SBHH Wipes out Track Database

[paulz6]

All going well a week into track laying.

Enter track editor, split track between two transition curves, weld track, apply SE one side of weld.

SBHH

Track gone.

Tracks.bin is 0kB in size.

No back up to fall back on. Now that is evil.

[paulz6]

I really can't think of anyway back from this. Unless anybody can think of a miracle, I've got nothing left but a 0kb file. Is there a utility I can use to get the raw data of the hard drive before it is overwritten? Maybe there is some hope there.

Going to drown my sorrows.

[hertsbob]

Hi

Bit of a nightmare situation. I don't think I've seen anyone restore a 0kb file back to a functioning version... Hopefully I'm wrong.

Cheers

Bob

[paulz6]

I had been trying to be positive before. However, this is not a SBHH, but a SHHH. This never happpened in RW2. I am on the side with those who are negative now, and with good reason. I was lulled into a false sense of security. Never before as a SBHH, or SHHH, resulted in a non-recoverable wiping out of the track database. This is evil, and will result in many people deciding not to bother again. I would rather drink myself to death than try to route build again. I can waste more time on Civ V.

[paulz6]

Oh, BTW, rather than SBHH, it should be SSHH. I wasn't very clear, but I will leave the imagination to occur rather than loose my ability to post on these forums.

[moranb]

Thank you for alerting us to this. I deeply sympathise with you. I cannot imagine what I would do if I somehow lost my track.bin file. I used to get occasional SBHH messages in RW 2 when using the split tool, but fortunately, none ever resulted in the loss of a track.bin file (though mush other work was lost). I shall immediately make a back-up copy of my track.bin file and tracks folder in case I experience a similar error.

This re-enforces my feeling that I should to return to RailSimulator (Mk2) for route building.

BFM

[hertsbob]

I really feel for you.

In all fairness (not that it matters) I lost my tracks.bin under RW2, so it's not something that's completely new I'm afraid.

Bob

[ashgray]

Paul

Just a thought - have you tried Windows System Restore to get you back to where you were?

Ash

[paulz6]

Paul

Just a thought - have you tried Windows System Restore to get you back to where you were?

Ash

Will this really help? Please explain how this works. I am a bit sceptical to the suggestion though.

[ashgray]

System Restore should return your system to the state it was in at a given point in the past. It's got me out of scrapes in the past.

To be honest, I don't know if it will restore your missing work but if I were in your position, I'd maybe think that I'd got little to lose. If you do try it, ensure you back up to a separate location anything new or that you've downloaded after the date you wish to restore to.

Ash

[mikesimpson]

I doubt if system restore will help, it is really only meant to restore system files/registry etc which fail when something bad happens, there is no way that backups of everything on the hdd can be backed up somewhere so that they can be restored later.

I have taken to making a clone of my route with RW_Tools every day at the moment, I just increment the route number each time I do it, e.g. Myroute #7 etc. That way at least I only lose a days work (which I just did by using the gradient tool and finding 20 miles of track about 100m in the area further along the route

This failure to backup vital files before overwriting them is one of the main problems with TS 2012 (and its predecessors)

Mike

[transadelaide]

Backup, backup and backup again, always the only solution.

There are numerous tools available for this, including an automatic incremental backup tool enabled by adding the command line option --enable-backups to TS2012 in Steam. This will create a folder each time you save, containing the old versions of any files which were altered between saves, with the folder helpfully named with the time/date of when you made the save. In the case of a crash wiping some files completely would leave you losing just back to one save ago rather than having it gone forever.

When I muck around with things I use this in conjunction with a manual copy/paste, because if you want it done right you have to do it yourself.

[longbow]

Out of interest does this backup command function if you access the game via eg a shortcut (steam://rungameid/24010) rather than via the Steam library page? I ask because my RW backups folder contains nothing from recent edit sessions.

[grey13]

You can see whether system restore has a copy pretty easily under Windows 7, not sure about XP.

Right-click the file (or the folder where the file used to be), chose 'properties' and look at the 'previous versions' tab.

System restore may well have a copy, but it's pot luck whether it will be recent enough to be usefull.

[transadelaide]

Out of interest does this backup command function if you access the game via eg a shortcut (steam://rungameid/24010) rather than via the Steam library page? I ask because my RW backups folder contains nothing from recent edit sessions.

I don't know because I don't use the steam:// shortcut, I use the old-style shortcut which is C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe -applaunch 24010 --enable-backups

In any case it doesn't matter now that the Enable backups option has a tick box in the TS2012 launcher app.