Is the download station just somebodys laptop

N

nestfilms

New member
I'm really getting sick of the speed and reliability of the download station.

I'm constantly looking at either just a white screen, a timed out error or just a really long time between pages (4 mins).
The download cart frequently times out and either does not update or clears everything i have in it.
Even as i type this after viewing four pages of search results its gone again and won't display a single page. Also narrowing search results to just the UK stuff instantly causes a white screen with done at the bottom
it feels like the download station is just sitting on a laptop in somebody's back room and more than two people using it causes a crash.


I would have thought that paying for a first class ticket would entitle me to a better connection that i'm getting if not what am i paying for?

i haven't been using it for long is this how it is all the time or are we going through a bad month.

Just to add my internet connection to everywhere else is fine

Not that happy:(
 
It can be very frustrating - I had trouble about six months ago and after weeks of trying all suggestions by others on the forum I changed my broadband modem and have not had any problems since.
At the time all other programs etc were fine - just Trainz DLS would not work properly. In theory it should not have made much difference but it was the answer and now good connection and top download speed all the time.
This may be worth a try if you can borrow a modem and test it out.
Ron:sleep:
 
The Download Station is notorious for being unreliable, and it's been that way for many years.

You'll get times when it runs fine,with or without an FCT, and that can last for months.

Then you get times, like now, where you can barely get a page to load, and if you do, the next page will more than likely not load.

I'm afraid it's another example of a fine idea that's poorly implemented.
It's better than nothing, but as the years go on, it edges nearer the "nothing" in terms of usability.

Sure, you'll get people saying "It works for me", but that's not the point, and of little help to those people having trouble with it.

Before TS2009 (and before I took a long break from Trainz), Auran said that the DS was one of their top priorities and that the content would be fixed and the service would be more reliable, but that was nearing the release of TS2009 so I guess it was more PR rhetoric for the sake of investors and customers than anything else.

I'd really like to know how many people they have working there now since their "FURY" downsizing, because the silence coming from any of the staff is deafening!

I'd like to see issues like the DS problems dealt with actively on these forums all year round, and not just when there's another version of Trainz due out.

Smiley.
 
nestfilms,
Why are you downloading straight from the DLS?
If you have a FCT, you should be downloading from the CMP!
 
BLACKWATCH said:
Theres nothing wrong with the download station, I've downloaded over 900 items in the last few days.
Click to expand...
Same old story, if it works for it must be okay! Rather like the old Aussie expression "I'm alright Jack", meaning if I'm okay, then then everything's fine.
What works for some doesn't always work for others, personally I find it better to DL direct from DL Station via FTP. Still notice that DLS does play up with slow loading, blank white page, and could not connect messages. This is with FCT. Customers pay for software and FCT's so really the DLS should run better at all times. Auran owes a lot to third party creators who make their stuff available free of charge, but it's often hard to upload to DLS by any method, or for customers to find and download reliably. The only time anything is heard from Auran staff is when they are boasting about a new product, they don't seem to want to answer the hard questions, they leave that to volounteers.
 
falcon, I think you will find that "I'm alright Jack" is an old English expression rather than an old Aussie expression. :D
 
Don't forget guys that there are probably a few servers belonging to whatever networks between you and Auran, any one of which can be suffering from congestion or a fault and nothing to do with Auran, if it works for some faultlessly most of the time and others are continually having problems there may well be a problem elsewhere such as the route taken, ISP or even the ISP's DNS servers and apart from the user changing DNS servers there is little Auran or the end user can do about it.
I use OpenDNS and get very few problems with any connection.
Google have a free DNS server now as well which is supposed to be pretty good according to reports.
 
Buy a First Class Ticket. I have one and it REALLY makes a difference. It used to take 2 minutes for a 500kb file to download from the DLS before FCT, but when I bought the FCT, I didn't wait anymore than 1 second.
 
trainzroxthehouse said:
Buy a First Class Ticket. I have one and it REALLY makes a difference. It used to take 2 minutes for a 500kb file to download from the DLS before FCT, but when I bought the FCT, I didn't wait anymore than 1 second.
Click to expand...

I HAVE a First class ticket (mentioned in the original post)

As for why i'm not using CMP, well i did start using it to begin with but the search facility is useless and never finds what i'm after. the one on the DLS is better and also has groups.
Connections through the cmp are better, that is once its managed to log on.
 
Doesn't work worth a crap for me either. Of course it doesn't do any good to squak about it. That only stirs up the "Auran can do no wrong" crowd who will always tell you that it is something in your system causing the problem and not anything on the Auran end. I really like the one about the modem. I hadn't heard that one before. Creative to say the least.
 
nestfilms said:
I HAVE a First class ticket (mentioned in the original post)

As for why i'm not using CMP, well i did start using it to begin with but the search facility is useless and never finds what i'm after. the one on the DLS is better and also has groups.
Connections through the cmp are better, that is once its managed to log on.
Click to expand...
It's not the CMP that's useless!:cool:
Try using the search facility on the left,
 
Smileyman said:
Told you!

Smiley.
Click to expand...


Good point, Smiley! I agree what works for some is not does not always work for others. I've noticed the DLS having problems too, but I was blaming the snowstorm and my cable connection. Every time whe have a wind storm, our internet gets buggered up.

Now a lot of the downloading issues could be bandwidth. I've been thinking about this for awhile. Right now there are a host of people on vacation around the world. It's also winter time in the northern hemisphere with lots of people staying home downloading content. Let's face it, it's too cold do anything outside. It's winter and snowy so it's too yucky out do anything outside. Although if you're an obsessed Trainz users, you wouldn't go outside anyway! ;) So there are more people up there browsing for content.

The other thing to remember too is there are a lot of new people that have Trainz now. They received this as a gift over the holidays, and or have upgraded to TS2010, and are now browsing for new content. I noticed that this similar problem happened when TRS2004 was introduced, and when the service packs came out for passenger support. Then again with TRS2006, then TS2009 (not so much), and now with TS2010.

So what's the answer? I don't know really other than Auran investing in more bandwidth, cleaning up the search fascilities perhaps, and maybe revamping the old DLS once and for all like we've been asking for as long as I can remember.

John
 
j_maybury said:
The trouble is, do you really want help, or do you just want to moan, I it think it's the latter.
Click to expand...
Do I want help?

Of course I don't want help.
I'm more than capable of sorting out any problems I have.
If you knew anything about me from these forums over the past 8 years, you'd know that.

If you knew anything about this thread, you'd know that it wasn't me that started the thread, and that I posted agreeing with him.
As far as I can see, no-one was actually asking for help.

I did, however, predict that people would post in this thread with comments like "Works for me", and that most people would see it as problems his end.
Although there's always a chance it could be, anyone who's been here long enough knows just how poor the Download Station has been over the years, and that it's needed an overhaul for a long, long time.
Even Auran have admitted this in the past.

Need your help?
The acronym "LOL" just doesn't do it justice. :hehe:

Smiley.
 
This topic for this thread is an absolute classic:

I just can't stop laughing ---- :p :p :p :p :p

Is the download station just somebodys laptop!!

kudos!!
Ishie
 
Sorry Smiley,
I Wasn't saying you needed any help, even though it looks that way, I do tend to read from the first page, so I do know who asked the question, and I know how long you have been around, then gone, and then back again, then gone, and now back again! I've even read most of your posts, but these days they tend to be, let’s say a little bitter for my taste.:o
 
j_maybury said:
I've even read most of your posts, but these days they tend to be, let’s say a little bitter for my taste.:o
Click to expand...
Fair comment, but I speak my mind.
If I didn't think it needed saying then I wouldn't say it.

I've never been one to "Auran bash" for the sake of it, and back in the day you will have seen me promoting Trainz with as much gusto as any man on here.
That was because those days, even if Trainz wasn't perfect and needed a lot of work done on it, we knew that Auran were dedicated to it, and were trying their best with the limited resources they had.
One thing you will never see me doing is cheering or slating Auran blindly.
There are people on these forums who belong to one of the two groups, and I dislike both equally. lol
People should never "blindly" do anything.

These days, the effort only seems to be there when they have something new to sell us.

So, if you see me seemingly having a go at Auran again, maybe you'll see the bigger picture and realise that it's simply because I think they are falling short of what they were, and what they could be (IMO), and not a mindless rant at the first thing that goes wrong (there are plenty of people who do that, I'll grant you).

As I've said once already this week, I think Auran have done a great job with TS2010, but after all that hard work on the software, the PR and community side of things is shocking.

If only half of Auran's staff were to spend 5 minutes of their lunch-hour once per week on these boards, then a lot of people would have a lot more faith in the product and them.
Don't tell me that's too much to ask.

Personally, I think they're under strict instructions not to, and this has been the way since ********* took over.
Is this an improvement?
Not in my opinion.

Anyway, in this instance, the Download Station is playing up for some people, and when I looked yesterday, there wasn't a lot of new content on the DS since the Christmas closedown, even though I know there are several people waiting on their assets being cleared.

Maybe I've just missed the posts from Auran staff, joining in conversations on the subject, and reassuring them that it is being dealt with. :hehe:

Smiley.
 
Last edited:
Smileyman said:
Fair comment, but I speak my mind.
If I didn't think it needed saying then I wouldn't say it.

I've never been one to "Auran bash" for the sake of it, and back in the day you will have seen me promoting Trainz with as much gusto as any man on here.
That was because those days, even if Trainz wasn't perfect and needed a lot of work done on it, we knew that Auran were dedicated to it, and were trying their best with the limited resources they had.
One thing you will never see me doing is cheering or slating Auran blindly.
There are people on these forums who belong to one of the two groups, and I dislike both equally. lol
People should never "blindly" do anything....

:hehe:

Smiley.
Click to expand...

You've summed it up nicely Smilely. I too feel the same way you do. In many cases I appear to come to their defence, but as a former employee of a company the current size of Auran, I can understand the lack of manpower to do what is always needed, and I don't think it's fair for people to bash them for everything. Companies have odd ways of doing things, and sometimes the lack of communication seems to be the biggest one. In my old company, they fired the marketing guy and cut the sales force. How else to shoot yourself in the foot when you're trying to run a company. You need a presence out there whether it's through a forum and website setup like this, or through the regular marketing channels. I'd be interesting to see/hear what John Banks would have to say about the current situation of the company. I don't know if he's gone on to other businesses, but wasn't the online community the topic of his PhD that he worked on during his tenure at Auran?

I think that Zec et al should visit more often other than to quel confusion about some tecnical issue they're having. I well remember Lance, John Banks, and even then CEO Greg Lane, poking in from time to time in the old days. It was nice to hear from Lance in the beginning as he was much a Trainz fan as the rest of us. He was there every day on the forums and his thoughts and posts made as much of an impact as ours did. Unfortunately all this past history went with the old forum when that failed a few years ago now.

Ah the old days before the fury of Fury and the big death knoll on the company's door. I think it was the big disaster that changed the company, and what lead to the poor release that TRS2006 was. They scrambled to bring out a product that would keep them together through the tough times that followed. They succeeded and all in all, I think we're doing better than before. Now if only Tony would visit us once and awhile it would be nice to hear from the head honcho on more than one occasion other than to promote a new product.

John
 
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