Given the issues that many people have had in the not so recent past during upgrades, I've been following the process outlined below with excellent luck. This is a recommendation, not necessarily the best practice, for handling Trainz upgrades and has worked well for me more than once. Before beginning an upgrade, it's important to ensure everything is in working order, by this I mean no open for edit files, the database is error free, and there are no faulty assets, missing dependencies not withstanding here.
- Ensure you have plenty of disk space. The patch needs space not just to fit from the server, it also needs to decompress to execute. If there is not enough disk space, things can get weird to put it mildly.
- The first and foremost thing to do is backup your data! Put a copy of your user data somewhere. I highly recommend purchasing one of those inexpensive, under $100USD USB 1TB external hard drives for this. It's good to have backups anyway, but performing a full backup of the data first will generally ensure there will be no problems - the reverse of Murphy's Laws here.
- Ensure your data is error free. Spend time and go through the Trainz assets and ensure there are no faulty ones. Having faulty assets and updating the program can lead to problems. We've seen this with more than a few posts as people have gotten stuck during some phase of the update due to a faulty asset so having clean database to start is a good move. You may want to do this first before backing up. You might even want to run a database repair before updating to ensure there are no database errors as well.
- Allow plenty of time. This is no time to rush. If you don't have the time to focus on the process carefully, wait until it's convenient. You need to watch messages, and with them written in N3V Brew Crew language it can be difficult understanding what exactly is needed. A press of a cancel instead of an OK, or clicking on the wrong thing can trash the upgrade.
This goes without saying too, never cancel an upgrade if it's in process. You have a backup, right, so let it run to its completion. If things aren't right, you can always reinstall the program and restore your data though inconvenient that might be.
- When prompted to do the database repair, do it. Don't cancel the process and expect things to work. Even if there is no prompt, do one anyway because the data has changed in some fashion.
- After the upgrade defrag your hard drive. The data has been moved around and opened and closed, which can fragment a hard drive (SSDs are the exception) so a good disk defrag after the upgrade really does help here.
- Once the process is done, shutdown Trainz and reboot the PC before running Trainz for the first time since upgrading.
John
- Ensure you have plenty of disk space. The patch needs space not just to fit from the server, it also needs to decompress to execute. If there is not enough disk space, things can get weird to put it mildly.
- The first and foremost thing to do is backup your data! Put a copy of your user data somewhere. I highly recommend purchasing one of those inexpensive, under $100USD USB 1TB external hard drives for this. It's good to have backups anyway, but performing a full backup of the data first will generally ensure there will be no problems - the reverse of Murphy's Laws here.

- Ensure your data is error free. Spend time and go through the Trainz assets and ensure there are no faulty ones. Having faulty assets and updating the program can lead to problems. We've seen this with more than a few posts as people have gotten stuck during some phase of the update due to a faulty asset so having clean database to start is a good move. You may want to do this first before backing up. You might even want to run a database repair before updating to ensure there are no database errors as well.
- Allow plenty of time. This is no time to rush. If you don't have the time to focus on the process carefully, wait until it's convenient. You need to watch messages, and with them written in N3V Brew Crew language it can be difficult understanding what exactly is needed. A press of a cancel instead of an OK, or clicking on the wrong thing can trash the upgrade.
This goes without saying too, never cancel an upgrade if it's in process. You have a backup, right, so let it run to its completion. If things aren't right, you can always reinstall the program and restore your data though inconvenient that might be.
- When prompted to do the database repair, do it. Don't cancel the process and expect things to work. Even if there is no prompt, do one anyway because the data has changed in some fashion.
- After the upgrade defrag your hard drive. The data has been moved around and opened and closed, which can fragment a hard drive (SSDs are the exception) so a good disk defrag after the upgrade really does help here.
- Once the process is done, shutdown Trainz and reboot the PC before running Trainz for the first time since upgrading.
John