FJ&G Crashing to Windows!

[nighttrain23]

Is anyone else having MSTS crash around milepost 6? According to the readme I can't run it through Route Riter so I have no idea what is causing this problem.

[AlanCh]

I made a copy of the Shapes file, ran the route through Routeriter, and then restored the original shapes. Routeriter found no errors, and the route runs well, although it is resource intensive - you might need to turn your settings down.

[charland]

Hi,

There were nine people plus myself who beta tested the route for months while I was drawing it. One did report crashing around MP 6, he had downloaded new video drivers and for some reason they had become corrupt. He then tried again and the problem he experienced at MP 6 went away. Might want to try new video drivers just in case that corrects your problem.

I also have my own crash problem, after adding grass and trackside bushed to the route. If I use view 4 and the camera is positioned over the track, about every fourth time the train passes under the camera the screen goes black and I'm forced to reboot the computer to get out of the black screen. Out of the ten people beta testing I was the only one to have this problem but learned of one other the other day. I have all detail on full and maybe I'll try to back that off and see what happens, I've removed the bounding boxes from the grass and trackside bushes but still have the problem. If anyone has any other ideas I'd be glad to hear them.

Paul :-)

[nighttrain23]

Thank you for the quick response! :D

[shell_lw]

I may be in the wrong thread here, but since you're talking about FJ&G crashes.....

My FJ&G runs fine, although it sometimes (unpredictably) won't close properly, doing a slow death while the hard drive works overtime. My system is Vista Home Premium.

But I've got a friend who lacks internet access. I took FJ&G to him (for a tryout) on a flash drive, and MSTS won't even load. This is not a case of MSTS loads and the ROUTE crashes. About 1/2 way through the initialization screen, we get an old-fashioned Send/don't send window and no MSTS error message. His system is a brand-new XP with lots of ram and a 512Mb NVidea 8400 card. Removing the FJ&G route puts MSTS back to normal. How can a route cause such an error?

What I transported was a complete route folder, not the installer.

By the way, I LOVED the painless installation, which does not require an installme.bat!

And I really like the set of old vehicles. NICE WORK!

Wayne

[charland]

Hi Wayne,

No expert but there are a number of threads here that relate to problems with Vista and MSTS, you might find the solution to your closing problem there.

As for loading the route on your friend's system, make sure you have installed:

xtracks
newroads
MSTS bin 1.7.x

Also make sure your friend has Microsoft's one update for MSTS installed, although the route uses none of it's files the 44 tonner used it's default sounds. You also need to have the FJ&G S-3s, 44 tonner, and caboose 3. After installing the route but before opening it you need to open the activity folder, double click on the three APK files to install, then open the Consist folder and copy and paste the three consists to the TRAINS>CONSIST folder. Without doing so the route may install but will not be listed in the reoute selector when you open the game.

Paul :-)

[shell_lw]

Paul:

Thanks for the several good suggestions. Any of them can be a creator of havoc with MSTS. I've considered most of your concerns, but I think I've ruled them out, as explained below....I'm airing this to add more detail hoping it will improve our diagnosis.

Yes, he has xtracks and new roads, as they are required on several routes that he currently uses error-free. He has Bin (an older version, 1.6something) but it is not really required, as noted in the route's readme.

The route runs under my Vista, but not under his XP....that's a first for me!

As for the various rolling stock folders....won't those create problems only AFTER you choose a route?? The problem my friend is having is that MSTS crashes before the initilaization is complete....long before you see the list of routes and locos/consists.

And he is NOT using any of the packaged activities. I didn't even download them for myself.

I'm not sure I covered all of the issues you raised, but here's one more. Friend's MSTS is set at 1024x768x16, and I think his AE/RE runs OK, so I don't think it's a resolution issue (though I'm not sure what his computer's video settings are).

What else could it be?? What can be in a ROUTE folder that will cause MSTS not to load?

A possible antivirus conflict?? A possibly corrupt copy (when I copied from my Route folder to the flash drive to friend's computer)?

Thanks,

Wayne

[bnsf1959]

Could he have too many routes and consists? Does his MSTS take too long to loadup? Train Store can probably solve his problem where you can check which route and consist he doesn't want to use and it would speed up his MSTS loadup time much faster.:rolleyes:

[charland]

Hi Wayne,

I'm also using Windows XP set at 1024 X 768 and 16 bit color. I drew most of the route with BIN 1.6something installed and only upgraded in the last few weeks to 1.7something, can't see that as being an issue. Might want to check Ken's suggestion about using TrainStore, probably something I should be doing myself, I'm sure we all have routes we haven't touched in a year that we don't need loading up all the time.

There are now over 800 copies of the route out there, I'd have to think if there was a problem with the route itself there would be hundreds of people not able to open MSTS after installing the route.

I know I said in the readme not to run the route through Route-Riter but maybe you should try running the route you have on your flash drive through and see if you get any errors. Normally what should happen if you run the route through R-R is that you get the message saying there are no errors. When you go to open the route you get hit with a series of errors related to the 1940s cars. The solution to this is replacing the S and SD files for the cars... so keep a fresh set around before trying R-R. If there are any corrupt files on your flash drive R-R should report them and that would be the cause of your problems.

Hope this helps.

Paul :-)

[Richard]

Hello Wayne,
My guess would be the same as Ken's. Your friend may have too many routes, engines or rolling stock loaded causing MSTS to crash. I would also suggest installing train-store, store everything except the FJ&G route and see if the problem still exists?

I was one of Paul's beta tester and can confirm the route does load and work properly. The computer I've run the route on is a PIII 866 Mhz with 512 Mb of ram and a GeForce IV video card. I've run the route at 1024 x 768 x 32, but because of the slower processor I've had to turn the distance slider down and turn off dynamic shadows to increase frame rates.

[shell_lw]

Paul, Richard, and others:

Thanks again for the continued support. This is a really neat little route, and I'd like it to work smoothly.

Neither Bob nor I are currently users of Route-Riter or Train Store (perhaps now subject to change!)

But Bob's system is not large or complex--fewer than 10 routes, 200 locos, 700 cars.

I'm going to double-check the versions of Xtracks and New Roads in use....seems like Orin Sub caused a similar crash when it didn't have the NEWEST of one of those.

I'm wondering if it might be video related, since that's the major difference between Bob's setup and my own....is anyone out there running FJ&G under XP with an NVidea 8400 512Mb card?

Wayne

[charland]

Hi Wayne,

I'm running Windows XP Media Pro with a weak little nVidia 6100LT card built on the motherboard of a two year old H-P system, still using SP2 after SP3 would only let me open in Safe Mode.

Paul :-)

[shell_lw]

OK, guys, haul out the wet noodles. I think I've solved the problem, and revealed a bit of my own ineptitude.

I'm pretty good about reading readme.txt files and pretty good at following instructions. I'm apparently also good at making unwarranted assumptions. In this case was the assumption that my friend had the "latest version" of NewRoads and XTracks (he can't possibly, since he gets those things through me, and it turns out that I didn't have the latest versions either.)

In lieu of fixing things at my friend's (he was working), I tried an experiment with my budget laptop. I Dropped FJ&G into the routes folder there, and MSTS locked up during initialization. Then I installed a freshly downloaded XTracks and New Roads, and DOH, the route runs!

I've since upgraded these utilities on the mini-route where my FJ&G runs, and I just MAY have stopped the crash-on-exit nuisance as well.

In case anyone is wondering, the "latest" versions are New Roads 3.2 and XTracks 4.0 which includes tsection.dat build 38.

I believe that last item is the killer ingredient in this. MSTS should not fail to initialize for lack of a track or road shape file--it should generate error messages after you've selected a route. The mis-matched tsection.dat apparently can cause MSTS to crash without any clue or error message.

Thanks for your input, and thanks for your patience.

Wayne

[charland]

Hi Wayne,

Glad you figured out the problem, it's hard to do from this end sometimes. One of the guys who beta tested for me had no trouble until he changed systems and when he was reinstalling his MSTS he installed New Roads but the "Shadow" version and not the standard. He opened the last beta I sent and the road were all over the place. Took us a couple of days to figure out why!

Paul :-)

[AlanCh]

Probably ought to be standard advice for anyone who has a problem after installing a new route - try the latest Tsection.dat first.

If you are running Trainstore, you can associate any route with a tsection.dat stored outside the MSTS folder structure so that it can't be overwritten by route installations. So all my routes run through Trainstore use a Tsection.dat stored on a different drive from MSTS in a folder called Tsection_Current - if a new version comes out I just copy it into that folder, and every route uses the latest version.

If you want to do this, go into Classic Trainstore mode, click on a route and choose Routes Tsection.dat settings from the menu. Have to do it for every route, but only once.