Trainz Setting Corrupted ?

This afternoon I had a strange thing happen. I had done some work on a route and was getting ready to save it. When I went to save the route, the only option I had was to save as a new route and session. Strange. So I opened another route of mine, added a tree, went to save, and it too said I had to save as a new route.

After doing that, I went to Content Manager and selected "My Content." All that was there were the two newly saved versions of my routes. None of my other assets were there. No routes, no reskins, nothing. When I searched for "locally modified," the assets were there. Panic ensued, which isn't good for this old man's well being.

So while contemplating a full back up, I went to the Settings box. There for some reason, the Internet tab was blank. So, I refilled the name and password, and everything was back as it should be.

Does anyone know how this happened? I'd rather not do this again.

You had a crash of some kind that wiped your user information. You need to reenter your user information into the the user settings and run a database repair. You may or may not lose the current version of your route, but the previous version should be there.

I've seen and had a crash remove my user information, but never while I was in Trainz and working only to find that things were weird when I exited. In my case, a crash to the desktop (CTD) occurred first and when I started up again I was prompted to log back in. After logging in, I had to run a database repair (DBR) to get my content back. Everything was there and okay.

A windows update can cause the information to be erased plus some other things that might happen in the windows registry.

I agree with John, there must be more to this than has met your eye. Since your asset kuid numbers are cross-referenced to a hash numbering system, the disruption of those cross-references does not mean your assets are gone, so no need to panic if you see this again. Also it is in fact a safe practice that one should save as a new route and session, sequentially numbered, as standard practice whenever new pike work has been done.

stagecoach said:

A windows update can cause the information to be erased plus some other things that might happen in the windows registry.

Click to expand...

My registry trace of the TRS19 install and SPs shows TRS19 has very minimal registry interaction, and is limited to less than 10 entries. It is only used for the cdp filetype, the program installation path, and the uninstall string; nothing to do with the user data or user registration:



PS: This is a registry change log.

Look in credential manager for storage of passwords. Control Panel\User Accounts\Credential Manager

stagecoach said:

Look in credential manager for storage of passwords. Control Panel\User Accounts\Credential Manager

Click to expand...

Hi Stagecoach, good point, but I could only find a forums password (see below). Are you saying if this gets disrupted by a Windows Update, it will remove the credential data in the TRS19 Internet tab?

deneban said:

Hi Stagecoach, good point, but I could only find a forums password (see below). Are you saying if this gets disrupted by a Windows Update, it will remove the credential data in the TRS19 Internet tab?

Click to expand...

I just checked my Credential Manager settings as well and there is nothing in either the Web Credentials or the Windows Credentials tabs.

I still think this was a good old-fashioned database crash that ate the user-login information.

What has caught my eye in this discussion was "Windows Update." Trainz was open when Windows decided to update on its own. When all was said and done, putting my user info back in Settings, I was fine. I have done a edbr and copied the user folder to an external drive.

Thank you to everyone who participated in this discussion.

jeff1959 said:

What has caught my eye in this discussion was "Windows Update." Trainz was open when Windows decided to update on its own.

Click to expand...

Not to beat a dead horse but I am having a problem accepting that theory is the source of wiping away your Trainz credentials. Maybe John will come along with me on this.

We yet have neither seen a connection between the Windows registry and TRS19 nor Windows Credentials and TRS19 that is related to Trainz credentials. Furthermore, when Windows does an update, it just doesn't barge in on your Windows user folder (where your user TRS19 user data folder is) or even the Program Files folder and start changing around 3rd party programs and data on the fly -- especially when they are running. Impossible.

I'd like to hear back from Stagecoach to see if he has anything further on the matter, or else I am chalking it up to an indirect user data disruption from the user or TRS19 or the hard drive filesystem.

I also hope you will takeaway the byproduct "Save As" advice given in post #4.

deneban said:

Not to beat a dead horse but I am having a problem accepting that theory is the source of wiping away your Trainz credentials. Maybe John will come along with me on this.

We yet have neither seen a connection between the Windows registry and TRS19 nor Windows Credentials and TRS19 that is related to Trainz credentials. Furthermore, when Windows does an update, it just doesn't barge in on your Windows user folder (where your user TRS19 user data folder is) or even the Program Files folder and start changing around 3rd party programs and data on the fly -- especially when they are running. Impossible.

I'd like to hear back from Stagecoach to see if he has anything further on the matter, or else I am chalking it up to an indirect user data disruption from the user or TRS19 or the hard drive filesystem.

I also hope you will takeaway the byproduct "Save As" advice given in post #4.

Click to expand...

I agree. Windows doesn't just update everything, but it can restart without warning unless told otherwise, unless I'm mistaken on that. I can't remember because I've set Windows to notify me when it's about to restart so I have a chance to shut things down gracefully. The only time I've been burned is when I hit Restart now before saving and closing, but then it was on me and I wasn't in Trainz and in another program without a lot of complex data, and shame on me for not paying attention. I too couldn't find much in the registry in this regard either just file associations and program locations, but nothing else, and the only thing in the credential manager were things I expected such as web logins but nothing related to this program. The Windows OS credentials were for my file shares which I have for my Dell XPS-18 (old) tablet to connect to my desktop and for my laptop for remote desktop so I can share Trainz screens with my Zooming friends. In this regard, my piano teacher was quite impressed and his wife walked by and said don't think about it you'll never get anything done!

Backups... Backups are a good thing to have no matter what. I've recommended before setting up a backup routine and sticking to it. I do a full backup monthly and incremental backups in between. It may not be the most efficient, but I know I have something to fallback on should things go tits up. I've been lucky this way, knock wood.