Warning: Loading and saving a layout in TRS2012 SP1 makes lots of hidden changes!

MSGSapper

Trainz route developer
I found this out the hard way today so am passing it on to you to learn from. After patching to SP1 I had to replace a few items on a couple of my layouts with different ones because the old items from another author were now faulty and the author had said he was not going to update them so I decided to replace them.

Unfortunately I got much more then I bargained for in this process. No good deed, in this case trying to make these layouts fault free, goes unpunished. It turns out that SP1 updated a LOT of built-in content. When I loaded my layout into the Surveyor the KUIDs without my realizing it, were updated as well to these new SP1 ones.

When I saved the layout I noticed the build number had been changed from 3.6 to 3.7 which I did not want or suspected I needed (hah!). I manually changed this back to 3.6 and uploaded it to the DLS. Guess what happened next!

A user who attempted to use one of the layouts in a pure TRS2012 (unpatched with SP1) reported 361 missing items which were not found on the DLS. These items came without my knowing about it with SP1.

As a result of this mess I have had to create a new version of both layouts today which changed the build number back to 3.7 and upload them again to the DLS to straighten out this confusion for all my users.

Bottom line: Layouts which are loaded into a SP1 surveyor and then saved will most likely NOT be compatible with an unpatched version of TRS2012 and must be left as build 3.7.
 
I hear your frustration Bob, but that's not new. It has always been that the trainzbuild of a route was the trainzbuild of the LAST version of Trainz it was saved in, irrespective of the build history. That's why I hung out in TRS04 for so long, and why I still hang out in TS10. Moving a route to a new version kills it for everybody who is even a single step behind....
 
Good Morning All
We do not recommend, or support, 'back dating' routes or sessions at any time, nor have we ever recommended this. We do regularly update the file formats to fix bugs, which may not be compatible with prior versions of Trainz. In some cases, such as this, we also include updated assets with the service pack, in which case it will not be compatible with prior versions of Trainz. Any update for Trainz that increases the trainz-build number (this can be found either as the Content Manager version number, or in the 'about' section of Content Manager) will force maps and sessions to the higher build number, so as to ensure that previous versions cannot open an incompatible map.

Regards
 
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