Scenarios for All Aboard Routes Not Showing In TS2019

[latimers]

I have a rather unusual problem that I haven't seen reported elsewhere.

I have three of Rich's routes - Colton and Northern, Fort Kent Subdivision and Rascal to Cottonwood - and Jim Ward's Port Ogden and Chicago Metro 3.

The only one that appears to work is Colton and Northern but only 2 of the 44 scenarios show up on the menu.

For the other three, none of the scenarios show up on the TS2019 Drive menus (under either 32bit or 64bit).

I've tried downloading and reinstalling the four routes but that hasn't helped.

The scenarios all show up in RW_Tools and all scenarios for all four routes show up under the "Build" menu.

Anybody have any idea what's happening?

[mikesimpson]

Hi Bob,

I have the 3 routes listed and all 3 are working fine here.

Mike

[jgvaughan]

Same here...went through all of Rich's routes and none of them crashed or gave me a problem.

[latimers]

Thanks very much for the replies.

If I go in through the "Build" menu and "Edit" a scenario and then "Save" it, it will run okay. The first one that I do this to then appears on the "Drive" scenario list, but only the first one.

Mike, with your knowledge of the inner workings of TSXXXX, do you have any idea what might be causing it and/or how to fix it?

Bob.

[peterhayes]

Bob
Some obvious ones - check how many RAILWORKS folders you have installed on any drive that could accessed by Steam.
Can you see the routes/ scenarios in \STEAM\steamapps\common\RailWorks\Content\Routes?
Ensure that there are not 2 entries for each route (one empty) - windows does that sometimes.
Close TS, Delete the files SDBCache.bin and the .MD5 file - open TS again - rebuilds the scenario db, are the routes visible?
Files found in \STEAM\steamapps\common\RailWorks\Content
Diagnostics:
Run sfc /scannow - any error messages?
Run dxdiag - any errors
Run DISM commands if necessary https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/hel ... -readiness

pH

[latimers]

Peter,

Thanks very much for the suggestions. I'll work my way through them and report back.

Regards,

Bob.

[latimers]

Peter,

I have only one Railworks folder.

I can see all of the routes and sub-folders for all of the scenarios in the Routes folder.

There are no duplicate Routes folders.

I deleted those two files, started TS but there is no change in the scenario listings.

sfc /scannow found a few problem files and replaced them but no subsequent change in TS scenario listings.

dxdiag found no errors.

I followed that link but Widows Update isn't showing any errors.

I think I might have found a clue.

If I look in the folder for a scenario that I haven't fiddled with yet, I find 3 files:
Scenario.bin
Scenario.bin.bak
ScenarioProperties.xml

If I look in the folder for a scenario that I have opened and saved under "Build" I find 7 files:
InitialSave.bin
InitialSave.bin.MD5
Scenario.bin
Scenario.bin.bak
Scenario.bin.MD5
ScenarioProperties.xml
ScenarioProperties.xml.MD5

For clarification, I bought these three routes directly from All Aboard. It's possible that the people that aren't having problems have the Steam versions.

It seems to me it's a Railworks issue rather than a computer issue. I base that on the fact that I can load and run the scenarios (at least the ones I've tried so far) from the Build menu. Only the routes show up in the Drive menu and only one or two scenarios. It's as if the scenario database isn't recognizing the other scenarios.

Bob.

[Chacal]

I shudder to think DTG maybe has begun actually using the MD5 files.
Try this: for a scenario that you have opened and saved under "Build" , delete the 3 MD5 files.
Then see if you can still see it in the game.

[mikesimpson]

Hi Bob and Chacal,

I think there might be something in Chacal's view that maybe the MD5 files are actually being checked, at least in the 64 bit version? I have noticed that some of these error messages we are seeing seem to occur in cases where a route has been extracted from an .ap file and then modified using RW_Tools - say by swapping locos, then the Scenario.bin.md5 would be incorrect as there would be changes to the Scenario.bin - same with ScenarioProperties.xml.md5

Just a thought..

Mike

[peterhayes]

Hi Mike
If it was a MD5 issue wouldn't the message be something like "File is corrupt (wrong md5 checksum) error"?
The MD5 errors wouldn't necessarily be reported to DTG as they are internal to TS checking procedures (and may even be specific to a particular folder on TS) on your PC and not necessarily against the master db on steam?

WRT Access Violation Errors:
I have noticed that it takes TS 2019 64-bit several seconds to release RAM access after you close it. TS2019 32-bit this is instantaneous ie at once.
Now imagine you are swapping a loco and replacing it with another. The original loco occupies a certain address in the RAM/VAS, swapping means that you basically have to "delete" the original loco to replace it with another, but now TS 2019 64-bit "hangs" onto the the original RAM address and so the system has to allocate a new address - ie not the original. Eventually TS 2019 "releases the original RAM address) .
The code then proceeds but now the system cannot find your replacement loco at the address (RAM and/or VAS) it is expecting it to be (ie the old address) and this causes a "memory mismatch error xC05 and because it is a serious memory error an "invalid page fault" is generated (access violation) and TS 2019 crashes.
This would not happen in the 32-bit version as it release memory allocations immediately.

Plus 64-bit TS2019 can allocate memory addresses far more accurately than the 32-bit version, it may allocate code to an address that is different to the 32-bit allocation, and again an access violation error could result. This is why using the editor in 32-bit makes more sense until DTG can fix it.

Just a theory

[latimers]

By George, I think I've got it!!!

I decided the best approach to solving this conundrum was to start with a clean slate. So I totally removed the three routes- Colton and Northern, Fort Kent Division and Rascal to Cottonwood. I downloaded the latest route and scenario files from the All Aboard website and installed them using the Utlities.exe software.

I checked the contents of the Scenarios folders, the lists of scenarios produced by RW_Tools and the scenarios listed through the Build menu. In each case all of the scenarios appeared to be present. I checked through the Drive menu and all routes showed up but none of them listed any scenarios.

Next step was to open a few scenarios under the Build/Scenarios/Edit function and close them again without saving. No change in the Drive menus.

I open a few scenarios under the Build menu and this time saved the changes. That changed the contents of the scenario folders from:

Scenario.bin
ScenarioProperties.xml

to

InitialSave.bin
InitialSave.bin.MD5
Scenario.bin
Scenario.bin.MD5
ScenarioProperties.xml
ScenarioProperties.xml.MD5

but still no scenarios listed under Drive.

I deleted all of the MD5 files and the SDBCache.bin and SDBCache.bin.MD5 files. No change to the Drive menus.

So I edited each scenario again. This time I moved the player loco a very small amount and saved the scenario. All of the scenarios I processed in this way now appear in the scenario lists accessed through the Drive menu.

Why it happens this way I have no idea and it is quite tedious having to open each scenario, move the player loco and save the scenario again. However, at least I can now get the scenarios back.

I applied the same process to Jim Ward's Port Ogden and Chicago Metro 3 route's scenarios with the same result.

If anyone can figure out why this works and/or a quicker way to accomplish the same thing, I would appreciate it.

Bob Latimer.

[peterhayes]

Bob
Did you ever use the function in RW_tools to make all files (especially those 3 routes) to be R/W?
Have you allowed those routes/scenarios to not be stopped by AV, Anti-Malware and the Firewall?
pH

[latimers]

Hi Peter.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Would making them read/write make a difference? When I originally downloaded and installed them there weren't any problems such as the ones I've been running into lately.

Do you think that perhaps the AV, AntiMalware, Firewall issue might be affecting the download? I'm running Avast free and Malwarebytes 3.0 paid. Neither of them flags a problem with the downloads.

Bob.

[peterhayes]

Bob
They were just suggestions that might have worked.
The AV etc should NOT affect the dl but I was just ensuring that you had given appropriate permissions so that any instructions would not be blocked by security software.

Just basic checks.

Regards
pH

[latimers]

I noticed all three routes were on sale so I bought them to save having to edit and save over a hundred scenarios. I uninstalled the original ones and let Steam install the new ones.

Guess what! No scenarios in the Drive menus.

I've opened a ticket wit DTG support.

(In the meantime I'll stay out of TS2019 so that if DTG can't come up with a solution I can get a refund.)