Same Trackmark endlessly duplicated

[johnnytrain]

Hello all. I'm a long-time Trainz user who has somehow got this far while learning next to nothing about the nuts and bolts. Anyway - I am using Trainz Plus, Build 123844. My problem is that two of the trackmarks (the red ones) I've recently created have somehow multiplied themselves to the extent that the Drive To menu is completely overloaded. I have tried deleting the original trackmark, but this has no effect on the duplicates (which are invisible). I have tried deleting the section of track the trackmarks were on. I have tried deleting everything in the grid square the trackmarks purport to be in. I have tried deleteing the baseboard section the trackmarks are supposedly lurking in. I have tried deleting EVERY baseboard in the entire layout (there are about 2000 of them), along with the track layer, session layer and most of the other layers but the endlessly repeated phantom trackmarks are still there. The only thing I haven't tried yet is burning my entire house down and sowing the ground with salt. Before I do can anyone advise me on a better way to fix the problem? Unfortunately to save disk space I tend to keep only the last three versions of my layout on the go and by the time I'd noticed this the error-free older copies were gone. (I do make periodic backups to external disk, but that means losing two week's work.) It's a nice layout (even if I do say it myself) that I've been working on for about 8 years and so far it's been fairly trouble free.

 

[ek.skirl]

Is there any special system on the name of the invisible trackmark? Something like Trackmark nnn until Trackmark mmm? Or special name different o wanted trackmarks? If so, I remeber that there is a tool made by pguy that makes it possible to get a list of trackmarks in a small script. (Named Object Library? or so) This script may run trough the list and than delete the unwanted trackmarks. May be that there is someone able to write this and add it to a dummy-asset you may add to the route. I think that it is possible because the driver commands find them.

 

[johnnytrain]

@ek.skirl - Many thanks for your reply. The name is exactly the same in each instance (it's St. Cross North Junction). Only the legitimate trackmark is visible - the rest are phantoms (I tried making the ground transparent to see if they had gone subterranean, but no luck. Here's a strange thing though - when I delete the baseboard where the FIND command locates them (which is exactly the location of the legit one), the find command now directs me to one of the edges around the deleted baseboard. Maybe there's something about that name that Trainz Plus has an issue with? I have no idea how many times it's duplicated as the Find menu says "Search limit hit - more results exist which are not currently displayed."

 

[ek.skirl]

I don't know yet if the partial list is then there and the search limit hit is "only" a hint? So seems to be necessary running the find/deletion multiple times in the script until the find answers with a zero sized array.

 

[JCitron]

Before you burn your house down, let's step back and take a deep, deep breath! I know the feeling though. I've done self-inflicted damage like unknowingly deleted a baseboard or two and discovered that many, many saves later because the missing baseboard was located on the other side of my very large route. I've also "thinned my trees" using he bulk update and then proceeded to change out trees but still had the delete mode on, and deleted all my large pine trees. Yes, pine trees on a mountainous part of the large route and didn't notice until many, many saves later. With no way to recover, I was ready to chock up the loss and walk away from the route but I found a decent backup of my route and went forward from there.

Anyway, I have a warm and fuzzy feeling as to why this occurred.

Were you editing Session instead of the Route? Then went in and didn't see the track marks in the route and added them again and again?

Before trying anything, do a manual backup in Content Manager and save a copy of your route to a CDP.

Open your route in the Route editor only and not through the session.

Go to the layers panel and click on Session layer and delete it.

Did the problem go away, or are they greatly reduced?

 

[johnnytrain]

Many thanks to both of you, ek.skirl and JCitron, I appreciate your replies and advice. I have tried your kind suggestion, JCitron, but unfortunately the problem persists. I (roughly) counted the number of times St. Cross North Junction occurs in the Find Objects menu and it must be 1,000 (with more not displayed). I'm pretty sure it's an out-and-out bug. I've done the usual thing of retracing my steps and undoing the last things I did to the layout (which was indeed adding a few trackmarks - 5 I think -which were entirely elsewhere on the route and with completely different names. If it comes to it I can live with it until the next update comes out which will undoubtedly fix this and every other bug and give us all our hearts' desire. The only issue is that it divides the navigation menu into such small subgroups that it makes Drive To or Navigate To a bit of an ordeal. Anyway, I have decided not to burn down my stately home after all and have given the matches to Mrs Danvers for safe-keeping.

 

[JCitron]

That's good to hear. We don't want to read the news about a Trainz user who burned his house down!

I will say though, you have a town named after you located 15 miles south of where I live. That means during our Colonial period some of your relatives came over here.

Anyway, look for Navigate to Track Mark Extended. I've been unable to locate the link to that command but I do have it and its related Driver to Track Mark Extended.

The command will allow you to break up the very long list of commands into alphabetical groups instead of listing everything in one long list that gets truncated.

 

[PC_Ace]

I'm also convinced that this must be a bug - with the causation obscure and the outcome extremely rare - though likely to be related to an already 'full and overflowing' Track Objects list.
~2000 baseboards and thousands of trackmarks and other track objects in a route will indeed put a strain on any session's database lookup operations and functionality.

Suggest escalate this to N3V's stoic QA team for resolution:
https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/xRdryu

Good luck with resolving this one!
PC

 

[JCitron]

It could very well be a bug and a big one too.

Speaking of bugs, I'm up and running now with lots of caution and saves as I work.

 

[johnnytrain]

I'm also convinced that this must be a bug - with the causation obscure and the outcome extremely rare - though likely to be related to an already 'full and overflowing' Track Objects list.
~2000 baseboards and thousands of trackmarks and other track objects in a route will indeed put a strain on any session's database lookup operations and functionality.

Suggest escalate this to N3V's stoic QA team for resolution:
https://n3vgames.typeform.com/to/xRdryu

Good luck with resolving this one!
PC

Will submit it to The Team as you suggest. Thanks for your reply.

That's good to hear. We don't want to read the news about a Trainz user who burned his house down!

I will say though, you have a town named after you located 15 miles south of where I live. That means during our Colonial period some of your relatives came over here.

Anyway, look for Navigate to Track Mark Extended. I've been unable to locate the link to that command but I do have it and its related Driver to Track Mark Extended.

The command will allow you to break up the very long list of commands into alphabetical groups instead of listing everything in one long list that gets truncated.

Thanks for that too, I'll certainly do that. Plus I'm off to look up a map of U.S. to see what my colonising antecedents have been up to.

 

[johnnytrain]

For what it's worth and lest any Trainzers suffer the same fate, I found a fix. The duplicate trackmarks were just phantoms. Invoking the magic of the 'Delete Missing Assets' command did the trick and the thousand or so erroneous listings disappeared never to return (I hope).

(nb: It occurs to me that using global commands like Delete Missing Assets is somewhat akin unleashing a genie from a bottle and asking for three wishes and who knows what unintended consequences may ensue, but so far so good.)

 

[PC_Ace]

Well done! (Makes sense and, thanks for the update)

 

[JCitron]

Like a magical genie, the results can be either disastrous or magically wonderful!

I'm glad the end result was good. Who would think the magical DLM would come to the rescue!

It makes sense because the track markers and their relations are tracked by a huge table. If the pointer is confused, things get out of whack as you found out when the program loses track of track markers and whatnot. By running DLM, this resets the table and puts everything back in order.

I wonder if this isn't such a bad idea after importing a route from an older version or after upgrading. The issue is to make sure there are no missing assets, otherwise, the route can end up trashed.