Restoring a .CMPA layout

[cgwright]

Hello

Does anybody know why Trainz does not restore a layout properly from a backup? I had several layouts on a computer that the hard drive failed on. I now have a new computer, installed TS12, and tried to get my layouts back.

During the importing content from my backup .CMPA files, I get lots of red errors saying "Can't import XXXX because it is built-in". This includes a load of TransDEM textures that clearly are NOT built-in, because I made them myself!

So now I have layouts with a load of missing KUIDs. Some are on the DLS, and that's no problem at all, but a lot aren't. Trying to track them down is a nightmare, since I have downloaded stuff from websites, as well as from the DLS.

Why can't we have a Backup and Restore system that actually works, Auran? I guess the stuff about built-in assets is some sort of crude attempt to stop copying Auran content to other people's layouts, who maybe haven't paid for them. But for goodness sake, make it so that it only does apply to paid-for stuff, not things like TransDEM textures!

<end rant>

Anyway. My question. Is there any way to find out what all these KUIDs are? Or to force TS12 to import them anyway (because clearly they are in the .CMPA file)?

All the best
Chris

 

[shaneturner12]

The likely reason is that the assets may not have been saved properly in the first place, and as a result have a negative KUID number (which Content Manager sees as built-in, even if it is not).

Shane

 

[clam1952]

There are 12 builtin Transdem textures in TS12 by the way so not surprising you can't import them.

 

[stagecoach]

An imorted layout has the kuids of assets used but does not contain the kuids of any dependancies those assets may have. You Would need to import all of your old content from the old drive/backup to make sure you had all the assets. Are you using cmp to locate the missing assets? because it wont see the backup files only those on the dls or installed on the new drive. Sometimes you may need to rebuild the data base a few times.

 

[cgwright]

hi

Thanks for all your replies.

Shane, no the archives are OK, and the missing KUIDs are real ones.

Malc, I didn't know that there were built-in TransDEM textures, so I think you are right there. However, I only used those because I noticed them as particularly odd.

Stagecoach. The original problem was a dead hard drive - so no chance of getting stuff from the old drive. The backups I took were by archiving the layouts from the Content Manager. I also made .CPDs by right-clicking the layout in Content Manager. Both .CMPA and .CPD files were saved on another computer, and those are my sources for trying to restore from.

After some more thought, I think there are two things here. One is that the archiving or saving to .CPD doesn't save all the dependent assets of the dependent assets right down the tree - as Stagecoach says. I really think that this ought to be a facility that Auran build into Trainz in future. Give us a "BACKUP" that puts every damned thing into a file that we can use to restore it.

The second thing is the built-in assets thing. I think a lot of my problems are that I've used assets from older versions of Trainz that are not included in TS12. Some of the layouts were started in TRS 2006, some started in 2009 and continued through 2010. So I think there may be a muddle gone on there. I have had to do stuff with getting things out of old version before when I've updated from 2006 to 2009 and so on. Again, I think Auran might think about that. My serial numbers are all registered on Planet Auran, and they can use that information to display what versions of Trainz I own on here, to the right of my name - so why can't they have abetter copy protection sceme than just refusing to copy built-in content. Think Steam...

I guess I was partly wanting to unload after a weekend spent trying, and failing, to get any joy out of Trainz. I think that there should be a better facility for protecting our hours of time invested in Trainz assets.

Mostly, I think I just wanted someone to commiserate!

Cheers

 

[clam1952]

I only tried an archive once back when I was using 2009, it didn't work, so I decided to forget it, since then I save things to cdp so long as they not over about 500MB, at least they do get imported. Larger files seem to fail, thinking about it, that could be the problem with CMPA files as well. Plus I synchronise my userdata folder with a copy of TS12 on a separate drive and again to a separate PC.

Dependencies for routes can be saved in one lump by right click, list dependencies, view in main Window, select all, save to cdp, but watch the size! Route can be saved on its own.

Dead drive, depending on why it's failed you can sometimes get away with sticking it in sealed bag in the fridge for a few hours putting it in the PC and it may work for long enough to copy stuff off it alternatively a can of spray freeze can do the same thing.