How does one edit a session? (basics)

I'm just getting back into Trainz after about a five year hiatus. I don't remember it being so difficult to use back then. :-(

Anyway, I have Trainz Simulator 12 and all I'm trying to do is edit the "Westbound Merchandise Train" session on the Norfolk & Western Appalachian Coal route. I'd like to try the session with a diesel locomotive instead of steam, that's all. Can someone walk me through how to do that? I've been at it for hours and can't even get past the basics.

Here's what I'm doing:

1. Start up TS12
2. I pick "Select Route" and then "Norfolk & Western Appalachian Coal", and "View Sessions".
3. I select "Westbound Merchandise Train" and then "Edit Session".
4. I change anything, then select "Save As", select "New Session", and enter a new session name, say "Test Session".
5. I exit back out of surveyor to the route selection again... and my session isn't there? I can't find any way to get back into it. It's like it's just gone. Yet if I go through and do the whole thing over again, when I get to "save as" I see it on the dropdown again, and if I select it, it asks me if I want to overwrite this session. Huh?

How do I edit the session and save it under a different name, then you know, actually go back in and use it again? This doesn't seem like it should be this hard. And I haven't even figured out how to make the change I want (loco swap) yet, I'm just trying to figure out how to save a new sessions. Geesh.

What am I doing wrong?

Or if this is documented somewhere, please point me in the right direction. The various docs about session creation I've found online thus far haven't been helpful. (Perhaps because they assume the reader is capable of getting past such rudimentary tasks as saving a file on their own.) ;-)

Well you've done everything right as far as I can tell...

You'll see a gold star next to the sessions and routes... This is to mark the favorites, the so-called favorites...

Click on the gold star. The non-favorited items will appear including your new session.

Click on the star, now greyed out, and it will turn gold and your session will appear in the list.


It's a good being able to hide what we don't want to see, but it's confusing nonetheless.

John

Hmmm. I had noticed the "favorites" thing and already had that turned off, but either way it's not there.

I can create a new session just fine, that works, but that's not what I want to do.

Interestingly I found that once I was in surveyor editing the route, if I do "save as" and save it as whatever name, that name won't show up in the list, but if while I'm still in surveyor after saving and I go to "quick drive" (I think that's what it's called), and then from in driver save the session, then THAT session does show up on the list, but it also says it can't be edited. Grrr.

xenium said:

Hmmm. I had noticed the "favorites" thing and already had that turned off, but either way it's not there.

I can create a new session just fine, that works, but that's not what I want to do.

Interestingly I found that once I was in surveyor editing the route, if I do "save as" and save it as whatever name, that name won't show up in the list, but if while I'm still in surveyor after saving and I go to "quick drive" (I think that's what it's called), and then from in driver save the session, then THAT session does show up on the list, but it also says it can't be edited. Grrr.

Click to expand...

I didn't ask this before, but I am going to assume here that you are running Windows 7, 8.x or Windows 10. If you are running any of these, including Windows Vista too, you need to run the program as administrator in order to save any changes. This is because of how the older program accesses files.

To run as administrator, right-click on the Launcher icon and choose properties. Click on the compatibility tab, and choose Run as administrator. Apply the settings, click OK to exit, then when you run, your machine will BEEP and a yellow box will come up asking you if it's okay to run the program. Click yes to confirm and it will load.

Now for other things to know...

This route, and the sessions are built-in. This means they can't be edited and saved with the same Kuid and therefore will become your content instead. This is why the original route and sessions do not have the additions you put in them. Sure you can click on a quick drive and add in a diesel, or whatever, but it's not the same.

I would still check the favorites and see if your edited version of the routes is in there. You may have to click it again to unfavorite versus favorite, or vice versa.

John

I'm running Windows 7 64 bit. I've tried running TS12 as admin since I read your reply, but did not see any difference. I also tried "Save Route & Session" when I did Save As, thinking that maybe that would work, since as you said it's a built-in route. Same thing though, neither the route nor the session show up in the list. And yes, I've checked and double checked the "favorites" thing, it's definitely not that.

So here's what my session list for this route looks like now. I edited the "Eastbound" session and made some changes, saved as "test1", "test2", neither show up, but then on the third attempt I tried "running it" from within surveyor and then saved from within driver, so that session appears ("test3"), but can't be edited. The same for the ones under westbound - I edited the westbound session, saved it as "westbound merchandise train - diesel" (doesn't show up), then drove it from within surveyor, saved within driver, and those driver session saves show up, but can't be edited:



It may be as you said, that it just can't be edited because it's a built-in, but that's incredibly annoying if that's the case. They should just disable the edit button for the built-in routes and sessions if you're not allowed to edit them, not allow you to edit them and even save them, but just not have any way to get back into them again. That feels more like a bug [/soapbox mode off] ;-) Interestingly, they do seem to be saved somewhere, since if I go in and edit a session again and then try to save it, I see them on the dropdown list, and if I pick one of them I'm prompted whether I want to overwrite it or not. I just can't find any way to get in to them.

Even more frustrating... I figured out how to do what I wanted to do.... I was able to replace the Y6b with an F7a and b. There where about half a dozen places I had to make edits, and I apparently missed a change somewhere, because when I finally got to the end of the run the signal wouldn't clear to let me into the yard. There was a departing train there, and I'm guessing it was waiting on a consist with the Y6b in it before departing. It was otherwise splended fun though, and all the other meets and the car setouts and pickups at the yard worked as expected. So I'd like to fix whatever I missed that caused it to get stuck at the end and add another F7ab pair to my lashup and try it again, because the single ab was really underpowered for that train. BUT I CAN'T! Argh. Even though everything worked fine, I can't go back in and tweak it again, I have to start over completely from scratch and hope I get everything perfect this time, and even if I do, if I ever want to try the run with different power, I have to go through all this over again? Argh! :-( (Sorry, just venting, not at you John, obviously.)

Have a check in Content Manager that the session you made does actually exist.
Rog

We've made some progress... Let's take a deep, deep breath and sigh deeply too...

1) You can't edit saved running (driving) sessions. These only contain information about what you did in the route and no route data.

2) As Rog (Ghost42) says, check in Content Manager to see if the route you edited is really there. It may also be there, but marked faulty or open for edit. If either of these conditions occur, then the route will not show up at all in-game.

Open up Content Manager, and change the search filter to "My Content". This will show only your items - things under your ID. If you have a darkened hammer and sickle (wrench and hammer - I was just kidding), this means your route is open for edit. To fix this, you need to highlight the route and press Control+M to Commit the route into the game. You may have to do this to the session too.

If you have a red !, this means it's faulty. For this I recommend viewing errors and warnings and posting them here. This could be a simple things to repair, but it's easier to look at and explain than it would be for you to try to describe.

Anyway, I hope this belays some of the frustrations.

John

Thanks John. The driver sessions not being editable make sense to me, I was just including them to illustrate that obviously my surveyor session was successfully saved, since those driver sessions were "children" if you will, of the saved surveyor sessions that weren't appearing on the menu.

Well in any event, after reading a lot of posts here on the forums I decided to "upgrade" to the older pre-SP1 build 49922. Fortunately I bought TS12 a few years ago and just never got around to trying it, so I actually had build 46957 and the patches to bring it to 49922.

I really didn't expect that to fix anything, I mean surely basic functionality like saving sessions would be something they would have tested and corrected any regressions on, right? Well, low and behold, with 49922, everything works perfectly. I can edit sessions and routes just fine, and everything shows up on the route and sessions list just like you would expect them to. Wow.

So I guess that's my solution, run the old version forever? SP1 was a pretty big upgrade, a couple of GB I think. What will I be missing? :-(

Clone both the built-in route and session. Then edit the session clone config file to set the base map to the KUID of the route clone. You should now be able to edit the clones without restriction.

While I appreciate the suggestion, I don't know how to do any of the things you described alufdufe. How do I clone a route and session? Once I've done that, how do I edit the session config file (I know how to use a text editor, but I have no idea where I would find this file or what it is named?) How do I determine what the KUID of the cloned route is, and where do I put that in the config file to "set the base map"? I'm not sure what that means.

It's not directed at you guys, I appreciate all the help, but as far as Trainz is concerned, wth?... I just want to try a different locomotive. I can't fathom why in 2015 that should require anything more than "click on the locomotive you would like to try". I mean really, this just isn't fun anymore. I guess I remember why I let it sit on the shelf for a couple of years. I think I'm about to give up on it again. :-(

xenium said:

While I appreciate the suggestion, I don't know how to do any of the things you described alufdufe. How do I clone a route and session? Once I've done that, how do I edit the session config file (I know how to use a text editor, but I have no idea where I would find this file or what it is named?) How do I determine what the KUID of the cloned route is, and where do I put that in the config file to "set the base map"? I'm not sure what that means.

It's not directed at you guys, I appreciate all the help, but as far as Trainz is concerned, wth?... I just want to try a different locomotive. I can't fathom why in 2015 that should require anything more than "click on the locomotive you would like to try". I mean really, this just isn't fun anymore. I guess I remember why I let it sit on the shelf for a couple of years. I think I'm about to give up on it again. :-(

Click to expand...

You didn't know this requires a Master's degree in Trainz Content Management? The product has gone from a simple train simulator to an all out route creator and bigger fish, sadly like a lot of other things. Remember TV remote controls and how simple they were? Today, you need a 12 year-old or younger to show you the ropes on how to program them and use them!

Anyway, the process of cloning a setting up your own route and session is rather simple though it's like taking the bits and pieces of things to make a whole...

Here's the process:

1) Open up Content Manager.

2) Find the route and session you want to clone.

3) Right click on the route first (we'll repeat for the session afterwards).

4) Pick Clone from the list...

A new content window shows with a "New Asset".

5) Write down the Kuid number exactly as it is. You will need this later when we setup the session.

6) Right-click on that New Asset, and choose Open for Edit in Explorer.

7) Look for the Config.txt file and edit that using Notepad. (Double-click and Notepad will open that up).

8) Look for Username -This is the title (name) of the route, and change the text in there to what you want it to be.

You can optionally change the other author, and description if you want.

9) Once done, Save the config.txt and close the folder.

10) Back in Content Manager, highlight your "New Asset" and press CTRL+M to Commit the asset. This should make it disappear and there should be no errors.

-----------

Do the same for the session you want, including changing the name and author. However, there is one extra step here which is important as this will link your route to your new session...

1) When you edit the config.txt file to change the Username to what you want the title to be, you need to do this part too:

Remember that Kuid number you wrote down? This is needed to link this session with your route.

You will see a line called Route-Kuid or something similar. You need to change that number, but it appears twice....

2) Replace that kuid with the one you wrote down - your route kuid.

Scroll down, or search for Kuid-table.

3) At the very top, next to number 0 (zero), you will see the same kuid, and replace that with your route kuid like you did at the top part. NOTE: Keep the same exact spacing as is in the file.

4) Save the config.txt file, close the window.

5) Right-click and commit in Content Manager.

You are now the proud owner of a route and session you can modify yourself.

I hope this helps.

John

Thanks so much John, I really appreciate the time you've taken to help.

I'm equally frustrated and annoyed with what a horribly buggy and difficult to use thing Trainz is turning out to be, but it is what it is as they say. Like you said, you need a masters degree in it... I'm actually an IT guy, been doing tech work for 25+ years, so it's not as if I don't know my way around a system and how to edit files and such, I can even write code. Yet it's like Trainz has just gone out of their way to make it as difficult to use as possible, with really obscure interface decisions, no GUI based way to do mindnumbingly simple things (like change the locomotive used in a session.) Bugs galore and bug fixes that create more problems than they solve. Ugh.

In all seriousness are there any good books on how to use this thing? What official documentation I've looked at online thus far was... well, awful. :-( I've been a train nut my whole life, and have a raildriver to use with Trainz, I really want to get this to work, but I hate stumbling around in the dark like this.

Since downgrading to 49922 I've been able to edit and copy the route and session, so all seems well there, and I have your procedure for cloning routes and sessions to add to my bag of tricks now too, thanks John. However now that I'm finally able to do that... I'm having a terrible time just trying to create an a-b-b-a F7 lashup that works, or even a simpler a-b. It seems like Trainz just falls over when you try to couple two diesels together. Sigh. I thought they had gotten to the point of being able to simulate mu'ed diesels years ago? Anyway, I'll start a separate thread on that, as it's really a separate topic.

Trainz also seems generally unstable for me, as in crashing a lot. And more than once now it's crashed so hard that I had to hard reset my computer. This is the first piece of software I recall doing that in many, many years. Pretty bad. Of course maybe SP1 addresses some of the crashing, but I can't run SP1, as it breaks all kinds of stuff for me and seems to run much slower on my hardware at least.

Oh, and every time I start up Trainz, it tells me there are 10,523 content updates available. Should I click update? That sounds like it will take a week, lol. Will it run in the background, or will I be unable to use Trainz while it's updating? I'm honestly afraid to click it. :-D Who knows, maybe it will fix my diesel mu problems though?

Maybe I just have a Trainz curse. :-D

Argh.

Well, I decided reluctantly to try the "update all" button. Like everything else I've tried in TS12 thus far, it did not work. :-( When I clicked on it, the computer seemed to lock up for several minutes. (Sigh. Good UI design really isn't that hard: display some sort of indicator so the user knows that the application has received their command and is actually doing something, and ideally provide them with a responsive way to cancel the operation.) After that it displayed another, smaller dialog box which appeared to contain the exact same list of 10,000+ objects and the exact same options for "click one and install" or "install all" as the previous, full-screen dialog had where I had already clicked "install all". What the hell did I just wait several minutes for? Ok, whatever, I clicked "install all" again. Again the computer seemed to completely lock up. After about 15 minutes, it still hadn't gotten past "1 of 10,523 updates downloaded". There was absolutely no indication of progress, and the cancel button, along with all other elements of the UI, was unresponsive, and I could not get task manager to display over the (frozen) Trainz interface, even from a remote RDP session, so I ultimately had to hard-reset my computer again.

I am so dissapointed that I purchased this. I really feel like I've been swindled. It seems to not even be stable enough to use. And only being able to run one locomotive per train is pretty lame too. Sigh. :-(

I too was in the IT world. I started as a hardware guy, assembling circuits then moved on to testing and repairing way back in the early 1980s. Then in 1988 I entered into MIS and IT, and remained at that level until my disability in 2012 from Oracle as a Applications Administrator where I supported 680 users myself. After 35 years in the industry, I've seen a lot of new old stuff, and stuff that gets repeated except with different names!

Anyway, Trainz is a new world totally, and I think you're moving a bit too fast. Seriously... You need to slow down a bit and dip your toes in instead of jumping in. I've had the advantage of using 12 years of Trainz and the versions have gotten more complex over the years, however, they are all the same. Sadly what you came across is the last of the old game engines and an older way of doing things. The update process in TS12, as well as the lack of information on what's going on, makes the program clumsy. The new version, T:ANE is much better, much faster, a 64-bit program, but it is beseeched with lots of bugs right now. The hot fixes and new patch will help tremendously, and it's almost there, yet, like all versions of Trainz as different as it is, it too shares the similar interface once you get inside.

I don't recommend updating within the program its self. Instead do the updates in Content Manager where you have more control over the updating process. Instead of doing a download all, and locking up your machine with the deluge of content, Content Manager lets you grab a few assets at a time, or a hundred, or a bunch more if you want.

Now, keep in mind too that these updates aren't necessary for the game to run. They are updates to the content, however, and will replace whatever is already installed. The original content, in most places will work fine, and can be updated later. In fact many of the updates now are to repair things so the assets work properly in T:ANE. Yes, like all Trainz versions, the new versions bring more and more, much more stricter and enforced, error checking. This is a topic of another post someday, but it has caused lots of angst for the user community and rightly so. N3V has taken a different approach with the new version with the Trainz Dev forum where we can ask questions about stuff like this and get problems resolved. In fact many of the improvements in T:ANE came out of the questions asked in the Trainz Dev.

Anyway, take it slowly. You'll catch on. There's a lot going on for what would be a simple game. There are so many aspects of the program which you've only barely scratched the surface of.

John