RM 1.63 update

[Chrissaf]

Mal. I have just this minute sent a support report from within RM relating to version 1.63 my message was sent OK.

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Thus, it would appear that your 12031 error is not an inherent issue with this new 1.63 release. I believe, based upon many previous forum topics and threads, that the 12031 error (or an error report code that is very similar) relates to your Internet connection being blocked to RM traffic by either your Anti-virus or Firewall or both.

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By the way. The direct e-mail contact address for reference is "support@rail-master.com" however using this external mail address instead of the inbuilt RM reporting function doesn't send the additional RM program and log files to HRMS that are helpful to them in diagnosing your issue.

[michael_smith1]

I have just updated to 1.63 and on re-start it has changed my Pro version to a Standard version ! Has anyone else experienced this ?

I will now have to de-register and re-register to get my Pro version back presumably and I'm a bit miffed !

 I've also had this happen to me, noticed the zoom not working at start. Getting an error the log reporting "Machine serial doesn't match Pro-Pack serial  - not loaded". This was working at 1.62. I've report via the help in RM awaiting response. 

[AncientMariner]

So here 1.63 has more bugs than the last revision of 1.62 that I pulled on Monday. How disappointing. The situation vis a vis the throttle feedback from the Elite is that it works perfectly in the Loco Control Area (LCA), and in the first Large Loco Control (LLC) window, but not in the second. No change from 1.62 there. The functions used to feedback correctly in the LCA, but now function 0 shows up as function 1 and function 1 shows up as function 2 for Loco 0001. So far this seems to be the only one.. There is no function feedback from the Elite in either LLC, but then HRMS doesn't claim that there should be. That's a pity because both feed-forward and feed-back work for Handhelds for both the LCA and all LLCs. I think that indicates that the problem lies with RM rather than with the Elite.

 

The short circuit window shows up correctly, but as in the last rev of 1.62 now requires the Elite to be replugged.

 

After a short circuit, ALL STOP no longer works in RM: sometimes one or more locos fail to respond (is this new behaviour?). AFAIKS before a short circuit it seems to work correctly.

 

The Elite icon at the top right is greyed out at start, but over time starts to flash intermittently.

 

That's enough for now. Apart from the ALL STOP bug there are no real show stoppers - just annoyances.Oh, one last item: I form the impression that sometimes DCC packets get dropped when RM is checking the Elite. No hard evidence - just a suspicion. 

 

AM

 

[MetmanUK]

I had to download v1.63 from the top of the thread as it failed through the normal route.  My Train Tech 2 aspect signals, which are numbered 70, 71 and 72 still do not operate correctly from a test program (2 do not operate, the other changes from green to red but not back again).  When I amend and save he program I get no warnings about a lack of gap in the ID numbers.

[St1ngr4y]

I had to download v1.63 from the top of the thread as it failed through the normal route.  My Train Tech 2 aspect signals, which are numbered 70, 71 and 72 still do not operate correctly from a test program (2 do not operate, the other changes from green to red but not back again).  When I amend and save he program I get no warnings about a lack of gap in the ID numbers.

Try making a small change and saving your layout.

Ray

[Chrissaf]

AM, I have the same impression as you regarding DCC packets being lost. That and the flashing Elite icon, plus the icon reporting controller inactive when it is active (when you hover the cursor over it) is what I reported via RM help. Regarding the impression that DCC packets are being lost, the more people that report that (and all the other issues) the better.

 

[Derrick_W_Martin]

 Thank you for replying to my post,

Forgive me for being a thicky, but I haven't got a clue where to find these "ini files" so I haven't managed to change or add to them. Plus I dont know how to force chance my comm port number. The e-link recognises that it is on comm port 7 and the device manager says it on comm port 7. And as for this "grey cog button" where's that? I have looked everywhere for this, but no luck yet.

Over night I have deactivated railmaster, deleted it, reinstalled it from CD rom, upgraded it again, All to no avail. I have a controller that is no longer useable. I won't purchase another one. My next step will be to give up this hobby and sell off everything, take up fishing or something!

Anyway I am still asking for help, I haven't got a windows 10, 8.1 or 7,computer. I have an old desktop running windows vista. If I can be guided to where these "ini files" are, then I will try to make the necessary a adjustments, but failing that I don't know what else to do. Is vista the problem?

PLEASE, PLEASE HELP. What I would like is for Hornby to answer my post with clear instructions as to what I should do next.

PS: I have read all the other posts and acted upon their recommendations, none of which seem to work with me.

[Yelrow]

Derrick, hi, others will be along, but Railmaster needs to be on a comm port 5, or lower. So the first thing you have to do, is change that. Second, the little cog, is wonderfully hidden away. Go into the Help, whats new screen, and its in bottom lh corner. You can look on line, how to force comm port number change. Failing all that, for quick help on telephone, ring Mark Lodge on  01843 233 525. Only talk to Mark. He will ring back, if busy. He is not HRMS, but hornby Customer Services Manager, and knows how to change your com port, as he did mine. Let me know how it goes. I have not known Mark fail. john

[96RAF]

How to force a comm port is well covered in the manual which can be read direct from the icon RM places on your desktop.

 

As HRMS has often said there is no need to keep uninstalling and reinstalling RM to get it to work, its all about getting the working configuration right.

 

John has told you where to find the elusive cog, which will only be present on the latest softare version. If its not then you know you dont have the latest version, so you have to go get it as below.

 

Having reinstalled from your CD Rom that puts right back to an outdated version so you now need to download the latest version 1.63 from the red link at the RM forum page, following the instructions about Run as Admin, although that may not apply to Vista. Anyway it is all in the manual. 

 

Please note that there are 2 distinct areas of support . Hornby Customer Care deals with hardware and their associated firmware updates and HRMS deals with support aspect of RailMaster software. Neither can really help you with the others problems.

[Derrick_W_Martin]

 Thank you all,

I got there in the end. All working fine now. I took all the information that I got from this forum, shifted through it to work out the bits relevent  to me and work at it until I got it right.

So again thanks to the Hornby Forum, for all the help.

In future I'll try to remember to check out the forum first before I start deleting and throwing my toys out of the pram.

By for now....

[St1ngr4y]

AM, I have the same impression as you regarding DCC packets being lost. That and the flashing Elite icon, plus the icon reporting controller inactive when it is active (when you hover the cursor over it) is what I reported via RM help. Regarding the impression that DCC packets are being lost, the more people that report that (and all the other issues) the better.

 

Chris,

I don't think the problem is with lost DCC packets. I believe the accelerate/decelerate commands in programs are now using a different rate of acceleration. The manual says:-

"The default time interval between changing speeds while accelerating or decelerating is one second.". I believe this has changed to about 1.13 seconds. Now this may not sound much, but it means that a command such as 

accelerate forward [0] to [60]

instead of taking 60 seconds to reach 60mph, now takes 70 seconds. This can mean, for example, that signals en route change before the train has reached them, and that it stops before it has reached its destination.

The same applies to deceleration. A decelerate command to stop a program at a station, for example, will now cause the train to overrun the platform by a couple of feet.

Many months ago I reported a fault, whereby the accelearte/decelerate commands seemed to operate at different rates depending on how far into the program (timewise) the command is executed. I used the following two programs to demonstrate this phenomenon:-

0.0 Command Set Clock 23:59:59

1.0 Loco Accelerate

[St1ngr4y]

AM, I have the same impression as you regarding DCC packets being lost. That and the flashing Elite icon, plus the icon reporting controller inactive when it is active (when you hover the cursor over it) is what I reported via RM help. Regarding the impression that DCC packets are being lost, the more people that report that (and all the other issues) the better.

 

Chris,

I don't think the problem is with lost DCC packets. I believe the accelerate/decelerate commands in programs are now using a different rate of acceleration. The manual says:-

"The default time interval between changing speeds while accelerating or decelerating is one second.". I believe this has changed to about 1.13 seconds. Now this may not sound much, but it means that a command such as 

accelerate forward [0] to [60]

instead of taking 60 seconds to reach 60mph, now takes 70 seconds. This can mean, for example, that signals en route change before the train has reached them, and that it stops before it has reached its destination.

The same applies to deceleration. A decelerate command to stop a program at a station, for example, will now cause the train to overrun the platform by a couple of feet.

Many months ago I reported a fault, whereby the accelearte/decelerate commands seemed to operate at different rates depending on how far into the program (timewise) the command is executed. I used the following two programs to demonstrate this phenomenon:-

Program A

0.0 Command Set Clock 23:59:59

1.0 Loco Accelerate Forward [0] to [60]

80.0 Loco Stop

Program B

0.0 Command Play a sound

59.0 Command Set Clock 23:59:59

60.0 Loco Accelerate Forward [0] to [60]

150.0 Loco Stop

In each program, the Set Clock command allows the main RM clock to be used as a stopwatch. When the programs are run, the user should watch the loco throttle control, waiting for the speed to reach 60, and as soon as it does, make a note of the time shown on the RM clock. Before v1.63, when Program A is run, the clock showed almost exactly 00:01:00 i.e. 60 seconds to accelerate from 0 - 60. When the second program is run, 60 mph would be reached when the clock showed 00:01:05 i.e. 65 seconds to accelerate from 0 - 60.

These same programs, when run under 1.63, show:-

Program A 70 seconds to accelerate 0 - 60mph

Program B 75 seconds to accelerate 0 - 60mph

This is disastrous for me, as 90% of my programs use the accelerate/decelerate commands.

Ray

[St1ngr4y]

Ooops! Got timed out composing this post, so ignore the first incomplete post. Can't seem to edit the last post either.

Ray

[ColinE]

After having major problems with running programs yesterday after upgrading to 1.63 Ive just reverted to 1.62 and everything is running as it should. Programs with decelerate/accelerate using time functions are back to normal and the green connectivity light is staying green for most of the time with only the occasional flash to Amber under manual control. I will go back to 1.63 at a later date when the problems are resolved. Maybe Hornby should revert to 1.62 until they can sort out the latest bugs and then reissue a bug free 1.63.

[St1ngr4y]

My Train Tech 2 aspect signals, which are numbered 70, 71 and 72 still do not operate correctly from a test program (2 do not operate, the other changes from green to red but not back again).  When I amend and save he program I get no warnings about a lack of gap in the ID numbers.

My previous suggestion may have not been clear. If you go into the Layout Designer and open up your layout, then without even making any changes, click the green tick save button, you should see these warnings.

Ray

[Chrissaf]

Ray, my reference to lost packets had nothing to do with accelerate / decelerate. I noticed it with mundane things like turning lights on and off or playing sounds. Sometimes the first press of the function button was ignored but responded at next press. If I watched the controller icon and pressed the function buttons just after a flash, the button responded normally.

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Note: I've just reported the EDIT function not working in the forum feedback topic section. If you look closely at the Hornby website presentation you'll notice that it is significantly different in presentation and menu options location. It looks as if the whole website has been revised during this mornings 'down for maintenance' period.

[Yelrow]

Greetings, took the plunge and updated from original 1.62, to 1.63. Every thing looks fine, except that when using Elite, throttles on RM, dont move. They did before. What must i do to sort. Words of simplicity, idiots guide, please. john

[St1ngr4y]

Ray, my reference to lost packets had nothing to do with accelerate / decelerate. I noticed it with mundane things like turning lights on and off or playing sounds. Sometimes the first press of the function button was ignored but responded at next press. If I watched the controller icon and pressed the function buttons just after a flash, the button responded normally.

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Note: I've just reported the EDIT function not working in the forum feedback topic section. If you look closely at the Hornby website presentation you'll notice that it is significantly different in presentation and menu options location. It looks as if the whole website has been revised during this mornings 'down for maintenance' period.

Understood Chris, sorry about that.

Have you also noticed that the page buttons at the top and bottom of a page, no longer indicate which page you are looking at?

Ray

[RDS]

... using Elite, throttles on RM, dont move ...

Hi John,

I think this may be covered in AC's post, where he lists out the v1.63 changes. (page 1, 2nd post)

[St1ngr4y]

I've just noticed that the .ini file entry Double pulse=1 doesn't seem to work any more. It only seems to send one pulse, whether this entry is set to 0 or 1.

Ray

[Chrissaf]

Ray,

Things have moved on a pace in the last half hour (13:45 to 14:15 UK BST) more of which in a moment, but first in answer to your comment about page indication. On my monitor, the page I am on has a very slight and I mean very slight touch of grey highlight. I have to look very hard and carefully to see it and the grey is not always visible on every page. I think admin just need to amend the highlight colour from grey to something more visible.

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John (yelrow) if you are reading this, this is relevant to your controller knob feedback issue.

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Now as to the last half hour. This was spent in e-mail dialogue with HRMS. At their instruction there is now a later version of 1.63 that now shows revsion 1 downloadable from the RM section link. The three lines I needed to add to the .INI file for my Elite (not eLink) controller were:

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1. Elite feedback=1
2. Alternative comms=1
3. Check controller=0

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With regard to item 1) in the list - this bits for you John. This line is needed if you have an Elite controller and want the controller knob feedback into RM.

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In my case, if I set item 2) in the list to =0 then RM went into and endless loop of disconnecting the Elite and reconnecting. I had to set this line to =1 to stop this happening.

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With regard to item 3) in the list, this is somewhat a personal choice. If set to =0 then this stops the controller icon flashing every few seconds. HRMS are recommending it is set =1. In their email dialogue to me they said that DCC packets shouldn't get lost as DCC data takes priority over the polling process that setting this line to =1 invokes. Personally, I think this polling was introduced more for eLink users who kept losing eLink connectivity than Elite users. I chose setting it to =0 as that was my personal preference and so far my RM / Elite combination seems to be stable now.

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John, now that you have bit the bullet and upgraded to 1.63 you will have to bite the bullet again and download 1.63 again ONLY IF your installed 1.63 version shows revision 0 in the pop up when you hover the mouse cursor over the the little yellow box showing 1.63 near the clock in the bottom right hand corner. You need the version 1.63 revision 1 release. Then you will need to bite the bullet for a third time and get to grips with modifying the .INI file.

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To do this open your 'Help' screen and click the little 'cog' in the bottom left corner and type in (if not already there) lines 1) and 2) from the list above for an Elite controller. With regard to item 3) in the list, then that is your personal choice as to whether you want your controller polled every few seconds or not. You might need it set for polling (=1) if you are using your eLink as controller B.

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With all that bullet biting, I hope you are not wearing dentures !!

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PS - I found that after editing the INI file and clicking the green save tick. The INI file modifications took immediate effect. That is to say, there was no need to shutdown and restart RM.

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PPS - Got the 'not logged in' error saving this reply. Fortunately copied to the clipboard so I could recover.

[Yelrow]

Chrissaf hi, thanks, will have a look to try this, but it is a  LUDICROUS  state of affairs, to release an  update, that totally messes up a perfectly good system. I was quite happy, running on 1.62, original, Now, i have no RM throttles, and every 20 secs get a message saying contact lost with Elite, due to faulty cable or short. I have neither. Only HRMS, releasing something, with glitches in it. How do i stop this message, and  what in the world, is going on. john

[Yelrow]

I have never gone into the ini, file, and remembering this is a french machine, where do i find it. It really, is not good enough, that we have to do this , when not of our making. john

[MetmanUK]

My Train Tech 2 aspect signals, which are numbered 70, 71 and 72 still do not operate correctly from a test program (2 do not operate, the other changes from green to red but not back again).  When I amend and save he program I get no warnings about a lack of gap in the ID numbers.

My previous suggestion may have not been clear. If you go into the Layout Designer and open up your layout, then without even making any changes, click the green tick save button, you should see these warnings.

Ray

Just found time to try out what you suggested and I do get the warnings.

 

However, thinking about it, the Train Tech drop down list option is the 4 port version so the warnings are correct.  I then tried the NCE 1 port and it did nothing.  Then I selected the Zimo 2 port.  Hey presto it worked.  I have now altered my Train Tech test program with IDs 70, 71 and 72 plus the level crossing decoder on ID 95 and it works !!!

[Chrissaf]

I have never gone into the ini, file, and remembering this is a french machine, where do i find it. It really, is not good enough, that we have to do this , when not of our making. john

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John,

Just print off my earlier post and follow the step by step instructions I wrote in it, in conjunction with the extra detail I have added for you below. You can now access the .INI file directly from within Railmaster. Thus knowledge of your French Windows 7 operating system is not needed. As I said in the earlier reply. Find the little 'cog' icon in the 'Help' window and click it, then all should become clear when you follow the on-screen prompts. But do download the 1.63 revision 1 version first if you haven't done so already. Click the link at the top of the Railmaster section of this forum. The file should then be saved to your download folder. If the PC you do this on, is not your RM PC then copy the downloaded rm_setup.exe file onto a USB memory stick and transfer it to your RM PC desktop, then run the setup file from there by double clicking it. It really isn't rocket science, trust me.

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Once this updated revision 1 RM is installed over the top of the previous one. Open your 'Help' screen (icon on the top row of RM) and click the small 'cog' icon in the bottom left hand corner of the 'Help' screen window. Follow the on-screen prompts till you see the contents of the .INI file in a small pop up window. It is shown as a list of black text on a white background. Scroll to the bottom of the text list and you will see a blank row at the bottom. Place your text cursor at the start of the blank line and type the new .INI lines of text as I documented in my earlier post. Once happy that everything is correct click the green save tick and you should have your RM functions restored.