Hello... Point is... The exact same session runs fine in "official release" TRS19 100240 and N3V says above that if a session works in 100240 it should run with no problem in Trainz Plus 103369 which it doesn't.
Yup. I agree it should work. What's interesting is something changed somewhere that broke the code and needs to look at what's broke. The thing is software is it's like a bowl of spaghetti, or a badly knotted ball of string. You pull one thing, and something else gets knotted up. In this case someone "fixed" *note the quotes* something in one place, but because of how things are intertwined, knotted, and looped together, this little tweak here or there caused something else to break.
Beta testing is not an easy task. It may seem easy, but in some ways to do it properly, it requires a set of parameters and things to follow, which we were not given. Then again this is a dual edged sword. Give testers a set of things to check, and they only check for those things. If you don't give them anything and let them have a go at the program, stuff may or may not be found, retested, or not. In this regard, perhaps N3V should consider providing a punch list to test some things they've confirmed fixed on their end, and then provide time and space to test for new stuff. (Tony does do this from time to time, but as often perhaps as he should). From experience, this sort of works, but not always.
Another issue that has come up with TRS19 is the new interface and newer ways of doing some normally used to things like search-filter/pick-lists, bulk asset replace, as two things that came across my head at the moment. (I promised I ducked though as they whizzed by!) With a new interface and new ways of doing things, the user is more inclined to miss some of the mundane things that are taking place underneath because they're focusing on new things. TRS19 has gotten better in this regard since the earlier days, I noticed that in the previous Plus patches/tests as people have gotten used to where things are, but this will always remain an issue with new things going on. Perhaps N3V should consider beta-testing interface changes only in one release, then other bugs in another. It may slow down production, but it will make things a lot cleaner too.
In this case, it maybe that no one else tested this session, or the action of those portals anywhere so that got missed, or as sometimes happens more often than not they did test them and things worked fine. Persnickitty, intermittent problems are the worst ones to find. Testers can test over, and over, and over, and over, but never find anything wrong. Then the program is released and something shows up. In other cases a problem may occur once as if the sun shone on a shiny quartz crystal at a particular angle and caused that problem on that particular day only. Rebooting, reinstalling, spinning in a chair, or going for a walk will appear to fix the problem because it never occurs again. Then the program is released and it shows up again. This is the issue that N3V faced with smokenadoes floating all over the place in T:ANE. That was a combination of things that caused that just they're facing that now with the crash at 100 km/h (65 mph or around that).
Given the very dynamic nature of computer hardware and software combinations with what's installed, OS updates (any version/company), data corruption, anti-malware program running at the time, or glitches in the hardware due to age, power, heat, dust, aliens, and anything else, it's a wonder that anything works as well as it does. This is why there needs to be as many eyes and hands on the testing process. Having a handful of programmers test their program, isn't the way to do it. It's no different than a cook tasting his or her meal, or a company such as Boeing self-test and check their airplanes... (won't go into this...!). A second set of eyes finds stuff that the creator and originator does now.
The good news is this occurs in a test release and not what would be considered a full release. With that said, if you find something report it, and get it on the list even if it appears to be a tiny thing.
