Route Editor Black Sky Crash

[AdamsRadial]

I thought I'd put this in for future searches.

I started up RE on my laptop last night and when the main window opened I had a completely black sky. All the terrain was showing as expected, but none of the drop-down menus would appear when clicked on, and within a few seconds the whole screen had gone white and the send to Microsoft message appeared.

All I had done (Ha!) was remove from the routes folder the only other route ( I had my EKLR route under development, and James Blackadder's 35 route loaded on the laptop because of lack of HD space). The EKSR route was DEM-ed terrain and markers only, plus a few trees and buildings, but no track, as I was getting ready to switch to UKFS. It had been loading OK into RE the night before, because I had placed the trees in there.

I cured the problem by moving the 35 folder back into the routes folder. So it looks as though the route editor requires at least one route with some track present, otherwise it will crash.

[thenudehamster]

Interesting....
I thought we'd managed by now to find all the quirks of the MSTS Route Editor, but apparently not.

My first thought is that your conclusion may not be completely accurate, though. If a part-constructed route is essential, how did they create the first one in order to create the sim?

It's more likely, MSTS being what it is, that in removing one route, you may have also removed an essential shared file inadvertently - though which one, I'd hesitate to specify... I'd suspect something like the track database or similar.

Just my four penn'orth...

[jbilton]

If a part-constructed route is essential, how did they create the first one in order to create the sim?

...

I've always assumed Kuju had a proper editor....not the horrible thing RE we ended up with.
Cheers
Jon

[curate]

If a part-constructed route is essential, how did they create the first one in order to create the sim?

...

I've always assumed Kuju had a proper editor....not the horrible thing RE we ended up with.
Cheers
Jon

As I have personal experience of the horrible way that software development proceeds in the early stages, I would guess that the people who were writing the sim probably gave the people who were writing the editors a lashed-up short route and said, "Write some tools that will allow the construction of routes following this example." If I were to think that they then added, "...but don't bother testing it, no-one else will use it," that may just be my bitter experience of testing Microsoft-driven code while working for another, slightly bluer, computer corporation.

The RE (a) checks the registry for paths or (b) has paths hard-coded that point to the default installation; respondents in another thread have suggested the former, whereas my cynicism (having been in the business) suggests the latter. Whichever way, it goes looking for stuff in (for example) X:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\Routes\myRoute\..., whether myRoute is in the default installation or not.

David