A Cautionary Tale

[alanch]

Plenty of people on here and other forums see the same symptoms as me, and the same solution works for them.

But is it the right solution Alan? We've seen many problems *fixed* by actions that didn't directly influence the cause, but merely mitigated the resulting effects, lessening them to a level that the game core could work around.
It's no good saying there's a limit to how many carrots you can fit in a bag unless you count them.
Consider running with 4,999 scenarios; see how that goes and if OK add another 1. If that falls over then you have a base number to work with, a number others can use as a yardstick to corroborate your findings (or refute them even) If it still works go to 5,001.
For all we know it may be a combination of the number of routes and number of scenarios---5,000 scenarios in 10 routes may work well, but spread it over 20 routes and it may crash--or vice versa.

All that may well be true Gary, but at the end of the day the mitigation works for me:

- before removing routes/scenarios TS won't start;

- after removing routes/scenarios Ts starts and I can go back to playing and creating!

I have noticed that sometimes (perhaps always) after the startup crash SDBCache.bin.MD5 is missing - perhaps TS has a problem creating the MD5 when the SDBCache.bin exceeds a certain size: is this possible?

As for corrupt routes or scenarios, I do check them all with RW Tools when I install them just to make sure I'm not missing any assets, and that at least should pick up any corrupt scenario files and gross errors in route files. I also try to load every new item of rolling stock into a test free roam, just to make sure that there are no fatal errors. I must admit I don't test scenery, lofts, etc!

Now for the numbers for my TS2019 installation:

- 150 routes and 5139 scenarios
- Railworks folder 363 GB
- Assets folder 326 GB
- Content folder 32 GB
- individual rolling stock items 18674

[gptech]

As for corrupt routes or scenarios, I do check them all with RW Tools when I install them just to make sure I'm not missing any assets, and that at least should pick up any corrupt scenario files and gross errors in route files

No, it primarily checks that a file of the specified name is in the specified location. Obviously unreadable files could/would bring a warning but it doesn't check the internal structure in any detail---think of the Railwaymen 50's figures from the IOW as an example of a *duff* asset that passes/passed that test.

[chrisonline]

And again, I am going to reiterate what I said beofre. I believe there is no limit on the number of scenarios. But also that the single most likely (maybe the only) real source of problems in loading TS is Workshop sceanrios that have not fully downloaded

My installation hums along sweetly, loads with no problems, but only since I cleaned up the Workshop scenarios (over 500) to ensure they are all fully downloaded

My reccomendation - look there FIRST

[holzroller]

Already done, a long time ago. I rarely download workshop scenarios, and always check them on the rare occasion that I do so. You are entitled to your opinion, but equally we are entitled to ours. Our systems run smoothly with the actions we have taken, and ultimately, that is all that matters.