Weird bug in TRS19

horacefithers

New member
So I'm happily working away on my route. (TRS19 version 100240)

I installed too many sandstone boulders, so I think, "I'll use the bulk asset replace to get rid of 95% of them".

So
  1. I pull up the bulk asset replace window.
  2. I point and click at one of the sandstone boulders
  3. I set the mode to replace in selected area
  4. From the right column I select "randomly remove a percentage of these objects"
  5. I set the percentage to 95%
  6. I hit F5, click the select rectangle box and draw a nice large rectangle.
  7. I click begin.

Oops..... My coefficient of dufosity was rather high today. Instead of selecting "randomly REMOVE" I managed to select "randomly TRANSFER TO ANOTHER LAYER".
The other layer was set to route-map. But, the boulders were already in the route-map layer....

But I don't realize this right away.

So I select another type of the over abundant sandstone boulders and try to repeat.

What the ....? I can't draw a rectangle!!!!! Huh?

Late I discovered that to draw another rectangle I needed to change the F5 dialog mode from "draw rect" to another mode such as "draw ruler".

Trainz locks up....

ctrl-alt-del and fire up task manager then End Task on TRS19.

Try again.

It comes to life in Surveyor as if nothing is wrong.

Then I try going to Driver mode for a little quick drive.

Instead of being dropped into the universe at the expected point, the screen is completely white!!!!! Oh cr*p... what's going on...

ctrl-alt-del again.

Restart computer.

Restart TRS19.

This time I when I get the white screen I use the mouse wheel to move my camera elevation up. Way up. Finally the map appears.

Huh, that was weird.

I navigate the map to where the stuff was I wanted to run. I jump in the cab. Huh????? There's no throttle or any other controls and a cryptic message about not working because stuff is in the wrong layer..... Oh cr*p... what's going on....

I chose '4' to go for a free walk around. And I realize, where did the track go? From a high level looking down I can see the familiar blue centerline of the track, but there's no track. (I was trying to fly an airplane on some invisible track so I didn't realize there was no track until I meandered over to the mainline RR track and noticed it wasn't there.

Then I noticed trains were missing. Now I'd just seen those trains in surveyor prior to entering driver so they ought to be there.

Then I noticed that some (well most) of the water splines in Roberts Creek were missing...

I try to exit Driver and it hangs. Again.

ctrl-alt-del and task manager again....

So I try a previous version of the route (I habitually save into a new route version for just such times as this - better to lose a few hours or a days work than the whole thing).

When I enter Drive again I get the now familiar white screen. I locate where the land is.

And notice none of the textures are being rendered!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They were just rendering fine in Surveyor.

See for yourselves.... No track, no textures, no splines (there should be phone poles alongside the right of way and some roads, too...

BCSJ-304-WTF.jpg


So, what on God's green earth is going on? And how do I fix it?

And I've had absolutely terrible experiences when using bulk asset replace with large regions. Ditto for large cut and pastes. But a game restart has always fixed things before. (N3V I think you have a memory pool overwrite issue - are you using fixed sized buffers somewhere in that code?)

AAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

N3V - Impressive, Obi Wan has taught you well. This is one heck of a bug you guys created!

Horace (el grumpy) Fithers :(:(:(:(:(
 
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Hi Horace, it's certainly a terrible feeling when your hard work disappears. It would appear that merging layers is what is required to fix this. Back up before starting if possible.
If nothing will load, you could attempt to restore from the backup folder, or from a daily backup .cdp that you may hopefully have made.
cheers
Graeme
 
hi HF,
I did not understand if it happens to you for all the routes installed or only for the BCSJ route.
Check the automatic backup directory of TRS2019.
Try to install not the last one but the penultimate or previous one.
Delete route and reinstall.
 
it's a day later...

It's a day later....

Here is the same area (with the same .cdp file) as the screenshot with no textures.

This time, I screen grabbed it from the Surveyor. All textures, splines, and track are in place suggesting that at least for Surveyor, the .cdp file is OK.

BCSJ-304-Surveyor.jpg



OK. I reverified that Driver has a problem jumping in Quick Drive...

And here we area again with no textures, no splines, and no track...

BCSJ-304-WTF-2.jpg


This time I exit out of Trainz (not Driver) and it exited gracefully (I didn't need to ctrl-alt-del and use the task manager to kill a stalled TRS19 process).

So I'm pretty sure all that stuff is still in the .cdp file.

HF
 
Merge all layers except the turffx layers into the route layer. I've fixed a similar problem that way myself.
cheers
 
TRS19 left a process running...

After exiting TRS19 in my previous post, I ctrl-alt-deleted my way to the task manager and check to see if TRS19 had left anything running. It had. This was in the list of background tasks. There was nothing in the list of foreground tasks. Trouble is, I didn't verify whether or not this process existed before I started TRS19 this time...

BCSJ-TaskManagerAfter TRS19 Shutodwn.jpg



So I restarted windows then restarted TRS19 where I entered Surveyor with the same route file as used in the previous post.

There were NO TRS19 background processes.

I exited game from the Surveyor upper left menu (but Launcher still running).

Still NO TRS19 background processes.

So I start TRS19 and Surveyor one more time and Quick Drive into Driver.

Still no textures, splines, or track.

I Exit Game from the Driver upper left menu.

Still NO TRS19 background processes.

I quit out of Launcher and presto, a background process which task manager says is using 11.8% of the CPU (AMD 2950x) and 2GB of mem (out of 64GB installed).

Now to try some non-BCSJ routes...

HF
 
I loaded Kickstarter County 2 and have textures and tracks (and probably splines). Hmmm...

C&O Hinton County also seems to work...

HF
 
Something's corrupted. Ending the program unexpectedly via Task Manager, can cause a corrupted database. The program was stuck in memory the second time because the background database tasks were trying to recover from the corrupted database and shutdown cleanly, but you interrupted that program again, and now made things messier. Clicking the program a second time, will not launch the program because the process is already running. A request has been placed with the Dev Team to have the program post a message about the task already running so we don't end up with a gazillion TRS19.exe running in memory and waiting for the first one to end.

With that said, the only fix for what you are experiencing now is running a database repair. At the Launcher, click on Developer menu item, and click on Rebuild database. If this doesn't work, you may need to do an Extended Database Repair, which is done by pressing and holding the CTRL-key while clicking on the same menu item.

I highly recommend defragmenting your hard disk afterwards, if it's not an SSD, after this process. This will make the subsequent indexing (validating) content phase run a lot faster.

In the future, a simple exit from the program without saving will restore things back to where you Oops'd.

If you really need to restore from a backup, I highly recommend this program here:

Tzarc Viewer, which is available here:

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/vvmm/software-f56/

The selection tool does have a bug which has been reported earlier. Apparently it hasn't been repaired because we still end up with topology tool appearing when performing the replace assets tool. I have never gotten the Tools menu, but that doesn't surprise me that that occurred.
 
Thanks John.
Given that some routes (including mine rev 303 and earlier) work in Surveyor and Driver, is the entire database corrupted, or just my stuff versions 304 - 308?
C.
 
Thanks John.
Given that some routes (including mine rev 303 and earlier) work in Surveyor and Driver, is the entire database corrupted, or just my stuff versions 304 - 308?
C.

The version doesn't matter. It's whatever was in use that got lost. By rebuilding the database, TRS19 will go out and search for the content again and rebuild the index, or pointers to where the data is located within your routes and accessed in Content Manager. The problem, though, is a file that wasn't closed properly can end up corrupted such as your route, although, you restored back from a backup, which means a repair should fix that. As I said I recommend performing a defrag after the rebuild. The data will be thrashed all over the place as it's opened, closed and verified. This can cause an awful drop in performance afterwards as the data is slogged through by the program.

For a bit of a technical backgrounder, A database is made up of fields that are "populated" with data. Your workplace may for example use an inventory-control, or business CRM system, that contains multiple database records that are queried (searched) for various purposes. These are searched based on a specific key-record, which acts as a pointer to the data. Our KUID for example is such a key, the before-mentioned workplace database may use a part number, and payroll may use your social security number in their own ADP-connected database.

In the end, a database is essentially a big card-filing system that knows where the content is located, making data easier and quicker to find. It's a bit more complex than this, but this is essentially what they are. The database "engine" used in TRS19 is off the shelf, however, there's a proprietary interface that only TRS19 and relations that can access.
 
OK. Content pointers are probably trashed.

I'm curious, how is it that Surveyor is able to see all the content while Driver cannot, both from the same route file?

I have a tendency to fill up hard drives with interim saves of my progress. Most of the time it's a waste of disk space. At times like this I'm glad I do that. Plus I periodically checkpoint my stuff by copying a .cdp file off to another drive and to an internet location (in case the computer burns down, falls over, and sinks into the swamp).

I guess it's time to launch a DB repair.

FWIW I've noticed that it appears there is a missing layer in the route. I made a vehicles layer and was moving cars and trucks into it. Now I don't see it.

HF
 
OK. I did a database repair. It only took 15 seconds or so (TRS19 is installed on a Samsung EVO 970 m.2 pcie gen3/x4 drive...

Now version 304 which was previously showing textureless surfaces with no splines/track in Driver shows nothing except the sky and white blanket underneath unless I'm up high in which case I can see blue lines from where the tracks should be.... I hit Exit Game and it appeared to do this successfully.

Then I tried to look at version 303 which successfully loaded and ran with Driver. It's been loading for the past 10 minutes. Yes, its a large route but this is ridiculous. And now I'm paranoid about using End Task to stop it!

Did the DB repair really take less than a minute with the ultra fast m.2 drive? Or was that only the visible part of it. Whatever it's doing, TRS19 is currently using 12% of my cpu, 4GB, and 9% of an RX 2080 ti (I've no idea what it's doing with the graphics card.... Content manager is up, but it's giving me a rotating black circle in "Installed" and not showing much of anything.

Yikes! Because I have saved .cdb files of my route, would I be better off just uninstalling and reinstalling TRS19?

HF
 
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You've nothing to lose then by merging layers and everything to gain.
The reason you see everything in surveyor is the layers are all in use. In driver, quickdrive particularly, only the route layer is being accessed therefore any route dependent assets in a session layer wont be shown. Open your route to build as you normally would, go to the layers tab and merge everything bar Turffx into the route layer, save close and open quickdrive and all should be back to normal.
The background process was possibly validating assets, the DBR will have sorted that. no need to reinstall and don't panic.
cheers
Graeme
 
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I copied a route version and merged the layers in the copied route.

Presto! No change in Driver. Still no textures, no track, no splines.

HF
 
After exiting TRS19 in my previous post, I ctrl-alt-deleted my way to the task manager and check to see if TRS19 had left anything running. It had. This was in the list of background tasks. There was nothing in the list of foreground tasks. Trouble is, I didn't verify whether or not this process existed before I started TRS19 this time...
(pic removed)


So I restarted windows then restarted TRS19 where I entered Surveyor with the same route file as used in the previous post.

There were NO TRS19 background processes.

I exited game from the Surveyor upper left menu (but Launcher still running).

Still NO TRS19 background processes.

So I start TRS19 and Surveyor one more time and Quick Drive into Driver.

Still no textures, splines, or track.

I Exit Game from the Driver upper left menu.

Still NO TRS19 background processes.

I quit out of Launcher and presto, a background process which task manager says is using 11.8% of the CPU (AMD 2950x) and 2GB of mem (out of 64GB installed).

Now to try some non-BCSJ routes...

HF
As long as the launcher window is still open, it is still a foreground task. When this launcher is closed it then switches to a BG task. AFAIK, this is normal behavior and hurts nothing. Something to do with post app cleanup and storage I think.
 
Extended db repair helped a lot - NOT

I'm running an extended database repair.

An impressive task - it's using 1/3 of a 4ghz 32 thread cpu...

Clearly there's a lot more going on here than in the "simple" db repair.

After about 8 minutes it finished. Thank the Lord for nmve m.2 ssd drives!

Starting up driver on version 304 (the first rev in which textures, track, and splines weren't present).

Now there's NOTHING showing except white and sky.

Running an errors/warnings report on version 304 in content manager shows 0 errors and 0 warnings after the route is scanned. Displaying all dependencies recursively shows no place where problems were found.

Impressive. Really stinkin' impressive.

The good news is that rev 303 still comes up in Driver and shows what it should be showing. So I'm only out 2 days of work plus the wasted time trying to recover the stoopid database.

But is rev 303 (and some derivatives I was working on earlier today) safe to continue with? Or are there mystery defects in it that haven't shown up yet?

Why am I bothering to route build when the environment is so stinking fragile?????

Horace Ruffled Feathers
 
Sounds like some corrupt data somewhere. Check your backups folder (and search on restoring backups for guidance how to install the backups). Worth a shot.
 
I'm running an extended database repair.

An impressive task - it's using 1/3 of a 4ghz 32 thread cpu...

Clearly there's a lot more going on here than in the "simple" db repair.

After about 8 minutes it finished. Thank the Lord for nmve m.2 ssd drives!

Starting up driver on version 304 (the first rev in which textures, track, and splines weren't present).

Now there's NOTHING showing except white and sky.

Running an errors/warnings report on version 304 in content manager shows 0 errors and 0 warnings after the route is scanned. Displaying all dependencies recursively shows no place where problems were found.

Impressive. Really stinkin' impressive.

The good news is that rev 303 still comes up in Driver and shows what it should be showing. So I'm only out 2 days of work plus the wasted time trying to recover the stoopid database.

But is rev 303 (and some derivatives I was working on earlier today) safe to continue with? Or are there mystery defects in it that haven't shown up yet?

Why am I bothering to route build when the environment is so stinking fragile?????

Horace Ruffled Feathers

I greatly sympathize,I suppose we all have to remember that this is computing, this stuff happens on occasions, but its a total drag when it does , i had something similar occur a few years back and lost about 4 weeks work as all creek splines disappeared over a 17 mile stretch. Took me a while to get the mojo back to remake all of that lost work , all that was left were white spline tracks which all had to be deleted and replaced. In retrospect, i perhaps made it better as i was then more experienced, but it was a real blow at the time. Now I back up every half hour and make a new version every day or so. However ,perhaps its not as final as the fire that destroyed the legendary Gorre and Daphetid layout....hope your backups work ok.
 
I'm running an extended database repair.

An impressive task - it's using 1/3 of a 4ghz 32 thread cpu...

Clearly there's a lot more going on here than in the "simple" db repair.

After about 8 minutes it finished. Thank the Lord for nmve m.2 ssd drives!

Starting up driver on version 304 (the first rev in which textures, track, and splines weren't present).

Now there's NOTHING showing except white and sky.

Running an errors/warnings report on version 304 in content manager shows 0 errors and 0 warnings after the route is scanned. Displaying all dependencies recursively shows no place where problems were found.

Impressive. Really stinkin' impressive.

The good news is that rev 303 still comes up in Driver and shows what it should be showing. So I'm only out 2 days of work plus the wasted time trying to recover the stoopid database.

But is rev 303 (and some derivatives I was working on earlier today) safe to continue with? Or are there mystery defects in it that haven't shown up yet?

Why am I bothering to route build when the environment is so stinking fragile?????

Horace Ruffled Feathers

Check for assets open for edit. Anything left open can cause that issue.

In addition, let the data revalidate. Remember I said it has to be reindexed after the database repair (DBR) and cached since the cached information was flushed during the repair process. Once the data is indexed and cached, it will show up on the route again much faster.
 
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