and K&L payware. I know there's gonna be many things I can't get back, but it's probably for the best. Does anyone have any tips for when you have to start fresh with a new copy of TRS19 and re-download content? The bright side is that I don't have any clutter and focus on content that I really want, that I know I'll use alot.

Make a copy of every CDP from third party sites and stick them in a folder. Rename them something sensible if they aren't so named. Use note pad to make a txt file containing any pertinent notes about them.

Stick that folder on a cloud drive if possible.

 

[shebashetan7]

I lost 20 years of content after a recent update that went bad. I was a bit perturbed to say the least. I went into the corrupted database that I was still able to bring up in Content Manager and exported all of my custom content, routes, and sessions. With my extensive backup of all my third-party downloads, I was able to restore my payware and freeware assets I got from various places such as Trainz Pro Routes, Trainz-Forge, Jointed Rail, and K&L Trainz. I came out of this pretty much unscathed with a much happier Trainz program too.

I know it's a tough pill to swallow, but this was a blessing in some ways. I was going through the long slog of deleting ancient content that was long forgotten like the content had been stuck in the back of the figurative refrigerator like lost dishes of moldy peas. Lost amongst the dishes of moldy peas were boxcars and other trains with paper wheels and printed paper-track. Remember that from the early days?

What saved me was my backups of my third-party content, and payware. I can't stress it enough that having backups of everything is what saved my virtual backside. As it so happened, my most recent data backup of my database was far too out of date to be useful. It happens and this is where I got caught short, otherwise I was going to restore from the full backup I had made a few weeks before. Shame on me for not making a backup prior to the upgrade!

When you do finally get your content squared away, back up everything to an external hard drive such as a Backups drive from Seagate or an equivalent from some other brand. You also want to do periodicly, if not more frequent backups to the device as well to ensure you lose very little of your full Trainz database. As I said, I was lucky I was able to recover what I did.

Well spoken. A fresh start is hard, but it gives you a way to build a better curated Trainz experience. I agree on the notion of clearing out old content you may not use anymore being time consuming. I used to bulk download from the DLS in earlier years without much forethought when I had a FCT. Now I aim to be more selective, mostly focused on US/Canadian railroads in the 50s-90s with some focus on the early half of the 20th century. It's a broad category, but it encompasses the content I end up spending the most time working with.

To address your second post, that sounds like what I faced, albeit on a much smaller scale. The data folder was originally from TANE, that went from one computer to another. Eventually I transferred it to TRS19. TRS19 itself went through several different patches. Again, countless database updates, installations, and deletions. It makes sense the database would get enough instability from all that to eventually buckle and stop working altogether. Fortunately, I was able to import my own content and K&L payware from the backup via the editing folder and a database repair without issues. Sending the tzarc files to the editing folder allows the assets to be safely submitted into the existing file structure after loading them with database repair. So far the database repairs I've done have all finished without issues and I haven't had to force close TRS19 yet.

Make a copy of every CDP from third party sites and stick them in a folder. Rename them something sensible if they aren't so named. Use note pad to make a txt file containing any pertinent notes about them.

Stick that folder on a cloud drive if possible.

That's a good idea! I'm starting with some steam content I really like, so I'll begin an organized folder. It'll help me keep track of the third party stuff I reinstall over time.

 

[Forester1]

@frogpipe, what is the best way to export third-party from CM? The filter does not filter on Status, as far as I can see. I was hoping to filter on "Modified" or "Third Party" and then hopefully sort by Asset KUID, but I see no way to filter by status. I guess i can sort by status, but then I would probably have to export by Name alphabetically, which won't give me KUIDs together.

 

[frogpipe]

Installed true
AND
On Download Station false

After that I think you'd need to add a filter to remove packaged and another to remove built in from that list.

Better to do it when you've DLd the assets really, but if your going back after the fact, that's the only way I can think of.