Problems with 3rd party routes in TS2013 with SBHH

[mikesimpson]

Some users have reported problems with 3rd party routes (C&O Alleghany, Great Central Railway v2 etc) which either won't work in TS2013 or even if it runs in the program, it is then impossible to open the route in the World Editor.

After a lot of testing with Bob Latimer , the following is what we discovered:-
TS2013 is much less forgiving with 3rd party routes if the Providers/Products entries in the RouteProperties.xml file are incorrect. When a route author builds a route, he selects those Providers and their Products he wishes to add to the route, and when the route is complete TS2013 automatically adds a list of all the Providers/Products he has selected to the RouteProperties.xml file. Unfortunately, this list includes Providers/Products he has NOT actually used in the route and which you might not have.

If you then try to open the route in the World Editor, TS2013 will look for all Providers/Products in the list and if any of them are missing, then you get a ‘Something Bad Has Happened’ error and are bounced back to the desktop.

Some route builders also select rolling-stock items in this list while building their route, this is incorrect, rolling-stock is listed in the ScenarioProperties.xml file, not the RouteProperties.xml (as they are not part of the route as such) so if you don't have any stock from the listed Provider then that causes a SBHH error as well.

To fix this, I have added an option to RW_Tools v4.0.21 which after it checks a route, makes a list of all Providers/Products actually used by the route, and fixes the RouteProperties.xml to comply with this list. So if you have a route which possibly works OK in TS2013, but crashes when entering the World Editor, or will not load at all, then this might help you.

Mike

[gptech]

Thanks for this Mike and Bob!!

[Ajay1]

Yes, Thanks mike,
Just tried to see if it would fix my SBHH as stated in my post here http://forums.uktrainsim.com/viewtopic. ... 1&t=128134
Unfortunately it did'nt work on this one. I had no missing stock and and therefore no screen popped up asking to see the list of shapes etc. When I clicked on the button to fix the Route Properties Syntax error windows kept appearing and eventually it said that the RouteProperties .xml had been fixed., upon entering the Sim again and trying the route it started to load and then shut down immediately to the desktop with SBHH.

Antony.

[mikesimpson]

Further to my above, looks like this is not the full fix. Although it tends to fix routes and the world editor, we now find that the Scenario Editor is not always right.

Will have to do some more testing with this.

Mike

[longbow]

Thanks for the Mike. If I understand you correctly, this routeproperties.xml issue would only create SBHH problems with somebody else's route?

[smarty2]

Excellent Mike, was wondering why!

[mikesimpson]

Thanks for the Mike. If I understand you correctly, this routeproperties.xml issue would only create SBHH problems with somebody else's route?

Yes, say you built a route and included FredBloggs/Borders as a Provider and Product in your route, but you never used any of the assets in that folder. When you packaged the route they would still be included in RouteProperties.xml

When someone downloaded your route who did not have Assets\FredBloggs\Borders in his installation, they would get SBHH, even though there was nothing in the route from that Assets package.

At least that is what we think at this time

Mike

[crumplezone]

While its great something is been done about this, has anything been emailed to RSC about this issues, in detail, as this could be a fundmental bug or error in the core program which RSC isn't aware of which they will need to fix as not everyone will be aware of rw-tools or should it really be nessessary to have to go via rw-tools to fix the problem. This isn't a knock at mike or rw-tools, it thanks to him something is being done about the issue, however if its a core program issue which was brought in by the update then RSC needs to look into it and see what they did to break it as the issue could become further widespread as people get more settled into TS2013 over the coming months.

Just to throw it out there, while we understand is has something to do with a P/P check in the .xml files, it doesn't seem to be fully the issue, as noted by another poster the scenario side it still not working even after the fix, going by that there is a chance there is a bug or error in the code of the editors which is incorrectly writing or formatting the .xml files thus creating the issue at hand, but since none of us has the source code it would be RSC that needs to check. Also with them making changes and adding some new tools to the route/scenario editor (e.g. the scrolling ticket nameplates, track smoothing etc.) there is a higher chance something was coded incorrected or changed and has brought on this error and we consider this issue with SBHHs has become more prevelant after a major core update then it would give even more credit to that theory.

As at the end of the day not everyone comes to Uktrainsim to resolve a issue with the simulator and RSC doesn't really check into things to they start seeing alot of emails saying the same thing, which has been pretty evident when we had missing DLC brought on by the TS2013, which was denied at first by RSC untill they got a diluge of twitters,facebook posts and support emails saying otherwise.

[gptech]

....in detail, as this could be a fundmental bug or error in the core program which RSC isn't aware of which they will need to fix....

The biggest hurdle is identifying where the problem comes from, and why some don't suffer from it---is it something that TS2013 has brought? (I'd say not, as this procedure was recommended by Traveller54 quite a while back in the South West Wales thread) is it something that affects only those who have their machines configured in a particular way? (something that's nigh on impossible to determine)

I'll just throw in my own findings with installing GCR v2, which is the route that you could say has sparked this line of attack off.

I didn't have v1 installed, so a straight forward install of the route. Whilst the asset packs were downloading I loaded the route, fully expecting SBHH after SBHH--I'd have some of the assets but not all. Surprisingly it loaded fine, no track visible and the odd signal missing but I could enter World and Scenario editors and even run the free roam scenario.

So, what am I doing differently from those with bother?
Hardware wise I've a reasonable machine, i5-2500, 8GB RAM, nVidia 550 GPU but nothing you could say is that powerful that it'd force its way past little glitches.
Software wise, Steam and obviously the game, are on a separate drive to Windows and this particular (clean, not upgraded) install of the game has only been on-line for the initial download.
I copied over assets from my TS2012 install, very rarely do I install using package manager--possible that there's a connection there between assets called for and assets listed as being installed in package manager?

[smarty2]

Hmm, tried the fix but after entering the world editor and added a few track sounds non of the scenarios will load? Just SBHH's! Damn und blast!
EDIT: No idea whats happened here but half the contents of my erm content folder has vanished??? Had to copy back in a backup which is 6.19Gb. Content folder I had to delete was just over 3Gb!??? No wonder I was getting SBHH's!

[BobLatimer]

Mike and I (mostly Mike) are currently trying to figure out what's going on with scenarios. With GCR2 we've now got the scenarios running after sorting the route P/P issue, but editing them is proving difficult. It's possible there is a P/P issue in the scenario files also so we're trying to figure that one out.

I think it's a bit early to be contacting RSC about this until we have figured out what's going on as much as we can. From what we've found so far, it appears to be a problem with third-party route creators selecting too many P/Ps and TS2013 is throwing an SBHH at it. I can't see RSC being too interested in trying to fix that. If the scenario issue is a similar one that might not interest RSC either. However, there's a comment in another thread that some of the DLC scenarios might be suffering from the same problem and that might interest RSC.

Bob.

[smarty2]

Yes, unfortunately RSC won't entertain 3rd party addons for support only their own stuff or steam dlc will get a look in! Got GCR2 to open but as you say the scenario's are throwing wobblies; I have the introductory one but it wont load due to missing markers?

[gptech]

Missing markers are another issue entirely though, surely?

[chrisreb]

Fantastic additon Mike!

Thanks

[mikesimpson]

If you have downloaded GCR2 and the 3 asset packs, there should not be any missing markers, try reinstalling it all.

I will tell Matt at RSC what we have found so far.

Mike