This Needs to Stop

Hello, all. A very angry Chris here.

Okay, I am forced to manually shut down Content Manager A LOT. Every so often it freezes for unknown reasons, so I just close it down using Task Manager. Then, upon restart, CM will not apply my search filter. I just get a white background with "Please Wait..." near the top. So i close it down, this time taking TADDaemon with it. I restart Trainz, click on Content to open CM so that TADDaemon won't have to keep reloading, and CM comes up with no problem, like nothing ever happened.

Now, whenever I am forced to close CM and TAD, I am greeted with the completely original DATABASE UPDATE. Now I know that closing Trainz through TM will cause this, but this only started happening around the beginning of August. This never happened before that with TS12, TS10, OR TS06. Why (all of a sudden) am I getting this STUPID window that prevents me from playing my only working computer game?!? This is sad, even compared to Railworks (NOT FAILWORKS) taking forever to install by itself, and MSTS being so unstable for todays software that you can only play with the built-in stuff, or the stuff other people have made through downloads. Come on, N3V, this need to stop. And now, I even have Rail Simulator, the FIRST GAME IN THE RAILWORKS SERIES, sitting right here, ready to be installed.

Sincerely,
 
Your problems are being caused by your own actions, force closing TAD and CMP will cause an improper shutdown of the database, resulting in a database rebuild next load. If it freezes for a bit, its more than likely because its trying to sort out all the content database pieces.
 
Nobody is forcing you to kill the content manager when it is working and I don't see what N3V could do to stop you doing daft things with it.

'not responding' does not mean it has crashed.

Paul
 
Hello, all. A very angry Chris here.

Okay, I am forced to manually shut down Content Manager A LOT. Every so often it freezes for unknown reasons, so I just close it down using Task Manager. Then, upon restart, CM will not apply my search filter. I just get a white background with "Please Wait..." near the top. So i close it down, this time taking TADDaemon with it. I restart Trainz, click on Content to open CM so that TADDaemon won't have to keep reloading, and CM comes up with no problem, like nothing ever happened.

Now, whenever I am forced to close CM and TAD, I am greeted with the completely original DATABASE UPDATE. Now I know that closing Trainz through TM will cause this, but this only started happening around the beginning of August. This never happened before that with TS12, TS10, OR TS06. Why (all of a sudden) am I getting this STUPID window that prevents me from playing my only working computer game?!? This is sad, even compared to Railworks (NOT FAILWORKS) taking forever to install by itself, and MSTS being so unstable for todays software that you can only play with the built-in stuff, or the stuff other people have made through downloads. Come on, N3V, this need to stop. And now, I even have Rail Simulator, the FIRST GAME IN THE RAILWORKS SERIES, sitting right here, ready to be installed.

Sincerely,

Often Trainz has rather a large number of assets and can appear to be none responsive when in fact it is doing something. Right click the task bar and start task manager. Look under processes and you'll see cpu being used etc. One one machine I've seen Trainz mulling for three days but that was unusual but I'd tend to let it run a full repair overnight and it should sort itself out.

Cheerio John
 
Sorry to say but in 61388 it *does* freeze and repeatedly so, you know it is "game over" if you have tried to scroll the list or add another item to the pick list and the screen clouds over with a white haze. At that point the only option is Ctrl-Alt-Del to clear down CMP then into process manager to shut down TrainzUtil and TadDaemon which will run ad-infinitum if you don't. Happened to me on four separate occasions yesterday and I got so p...ed off with it, uninstalled 61388 (even though it meant losing a couple of WIP routes) and reinstalled back to 49922. This has been discussed at length a few times since 61388 arrived and I'm sure reported to the Helpdesk, but it has either been ignored, they don't know how to fix their own program or they're all too busy with TANE to give a fig about what will soon become "former customers" to take timeout and try to sort it with a small patch. Just try not to think these are the same guys who have been advanced a large sum of money with KS and now advance pre-orders, to program the forthcoming new Trainz... :)
 
All Windows programs do this when Windows doesn't get a response when it polls the running programs. I've had this happen with lots of programs and usually just waiting results in the program continuing normally.

Paul
 
Sorry to say but in 61388 it *does* freeze and repeatedly so, you know it is "game over" if you have tried to scroll the list or add another item to the pick list and the screen clouds over with a white haze. At that point the only option is Ctrl-Alt-Del to clear down CMP then into process manager to shut down TrainzUtil and TadDaemon which will run ad-infinitum if you don't. Happened to me on four separate occasions yesterday and I got so p...ed off with it, uninstalled 61388 (even though it meant losing a couple of WIP routes) and reinstalled back to 49922. This has been discussed at length a few times since 61388 arrived and I'm sure reported to the Helpdesk, but it has either been ignored, they don't know how to fix their own program or they're all too busy with TANE to give a fig about what will soon become "former customers" to take timeout and try to sort it with a small patch. Just try not to think these are the same guys who have been advanced a large sum of money with KS and now advance pre-orders, to program the forthcoming new Trainz... :)


I can't disagree with you on this, Vern. Many of us have both seen long non-responsive periods with the database. Sometimes just leaving it alone though does unfreeze it even when the screen has whitened over. I have noticed that usually TADDaemon is busy validating assets when this occurs along with TrainzUtil doing its Open, check, close routine. One this latter part lessens up, access to the menus is a bit better. Once the validation process completes, there's no problem it seems. My problem with this is there is no dialog box to the end-user. Instead we are stuck with a non-responsive program without knowing what's going on.

I agree the problem has become worse in 61388 and wonder what was done to do this. Perhaps someone tried to "tweak" something and only made things worse. Like a lot of people here, I am hoping these things will be addressed in T: ANE, but to tell you the truth, I'm not holding my breath too long.

John
 
Actually Not responding is a very common problem with Windows, Leave it and eventually clears or if obsessed with getting rid of the message, Google HungAppTimeout. Default is 5000 milliseconds, that's 5 seconds before Windows says "hey it ain't working" Microsoft knows best..............

Try just just closing TadDaemon in processes, it should restart straight away having taken Trainzutil with it and clear the freeze. CM then stays alive.

Better still don't do any work in 61388, do it in 49922 and import it to HF4, it can cope with that!

I have task manager on the taskbar, no need for three fingered salutes.

Not got that much to play with in T:ANE yet however there is no sign of TadDaemon or it's little friend.
 
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Instead of using the Launcher to start Game or Content, use the exe files in bin\

bin\contentmanager.exe

bin\trainz.exe

This avoids the infernal validation merry-go-round until you want to do it. Then let it do its own thing overnight.
 
I don't think it's a question of changing habits...
Fact - in 49922 and previous versions CMP never (or rarely) locked up with a whited out screen.
Fact - in 61388 it does, constantly and frequently. Ergo, N3V borked their programme.
I don't want to sit there for half an hour to wait and see if it suddenly starts working again but it is extremely irritating to have to sit through a database rebuild every b....y time the thing hangs and has to be terminated as it fairly obviously ain't coming back of its own accord.

The lock up seems to occur, in my experience, if you try and do anything else while CMP is running an installation stage rather than showing as downloading, so I guess one workaround is simply to leave things alone and work in small batches, but it is exactly that - a workaround - and not a solution to botched coding.
 
Let's make one thing clear here.

It's not Trainz itself that's responsible for the freezing problems. It's actually (from my own experiences) caused by TrainzUtil, usually during validation or texture conversion. It's well known that large assets will take longer to validate than smaller ones though.

I have found that if TrainzUtil/TADDaemon have full access rights (i.e. running as administrator under Windows Vista and later) and that the Trainz folder(s) are not included in any on-access scans, it seems to improve things a bit. It's also worth making sure that any 'on-close' settings are turned off on the antivirus software to avoid issues when running Trainz.

And one more thing. No amount of coding is going to cure operator errors e.g. closing a process forcefully. Most technically minded people probably know that when a program stops responding in most cases, it's usually doing an intensive operation.

Shane
 
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Your fact perhaps but not mine. Haven't had the same experience with 61388. Installed once and never looked back. Doesn't crash and the occasional lock up because it is writing to the database only lasts a few seconds at most.
 
I'd like to know the answer to that as well, especially as he doesn't appear to have pledged for the game (which if that is true, he wouldn't have had access to the testing stages). As a TPC member, I've seen virtually all of it (the parts that are in the currently released testing builds) so far.

Shane
 
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