Major concerns regarding Trainz background processes

Sorry Shane but I've never had any of these issues and TadDaemon doesn't cause any problems when I'm running Trainz with TS12 or 2010, that's on three different PC's. Other than initially contacting for user details and updates It certainly isn't phoning home frequently unless you are not on line, then it does try to contact every 2 minutes, that does want looking at although it hasn't interupted anything here. Both verified by network monitoring software. No problems with TrainzUtil either. If nothing else proof that possibly the problems are not reproducible by N3V.

I might suggest with TadDaemon taking a look at the associated Modules and handles to get a better idea of what it might be doing, includes things like caching, yep there is a cache which you can get the location of. C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Caches
Look at the same for Trainz.exe and for anyone who hasn't found it, you can see where the Trainz cookie and a few other Mozilla Trainz things are hiding.
C:\Users\your windows login\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Trainz\Cache ... Trainz\Cookies ... and so on, think these get zapped on closing Trainz

Regarding download problems, probably nothing to do with this but I'm chucking it in the pot anyway, there is a remote possibility something isn't quite right in the networking side of the PC, I've had problems with that on Win7 PC to PC transfers were a bit slow! 4 hours to copy a 2GB file, was also getting strange problems when downloading that were not present when using a USB modem or Dongle. Can't remember what I tweaked now, think it was caused by one of MS's supposed fixes anyway I'd suggest just checking the networking components are as they should be.
 
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C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Caches
No gots one of those, maybe something new to Win7? Don't have a C:\Users anything either.
 
Sorry should have said win7, probably in Userdata, I'd start Trainz drop to desktop and search with Explorer for Microsoft\Windows\Caches and then Mozilla\Trainz. I say with Trainz running as they are not normally there when it isn't, although I did find the Mozilla one once after a crash.
 
Shane:

I have had the exact same problems you outline in your first post. I will be downloading something and suddenly the auto-update of the content window will stop. The usual indication is "Please wait, applying filter". The heading over the Download Helper window says it is "Installing" and that's it. The game is frozen. Any attempt to 'nudge' it will fail and you are faced with the "Report it, Kill it, or Wait" dialog box.

Lately, I have done some rather deep investigations and found what you have: TrainzUtil.exe has somehow 'broken loose' from system control. If I take a look at the command window, I see it is in the middle of a texture conversion. Now, you have two options: 1) you can wait until it is reliable reported that hell has frozen over, or, 2) you can right-click the command window icon on the task bar and choose "Close Window". After a moment, the window closes and suddenly all sorts of things begin happening in rapid order up in CMP.

To be fair, Multitasking is a very difficult process to program. I've been there and it isn't pretty. But, having said that, I ALWAYS keep track of any task I "send out to complete" by making note of the Task ID that is returned. If, after my inline process completes, the TID hasn't reported back to me, I kill it. Apparently, killing TrainzUtiil.exe after it stalls isn't doing any harm that I can see. Once in a great while, the item will end up in "Open for Edit" when I kill TU.exe. When that happens, the content may be messed up and have to be downloaded again.

I wholehearted agree that the programmers need to be looking at WHY this happens and what can be done about it. Between this problem and the <KUID 0:0> problem, CMP is rapidly becoming a real chore to use.

Bill
 
yes it has been happening a lot in 2010 especially when the dls goes whacky then it keeps wanting to do EDR s all day ugh.........
I do notice with 2010 still using that it wants to update to 2012 content?
and when it gets to a HIGH AMOUNT OF UPDATES the EDR goes whacky again...........
This last DLS hangup surprised me though., it started showing new stuff on dls and didnt try to do a edr?

I do hope ya can find a solution and one thing I have been doin also is updating assets i use in routes to at least 2.9 and been noticing things running a bit smoother as of late (crosses fingers)
 
I get content manager freezing occasionally, more often in TS12 than TS2010. What I consider a "freeze" is when I change filters and it stops, I open Free Cell and play one game, if it hasn't started again after I finish the Free Cell game I consider that a solid lock and reboot. Once in a blue moon I'll get either CM or Trainz freezing after I've been editing cabviews and stuff like that, launching Trainz from CM to look at a cabview then shut it down and back to CM to edit and launch Trainz again to check and so on. But download problems are extremely rare, can't remember the last time I had any problem downloading into content manager. Possibly that's the way I play, I never turn on compatibility mode in TS2010, if it's faulty or has missing dependencies it either gets fixed or deleted.
 
Hi guys, I don't know enough about this process to comment but can I ask two questions please : 1) what is the end result of this problem and does it affect assets and cause red errors
and 2) does it do it with win7 and XP.
I can say that I have no FCT , I have win XP and CM does freeze temporily on me , especially while scrolling , but never freezes totally.
 
Hi Jan,

The end result of the issue is usually that assets fail to install, or the game behaves sluggishly when TrainzUtil is running.

It can affect assets if the process fails, as it has been known to cause the assets to be faulty.

As for your version, that may also be due to TrainzUtil, as it's usually validating assets.

Shane
 
"Touching wood" I have none of these problems but I don't download that much. AFAIK Trainzutil is just a utility that gets called when needed. It shouldn't "stay resident". It runs faster when cached.

Just for the record I have TS4, TS09 (no patches yet), TS10 and TS12 installed, Win 7 (64), Trend Micro Anti Virus and I use either Chrome or IE depending on my mood. I'm a programmer so I have a lot of weird stuff installed including VMWare's Workstation.

Every time I scan through all the automatic and "start when needed" processes I wonder how this computer works at all. I wonder if Trainz would work better on a dedicated computer with no other junk running.

I do look at TADDaemon occasionally and wonder about all those error messages that don't seem to affect my operation. The one saying "failed download of http://. Trying again in 2 minutes" has me curious.
 
Wondering if what people are downloading may be contributing to the problem or causing it? Some items are getting somewhat on the large size, one or two enormous ground textures I've seen appear lately that took for ever to commit, perhaps TrainzUtil is at the limit of what it can handle? I don't download much other than mainly updates as I'm making many of my own assets which may be a contributory factor in not having any problems.

Only other things I can think of is I have always installed as Administrator plus made sure all Trainz executables are set to run as administrator and nothing goes anywhere near Program files or the System drive even on Win7 Pro, may be overkill however it works. May also be worth going through Task Scheduler and reducing the amount of things phoning home and frequency and time they are doing it, Google seems to like updating far too frequently for my liking especially Google Chrome. That's now been binned.
I never start Trainz from the Launcher and only start Content Manager after the session Cookie and the one or two lines that after it have appeared in TadDaemon. I then start CM and wait for it to settle down before running Trainz. If I have downloaded a lot of updates or been doing a lot of editing on my route or creating new assets for it I run an EDR, only takes 15 minutes on my SSD. Not running one seems to cause a gradual slow down of in game performance.
Faulty items that can't be fixed are deleted, I may save to cdp first with a view to fixing later.
 
clam1952 said:
Wondering if what people are downloading may be contributing to the problem or causing it? Some items are getting somewhat on the large size, one or two enormous ground textures I've seen appear lately that took for ever to commit, perhaps TrainzUtil is at the limit of what it can handle? I don't download much other than mainly updates as I'm making many of my own assets which may be a contributory factor in not having any problems.
Click to expand...

If that is the case, N3V needs to really look things over, since the new creation standards in TS2009 required the use of larger textures. Oh, sure, you could go lower but there was a big company push for larger textures giving better graphics to compete with what is out there. Add in the encouragement to use 1 texture instead of several for faster run times but this too encourages larger textures. Even a Groundtexture now can be over 1MB.
 
If that is indeed the case, N3V really need to sort this issue with TADDaemon and TrainzUtil as a matter of priority, especially with the fact that one has to use Content Manager to download multiplayer routes/sessions.

Shane
 
Curious reading this thread, since I see none of these issues on my system. Of course, I just have TS12 but have downloaded Gigs of add ons and complex routes. I wonder how many of these issues are caused by an OS that has been on the computer since the day one suffering from data rot, or just an accumulation of garbage in the registry, remnants of old uninstalled drivers, and programs, and other such trash. When I used to run Flight sims alot and had tons of stuff installed on my PC, and active programs running along with the sim, like Real Weather, and ATC, I would wipe everything clean every couple of years and reinstall the OS. What a difference in performance that would make. Like overhauling the engine in your car.
 
RRSignal said:
Are any of the files 500Mb? I believe the CDP format is limited to 512Mb or so. If not, then I have to wonder if this "limit" isn't really a limit of the format, but some issue with Taddaemon itself.

Just curious.
Click to expand...

Hello RRSignal,

The content was created using Transdem. And the end of an internal process within Transdem, I become a complete package. This package is a folder which has several files.
When I import this content into Trainz and If the content of the package exceeds more than 500Mb, then the Taddeamon error pops up.

If I merge two routes, for example two non-transdem created routes, or 1 non-transdem created route and 1 transdem created route, or 2 transdem created routes and the size of the merged routes exceeds more than 500Mb, the taddeamon error pops up.

If I create a route using Transdem and the total package remains below the size of 500Mb, no Taddeamon error is received.

When I'm downloading a large route which has several hundreds of assets in it and I want to make 1 cdp file of it, I have to make certain that the cdp file has a size below 500Mb. Otherwise, when I have a cdp.file larger than 500Mb and I want to install it on another pc, I receive the taddeamon error.

I have this phenomenon with Win xp Prof SP3 and Win 7.


Best regards

Kurt :wave:
 
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@robert2d6: As Shane says, you only have TS12. What I suspect is that most of us have 'inherited' assets from lower versions. I know I have. This is done by needing an asset and recalling you already have it in, say, TS2009. You fire up TS2009/CMP and make a CDP of the asset. Then, you import it into TS2012. This way, you are bypassing the DLS, which just may have an updated version of the content (Hey! It could happen!).

Then, through this mechanism, or others just as sneaky, your database begins to get dry-rot. What happens is that over time various problems appear that affect the clean operation of TADDaemon and TrainzUtil.

Bill
 
Same here - for example, my private WIP route has been through 4 versions of the program (started in TRS2006, taken through TS2009 and TS2010, and now in use in TS12).

Shane
 
Which bring me to a slightly OT subject: If the "newer" CMP can spot that a specific keyword entry is invalid (or the keyword itself) with the "new" version, why not just ignore it instead of flagging it an 'error' and keeping the asset from being used. I have a feeling that some of these problems we've been addressing may be caused by TrainzUtil when in the process of "texture conversion" (which may entail a lot more than simple conversion) it hits a snag caused by CMP itself with the original flagged error. Heck, I'd flag everything as a 'Warning' and let the individual human gamer sort things out. If an attachment point can't be found, then make that a warning, but at least let it be used so the gamer can see what needs to be done.

Of course, I could also be completely off the mark (Been there, Done that, Got the Tee shirt).

Bill
 
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