Old guy goes insane. Trainz 2006 dial-outs.

[AnalogOldguy]

Hello Auran Friends. Hope you are having nice seasonal holidays.

Not wanting to make you crazy here. I've had craziness for the last two weeks. Very hard to find an answer to this searching the Forums. I tried until I was crazy!

Windows XP pro, no updates. 2 Ghz Sempron 754 CPU, 1G memory, ATI x800xt 256mb AGP. Very updated drivers.. Believe me, it runs Trainz 2006 no problems. Runs Far Cry, BF2, Mafia etc. RCT3 very well at 1024x768.

No problem running 2006 (2761) for maybe a year and a half. Very happy. Never went online with CMP. Didn't know that Trainz went online. Didn't know how to do it. Still very happy.

Purchased 2006 (Trainz Collection package in US) with SP1 2.6 (3335) I ran this maybe a month or more. Happy. Later, I figured out how to use CMP online. Very pleased. Very helpful with the downloading (even though on dial-up). Mildy unhappy because CMP would try to go online everytime. Could live with it. CMP became an online only program for me.

Bought Railwayz 2.7 (3368) in the US where I live. A lot unhappy with Harlem load times and choppy frame rates, but happy with Modula City and its island. (Reminds me of Far Cry).. Used the CMP online with this also.

Trouble happened somewhere around here. But Railwayz did feel solid for a couple of weeks.

Maybe it was the installation of Railwayz. I had also downloaded a Loco that locked up my new 2006 . I deleted the loco with CMP. Naturally it could have been a virus. But everything else on the computer was running perfect.

Somehow, 2006 and Railwayz soon started popping out to go online... at all stages of the game. When choosing a route in Driver. When clicking on a scenery choice in Surveyor. Pop me right out to my dialer (or firewall message). Even denying it with Zone Alarm wouldn't stop it from trying.

I've uninstalled The Trainzes. Reinstalled, scanned with antiviruses (none found). Tried deeper uninstalls with Revo uninstaller. And finally REFORMATTED my three partitions. Not quick format, but the slow complete format. reinstalled Windows. (2006 has always been on D: Railwayz on E: along with 2004 SP4)

I tried the CMP's online again to see if things were straightened out. CMPs worked, and downloaded Download Station data.(I honestly can't remember if the Trainz.exe was trying to dial out at that stage, probably not)

I tried setting the Railwayz CMP to not automatically update (it has a setting for this). They both still try to go online (in both the CMP and Trainz.exe) when I don't want. I can try to close my dialer 10 times and it tries again. So I have removed my dialer program, removed my firewall, and have removed my modem. This has solved the problem, but takes my main computer off the internet.

I've added this text here. I looked at my Zonealarm log, and Spoolsv.exe (SpoolerSubSystem) is involved a lot while online. Last time, it was near one of my Trainz.exe attempts to go online.

There is still a very quick message 'connecting to the Trainz database' but otherwise they behave.

I'm asking you, is there any way to stop them from wanting to go online? Thank you. Bob P.

 

[wmmeyer]

This might help your situation:
In CMP select the "settings" option and then the "internet" tab. There you will find your Auran user name and password. Try blanking those two out and saving. Not sure if that will prevent it attempting to compare your info with their database or not. If/when you get a popup saying "unable to locate your user ID", you can safely close that by using the "ESC" key on your keyboard. Hope this helps.

 

[AnalogOldguy]

Hi Back to you wmmeyer!

I did what you said and removed all my information from the settings in the CMP.

Then I closed the CMP and restarted. It looked like it did not try to go online to update. No pop-up. It looked good.

But when I shut the CMP down, my ISP dialer was on the desktop ready to
go online. And as many shutdown clicks I gave it, it kept popping back (I had to restart the computer).

The worst part is when the Main Trainz 2006 program tries to go online. (the firewall tells me it is Trainz.exe.) This can happen with almost any click when picking a Driver Route in the main menu.And also in Surveyor,when I'm picking scenery or a train.

Last time I tried, I was in the Surveyor Routes menu. I click on Robe River Iron .. my ISP Dialer pops up. Click again, dialer pops up again, And so on
until I get a Trainz black screen of Death. I did try uninstalling the dialer and reinstalling.

I am totally sick of it. This never used to happen. Same Trainz 2006
program, same dialer,same XP. And this is after a total format of the hard drive. It feels a lot like a virus .. after a total format?? The rest of the games and programs that I reinstalled, run great and normally.

Must be a virus, even though AVG can't find it. I hate computers. Perhaps I'll just set up my gaming computer for offline only!

Thanks for the kind help WM! Bob P.

 

[JCitron]

Is your internet browser (IE or Firefox) set to automatically connect? This may have something to do with it if your CMP applications are set to use IE explorer settings for connection.

I had this problem ages ago with another unrelated program and it wold drive me nuts.

Good luck,

John

 

[AnalogOldguy]

Hi JCitron,

Firefox has always been set as my default web browser.
And in my CMP settings it was No proxy, or something like that. (the middle setting). But I tried all the settings! The ISP dialer was set (in it's menu) to be the contact with the internet. Funny, I unclicked that choice and it still would come up to dial. Maybe because I didn't have the computer set to dialup any other way for DUN networking!

The absolute worst part was when I was in Driver or Surveyor and it pops out to the desktop and my dialer is there. I tried letting it dial, to see where it wants to go. But it gets online and it goes to a back screen and Trainz totally locks up.

The final straw was yesterday when my ISP dialer popped up when I booted up Windows. And I could not click it off. So it could have been a problem with the dialer. Which I had previously uninstalled then reinstalled anyway.

Or a virus...

But no more. I have formatted the hard drive again, with differently sized partitions. Smaller Windows partition. No more modem, browsers, firewall, antiviruses etc. 2006 and Classics are running perfectly. This is how my gaming computer is going to stay. Off-line!

I am going to use my old junk computer for online and downloading (along with the fast computers at my local library) But I won't have the great help that the CMP gave, automatically looking up all the dependencies and so on. That was very nice! Hang in there JC, and thanks!

 

[Driver_Col]

Just an abstract thought ........ given all the hours that you have so far put in to resolving the TRS2006 frustrations, and with your current loss of CMP as a result of being off-line, you might want to consider ordering TRS2009. I never never had too much success with TRS2006 and therefore stayed with TRS2004 until TC3 came out (which I like). I too Trainzed off line for a short while but downloading on another pc, copying to cd, reloading on Trainz pc .... I got fed up with that routine very fast!

Regards. Colin.

 

[JCitron]

Hi Analog Guy,

This still sounds like a dial-up issue since it went away after you reinstalled everything fresh. If I recall from ages ago, there's a setting in the DUN adapters (virtual network adapters [VNA]) to automatically connect when the computer is on or detects the modem. I can't remember where the setting is since it really has been a long time since I was visited with this problem.

I do know your frustration whent this happens because it always happens at the most in opportunte time like in the midddle of a graphics-intensive program so it kills the program by forcing it to minimize. It also gets pretty frustrating if you're like me and touch type (I was a typographer for 10 years). I'd be in the middle of a long document or paper for school and then the screen would come up. Unfortunately I wouldn't see it until I had typed about 6 pages of text and nothing was in my document!

Anyway. For your sanity, your offline game pc might be the way to go. We do however recommend updating to SP1 for 2006 then eventually to 2009 Sp1. 2006-SP1 fixed a lot of problems and the program wasn't half-bad to use. When you've got things working as nicely as a Singer, plan up upgrading to 2009. The graphics are so much better and so is the performance.

Good luck and I'm hanging in there.

John

 

[AnalogOldguy]

Back to You both, (Driver_Col and JCitron)

Well I have been using my (now offline) gaming machine, and I can tell you that the 2006 SP1 and the Classics 1&2 (Railwayz) have been running noticably better. Load times on the most horrifying route (Harlem Line) have diminished from about two minutes of agonizing loading, to now about 30 seconds. And the loading in of scenery and trains is going much snappier.

Perhaps this is because I don't have the dialer and the Firewall and antivirus and various other things in the machine...

My 2006 is in fact an SP1 version, in fact I think maybe too new (I think it is 2.6 build 3335). (my first one was 2761). I know that maybe eventually I'll get tired of downloading on another machine. I do have a USB flash drive, someone on here recomended to me. But you know, I've have never actually created anything worthwhile with scenery, except fooling around with tracks and hills, bridges and backgrounds!

I've never come even remotely close to creating even one board! I am now aware that I must have a gigantic number of items (since I also have the four Auran Routes installed). I do believe I will be downloading at a slower pace. Probably the higher quality Locos and rolling stock, especially working industry stuff.

I think I'm primarily a 'driver' type, who also enjoys the really amazing 3d editor that Trainz has. I would buy Trainz 2009 when it gets to the driver edition. I'm just hoping that Auran doesn't start introducing too many automatic dial-out features. I swear that I read somewhere that the Classics have a dial-out feature besides in the CMP. I wish they would put a 'dialup manually only' button somewhere that works solidly ... Thanks for your help! Bob P.