Portals not working- a plague returns!

:'(I'm in Trainz Railroad Simulator 2019 working-up a Session in the Cumberland to Connellsville route.

I work on and test my first AI traffic and all is well.

I add another and another testing each and making adjustments to get AI to do what I want.

I use Central Portal Control because I like the Emit Immediately feature.

As suggested by another user, I have a Central Portal Control Rule for each separate portal and to begin I add them all for I think 22 portals on my route. That way if I want to add traffic later I know I can count down the rules list and Portal 5 etc. will be the fifth Central Portal Control entry.

I worked up 8 AI traffic schedules and thought I had most of what I wanted to start playing the game with but when I start to play the session, the first trains all emit instantly but as I'm playing I start wondering why my drivers list is not growing again and when I go to look at portals that I expected were ready to emit more traffic, I see engines sitting at the emission site with no tender or cars in tow. I watch them but nothing else happens. In the case of the steamers, they have smoke and steam coming out of the stack but they don't move and they don't register as trains yet.

THANK THE COCONUT GODS that we have the " Edit Trains " feature! After just deleting the engines and hoping that at the next time increment that the portal will be able to operate and that not happening, a light went

off in my cranium and I selected the " drag the whole train " option and I was able to pull the train out of the portal and after the first one or two cars behind the engine came out, it continued to emit the whole train and

it then operated as expected.

I should not have to do this!


I had the same problem a few years ago but then we did not have the Edit Trains feature. I put in a ticket and got a reply that they had messed something up while fixing other problems and they would work on it when they had time. I don't think they notified me when the repair was made and months later when I complained on the forums about it I was told by many that there was no problem. I found out that the problem must have been embedded in the session I had and the solution was to re-do the session after the game was fixed and when I did the trains started to emit. I think that had happened at the beginning of Trainz A New Era and I wasted about 6 months time waiting to discover that the defect was corrected.

I did try to search for indications that others were having this problem again but it seems I am the only one affected by this problem.

I did go back to my favorite route: Rocky Mountains Montana Track New Era and I ran it enough to see that the portals seem to be working there but I think the portals are not identical. I think the Rocky Mountains Montana Track has ; Portal Basic short and Cumberland to Connellsville has Portal Basic, both are the type that doesn't have a tunnel looking structure which makes it easy to see and grab the engines with the Edit Trains feature, thanks for that!!!!!!

Thanks

Willy
 
Hi Willy --

22 portals. And 22 separate Central Portal Control rules? Wow!~!

I'd suggest just one CPC rule. You can add as many portals as you like (well, there might be a maximum but I'm not sure what it is) to one CPC rule.

The other thing to check in CPC is the maximum number of consists. The number of consists includes all the consists you might have placed elsewhere on the route. Again I'm not sure of the maximum number that you can set this to, but I use 99.

Phil
 
Hi Willy --

22 portals. And 22 separate Central Portal Control rules? Wow!~!

I'd suggest just one CPC rule. You can add as many portals as you like (well, there might be a maximum but I'm not sure what it is) to one CPC rule.

The other thing to check in CPC is the maximum number of consists. The number of consists includes all the consists you might have placed elsewhere on the route. Again I'm not sure of the maximum number that you can set this to, but I use 99.

Phil

Hi, Phil, I've always wondered what they ment by the max number of consists and hoped they really ment AI consists or consists with motive power. To make a route look prototypical one would have to fill yards with so many consists that the 99 limit would be met too easily and 99 seems to be the highest number that, that field will accept.

I'm doing a back-up on my Trainz comp. right now so I can't check my facts but I only have four consists at each of I think four opperational coal mines plus two driver engines, one at my first coal mine and another in an industrial park with two more consists there and I always set my max at 99 also.

Some of my portals have two or three schedules to process in sequence but all emit immediately and that seems to work even though they all emit at the same time. I see that some recommend a zero leeway time for emission but I have always left it at the defult which I think is 5 min. I assumed that, that might have to do with some limit on the number of schedules that ones comp. could process at one time??

My subsequent scheduled traffic is important to my session and I think I have noticed that if I save and then re-start from that save I will get another immediate emission of consists but it seems to start over with the first scheduled consist instead of the next sequential schedule. I noticed that on my Rocky Mountains Montana Track session where I had a consist of every commodity that I deal with set to emit sequentially and I don't often see the last in the list on the route but the one I use the most- coal for the power plant happens to be the first in the list and if I see that the power station is running dangerously low all I have to do is save and re-start, then divert a train load of coal to the power station rather than just run it's normal schedule ending in a portal on the other end of the route.

I don't like these new portals. I always thought you did an excellent job on Industrail where there would be a lot of track that went around back behind a mountain to what looked like a tunnel and that was the portal. I always thought the original portals with that tunnel-like structure looked much more prototypical than just a piece of track where a train appears out of thin air.

The only saving grace in this is, as I said in my first post, that " Edit Trains " is capable of pulling a stuck consist out of these new portals.

The idea of the 22 CPC's is to avoid confusion and I am easily confused. If I used one rule then I guess I would also add all 22 portals in that rule otherwise, as I decided on what traffic I wanted to add, I probably would not add them in numerical sequence and it would be confusing to search through the list for a portal that was out of order. As I got the inspiration for different AI schedules, these inspirational moments did not come in numerical order and I did have to jump around to different CPC's adding additional traffic.

Thanks, Phil

Willy
 
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There are static cars that can be placed in the yard that will not take up the consist count. You just got to make sure they are on tracks not used,
 
Some trouble shooting progress!!!!

:D
I got up late this morning to watch the girls play golf in Scottland and I started running my session just to watch and after 4 hours of run time it seems that all my 13 AI schedules have processed properly!

My preliminary conclusion is that driving my player engine is somehow interfering with the portal emissions.

When I first started this thread, I had in the back of my mind that while developing all that AI traffic and testing each one, I saw no problems with emissions but as soon as I decided to " play " the session, then I had problems.

This is also the first I have used my Raildriver in a long time and I need to try and test if that is the problem, the specific engine I'm driving is the problem or just driving any engine in this session is the problem.


There is a reason why I'm doing things different than usual:

1. My 10 yr. old Step Granddaughter recently showed interest in my train game and I want to make her into a train nut like me!

2. She asked me what that thing was hanging off the side of my comp. desk and I told her that it was a controller made to look like similar controls that her other step grandfather used at work before he retired.

3. I could not find the Sandpatch route and settled for the Cumberland to Connellsville because I thought there may be some parts of the lines that her other step grandfather used to drive on and that may spark more interest.



Last night I:

1. Went through and changed portals to not emit immediately except for one that I plan to interact with in the beginning of the session......... That did not solve my problem.

2. Then I went through the portals and staggered all times a little like: portals that emitted every hour, the first I had it emit every 62 min., the next portal every 64 min., the third every 66 min.... That did not solve my problem.

3. Phil didn't like all the CPC's I had and I didn't delete any but I did go into them and "remove " portals that had no traffic schedules created for them which left 14 CPC's out of 22 not identifying with a portal and no traffic. That did not solve my problem.


I did the above three steps while " playing " the session, driving Sniper's PON RS11 with my Raildriver and then decided that the next day I would just observe traffic instead of driving in it and here I am, hoping there is a simple solution and I won't have to redo the schedules as I did in TANE. While watching the traffic I already saw that I need more traffic to properly serve the industries that are already activated. I noticed recently that my favorite log mill will keep feeding logs in till it either; runs out of logs or there is a max of 36 lumber stacks in the lumber storage yard. It's kool to watch, if you pick-up stacks 36 and 35, the guy with the fork-lift will feed two more logs into the mill, one at a time.

Thanks

Willy
 
I think I have gone as far as I know how !

:(This morning:

1. I disconnected my Raildriver and started my session and drove my PON RS 11 #7617 in the Cumberland Industrial Park ( near portal 2 ) as before. The first " immediate " emission worked but I think that happened because it launched before I got in my player engine. 38 min. later when the first scheduled AI was supposed to emit, as before, only the steam engine appeared at the emission site at portal # 19 and just sat there smoking and steaming.

2. I then re-started my session but instead of driving the PON RS 11, I went to my other player engine, PON GP9 # 283 which is at the Leisenring Coal Mine way across the map near portal 17 and got the same results as with the PON RS 11.

3. I then opened my session for editing and replaced my two player engines with the Rocky Mountaineer engine, RMRX GP 40-2. I then went back and started my session using that engine I got with Railroad Simulator 2019 and got the same
result as above.


So, where is the bug and how do I get it fixed? I had stated in a previous post that my session in the Rocky Mountains Montana Track is still running and emitting the same engines but it is a different route with I think different portals. The engines that I always use are the four PON steamers and C&O K4. In this new session, I used PON diesels for a couple AI but the ones that are failing emission, are the steamers and diesels after the " immediate " emission and If I don't drive any player engines, the whole schedule works.

I think I will soon use this thread to place a ticket with N3V so unless someone definitely has a fix it may be better not to post here.


Thanks

Willy
 
Willy --

The idea of Central Portal Control is that it centralises control of all the portals at one location. So I'd still suggest just using one CPC for all the portals.

Alternatively scrap CPC all together an configure each portal individually. I know this looses the ability to emit at start but ... .

Phil
 
Is this the kind of answer we should get??

I put in a ticket and referred to this thread for info. The answer I got was:


"Good Morning Willy
Unfortunately, as the Central Portal Control rule was not made by us, we cannot provide any assistance with using this rule. As such, if you are unable to find assistance on the Trainz Forums, you may need to try contacting the original author of the Central Portal Control rule and see if they are able to provide assistance."


If this is the way it goes, then they could have said that since the PON tenders that didn't show up were "not made by us " then I should contact Sniper Ward and ask him why. Also the Cumberland to Connellsville route " was not made by us " and so I should contact the author of that route to ask why I'm having this problem!

I replied to their comments reiterating that when I just watch the session, the AI traffic works and didn't think that CPC is the problem. I have not got a reply yet and thinking that they closed the ticket, I think I need to put in another.



I have since deleted any and all CPC Rules in the Session Rules List and re- created one AI traffic schedule in the first portal with the K4 loco which was provided by N3V and a strange thing happened :

the same thing happens whether I just watch the traffic or drive a driver engine. At the prescribed time the K4 engine appears but nothing else emits from the portal. I guess I will have to track down the creator of that portal and ask him to help me!


Willy
 
Willy --

Possibly not what you want to hear, but it all works for me. The proof is, for example, Krashnburne. Download the TRS19 version of this layout and one of the sessions if you want proof.

Phil
 
Maybe your driving around sets/changes some signals and junctions so that some of the trains cannot come out from the portals. Driving around also puts a bigger load on your system, since I assume you are watching your manual train. You should also check your log for possible time-outs.
 
Hey, Phil. whats your build number ?

Mine is 105096.

The reason I ask is this:

I've had this problem before !

When TANE first came out, I was hooked on Industrail and I wanted to replicate a session I was running in Trainz Simulator 12. I studied and copied and added to the session much like I described in the beginning of this thread.

When I finally got around to trying to drive the session, the very same problem occurred: If I looked in map view I could see a single line in the depths of those " tunnel-looking " portals and when I right clicked on it I would get a message that it was an engine with 0 in tow.

I put in a ticket with the helpdesk and they said that they had messed something up and would work on it when they had time.

I wasted many months waiting for the fix but my method of checking must have been flawed and later I realized that in order to have my session work, I had to re-create it with the then repaired game program because the error must have been embedded in the session using the faulty TANE build that I originally used.

I think my build may be the latest and I did not update to that right away because sometimes ( generally speaking ) updates fix things and break others as I thought the helpdesk had told me about TANE. Could it be that I updated too soon??

My most recent comment from the desk is this:



"
Good Morning WillyCan you please tell me if you see this issue if you configure an Auran made portal ( <kuid2:30501:22006:5> Portal Basic or <kuid:-25:1264> Portal), via the portal object's properties, to emit trains and then try driving your own train.


Unfortunately we have not seen any other reports of portals not emitting trains when configured through the portal, nor in relation to the central portal control rule.




Please check these helpful pages:




FAQ
Trainz Knowledgebase
Trainz Forums
TRS2019 FAQ


Kind Regards



N3V Games Support Team "


I replied to them that I checked the Cumberland to Connellsville route in " Content Manager " and I see Portal Basic
<kuid2:30501:22006:5> as the only entry for a portal.

My goal is to get the portals in the Cumberland to Connellsville route to work and no one has commented in this thread that they have had success in doing this. Just because no one else has asked the desk to check this out doesn't mean no one else is having problems. I have deleted many routes that had something about them that I could not get to work without putting in a ticket or gone to great lengths to fix.

Willy
 
My next move: replace portals on this route

I got some help in my first attempt to mess with trackage on another forum and I successfully placed portals on the Clinchfield TRS route!

Now, if I really want to make the Cumberland to Connellsville route work for me, I think my next move will be to remove the existing portals and put in the ones that work on the Rocky Mountains Montana route. I think they all have good lead-ins to the route and probably uncluttered right-of-way that might make it easy to do that.

The real pain in my asterisk will be documenting all the fine points about my AI so I can duplicate it in the new portals.

Sound like a plan????

But, if the preferred built-in portals by Auran don't work in this route what's the chance that any portal will work?? The help desk doesn't seem interested in getting to the bottom of my problem.

Willy
 
I had a similar problem with this that the portals only emitted the first loco and then stopped when I drove a loco myself in "Realistic Mode". If I stayed in DCC mode everything was fine. My fix was changing the enginespec of the locos that came out of the portals. TRS19 treats the enginespec differently than the older versions of Trainz.
 
I had a similar problem with this that the portals only emitted the first loco and then stopped when I drove a loco myself in "Realistic Mode". If I stayed in DCC mode everything was fine. My fix was changing the enginespec of the locos that came out of the portals. TRS19 treats the enginespec differently than the older versions of Trainz.

Thanks but I would not know how to do that and what to change it to.

Can you suggest an engine to swap into my AI consists that would make all this work?

Willy
 
Thanks but I would not know how to do that and what to change it to.

Can you suggest an engine to swap into my AI consists that would make all this work?

Willy

Well you can try it out yourself... just create a simple baseboard with a loco you want to be driving and then a portal with different locos. The loco you are driving can cause this too btw so you might experiment a bit. This seems to be a bug with some enginespecs switching from DCC to realistic mode with trains emitting from portals. It took me some time to figure this out too...
 
More Progress!

I had a similar problem with this that the portals only emitted the first loco and then stopped when I drove a loco myself in "Realistic Mode". If I stayed in DCC mode everything was fine. My fix was changing the enginespec of the locos that came out of the portals. TRS19 treats the enginespec differently than the older versions of Trainz.

I went back to my original session in the Cumberland to Connellsville route and I changed it to simple controls that driver cannot change and I drove in DCC mode and all my AI traffic ran as scheduled.

I didn't notice at first but my Raildriver was connected and apparently it is not compatible with DCC. The DCC driven engine would run for a couple seconds and then the throttle would return to zero and the train would stop. That is when I noticed my Raildriver was on so I tried using it and the engines I tried to drive would only go in forward so I unplugged the Raildriver and then the DCC worked normally.

You didn't answer the question about changing " enginespec " but if I go into my Rocky Mountain Montana Track session which was created soon after TRS 2019 came out, I can drive that with
" Realistic Mode " which I just did long enough to see that my AI traffic is running OK, but it is a different route with different portals and the session was probably created before N3v put out an update that messed this up in the first place.

You seem to think that the enginespec of the train engines coming out of the portals is the problem. What about the enginespec of the driver consist? And, yet driving in DCC over rides what ever the real problem is?????????

May I say again, I had the same problem With TANE when it first came out and N3v did something to fix it but it seems that they are not willing to admit there is a problem now and are not fixing it or at least telling me how to over come the problem.

Thanks a lot for the info!

Wild Willy the Wacko
 
I went back to my original session in the Cumberland to Connellsville route and I changed it to simple controls that driver cannot change and I drove in DCC mode and all my AI traffic ran as scheduled.

I didn't notice at first but my Raildriver was connected and apparently it is not compatible with DCC. The DCC driven engine would run for a couple seconds and then the throttle would return to zero and the train would stop. That is when I noticed my Raildriver was on so I tried using it and the engines I tried to drive would only go in forward so I unplugged the Raildriver and then the DCC worked normally.

You didn't answer the question about changing " enginespec " but if I go into my Rocky Mountain Montana Track session which was created soon after TRS 2019 came out, I can drive that with
" Realistic Mode " which I just did long enough to see that my AI traffic is running OK, but it is a different route with different portals and the session was probably created before N3v put out an update that messed this up in the first place.

You seem to think that the enginespec of the train engines coming out of the portals is the problem. What about the enginespec of the driver consist? And, yet driving in DCC over rides what ever the real problem is?????????

May I say again, I had the same problem With TANE when it first came out and N3v did something to fix it but it seems that they are not willing to admit there is a problem now and are not fixing it or at least telling me how to over come the problem.

Thanks a lot for the info!

Wild Willy the Wacko


Do you have the same locos on the Mountain Montana Track session as on the Cumberland one? As I said, I dont really know the exact cause of this either but the enginespec definitely has something to do with it. If you change the enginespec of all your locos on the session to the default SD40 enginespec for example it will work (Meaning you have to go into Content Manager and change all the enginespecs in the configs of the Locos on the session). I think what could be causing this is that the AI trains use the same "Physics" as the trains the player is driving but since the AI drives a lot more "erratic" it somehow messes things up (Another Issue I have is the the AI breaks the couplers on long trains).
 
Now, this is the kind of answer I was looking for !

Do you have the same locos on the Mountain Montana Track session as on the Cumberland one? As I said, I dont really know the exact cause of this either but the enginespec definitely has something to do with it. If you change the enginespec of all your locos on the session to the default SD40 enginespec for example it will work (Meaning you have to go into Content Manager and change all the enginespecs in the configs of the Locos on the session). I think what could be causing this is that the AI trains use the same "Physics" as the trains the player is driving but since the AI drives a lot more "erratic" it somehow messes things up (Another Issue I have is the the AI breaks the couplers on long trains).

This is what I was looking for:

"change the enginespec of all your locos on the session to the default SD40 enginespec"

that is if I can fine somethng called
"default SD40 enginespec"

If I can find that, and would it be equal the " Rocky Mountaineer " 's specs???? If so, I could probably edit and change.

Thanks

BUt, most of the AI are all steamers so I don't think SD 40 enginespec would work.

You see what happened is I am a steam fan and because my Raildriver never used to work with steam and does not at all resemble steam controls, I was in the habbit of driving " realistic " with clicking and dragging with my mouse but then my step granddaughter got interested in my Raildriver, I added some of Sniper's PO&N diesels to be the driver engines.

I did, as a test, substitute the " Rocky Mountaineer " diesel to see if it was just the diesels causing the problem but did not change the AI steamers.

In my other route; The Rocky Mountain Montana Track, it is all steam, all the ones that I always use; Sniper's PO&N repaints that can be found under PON in the download station.

If the PON steamers are the problem because they are pretty old, I would need a reference to what spec. to upgrade them too.

Another thing is; I don't deal with long trains. I know from experience that AI cheats and can get longer trains up grades that I can not navigate driving myself and since I often " hijack " the AI and send them where their product is needed and then I do the yard work unloading and loading, I keep them short enough for one steamer to handle the load.

Thanks

Wild Willy the Wacko
 
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I'm trying to replace the Portals and having initial sucess !

The Cumberland to Connelsville route has:

Portal Basic <kuid2:30501:22006:5>

I am trying to replace them with the Portals that work for me that are found in the Rocky Mountains Montana route:

Portal Basic Short <kuid2:96914:22000:2>

I have no real experience at laying track so I picked Portal 2 to replace cause the track is streight leading away from the Portal. I tried Portal 1 but when I delete the old portal, the end of the track snaps from being a bend to a streight end running off to the side of the track bed and I can't figure how to get the bend back in it.

But, anyway, I changed out that one portal and then used the CPC to immediately emit a train and the next one ten minutes later and both AI trains ran as expected.

Of course, I have had successes testing before, but this time I made sure that I was actually driving one of my driver consists while the trains were supposed to be emitting.

This route has about 22 portals and I have 10 of them configured with AI traffic. In areas where there is dual track, I figure that I don't need to replace both the original portals since I have not noticed problems with consumption of AI. The task will still be daunting for me cause I still have to figure out how to handle bending track and then some of my AI commands are long and complex and even with CPC, when I delete the original portal, the AI commands are deleted. I had thought that I might be able to save some time if the commands would have stayed in the CPC rule for the portals since I wasn't deleteing them myself.

Wild Willy the Wacko
 
I've never swapped enginespecs. But if the K4 steamer works well, maybe you could use that engine spec on other steamers.
The downside is that all of the steamers would have the same horsepower.
 
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