MIDLAND help I have a problem

[cathouse]

Hi
I finished running the 6th of your sessions,Ore-some, and loaded the 7th, 23vlx.
The route opened in Surveyor ok but as soon as I went into Driver Trainz crashed with a fatal error.

I then discovered EVERY session after Ore-some crashes when going into Driver.

All my other routes work ok.

the only difference I can see at the moment is 23 VLX is the first one to use the vlx vans and the brakevan but I checked both of these with TO and also created a test board with a circle of track, a built-in loco and these two vans and that went into Driver ok.

all I can say now is HELP:'( :'(

If you have any ideas please let me know.
Cheers
Roy



BTW I just looked at your thread about the latest session 'the road goes on ' and someone has posted that it made their trainz crash. could it be the same thing??

 

[Midland]

Ooh er...

This rocket science is a bit beyond me.

I know I tend to be rather optimistic with my portals and have fairly intensive and demanding AI consists. I don't know if that is behind this issue. I thought my earlier sessions also used fairly heavy AI stuff too.

Could you elaborate a bit please?

Does it crash the moment you select Driver or does it load and then crash?

I know I've been getting some bizarre things happening in TRS lately, I hope it's not a virus! I certainly don't want to distribute faulty sessions; each session takes an age to work out, work through and debug; I want people to use and enjoy them, not have their PC roasted! Just last night I was up until 2 am debugging a session and finding stupid things like LARS and ProtoLARS that I haven't programmed correctly. I do take this session building seriously and I certainly take your comments seriously.

I also did your tests with the CP van and the two types of VLX vans but they seemed to be fine. The map must be okay too or else the earlier sessions wouldn't work properly either. It's got to be something communicable through sessions but I can't think what. If you remember, the discovery that reconfigured tender values was communicable by session was just a lucky chance. There could be other things like that that are sneaking in under the radar.

Hopefully some of the TRS rocket scientists will look through this thread and offer help.

I'm just sorry I can't be more useful.



Cheers

Nix

 

[dh2k3]

For me running the latest Loads and then once the icons appear fatal error and TRS2006 crashes. Map loads fine though.

Dave

 

[kcdowdy]

My Computer gave me a stop error, After trying to run Ore-Some.

I haven't got it running yet.

(On Moms Computer)

 

[cathouse]

My Computer gave me a stop error, After trying to run Ore-Some.

I haven't got it running yet.

(On Moms Computer)

Now thar's weird, I can load Ore-Some into driver ok, its the ones after that crash.

Midland, they crash to the desktop the instant I hit the Quickdrive button in Surveyor OR if I go straight from driver.
what I'll do (when I wake up properly) is, make a copy of one route, then delete stuff until it runs ok, TO tells me everything is ok but I'll check all the depedencies of dependencies, I've been caught like that before.

get back to you
Roy

 

[cathouse]

Hi
So far.
It doesn't appear to be the rolling stock. I got a print of all the dependencies for a session that crashes from TO, I then opened a 1 board test with a circle of track and placed every single item of rolling stock used in the session.
that went into driver ok.

I then cheked every emitting portal to see if you had used any different rolling stock, the result was one used the red hen, so that went on the test track and worked ok.

Its unlikely to be portals because then it would only crash when the portal looked for the faulty item, I've had that before.

I checked all rolling stock dependencies and thought I had something when the VR727 loco came up missing the loco crew, I had 2 versions on the system but it could only see the early one.

deleting the earlier version cleared that up but didn't fix the problem :n:

I can't see anything wrong in the driver instructions either so now I'm completely stumped.

the next thing to try is delete the session completely and re-download
although it's unlikely all 6 sessions came down corrupted.

other than that, I haven't got a clue.

back to you.
cheers
Roy

 

[cathouse]

YIPPEEE
I've sussed it!!!!!!!!!:clap: :clap: :clap: :Y: :Y: :Y:
am I a genius or what :hehe:

after trying every thing I could think of with no result I read through the instructions for '23 vlx' , the first one to crash.
well, apart from collecting the vlx wagons you also have to pickup 4 flats loaded with (your words) cement containers.

I started to think " If they are loaded the containers should be in the products list, I don't remember any cement containers in my list"

so I looked in the map in anderson yard at the flats and they were empty.

On a wild hunch I went on the DLS, typed in 'cement container ' in the products list and found 6 of the little buggers, so I d/lled them.

I went back into trainz, opened that session and looked in anderson again, and there they were all loaded up. clicked on quickdrive and BINGO it worked.
and so did the other 5.

the missing product is"40t cement container type 2" Kuid No 45335:280004

So,there you go, one silly thing like that causes a fatal error.

hope you read this before you tear out too much hair

cheers for now
Roy

 

[Midland]

Thank you Roy yes I've put the revolver back in the drawer for the time being... :hehe:

It's absolutely maddening that such a small detail can bring NORAD to its knees. I saw those tanks on the DLS one day and noticed they had Australia on them. Like a lot of Aussie rolling stock they're not industry interactive but I thought I could use the bluffing method; you put "loaded" ones in the cement siding and leave them there and later when you come back they have been "emptied". Nice plan but poorly executed!

Incidentally I still have plans for Harry to uplift them later. You may have noticed my sessions are actually sequential.

I'm really delighted that you tracked this one down. Hopefully the sessions will be error free from now on.



Cheers

Nix

 

[cathouse]

Hi Midland
I had noticed that they are sequential.
The thing with that is you give us all this nice rolling stock to play with and then give us sessions in the dark so we can’t see it.

Now these sessions are sorted there was something else I meant to discuss with you.

whilst running 'Get to the hops' I was thrashing down the esses doubleheaded toward Tinkers between Jamestown and Jamestown South and I had to slam all the anchors on because the were 7 AI locos waiting to enter portal A2.
when I looked at the portal I could see that it had stopped absorbing consists and apart from the ones outside there were 8 labels pointing to consists that had entered and derailed or got stuck.

I had to take over each AI in turn, tell them to 'stop train' then drive them manually into the portal so I could get past because they were all blocking the single track bridge.

Now I'm sure that I caused it to start with because earlier in the session I saved it to go to bed.
I know if you save whilst the portal is absorbing or emitting a train it screws it up.

With Phils sessions the AI comes out at regular intervals and you can work out when to save but yours come out at funny intervals, some at 9 mins, some at 8 mins.

Its therefore impossible to calculate when to save without messing up.
Seeing as it's practically impossible to do a 4hr session in one sitting especially when a 4hr one takes me 5 1/2 hrs .

I wondered why you chose such odd times.
Something to think about perhaps.
Cheers
Roy

 

[Midland]

A very valid point Roy!

The original reason for the strange intervals is to try and stagger the creation of consists around the layout. If all ten portals started making trains at the same time my system would judder so much that I could actually go away, cook a roast, eat it, wash the dishes and come back and sit down and it would be just finishing making the consists! :hehe:

You have to admit that my consists are quite the opposite of Phil's; his are neat and tidy and are all the same and have been chosen so as to minimise the judders; mine have been chosen to show off as much Aussie rolling stock as I can and to give you heaps to look at on your long lonely shifts. I found the staggering of the timings of the portals did help reduce the judders quite a bit. I realize now that this gives problems with saving sessions as it is really hard to work out when to do a save!

As to the session lengths...

You're worried about a four hour shift? We were supposed to be limited to 12 hours but that was frequently exceeded!

However I accept that you're not getting a paypacket for this and I certainly don't want to work great long shifts any more. I have been trying various tricks to get the session times down to a more realistic level. With Logger Rhythms and Fush 'n' Chups I achieved this by running from Hoskings to Basin Harbour and then Basin Harbour to Hoskings. This also meant I could cut down on AI stuff but prevented the covering of bigger distances and Austral Bay 5a is certainly a big layout!

With The road goes ever on and on, A journey in the dark and The bridge of Austral Bay (can you guess where the titles come from?) I have broken a long single trip from Hoskings to Huff into three sessions. The first two are around three hours each and the last one is barely two hours. The advantages of this technique are that I only need AI trains for the part of the journey covered in that session thus giving your PC a break, and also having a place to finish that will not give you that awful unmanageable AI train emission/consumption problem. It also means I can start each session with a bit of AI train activity in areas other than the usual portal to portal method and make it look more interesting and 'real'. Check out the start of A journey in the dark and especially The bridge of Austral Bay.

The disadvantages are basically to do with continuity. A journey in the dark starts where The road goes ever on and on finished with Harry on the head of a train in a particular place. Obviously I'm going to make up the train to look like how it looked for me in the previous session and if you've made it up differently then you're going to immediately notice that when you start the next session. I also place Harry and the train in the following session where I left him in the previous session and if you've put him somewhere else then again it's going to look a bit strange when you start the next session. I've tried to overcome this by being rather explicit with my instructions such as marshalling order and where the train is placed at the end of the session but it does detract a little from "we all do it our own way". I guess it's all give and take.

I do prefer the shortened sessions. They are much easier to set up and debug and I assume they are rather more popular with Trainzers. I suspect that sessions of between two and three hours are the goal though I'm always open to suggestions. Just for the sheer hell of it I might one day make a twelve hour session! But not yet...

I still have plenty of ideas as to how Harry might be gainfully employed and also some ideas of additional characters (a bit like in Ore-Some!) who can put in appearances from time to time.

Of course if Harry had more industry enabled Aussie rolling stock to pull...



Cheers

Nix

 

[cathouse]

Hi Nix

I can understand your reasoning, I always notice a slight jerk when an AI train is emitted.
My comp is not too bad now, I bought a new one from Aldi and it came with 1gig of memory.
I was always scared to right-click on a LARs track in Surveyor because, as you say, I could have my dinner before it loaded.

I just fitted another 1 gig stick and it's made a hell of a difference.

I clicked on a LARs track and it came up in about 15 seconds. I nearly fell orf me chair guv.

I can guess the origin of 'A journey in the dark' , its another one where I can't see where I'm dam' well going. :hehe: :hehe: :hehe:

I'll keep my eye out for the new ones, if the dls isn't having a hissy fit I'll even d/l them

see you later
cheers
Roy