Hi David
I just installed your latest Activity and all the Rolling stock has been "suffixed" consequently all downloaded rolling stock will not be recognised unless they are all substituted using RR/Conbuilder or AA.
Kindest Regards
Mike
Northbound HST (for NWE) - File 13057
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tw001k1522
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Hi,
Ive tried this activity. Took a while to change the stock in the consists as David suggests in the readme. Tried to load the activity with easy trainstore and straight away got an error which was:
Report/Error/Warning List
Warning-Item No.1
The specified PathID is invalid
PathID 'NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster.pat'
Folder: 'Routes\nwe\Activities'
File: 'northbound hst.act'
Desc: 'Northbound HST'
Warning-Item No.2
The following File was not found
File: 'Route\nwe\PATHS\NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster.pat'
Warning-Item No.3
Invalid Player Path
The following File was not found
File: 'Routes\nwe\Paths\NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster.pat'
etc.
I looked in the paths folder and the said path was there but is empty.
I installed the activity again just overwriting this path but still empty.
I downloaded & installed the activity again with the same result.
Has anybody else had this problem or is this a dodgy path file.
Terry W.
Ive tried this activity. Took a while to change the stock in the consists as David suggests in the readme. Tried to load the activity with easy trainstore and straight away got an error which was:
Report/Error/Warning List
Warning-Item No.1
The specified PathID is invalid
PathID 'NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster.pat'
Folder: 'Routes\nwe\Activities'
File: 'northbound hst.act'
Desc: 'Northbound HST'
Warning-Item No.2
The following File was not found
File: 'Route\nwe\PATHS\NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster.pat'
Warning-Item No.3
Invalid Player Path
The following File was not found
File: 'Routes\nwe\Paths\NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster.pat'
etc.
I looked in the paths folder and the said path was there but is empty.
I installed the activity again just overwriting this path but still empty.
I downloaded & installed the activity again with the same result.
Has anybody else had this problem or is this a dodgy path file.
Terry W.
The messages, I think, mean what they say :-
The specified PathID ''NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster.pat" is an invalid file name. (File names with a : (colon) cannot exist in Windows)
The file was not found because it does not exist.
The first two messages refer to the PathID recorded in the .ACT file. (This is only used by MSTS for display in the menus. This is why the messages are Warnings.)
(I think you have copied the Message 3 incorrectly - this would have been an Error, rather than a Warning.) It refers to the PathID specified in the Player Service .SRV file. This would prevent MSTS from running the Activity. That is why it is an Error.
Look very carefully at the available Path file names. You need to find out what is the correct file name. (I suspect the correct name is "NbHST Victoria to Lancaster.pat".) Look in the Paths List editor in Train Store. (Select Paths/View All Paths for This Route from the menu.) Once you have found the correct Path file name to use then modify the PathID lines in the .ACT file and the relevant .SRV file to fix this.
Tony
The specified PathID ''NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster.pat" is an invalid file name. (File names with a : (colon) cannot exist in Windows)
The file was not found because it does not exist.
The first two messages refer to the PathID recorded in the .ACT file. (This is only used by MSTS for display in the menus. This is why the messages are Warnings.)
(I think you have copied the Message 3 incorrectly - this would have been an Error, rather than a Warning.) It refers to the PathID specified in the Player Service .SRV file. This would prevent MSTS from running the Activity. That is why it is an Error.
Look very carefully at the available Path file names. You need to find out what is the correct file name. (I suspect the correct name is "NbHST Victoria to Lancaster.pat".) Look in the Paths List editor in Train Store. (Select Paths/View All Paths for This Route from the menu.) Once you have found the correct Path file name to use then modify the PathID lines in the .ACT file and the relevant .SRV file to fix this.
Tony
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tw001k1522
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Hi Tony,
Thanks for the reply. Apologies as the Message 3 was an Error.
Ive looked in the Paths List editor in Train Store and there are 6 paths relating to this activity:
NbHST - Leyland to Wigan
NbHST - Newton LW to Piccadilly
NbHST - Newton LW to Victoria
NbHST - Preston to Leyland
NbHST - Preston to ROF Halt
NbHST - Wigan to Newton LW
Ive checked in the activity file and it was:
PathID ( "NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster" )
and the same in the Player Service file so Ive taken out the : (colon).
The same 6 paths (as above) are in the PATHS folder plus one named NbHST which is empty. I can only presume this is the missing path file so where do I go from here.
Excuse my ignorance but if Ive got this problem wont others who have installed the activity have it as well or is something going wrong when I install the activity.
Terry W.
Thanks for the reply. Apologies as the Message 3 was an Error.
Ive looked in the Paths List editor in Train Store and there are 6 paths relating to this activity:
NbHST - Leyland to Wigan
NbHST - Newton LW to Piccadilly
NbHST - Newton LW to Victoria
NbHST - Preston to Leyland
NbHST - Preston to ROF Halt
NbHST - Wigan to Newton LW
Ive checked in the activity file and it was:
PathID ( "NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster" )
and the same in the Player Service file so Ive taken out the : (colon).
The same 6 paths (as above) are in the PATHS folder plus one named NbHST which is empty. I can only presume this is the missing path file so where do I go from here.
Excuse my ignorance but if Ive got this problem wont others who have installed the activity have it as well or is something going wrong when I install the activity.
Terry W.
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BobLatimer
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- Location: Auckland, New Zealand
I installed the activity and didn't have any problems with the paths.
I looked in the .act file and found PathID ( "NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster" )
I checked the Services and northbound hst.srv (the Player Service) refers to PathID ( "NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster" ).
I also have the strange and zero size nbhst file in the Paths folder.
Route-Riter doesn't flag it as an error and shows the full Path name as NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster being used by that Service. Activity-Analysis doesn't flag any errors. On my machine it loads and runs in both the AE and MSTS.
I'm not using Trainstore but that might have nothing to do with it. Or perhaps it does. When Trainstore goes to unstore the necessary components, it might not be able to find them all because of the ":" in the path file name.
Actually, on the face of it, I can't see why it would run for me.
My guess is that the path with the funny name is actually there but Windows doesn't display it properly and it shows up as nbhst with zero length. And because of that Trainstore can't find it to unstore it.
I looked in the .act file and found PathID ( "NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster" )
I checked the Services and northbound hst.srv (the Player Service) refers to PathID ( "NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster" ).
I also have the strange and zero size nbhst file in the Paths folder.
Route-Riter doesn't flag it as an error and shows the full Path name as NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster being used by that Service. Activity-Analysis doesn't flag any errors. On my machine it loads and runs in both the AE and MSTS.
I'm not using Trainstore but that might have nothing to do with it. Or perhaps it does. When Trainstore goes to unstore the necessary components, it might not be able to find them all because of the ":" in the path file name.
Actually, on the face of it, I can't see why it would run for me.
My guess is that the path with the funny name is actually there but Windows doesn't display it properly and it shows up as nbhst with zero length. And because of that Trainstore can't find it to unstore it.
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BobLatimer
- Very Active Forum Member
- Posts: 2765
- Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2002 12:00 am
- Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Yes, that was the problem.
I moved the nbhst to another location and checked the activity with Route-Riter. It told me the Path NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster was missing. I put it back and the error message went away. So although Windows doesn't like the ":" in the file name, Route-Riter and MSTS seem to be able to read it okay.
What I did to fix it up on my machine was to open the activity in AE, Edit the Player Service, use the Player Path (the one with the ":" in the name) as a template and create a new path without the ":". I then went into the .act file and the one .srv file and removed the ":" and then deleted the nbhst file.
Not sure how you get at the path if you're using Trainstore. Perhaps Tony can advise.
I moved the nbhst to another location and checked the activity with Route-Riter. It told me the Path NbHST: Victoria to Lancaster was missing. I put it back and the error message went away. So although Windows doesn't like the ":" in the file name, Route-Riter and MSTS seem to be able to read it okay.
What I did to fix it up on my machine was to open the activity in AE, Edit the Player Service, use the Player Path (the one with the ":" in the name) as a template and create a new path without the ":". I then went into the .act file and the one .srv file and removed the ":" and then deleted the nbhst file.
Not sure how you get at the path if you're using Trainstore. Perhaps Tony can advise.
The issue is that
1. A colon ':' in a file name is invalid on Windows systems.
2. A file name followed by a colon ':' is a specification of a stream within a file but only if the disk is using NTFS storage. e.g. The File ABC.D could have two streams X and Y. These would be referred to by ABC.D:X and ABC.D:Y respectively. Each stream can be opened independently, but both are contained within the file ABC.D
Windows and hence MSTS will not work with such file/stream definitions on storage systems other than NTFS. (If you attempt to create such a Path, MSTS provides an error message saying that the Path file cannot be saved.
I am sure it wasn't the writer's intention to create such an opaque set of files for the Activity, which are restricted to a subset of systems. Effectively all of the Paths are in the one nbhst file - it contains each Path as a stream. If the naming convention has been used anywhere else in the Activity, the same issue could also apply to Consists (unlikely), Services and Traffic files.
It looks as though MSTS and Route_Riter are opening the streams as files. It is possible that Train Store will do the same because the actual file search routines and open routines are calls to the Windows API, as they almost certainly are with Route_Riter. I can't verify this as I don't currently have access to a NTFS file system. However, I suspect that it may be unable to store or unstore such streamed files because there is apparently no direct support for renaming or moving streams in the API. Perhaps someone using Train Store who is definitely using NTFS could let me know what happens. (I am presuming Terry's machine is not to this specification. Perhaps he can check that for us)
I suggest though that the Activities are modified to either remove this 'feature', or else also provide a non-NTFS version for non NTFS users. Otherwise, I suspect there might be a lot of confusion ahead. We also don't know if there are any other unexpected issues using streams with MSTS.
To unstream any of these files and still retain the information you could open the Activity in AE, and then for each of the elements (e.g. Paths) edit each one and then SaveAs to a new name not using a colon. But you then have to go into each Service (perhaps those are streamed as well!) and hook up to the 'new' Path. Alternatively, I think you can open the stream with NOTEPAD (using the : convention) and then saveAs to a new name and continue as above. (NOTE: You can only do this on a system with NTFS disks.) It's all a bit messy though.
Tony
1. A colon ':' in a file name is invalid on Windows systems.
2. A file name followed by a colon ':' is a specification of a stream within a file but only if the disk is using NTFS storage. e.g. The File ABC.D could have two streams X and Y. These would be referred to by ABC.D:X and ABC.D:Y respectively. Each stream can be opened independently, but both are contained within the file ABC.D
Windows and hence MSTS will not work with such file/stream definitions on storage systems other than NTFS. (If you attempt to create such a Path, MSTS provides an error message saying that the Path file cannot be saved.
I am sure it wasn't the writer's intention to create such an opaque set of files for the Activity, which are restricted to a subset of systems. Effectively all of the Paths are in the one nbhst file - it contains each Path as a stream. If the naming convention has been used anywhere else in the Activity, the same issue could also apply to Consists (unlikely), Services and Traffic files.
It looks as though MSTS and Route_Riter are opening the streams as files. It is possible that Train Store will do the same because the actual file search routines and open routines are calls to the Windows API, as they almost certainly are with Route_Riter. I can't verify this as I don't currently have access to a NTFS file system. However, I suspect that it may be unable to store or unstore such streamed files because there is apparently no direct support for renaming or moving streams in the API. Perhaps someone using Train Store who is definitely using NTFS could let me know what happens. (I am presuming Terry's machine is not to this specification. Perhaps he can check that for us)
I suggest though that the Activities are modified to either remove this 'feature', or else also provide a non-NTFS version for non NTFS users. Otherwise, I suspect there might be a lot of confusion ahead. We also don't know if there are any other unexpected issues using streams with MSTS.
To unstream any of these files and still retain the information you could open the Activity in AE, and then for each of the elements (e.g. Paths) edit each one and then SaveAs to a new name not using a colon. But you then have to go into each Service (perhaps those are streamed as well!) and hook up to the 'new' Path. Alternatively, I think you can open the stream with NOTEPAD (using the : convention) and then saveAs to a new name and continue as above. (NOTE: You can only do this on a system with NTFS disks.) It's all a bit messy though.
Tony
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BobLatimer
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- Location: Auckland, New Zealand
Thanks for that explanation Tony. Very interesting.
I suspect the ":" crept in there by mistake rather than a deliberate attempt to use streams. It affects only one path in the activity. I have e-mailed the author, drawn his attention to this thread and suggested he uploads a revised activity.
Regards,
Bob.
I suspect the ":" crept in there by mistake rather than a deliberate attempt to use streams. It affects only one path in the activity. I have e-mailed the author, drawn his attention to this thread and suggested he uploads a revised activity.
Regards,
Bob.
I guess the problem has occurred simply because MSTS will allow you to use that naming convention, rather than telling you its invalid. However as Bob says, a very interesting explanation and discovery and one i must watch out for. Mostly though i use _ (underscore) as my separators for names in activities rather than a colon, but that was purely by chance rather than any knowledge of these things.:
Thanks Tony for your very clear explanation of whats happening and Bob for your work in trying to locate the problem.
Thanks Tony for your very clear explanation of whats happening and Bob for your work in trying to locate the problem.
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tw001k1522
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- Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:28 pm
Hi,
Please excuse my ignorance but my knowledge about computers and how MSTS works is limited.
If an NTFS file system is something I would have to change to then no I dont have this.
After posting my last message I have checked the activity with Route Riter (which I should have done first and usually do) and also opened the activity in Activity Editor. Both tell me that the said path doesnt exist so I couldnt make any adjustments even if I knew how to but would try for the experience.
I can only thank you very much for your help and hope that the author is kind enough to take up Bobs suggestion of uploading a revised activity.
Cheers,
Terry W.
Please excuse my ignorance but my knowledge about computers and how MSTS works is limited.
If an NTFS file system is something I would have to change to then no I dont have this.
After posting my last message I have checked the activity with Route Riter (which I should have done first and usually do) and also opened the activity in Activity Editor. Both tell me that the said path doesnt exist so I couldnt make any adjustments even if I knew how to but would try for the experience.
I can only thank you very much for your help and hope that the author is kind enough to take up Bobs suggestion of uploading a revised activity.
Cheers,
Terry W.
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tw001k1522
- Been on the forums for a while
- Posts: 190
- Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:28 pm
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BobLatimer
- Very Active Forum Member
- Posts: 2765
- Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2002 12:00 am
- Location: Auckland, New Zealand
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tw001k1522
- Been on the forums for a while
- Posts: 190
- Joined: Sun Feb 27, 2005 8:28 pm
Hi,
Just to let you know that the revised version has work fine. Thanks to all concened and especially Bob who kindly offered to send me revised files for the activity which I only found out about after the revised version had been uploaded.
I now need to sort out a problem Im having with an activity on the Burton Derby CD that nobody else seems to be having.
Cheers,
Terry
Just to let you know that the revised version has work fine. Thanks to all concened and especially Bob who kindly offered to send me revised files for the activity which I only found out about after the revised version had been uploaded.
I now need to sort out a problem Im having with an activity on the Burton Derby CD that nobody else seems to be having.
Cheers,
Terry