Trainz Update Announcement (SP5 HF)

[JCitron]

Greets,
I know this thread is old now, but I only just did the update of TRS22PE 126273 up to 129335, which is the latest patch as far as I can see. I took this risk because I got sick of long consists breaking apart and derailing when multiple locomotives are at the head of the train in126273. I am hoping this update will fix it. The DBR took about 16 hours overnight.

Now, all my own routes CTD a couple of seconds after fully loading into the Driver module. Surveyor mode works fine, and all my payware routes run fine in Driver. So this tells me it must be an asset or rule or driver command or something similiar that I add to my own routes and session. So I spent most of today trying to isolate a cause and have failed. I have been searching the forums and turned up nothing.

Has anybody else conquered a similiar problem? Some insight would be handy if anybody has some...........................................

I ran into a similar situation a couple of times. My issue was related to a badly scripted asset such as an industry the last time. Another time it was caused by a corrupted mesh. I had some symptoms before that hinted on an issue such as spikes that appeared on top of the building followed by really, really long shadows that flashed and radiated out of the building. I ignored it at the time because I was working on something else and when I upgraded, it crashed the route.

Scripted assets generally don't do any harm in Surveyor because the scripts are not active. It's in the sessions where they become an issue and this is why the crashes occur there.

Remember, you need to run a DBR after a crash to clean things up because not doing so can lead to further crashes as I've found out the hard way.

You can try checking the Client Logs and see who was loaded at the time of the crash. Enable timestamps in the log by right-clicking on the column at the top. You can then check your system clock and get a rough time when the crash occurs. To be honest, this worked twice for me and I'm not sure if you'll have any more luck than I did.

If this doesn't work, you need to do a more drawn-out method using the process of elimination.

In Content Manager, show the session dependencies. Using that same view, remove built-in and packaged using filters such as packaged set to false.

Highlight the remaining content.
Click on Content on the menu bar.
Click on Disable.

Start your session.
Select your route and session.

Yes, you will have missing assets. Ignore that and don't run delete missing assets from the route!

Start the session. It may not run due to missing locomotives!
Does it crash?

If nope, close Trainz back to your desktop.
Open up Content Manager.
At the Installed filter, expand that by clicking on the small arrow.
Click on the + sign (plus-sign) to add another line.
Change that to Enabled and change True to False.
Highlight 100 or so assets located in the window.
Click on Content on the menu, and then click on Enable.

With your content enabled, repeat the run and wait for a crash. Remember to run a DBR in between if there's a crash.

Go back to Content Manager with that content enabled and enable another 100 or so assets.
Repeat the run cycle again.

Eventually, you'll run into the asset that causes the crash. Disable this last group of assets you enabled and enable a smaller group of them. If it doesn't crash in this cycle, repeat the enabling a few at a time until there's a crash. With this last batch, you need to work with yet another smaller chunk of assets until there's a crash.

Hint: The bad asset is usually the last one you've enabled and this is directly correlated to the Laws of Murphy.

 

[nabilk11]

@n3v_laurence is Blurry Textures In this Update. If yes I will be so happy

 

[anathoth71]

I ran into a similar situation a couple of times. My issue was related to a badly scripted asset such as an industry ............

Hint: The bad asset is usually the last one you've enabled and this is directly correlated to the Laws of Murphy.

Hi John, so annoying that I have to spend so much time pretending I'm an IT guy, I don't have it to spare as I am not yet retired.

But thankyou for sharing your procedures, I guess I'll just have to wait till my rage subsides and then get my hands dirty for a week or two.

Thanks once again for the tips..............good work as usual !
A71

 

[nabilk11]

@n3v_laurence is Blurry Textures In this Update. If yes I will be so happy

oh wait this is an old thread

 

[JCitron]

Hi John, so annoying that I have to spend so much time pretending I'm an IT guy, I don't have it to spare as I am not yet retired.

But thankyou for sharing your procedures, I guess I'll just have to wait till my rage subsides and then get my hands dirty for a week or two.

Thanks once again for the tips..............good work as usual !
A71

As a retired IT guy, I'm still pretending that I'm working.
Good idea to wait and let things cool off first.

Have you tried an EDR? You need to press CTRL while selecting Rebuild database. If nothing else doesn't do it, this is the last resort. That 16-plus hour precaching and validation process after doing anything major with the database makes me dread repairing anything.

 

[anathoth71]

As a retired IT guy, I'm still pretending that I'm working.
Good idea to wait and let things cool off first.

Have you tried an EDR? You need to press CTRL while selecting Rebuild database. If nothing else doesn't do it, this is the last resort. That 16-plus hour precaching and validation process after doing anything major with the database makes me dread repairing anything.

Ok, so I ragequit for a few days, but a 20+ year habit is hard to break. I spent some time trying to fix this CTD-on-driver-session-load problem I came across after updating to SP5, and should share my findings here for our common knowledge.

I followed the general procedures you outlined above, John, to isolate this CTD down to a particular asset. I could not isolate an individual cause. So I tried some other things, and bingo, I solved it.

In short, there was some kind of incompatibility between my Base Sessions from TRS22PE 126273 and the update SP5 129335. My workaround is to EDIT the route in question (NOT the base session), modify the route slightly, then carry out a save as a new route WITH THE DEFAULT SESSION THIS PROCESS GENERATES. This new default session is totally blank, but it has been generated within SP5 and works in Driver like it should.

Obviously, this means days of work completely rebuilding a fresh Base Session. Portal setups, laying out all the traincars, all AI schedules, signal programming, Driver and Rule setups - everything. It all has to be rebuilt from scratch. This is annoying and very time consuming, but the rebuilt Base Session does not have an immediate CTD upon loading into Driver, and works as it should.

This is a very strange finding, as it only affected my Base Sessions as built in the previous version. But at least there is a workaround. I'm wondering if I am the only one who has seen this phenomenon. So now I can look forward to months of work rebuilding dozens of Base Sessions. Such are the joys of Trainz updates !
----------------
Besides this CTD issue, the patch itself is generally good so far. The problem I previously had of consists simply breaking apart with more than one loco has disappeared, and a number of other little improvements have been made too.

On the other hand - Ghost Trains are back ! These have been happening since TRS2004 and how I missed those ! My portals regularly emit them now, so I had to set up a portal in every staging to "catch" them before they get onto the route and cause havoc. In addition, pusher locomotives always break the tail end of the train now. but the same locomotives on the head end of a train work perfectly. I suspect there is a coupler maths issue going on here that causes both of these phenomenon. Why we don't have a menu option to turn off coupler breakage is a mystery to me.

So all the "push" helpers on my routes have to become "pull" helpers. Not as much fun, but it will do for now...........

HTH
Kind Regards
A71

 

[JCitron]

Ok, so I ragequit for a few days, but a 20+ year habit is hard to break.

We've all been there. I think I lasted about the same before I had to get into Trainzing again.

I'm glad you solved your problem. I the past, I always rebuilt sessions after a new version. More recently, I have made a slight change, such as placing a freight wagon somewhere and then performing an undo to force an update. This save has brought the version forward.

Most of the time, this works pretty well. When I've not done this, I only had a CTD once but all other times I had weird AI issues. I will admit that I did find a couple of self-inflicted errors that I blamed on the new version while I was troubleshooting the weirdness, but performing the save fixes the problem at least for me.

I had that issue with portals myself after I imported an older route. I had trains heading off at breakneck speeds obliterating other consists in their way and then eventually derailing. I ended up replacing the portals.

There are two different Portal Basic assets - one built-in and the other not. The other is the one that caused my ghost trains while the real Portal Basic worked perfectly fine.

 

[IsambardKingdomBrunel]

We've all been there. I think I lasted about the same before I had to get into Trainzing again.

I'm glad you solved your problem. I the past, I always rebuilt sessions after a new version. More recently, I have made a slight change, such as placing a freight wagon somewhere and then performing an undo to force an update. This save has brought the version forward.

Most of the time, this works pretty well. When I've not done this, I only had a CTD once but all other times I had weird AI issues. I will admit that I did find a couple of self-inflicted errors that I blamed on the new version while I was troubleshooting the weirdness, but performing the save fixes the problem at least for me.

I had that issue with portals myself after I imported an older route. I had trains heading off at breakneck speeds obliterating other consists in their way and then eventually derailing. I ended up replacing the portals.

There are two different Portal Basic assets - one built-in and the other not. The other is the one that caused my ghost trains while the real Portal Basic worked perfectly fine.

I am made of sterner stuff than you then John, not been installed here for a few months .

Mike.