Britkit's PRR E7 Set Causes Game to Freeze

[Antwerp]

Hello everybody, I appear to have come across another bug. Only this time with Britkit's lovely PRR E7 set.

I'm going to list it out in the order of events that trigger the game to crash in a manner that doesn't throw any error codes. The game just ceases to respond until the user signs out or restarts the computer. Feel free to test if you get similar results with the same equipment if you have it. I'd love to see if it's just on my end.

1.) Place any E7. I placed the E7A Tuscan Red 5 Stripe w/Crew, E7B Tuscan Red 5 Stripe, E7A Tuscan Red 5 Stripe No Crew
2.) Start the scenario. (It may work fine this time around)
3.) Leave the scenario
4.) Replay the scenario by either clicking Replay, finding the scenario, or launching it from the route/scenario editor
5.) The game should stop responding mere seconds after starting, requiring the user to restart their computer or at the very least sign out and sign back in.


QUICK UPDATE:
There appears to be no current remedy. Having any of the E7s out seems to cause the same issue. I'm now getting a crash from them pretty much every time I run a scenario with them in it.

I knew what I was getting into with older equipment for the game possibly acting strangely. I didn't think I'd find a game breaking combination this quickly. Doesn't bother me any, I just figured I'd put the word out that this might be an issue for some.

Cheers!

[AmericanSteam]

Can you exit the game via task manager?

[Antwerp]

Can you exit the game via task manager?

Nope, it will not let me out of the game's window to even interact with Task Manager. I can open it via Ctrl+Alt+Delete/Ctrl+Shift+Tab, but that's about it.

If I am in control of the engines before the freeze, I have to Ctrl+Alt+Delete to be able to do the sign off/restart
If I am not in control of the engines before the freeze, I can bring up the Start menu with the windows key and interact with it, but trying to close TS via the taskbar doesn't do anything, nor does trying to view Task Manager as it just reopens the TS window.

If I had a second monitor, the answer might be yes.

[cnwfan]

One thing you may want to try is instead of just clicking replay, completely close out of Train Sim, reopen and try driving the saved scenario. You could also try clearing your cache before reopening the scenario (Settings -> Tools -> Clear Cache). Also, have you tried the same test in both 32 bit and 64 bit?

[Antwerp]

One thing you may want to try is instead of just clicking replay, completely close out of Train Sim, reopen and try driving the saved scenario. You could also try clearing your cache before reopening the scenario (Settings -> Tools -> Clear Cache). Also, have you tried the same test in both 32 bit and 64 bit?

Closing the sim and starting it again doesn't work. As noted that I have to completely sign out or restart to get out of it if it occurs. It's not a one time problem, the sim has been relaunched at least a dozen times in the last 24 hours to try and narrow the problem.

Clearing cache didn't work either.

32bit didn't work either.

Curiously enough, it appears to work fine after a fresh install of the add-on, but as soon as you exit the game and relaunch it, The E7 ceases to function properly until you uninstall then reinstall it again. Some routes experience the freeze more often than others. Custom routes seem to fail 9/10 times. Default routes or DTG routes seem to only occasionally freeze.

[cnwfan]

Other scenarios in other routes without the E7 work without issues? And was the E7 working at one point and then it stopped? I have a scenario for the Chicago Racetrack using BritKit's E8. I'll have to try it tonight and see if I have the same problem.

[Antwerp]

Other scenarios in other routes without the E7 work without issues? And was the E7 working at one point and then it stopped? I have a scenario for the Chicago Racetrack using BritKit's E8. I'll have to try it tonight and see if I have the same problem.

Everything works fine unless the E7s are present. This is BritKit's PRR-Passenger Set that comes with the E7 and GG1 as well as passenger equipment. The passenger equipment cause no issues, implying it's a problem with the engines specifically. The game freezes when the engines spit out smoke on startup and the distinctive Kuju SD40-2 sounds can be heard after crash.

The E7s appear to work fine after being installed, but once the game is restarted, they act up.

[cnwfan]

Just so I'm clear on something, without the E7 present, TS2020 works fine with all routes and scenarios. No freeze ups, no computer restarts needed. It's only when you add an E7 to a scenario on any route, that the freezes start to occur when a scenario is run with an E7, and the only way to get out is to restart the computer. After restarting, if you go run a scenario that doesn't have the E7, does the game still freeze? Have the E7's worked in TS2020 before? If so, do you remember about when it stopped working, and did you install / change any TS routes / assets? Also, when you install the E7's, do you uninstall first? Do you have your graphics settings set on the high or low side? Do you have depth of field on and ambient occlusion on? This is a puzzler, and all the usual suspects that I would through are being quickly eliminated. BTW, I ran my scenario with the BritKit's E8, and no issues occurred. Ran great.

Last thing. BritKit has a free base version of the E7 on his website. Do you have that installed? If so, have you tried a scenario with the base E7 instead of the PRR E7? Sorry for all the questions, but I'm just trying to eliminate possible variables. I do a lot of software testing in my job, and I've found bugs that the software manufacturer admits they would have never found.

[Antwerp]

I'll break this down for ease of reading since there's a lot to go over.

1.) Without the PRR-Passenger Set E7s present, TS2020 works fine with all routes and scenarios. No freeze ups, no computer sign off or restarts needed. It's only when I add a PRR-Passenger Set E7 to a scenario on any route, that the freezes start to occur when a scenario is run with a PRR-Passenger Set E7, and the only way to get out is to restart the computer or sign out and sign back in to force the game to close.

2.) After restarting, if you go run a scenario that doesn't have the E7, does the game still freeze? No.

3.)Have the E7's worked in TS2020 before? I've only had them a couple of days. They worked up until I restarted the game, then they seemed to break. If I uninstall them and reinstalled the PRR-Passenger Set E7, they work again until I restart the game. No changes were made at that point.

4.)Do you have your graphics settings set on the high or low side? They are on the high side (I'll get to that in a moment)

5.)Do you have depth of field on and ambient occlusion on? Both are disabled.

6a.)Last thing. BritKit has a free base version of the E7 on his website. Do you have that installed? Yes.

6b.)If so, have you tried a scenario with the base E7 instead of the PRR E7? Yes, and it works with absolutely no problems. HOWEVER, that free E7 model has a different cab, and it also doesn't spit out a ton of smoke at the start of the scenario. It should be noted, the game only freezes when I look in the general direction of the PRR-Passenger Set E7s at the beginning of the scenario when the smoke kicks off.

[cnwfan]

Thank you very much for information. That definitely helps with my understanding of the issue, and what testing has been done to date. If it was me, I would try the following:

Turn down the graphics settings and try the scenario again. Keep trying until the graphic settings are either all the way down, or until the scenario starts to work. Having this information could help BritKits troubleshoot the problem on his end.

If you are comfortable with modifying bin files, you could try changing out the smoke on the PRR version with the generic version smoke. Replay the scenario with the graphics turned back up to your normal settings.

If the smoke change doesn't work, then try changing the cab out in the bin files. Test again.

Lastly, you may want to get in touch with BritKits through either an email, or a PM. He has always helped me out when I've had something come up. Please let me know how it goes with the additional testing. You've got my curiosity up on this one. Thanks!

[Antwerp]

Thank you very much for information. That definitely helps with my understanding of the issue, and what testing has been done to date. If it was me, I would try the following:

Turn down the graphics settings and try the scenario again. Keep trying until the graphic settings are either all the way down, or until the scenario starts to work. Having this information could help BritKits troubleshoot the problem on his end.

If you are comfortable with modifying bin files, you could try changing out the smoke on the PRR version with the generic version smoke. Replay the scenario with the graphics turned back up to your normal settings.

If the smoke change doesn't work, then try changing the cab out in the bin files. Test again.

Lastly, you may want to get in touch with BritKits through either an email, or a PM. He has always helped me out when I've had something come up. Please let me know how it goes with the additional testing. You've got my curiosity up on this one. Thanks!

I will keep you posted in the coming days. These next 'fixes' might require a bit of time to figure out how to do properly. Thanks for the help so far!

I have contacted Britkits via email, but have not heard back.

[Antwerp]

UPDATE

Thank you very much for information. That definitely helps with my understanding of the issue, and what testing has been done to date. If it was me, I would try the following:

Turn down the graphics settings and try the scenario again. Keep trying until the graphic settings are either all the way down, or until the scenario starts to work. Having this information could help BritKits troubleshoot the problem on his end.

If you are comfortable with modifying bin files, you could try changing out the smoke on the PRR version with the generic version smoke. Replay the scenario with the graphics turned back up to your normal settings.

If the smoke change doesn't work, then try changing the cab out in the bin files. Test again.

Lastly, you may want to get in touch with BritKits through either an email, or a PM. He has always helped me out when I've had something come up. Please let me know how it goes with the additional testing. You've got my curiosity up on this one. Thanks!

After some time, I have not narrowed down the problem.

1.) Turning down the graphics did not seem to make a difference.
2.) I was not able to figure out how replacing the smoke worked, so that remains in the air.
3.) Swapping the cabs again made no difference.
4.) I have not heard from Britkits about my email.

I'm beginning to think it could be something related to the age of the locomotive. It is an old RW asset after all. I recently acquired his BL2 (Which ejects quite a bit of smoke on startup) for a project and it has worked seamlessly after running it through the same trials and tribulations. *knocks on wood*

I'm getting plenty of use out of the passenger coaches it came with though

I'm really not sure how to proceed from here except tinker with it from time to time and see what happens.

[cnwfan]

At this point, that is probably all you can do. Hopefully BritKits gets back to you. You can try PM'ing from his forum page. Maybe it goes to a different email address. He was active here on Jan 5th, looking for beta testers. So maybe one of those beta testers can also get word to him that you need assistance??

[KCJones]

I have downloaded the PRR set from dropBox and done a fresh install. I am afraid I can't reproduce the problem on my computer.
I am running a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti graphics card, Intel i5-9400F CPU and 16 GB RAM (If that helps)
Has anybody else out there had this problem??

RailWorks64 2020-01-23 11-00-21-82.jpg

Dick C.