Beware Silver Ticket Issue

montycrafter

New member
I recently tried the Silver Ticket option that was offered on a trial basis. I quickly determined that the program was not something I was interested in and cancelled after the second month. The problem was that I still had items gained from the membership placed on my Routes and Sessions. When the membership was terminated these items became corrupted and I am unable to delete them in game.

I contacted the Trainz Support team and was given a list of actions I need to take to remove these items. Unfortunately, it involves complex steps that I have no ability to perform. I have communicated my displeasure in the remedy but have not heard back.

The Trainz community should be aware that if they plan on cancelling the Silver Ticket membership (and I assume the Gold Ticket also) they should remove any items gained during the program from their Routes and Sessions beforehand.
 
Thank You

For routes and sessions use delete missing assets should remove them.

I very much appreciate the suggestion. I was able to rid myself of the ghost consist in one of my sessions. Why couldn't Trainz Support start with something so simple? I was floored by what they expected me to do to fix their problem.

I was also able to delete the only other known issue with another Route I am working on. I got a Missing Dependency on the Route (the Broken Knuckle Icon) after unsubscribing from the Silver Ticket. I found a couple of SAP Dock assets that had disappeared but somehow they left the track behind. I was unable to delete or move that item leaving tracks suspiciously hanging in mid air.

I finally deleted the attached track that then allowed me to delete the SAP Dock track. This cleared up the MD icon. I think I'm finally in the clear again.

Much Thanks.
 
Hi Malc,

To someone who is a complete novice at this, please could you explain where do I find the command "delete missing assets"

Mike
 
For routes and sessions use delete missing assets should remove them.

That might get rid of the messages, but it damages the routes and sessions.

The information provided about the subscription clearly states that it can be terminated at any time. It should also state that that terminating the subscription leaves the rest of your system in this damaged state, with a complex (and quite undocumented) procedure to try and restore things to how they were before. The problem has been shrugged off and ignored.

The impression it creates is that the 'free' trial offer is simply a technique to trap people into the subscription model by making it difficult to leave. There is enough concern and misunderstanding about this new direction for the franchise without creating this additional issue. It needs to be fixed promptly.
 
To someone who is a complete novice at this, please could you explain where do I find the command "delete missing assets"
Don't do it. Contact the help desk, get the complete, correct procedure to follow, and if you have difficulty with it get back to the help desk until they have taken you through each and every step, and every route and session is back in correct working order.
 
Don't do it. Contact the help desk, get the complete, correct procedure to follow, and if you have difficulty with it get back to the help desk until they have taken you through each and every step, and every route and session is back in correct working order.

Unfortunately I have found my experience using the Help Desk to be more painful and disappointing than it's worth. I still have faulty track on one of my large Routes from TANE that I had to bury under the landscape. The debacle called TANE will never leave me! This problem of never taking responsibility for their errors in coding comes from the top. A new owner or management will be the only hope for real change.
 
That might get rid of the messages, but it damages the routes and sessions.

The information provided about the subscription clearly states that it can be terminated at any time. It should also state that that terminating the subscription leaves the rest of your system in this damaged state, with a complex (and quite undocumented) procedure to try and restore things to how they were before. The problem has been shrugged off and ignored.

The impression it creates is that the 'free' trial offer is simply a technique to trap people into the subscription model by making it difficult to leave. There is enough concern and misunderstanding about this new direction for the franchise without creating this additional issue. It needs to be fixed promptly.

Are you saying NOT to use a permanent tool displayed in the main menu? You may be absolutely correct but do you know how ridiculous that sounds? If this doesn't show how poorly the game is managed I don't know what would.

My main reason for posting the BEWARE of Silver Ticket was to voice my concerns for what people will be getting themselves into. The model might sound like a money saver, that's how they are marketing it. In the long run you keep paying the monthly charge and accumulate items but it's a Lease not a purchase. If this is what you have to go though to terminate the Lease, imagine what it will be like once you have Routes full of Silver Ticket items? You will have to continue with the Lease even when you're not playing the game, even when you get sick or go off to school.

It's like banking sick days and weeks of vacation in a job you hate. Are you going to be willing to lose everything that you've accumulated? That's the purpose. To lock you in to making monthly payments. I couldn't run fast enough from the Silver Ticket program. The fact that they are not up front with how the Silver Ticket works should tell you enough. They tell you how easy it is to reclaim your items when you rejoin but they are not clear that it's a Lease program, not items that are outright purchased and owned by the player. They are certainly not open about what happens to the items in the game when you terminate. All the customer should have to do is cancel their subscription. The fact that I was pulled down this rabbit hole is inexcusable.

As it currently stands there is no way to differentiate Payware from DLS items in game. I've suggested that they indicate the Payware items with their own special color (yellow) like they already do for Faulty items. This should take someone to break time to get done. Just copy the code that does it for the Faulty and change a few parameters and you're done. Or it should be that simple if the code is written properly. This suggestion was passed along but it doesn't sound like much of a priority. This would prevent people from falling into the trap of needing to continue the subscription or else live with the consequences of having to individually replace every Silver Ticket item before cancelling. Good luck with that!
 
As it currently stands there is no way to differentiate Payware from DLS items in game.

I should say there's no practical way to do that. They came back with the ridiculous suggestion that I should go to Manage Content each and every time I want to place an item or use a texture. That isn't acceptable when you are working on a large Route. It actually doubles the time to build. It's time consuming enough to figure out what most of the items are in game.
 
As it currently stands there is no way to differentiate Payware from DLS items in game.

I should say there's no practical way to do that. They came back with the ridiculous suggestion that I should go to Manage Content each and every time I want to place an item or use a texture. That isn't acceptable when you are working on a large Route. It actually doubles the time to build. It's time consuming enough to figure out what most of the items are in game.

Actually there is a way to tell the difference.

Launch TRS19.
At the Routes screen, or in Driver or Surveyor, click on the theree bars in the upper left corner.

Click on the settings..
Click on the General Settings.
Click on Show Object/Track/Train KUIDS in Surveyor.

What this will do is show the asset IDs when you go to the menus to select objects.

Any asset that has a Yellow ID is built-in or DLC
Blue is Third-party or modified
Red is your own
White is off the DLS.

This is as close as you'll get while in Surveyor.

Using the Delete Missing assets in a route and a session is fine. Just do a back up first prior to doing that in case things go wrong. Things usually don't go tits up, but that's because you've done a backup just in case.

FYI: What doesn't work is editing the route or session config.txt files to remove assets. This will do that temporarily until you need to do a database repair or there's a program update. The reason is the actual asset is tracked in specific files related to the route and the session and not actually in the config.txt files where the asset listed is for filtering and searching purposes.

What I think the helpdesk was eluding to was to remove the packages and redownload them. What this does is force a download of the DLC again. It's not difficult, but there should be a menu option to do that in Content Manager so not to involve a manual, i.e. computer IT technician approach. I worked in the computer and IT industry for over 35 years and now retired, and I fully believe in the KISS method.
 
Are you saying NOT to use a permanent tool displayed in the main menu?
No. I am saying that it is not the correct solution for this problem.

Deleting the missing assets from the route or session will remove the messages about missing assets. But the assets are 'missing' because they are marked as inactive payware. So the correct solution is to replace the inactive payware with the items that the payware replaced when it was installed. That's what the process provided by the help desk does, although it is very complex.

Removing missing assets from a route or session can be a useful feature, but in this case you want the assets to be in the route or session, not removed.
 
Actually there is a way to tell the difference.

Launch TRS19.
At the Routes screen, or in Driver or Surveyor, click on the theree bars in the upper left corner.

Click on the settings..
Click on the General Settings.
Click on Show Object/Track/Train KUIDS in Surveyor.

What this will do is show the asset IDs when you go to the menus to select objects.

Any asset that has a Yellow ID is built-in or DLC
Blue is Third-party or modified
Red is your own
White is off the DLS.

This is as close as you'll get while in Surveyor.

Using the Delete Missing assets in a route and a session is fine. Just do a back up first prior to doing that in case things go wrong. Things usually don't go tits up, but that's because you've done a backup just in case.

FYI: What doesn't work is editing the route or session config.txt files to remove assets. This will do that temporarily until you need to do a database repair or there's a program update. The reason is the actual asset is tracked in specific files related to the route and the session and not actually in the config.txt files where the asset listed is for filtering and searching purposes.

What I think the helpdesk was eluding to was to remove the packages and redownload them. What this does is force a download of the DLC again. It's not difficult, but there should be a menu option to do that in Content Manager so not to involve a manual, i.e. computer IT technician approach. I worked in the computer and IT industry for over 35 years and now retired, and I fully believe in the KISS method.

Thank you John. This is what a professional sounds like. I have learned a lot today. I never much participated in a Forum before but it's become obvious where I need to go in the future. You and Malc have been very helpful.
 
No. I am saying that it is not the correct solution for this problem.

Deleting the missing assets from the route or session will remove the messages about missing assets. But the assets are 'missing' because they are marked as inactive payware. So the correct solution is to replace the inactive payware with the items that the payware replaced when it was installed. That's what the process provided by the help desk does, although it is very complex.

Removing missing assets from a route or session can be a useful feature, but in this case you want the assets to be in the route or session, not removed.

Unfortunately, I have MS and that keeps me from having any chance to do what they asked. What's my exposure in my Routes? If I follow John's suggestion to keep Payware off my builds do I still have a problem?

TIA
 
What I think the helpdesk was eluding to was to remove the packages and redownload them. What this does is force a download of the DLC again.
The free trail subscription has expired so the payware cannot be downloaded. After the packages are deleted OP needs to find and download the freeware items that the payware overwrote.
 
The free trail subscription has expired so the payware cannot be downloaded. After the packages are deleted OP needs to find and download the freeware items that the payware overwrote.

If the freeware is available, which in not all cases is it available. This leaves a hole that needs to be corrected with a lot less brute force and a background in information mangement to do so. In active payware will show up only if you search for it. If you don't have the asset in a route or anywhere it doesn't matter whether it's active or not.
 
IMO the only way to use this product is to purchase it. Not use it with a subscription. It would be like using AutoCAD with subscription objects building a bridge or such, then when the subscription wore out, the subscription 'bolts' would no longer be there, so how could you then test the bridge.

Absolute malarky. who came up with this (you can add your own end to this sentence). Trainz Subscription is 'Breakware' beware.
 
IMO the only way to use this product is to purchase it. Not use it with a subscription. It would be like using AutoCAD with subscription objects building a bridge or such, then when the subscription wore out, the subscription 'bolts' would no longer be there, so how could you then test the bridge.

Absolute malarky. who came up with this (you can add your own end to this sentence). Trainz Subscription is 'Breakware' beware.


Funny you should say that...

sUSlE5B.png
 
It would be like using AutoCAD with subscription objects building a bridge or such, then when the subscription wore out, the subscription 'bolts' would no longer be there, so how could you then test the bridge.
Not quite. It is actually the same as someone who already has Autocad trying out the free trial of the subscription version and then, after the free trial ends, discovering that a large number of their models and drawings (including some created many years before) were now corrupted, and could only be repaired with a difficult, complex procedure.

If they didn't already have Autocad the free trail subscription would not be a problem - it is only existing owners of the product who suffer from trying out the subscription.
 
Back
Top