AaronK2007
New member
Even when I delete something from CM, my hard drive won't get less full. I heard somewhere you have to do it manually, but I still don't know how exactly.
How do I delete content from my disk?
- Thread starter AaronK2007
- Start date
A few things to keep in mind.
- Firstly ALL assets installed in Trainz are stored as entries in a massive database, not as individual files. CM is the management software that allows you to access that database.
- Secondly, most assets are small (up to a few hundred kilobytes in size). Deleting them will make no noticeable difference to a hard drive with Gigabytes (or Terabytes) of capacity.
- Finally, the largest assets are usually routes which can be hundreds of Megabytes in size. Deleting a large route route may make a decimal point change in size to a Gigabyte drive but it will not be noticed on a Terabyte drive. Incidentally, deleting a route (or a session) will not delete the assets that were installed as a part of that route or session.
The default folder path for all installed assets is: %LOCALAPPDATA%\N3V Games\trs22
When you delete assets via the CM, it is not deleted from the disk, but moved to a folder - %LOCALAPPDATA%\N3V Games\trs22\backups
Just delete all the contents backups folder.
Last edited:
Sorry, but I have to disagree.
The %LOCALAPPDATA%\N3V Games\trs22\build xxxxxxx\backups folder (where "xxxxxxxx" is a randomly generated sequence of characters - you can have several of these folders) is used to store the automatic backups of routes and sessions that you are currently working on. See the Trainz Wiki at How to Manage Backups#Automatic Backups for the details. Only the last 7 days of backups are stored here with the number of daily backups as set in the Trainz Settings and only backups of routes and sessions are kept here, not any assets that you delete using CM.
If you delete this folder you will delete all your stored route and session automatic backups.
I didn't understand what I was wrong about. He asked a direct short question and I gave him the same answer.
You are considering his question from the point of view of your needs for Trainz - the creation of assets, routes and other things and the safety of this and it's of great value to you.
Most people like me just install something and then delete it, and some even forget what they installed.
I do not know how the questioner uses the game, but he has two answers, yours and mine, for two use cases and I don't see any contradictions in this.
The poster was asking about why when he uses CM to delete an asset, or assets, his hard drive does not seem to increase its free storage space. In my reply I pointed out that most assets are, relatively speaking, very small compared to most HD storage capacities so I would not expect deleting a few assets to have a noticeable effect on the displayed free space figure.
Your statement that all deleted assets are moved to the ...\backups folder was incorrect.
As I pointed out, that folder is used to store automatic backups of routes and sessions that are created while you are editing those routes and sessions. How many backups are made each day is controlled by one of the Trainz Settings, but only a maximum of the last 7 days of backups are held. The backup folder is not used to store any deleted assets. In fact when an asset is deleted using CM it is removed completely from the Trainz database and removed permanently. It does not even go through the Windows Recycle Bin as assets are not files in the normal sense. A deleted asset can only be recovered by reinstalling it from its original source - a .cdp file or the DLS for example.
Your statement that all deleted assets are moved to the ...\backups folder was incorrect.
As I pointed out, that folder is used to store automatic backups of routes and sessions that are created while you are editing those routes and sessions. How many backups are made each day is controlled by one of the Trainz Settings, but only a maximum of the last 7 days of backups are held. The backup folder is not used to store any deleted assets. In fact when an asset is deleted using CM it is removed completely from the Trainz database and removed permanently. It does not even go through the Windows Recycle Bin as assets are not files in the normal sense. A deleted asset can only be recovered by reinstalling it from its original source - a .cdp file or the DLS for example.
I was just about to delete all assets except paid ones from Trainz Store once again. And I capture this process.
The backup folder is empty now:
There are 411 assets (2.6 GB) installed in folders local and original, I select them all in the CM and delete them:
After that, 411 files (2.51 GB) appear in backup folder:
And folders local and original become empty:
This is the correct behavior as you noted before. When I had a small hard drive, I had to purge the old backups. Today, even scenery assets can be quite large. They maybe only 10-50 MB or 100 MB, but add in a few thousand and it'll eat up space just like buying items on sale at the market where the grocery bill is $100 or more even though everything is 2/ $4.I was just about to delete all assets except paid ones from Trainz Store once again. And I capture this process.
The backup folder is empty now:
There are 411 assets (2.6 GB) installed in folders local and original, I select them all in the CM and delete them:
After that, 411 files (2.51 GB) appear in backup folder:
And folders local and original become empty:
The Investigation:
Looking into my own .../backups folder reveals 7 sub folders, one for each of the last 7 days. Opening the folder with yesterdays date revealed 8 tzarc files all named kuid 45176 105218.tzarcxxxxxxx where the kuid is the id of the route I was editing that day, the "xxxxxxx" is a series of seemingly random numbers. All of them had file sizes that closely matched each other (allowing for changes made) and the size of the .cdp file of the route I had separately saved. These were the automatic backups Trainz had made while I was working on the route.
Deleting the .../backups folder would delete these files and any chance of recovering the work completed during the previous 7 days if a system failure occurred.
Also included in the folder were additional sub folders, some with the same name as assets that I had installed or opened in Windows Explorer that day. One had the same name and kuid as the route that I was working on and contained all its mapfile and mapfile_index files. Its time stamp indicated that it was created at the same time as I started editing that day so it was a backup of the route as it existed before the first edit was made.
Other sub folders had obscure random names such as "1u4ckjrs42". Each contained a file named "living_railroad.dat" and some also had "activity_journal.dat". Each contained mapfile and mapfile_index files which, to me, indicated route data. The "living_railroad" files also indicated that they had something to do with the TLR system in Trainz Plus.
I do not recall deleting any assets that day so I conducted a test to see what would happen with today's backup folder.
In Surveyor I opened and then closed a route then exited to CM. I selected and deleted an asset that had been installed from the DLS after making sure that it was not being used in anything that I had installed - I selected PRR Shop <kuid2:106918:10213:1>. After closing Trainz I opened the .../backups folder and discovered a new folder with todays date (and the oldest folder, now dated 8 days ago, had been deleted).
Todays new folder contained, as expected, the folder for the route I very briefly opened but no .tzarc file for that route as I did not perform any edits. It also included another .tzarc file with the same kuid name as the asset I deleted (2 106918 10213 1).
The Conclusion:
So @oldman777 it looks like you are correct, deleted assets are stored in the .../backups folder but only for 7 days. As I stated above, deleting the folder, or even just emptying its contents, will also delete your route and session edits and that would not be a good move.
My recommendation - leave the .../backups folder as it is. Deleted assets will be permantently deleted after 7 days anyway. If your storage space is so restricted that you would have to resort to deleting the .../backups folder immediately then it is time to get a larger storage device.
Looking into my own .../backups folder reveals 7 sub folders, one for each of the last 7 days. Opening the folder with yesterdays date revealed 8 tzarc files all named kuid 45176 105218.tzarcxxxxxxx where the kuid is the id of the route I was editing that day, the "xxxxxxx" is a series of seemingly random numbers. All of them had file sizes that closely matched each other (allowing for changes made) and the size of the .cdp file of the route I had separately saved. These were the automatic backups Trainz had made while I was working on the route.
Deleting the .../backups folder would delete these files and any chance of recovering the work completed during the previous 7 days if a system failure occurred.
Also included in the folder were additional sub folders, some with the same name as assets that I had installed or opened in Windows Explorer that day. One had the same name and kuid as the route that I was working on and contained all its mapfile and mapfile_index files. Its time stamp indicated that it was created at the same time as I started editing that day so it was a backup of the route as it existed before the first edit was made.
Other sub folders had obscure random names such as "1u4ckjrs42". Each contained a file named "living_railroad.dat" and some also had "activity_journal.dat". Each contained mapfile and mapfile_index files which, to me, indicated route data. The "living_railroad" files also indicated that they had something to do with the TLR system in Trainz Plus.
I do not recall deleting any assets that day so I conducted a test to see what would happen with today's backup folder.
In Surveyor I opened and then closed a route then exited to CM. I selected and deleted an asset that had been installed from the DLS after making sure that it was not being used in anything that I had installed - I selected PRR Shop <kuid2:106918:10213:1>. After closing Trainz I opened the .../backups folder and discovered a new folder with todays date (and the oldest folder, now dated 8 days ago, had been deleted).
Todays new folder contained, as expected, the folder for the route I very briefly opened but no .tzarc file for that route as I did not perform any edits. It also included another .tzarc file with the same kuid name as the asset I deleted (2 106918 10213 1).
The Conclusion:
So @oldman777 it looks like you are correct, deleted assets are stored in the .../backups folder but only for 7 days. As I stated above, deleting the folder, or even just emptying its contents, will also delete your route and session edits and that would not be a good move.
My recommendation - leave the .../backups folder as it is. Deleted assets will be permantently deleted after 7 days anyway. If your storage space is so restricted that you would have to resort to deleting the .../backups folder immediately then it is time to get a larger storage device.
If you need to delete payware packages DLC, use this https://online.ts2009.com/mediaWiki/index.php/Help:In-game_Downloading#Complete_DLC_Listing to find the corresponding package from the Complete DLC Listing. Delete the package or SCxxxx folders you no longer require and perform a database repair immediately after you are finished with the process.
Dinorius_Redundicus
kuid 68213
I’m just laughing at how complex, counter-intuitive and contentious it is to delete something from Trainz. It’s as bad as the whole Save thing.
That is largely because we are all used to deleting complete files via the OS into the Recycle Bin (or even bypassing that and sending them directly to the "bit bucket").
Databases, such as the assets stored in Trainz, treat deletions differently (or at the very least they should). Trainz assets are stored as records, not files. Having worked with many databases over the years and having studied and written about them, I can confirm that deleting records from databases is not always simple, intuitive and non-contentious - often due to security concerns (you don't want the office junior accidentally deleting vital records).
Most DBMSs have built-in fail-safes that prevent permanent record deletions until a certain time has elapsed or a "purge" command is issued, for example. The deleted records are still present but are marked as "hidden/inactive/to be trashed/leave me alone/etc" and are inaccessible to users without certain privileges. My discovery of deleted assets in the .../backups folder was a initially a surprise to me but is perfectly in keeping with the database nature of Trainz assets and CM. In the case of these assets they are automatically deleted after 7 days.
A sensible precaution, in my opinion, but one that could have been better advertised.
I have been thinking about this and have now created a new Wiki Page How to Restore Deleted Assets to explain how deleted assets can be recovered back into Content Manager.
I wish there was a simple interface to manage this procedure instead of the geeky files, folder, renaming files, and praying that the cryptically named file is the actual back you needed to restore.
That's why I immediately save everything important to .cdp, and then delete the entire contents of the backup folder without hesitation.
I mean, changing routes or sessions and assets that are not on the DLS.
Not a strategy that I would use. Particularly if you have made major changes to a route and session since your last manual backup to .cdp and you somehow accidentally delete them (it has happened to me) or they become corrupted. Likewise accidentally deleting an asset you have created after hours of work and then discover that the last .cdp backup was made yesterday.
The contents of the backup folder is continuously recycled over a 7 day period anyway and, as I have commented above, if you are that short of storage space that deleting the backups would make difference then it is beyond time to consider getting a larger storage device.
But each to their own.
He can also set a limit to the number of backups if there's a concern including 0 for none.
The 7-days of backups isn't necessarily a week. These are just 7-days with the oldest of them being deleted first.
springtransit
What are you looking at?
If you installed the route from the Content Store, then uninstalling will delete the assets that were installed as a part of that route.
That is correct but the deletion has to be done via the Content Store app from the Trainz Launcher, not from Content Manager which is for DLS, your own and 3rd party assets.