A Cautionary Tale

[alanch]

Over the last few days I added a couple of routes, and TS started to get a little bit flaky - crashing with an exception error on startup at the Saving Scenario Database stage, eventually starting up after a computer restart with nothing else running, then during, or after, running a scenario failing to close down or crashing with an exception error.

The cure - remove some routes, with their scenarios. Yes - I've posted this before, and I know that some don't agree with me, but it might help someone else so I'll post it again.

And just in case anyone says it is down the hardware resources, this is the spec of my computer:

Processor: Intel Core i5-6600K Skylake CPU, 4 Cores, 3.5 - 3.9GHz
Overclocking: Overclocked by up to 20%
CPU Cooler: Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus Z170M-PLUS Motherboard
Memory: 16GB DDR4 2133MHz Memory (2 x 8GB Sticks)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Graphics Card
OS Drive: 512GB Samsung 950 PRO M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive - 370GB free space
TS Drive: 1TB Samsung 860 EVO Sata III Solid State Drive - TS now uses 361GB with 563GB free space
Data Drive: Seagate 2TB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 1.27TB free space
Power Supply: Corsair CX750M 80 PLUS Bronze 750W Modular PSU
Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit
Monitor: 24" AOC G2460FQ TN 144Hz 1ms Full HD Monitor

[gwrdevon]

I concur with this. I had exactly the same issues and reducing the number of routes solved the crashes.

Just to also warn though that I was getting the exception error and crash to desktop when in the railworks menu last week. I discovered that a route I had archived was still downloading workshop scenarios I had subscribed too. So I had the route folder with just the scenarios folder inside it. I restored this route from archive and the exception crashes stopped completely.

Graham

[smarty2]

Interesting bit of information there Graham.

I concur, ever since I separated all my routes out to country and region, crashes have diminished greatly.

[holzroller]

Same for me. I did try recombining my two separate folders, but TS crashed continously before I had got more than about two thirds of my routes into a new main content folder, even though I did it gradually. Back to two content folders again now, only the occasional crash leaving TS now.

[TransportSteve]

The cure - remove some routes, with their scenarios. Yes - I've posted this before, and I know that some don't agree with me, but it might help someone else so I'll post it again.

What do ya mean by remove routes Alan, extract them and put them on a SSD/HardDrive?
I have over 150 routes installed, but, I have created and separated my folders in the Routes Content area, to read as follows.

Routes

Routes British
Routes American
Routes German
Routes European
Routes other - Chinese - Russian - Japanese, etc.

I just take 1 route to play on for the day/hour/session and move it on its own to the Routes folder, it can still take a while to load, depending on if it is a 3rd party route that has multiple scenery assets from lots of developers, but, I rarely have any problems running anything once I'm in the game.
I also zip the scenario folders up and play one scenario at a time, it's easy to undo the zip and exchange folders and when they are compressed don't take up much space.

Cheerz. Steve.

[peterfhayes]

As I said on the other forum there are too many variables to pinpoint what is happening:

Alan
I have no doubt you are correct but we need to clarify what routes and scenarios you are talking about.
Were these routes/scenarios that you removed, were they from DTG (not Workshop), JT, AP and other suppliers that have eventually been published by DTG.
Were any WS routes or scenarios?
Were any UKTS routes and scenarios?
Were they from other sources?
Did you "rebuild" the scenario db and its associated .MD5 file?
It is very easy to corrupt the scenario db and not easy to correct!
Regards
PeterH

I believe that you could load very single DTG route/scenario plus JT AP etc and NOT see this effect.

PeterH

[jpvdveer]

I keep all routes in place in a single content folder but take the following two measures in order to avoid such issues occurring:

* whenever I've played a scenario, I remove it from the relevant route folder and move it elsewhere (on a separate drive). I use RW Tools to look up the relevant scenario number and, with appropriate labelling of each of the route folders (using duplicate folders for each), this is very easy to do. That way, my scenarios list in TS at any time only includes those scenarios that I still want to play, not those I've already played.

* when I get bored of a route, I remove the entire route folder concerned from contents and park it elsewhere (on a separate drive). If after a few months I feel like playing that route again, I simply put it back.

All works perfectly this way - less hassle than having to work with separate content folders in my view.

[alanch]

To answer some of the questions asked above.

My routes are a mixture of DTG downloads from Steam, Steam Workshop, commercial and third party freeware. All of them that were in my installation before the current crashes have run in the past without any problems.

I store these moved routes on a NAS drive on my network, so that I can easily restore them if I want to - I haven't needed to yet, because i have more than enough routes and scenarios to last me the rest of my life.

A corrupted scenario database isn't a real problem, and is easy to correct - just delete SDBCache.bin and SDBCache.bin.MD5, and TS will recreate them from scratch when it starts up, unless you have too many scenarios installed, in which case it will crash again.

I'll restate what I have said before - I believe the problem is not the number of routes, but the number of scenarios you have installed, and that limit may be computer dependant, or it may be as simple as a hard coded array in the code that limits the number that can be stored in the scenario database.

[chrisonline]

Sorry to contradict, but I have done a lot of work checking out my scenarios and have come to the conclusion that the NUMBER of scenarios doesn't matter, but the number of routes that are faulty DOES.

I have over 500 Workshop scenarios alone, and as I started to check through the ScenarioProperties.xml files, I was finding that quite a few were incomplete. In each case I unsubscribed the scenario (both from the TS2019 menu, and the Steam Workshop menu), then re-subscribed each on ONE BY ONE, checking that the ScenarioProperties.xml was complete

I found the worst to be where I had subscribed to several WS scenarios at the same time - it seems the download fails somewhere, then never picks up again to complete the installation.

* * * It has taken time, but I have a smooth installation now that (not wanting to tempt the devil) opens to the menu faultlessly every time * * *

For the record, my Routes folder is 38 GB in size, not all just scenarios of course but including Route data

And when I download a new Workshop scenario, I now go into the Scenario folder for the route and check that the ScenarioProperties.xml file fully downloaded. If not, I unsuscribe and re-subscribe

[peterfhayes]

Alan

A corrupted scenario database isn't a real problem, and is easy to correct - just delete SDBCache.bin and SDBCache.bin.MD5, and TS will recreate them from scratch when it starts up, unless you have too many scenarios installed, in which case it will crash again.

This is the problem - not too many scenarios - but corrupt one(s). It is NOT easy to correct a corrupt scenario, just rebuilding the scenario db will NOT fix a corrupt scenario the rebuilt version will just use the same settings. You need to rebuild the scenario db after you have removed the offending corrupt one.

I say again this is not a question of size/quantity but of a corrupt file(s). You could install all the DTG stuff including the Market Place, plus JT and AP and not get this error. Other 3rd party items are a different matter.

I do not get this error I have over 140 routes and 3,000+ scenarios and a 35 GB Content folder (where the scenario files are stored) - (no WS routes or scenarios) nor do many other simmers. Assets folder is approaching 300 GB with no issues.

I'm not sure why you reducing your content folder fixes the problem on your PC - I would need to see the Process Explorer log file before and after the crash??

We have to agree to disagree.

pH

[gptech]

I have over 140 routes and 3,000+ scenarios and a 35 GB Content folder (where the scenario files are stored) - (no WS routes or scenarios) nor do many other simmers. Assets folder is approaching 300 GB with no issues.

Which could all be brought crashing to it's knees by a single 'duff' 5KB .bin file---guys, it doesn't matter how many routes or scenarios you have and splitting them would seem to only reduce the load on the game/PC so it can 'work round' a problem in a timely manner. Yes, that would make it appear that the problem's cause was identified but appearances are often wrong.

Processor: Intel Core i5-6600K Skylake CPU, 4 Cores, 3.5 - 3.9GHz
Overclocking: Overclocked by up to 20%
CPU Cooler: Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus Z170M-PLUS Motherboard
Memory: 16GB DDR4 2133MHz Memory (2 x 8GB Sticks)
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Graphics Card
OS Drive: 512GB Samsung 950 PRO M.2 PCIe Solid State Drive - 370GB free space
TS Drive: 1TB Samsung 860 EVO Sata III Solid State Drive - TS now uses 361GB with 563GB free space

should have no bother with a correctly configured instance of the game; if the game starts falling over then look at the configuration rather than the number of routes.

Over the last few days I added a couple of routes, and TS started to get a little bit flaky

You add routes; it gets flakey; so you remove other routes???

err...sorry, but pretty basic trouble shooting dictates that what you changed/added before it starting playing up is the most likely cause of the issue. What routes did you add?

[alanch]

I do not get this error I have over 140 routes and 3,000+ scenarios and a 35 GB Content folder (where the scenario files are stored) - (no WS routes or scenarios) nor do many other simmers. Assets folder is approaching 300 GB with no issues.

I'm not sure why you reducing your content folder fixes the problem on your PC - I would need to see the Process Explorer log file before and after the crash??

We have to agree to disagree.

pH

Not enough scenarios to trigger the problem then - I have over 5000 now and had many more when I had to remove some. Plenty of people on here and other forums see the same symptoms as me, and the same solution works for them.

Why would the problem of a a corrupt scenario only lead to a crash when creating the scenario database when the number of scenarios reaches a critical level? It wasn't happening before I added some new routes recently, and I have left those two new routes/scenarios installed as I removed others?

[holzroller]

Personally my Steam content folder is 40 gb and my non-steam content folder 49 gb. Separate they currently load without crashing, combined as above TS crashes when updating the scenario list. Neither of you guys are near this size, so yes we will have to agree to disagree, my assets folder is currently 637GB, but this appears to have no effect. I have 256 routes, 4.409 scenarios in my non steam folder and probably near that again in my steam folder, haven't bothered to count those yet. It's a pain with the AP files.

[peterfhayes]

alanch

Why would the problem of a a corrupt scenario only lead to a crash when creating the scenario database when the number of scenarios reaches a critical level? It wasn't happening before I added some new routes recently, and I have left those two new routes/scenarios installed as I removed others?

Good points and I have no simple answer to that!
You have many more scenario files than I have, so there may be an upper limit in DTG's database that I have yet to reach!
I don't see an easy solution other than some drastic pruning at this point!
pH

[gptech]

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.