Skipton to Carlisle 1920 and Front Coupler Bug

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 6:05 pm

I could spend hours running the activities supplied with he Skipton to Carlisle 1920 CD, paticularly the shunting ones.

However, I am if fact spending hours rebooting my system after crashes because of the front coupler bug. It seems much worse with this route/stock/activities.

Has anyone any comments, suggestions, ideas, help etc.?

.

pdeee · Post by **pdeee** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 6:35 pm

Sorry to read about your problems David, I have to say I have no trouble with the front couplings, there are two activities that I know that use them, one by Martin Heywood, at Settle and the other by Davis Gibbons at Hawes and Hawes Junction stations, I have run them both, several times, quite successfully.

I have also made some activities for my own use using front couplings, with various engines, again they have all worked.

My method is to drift onto the stock at about 3 mph, when contact is made apply the brake, I find the approach speed is best controlled by watching the vacuum gauge.

Regards.

Pat.

isambardkingdombrunel · Sat Jul 26, 2003 8:37 pm

Read my post in Front Coupler Fix.It is also unfair to specifically attach this problem to Skipton 1920.
Using the route and stock in its default state from the cd,causes no more problems than any other add on in msts.

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 8:49 pm

isambardkingdombrunel wrote:Read my post in Front Coupler Fix.It is also unfair to specifically attach this problem to Skipton 1920.
Using the route and stock in its default state from the cd,causes no more problems than any other add on in msts.

I had no intention of being unfair to Skipton 1920, which, as I said I could spend hours driving. I am stating a fact. Something is causing the problem to get worse on my system. Your post in "Front Coupler Fix" looks at what can cause it. For me it has suddenly got worse, much worse, and, (perhaps by coincidence) it has happened when I started using S&C 1920. Now perhaps we can consider the various factors involved, not blaming the route, and come up with some ideas to benefit all.

One other thing I did yesterday is allow Microsoft automatic update to upgrade my DirectX to version 9.0b.

.

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 9:07 pm

Hope you made a restore point if you are using XP David as the Direct X patch is not uninstallable ( it does say so ). If you did try using the restore to set XP back and see if it makes any difference. You can always RE-Restore.

Gordon

baldwin · Post by **baldwin** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 9:10 pm

The benefits or otherwise of the change to the default.wag will depend on any other changes, if any, that have been made, for instance, the timestep value. I have also found that if the Spring figures are made a bit softer the front coupler works better. The downside to this is coupler stretch if running a high tonnage train. The average train weight in the UK should be alright.

What you have to remember here is that because we are using the front coupler it couples on the rebound. When a coupling action takes place one or two things happen. If it is written into an activity, a message appears on screen, and the sms scuttles off to get a wav to play. If during this process the game engine decides that a connection did not occur it goes into a loop. Loop = lockup.

Just my thoughts.

Mervyn

BobLatimer · Post by **BobLatimer** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 9:22 pm

David,

Did you use the default.wag that came with the CD or did you add the Skipton stock to a Trainset folder that already had a tweaked default.wag in it? If the latter, that might explain why you are having problems that Pat and others don't seem to have. I did the former and haven"t noticed any more frequent occurences of front coupler crashes.

Just a thought.

Regards,

Bob.

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 9:30 pm

latimers wrote:David,

Did you use the default.wag that came with the CD or did you add the Skipton stock to a Trainset folder that already had a tweaked default.wag in it? If the latter, that might explain why you are having problems that Pat and others don't seem to have. I did the former and haven"t noticed any more frequent occurences of front coupler crashes.

Just a thought.

Regards,

Bob.

I added stock to my existing trainset folder but checked that the two default.wag files were the same. They were.

.

BobLatimer · Post by **BobLatimer** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 9:51 pm

So much for that theory.

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 10:12 pm

baldwin wrote: If it is written into an activity, a message appears on screen, and the sms scuttles off to get a wav to play. If during this process the game engine decides that a connection did not occur it goes into a loop. Loop = lockup.

Mervyn

I have moved from the frustration of a locking up shunting activity to an express passenger activity ... and ... it is also locking up.

Now this is a long shot, no blame attached, but the first thing I did today (in MSTS!) was to install the new "11 O'Clock at Hellifield" activity. This has several revised .sms files which will be read by all locos ..................................

dforrest · Post by **dforrest** » Sat Jul 26, 2003 10:35 pm

Another thought. Is there a limit to the number of files MSTS can open? The passenger activity I am now trying a run is Carlisle to Slipton, the whole length of the route. It is now telling me that it cannot find some .s files which are definitely existing. Have a reached a limit?

.

gopher · Post by **gopher** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 7:32 am

Just another thought, have you installed the Microsoft update which amongst other things is supposed to fix the front coupler bug?

I've installed the "11 O'Clock at Hellifield" activity as well and have not noticed anything strange happening in the one activity I have run since then.
I would try doing as Pat suggests and renaming your trains folder and copying in the Skipton one to replace it.

Got to leave Skipton alone for a while as the Blaenau branch is more or less finished and am just about to put it through RouteRIter to see how big the update file is going to be.

Gordon

pdeee · Post by **pdeee** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 8:49 am

I have moved from the frustration of a locking up shunting activity to an express passenger activity ... and ... it is also locking up.

Now this is a long shot, no blame attached, but the first thing I did today (in MSTS!) was to install the new "11 O'Clock at Hellifield" activity. This has several revised .sms files which will be read by all locos ..................................[/quote]

A warning is given in the documentation that accompanies the CD, referring to the two Carlisle passenger turns by Martin and that he will be uploading a â€œlightâ€

BobLatimer · Post by **BobLatimer** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 9:18 am

David,

I haven't been having front coupler problems that you have had (yet?) but I am having a problem with the Carlisle express shift, Part 1.

When I try to run it, I get a series of "Unable to open shape ....." with Woman01c.s appearing quite often and sometimes some of the track shapes. I couldn't find the "other thread" that Pat refers to and I thought I had a fairly grunty machine (Athlon 2000+, 1Gb RAM, GForce 3 500Ti).

Is this the kind of error message you get?

Regards,

Bob.

davidspooner · Post by **davidspooner** » Sun Jul 27, 2003 9:52 am

The only probs i've had are when trying to run the Carlisle Goods Shift 1 Activity. I could never get any further than Carlisle Yard as the sim would lock up whenever i tried to couple up to either the brakevan or the stock in the sidings. I ran the rest of the Carlisle Goods Shift 1 activities perfectly ok.

I'm assuming it's just that my machine is getting ready for me to bung some new kit into it, and that this part of the activity was very resource hungry.

(Present Spec: 1.333 GHz Athlon....512Mb RAM....64Mb GEForce 2 Grafix Card)

I'll soon find out when i rebuild the machine later this year.

Cheers

Dave