hornby railmaster

[Wearside]

Hi

 

The Technical support  team seen to think its a elink controller or power pack  at fault i used a different usb cable as well so enough is enough iam sending the whole trainset back to where i purhased and going back to Anolgue for now cheers for your advice

 

 

mick

[Yelrow]

Wearside, hi, thats a pity, but many of us appreciate, your frustration. There is a steep learning curve, involving computers, usb leads, Elink, and Railmaster, that several posters, including me, have found frustrating, only to overcome, with considerable support from HRMS. Its a lot to do with giving every step time to set up, and the right sequence, allowing hard  drive to stop, etc.  Others have taken to it, like a duck to water.. The solution i adopted, was to purchase an Elite controller, as well, using that instead of  Elink. This allowed me to play trains, in the event of a connection problem, whilst  sorting it out, with help from many. Railmaster , is a very good system, and does allow so much more flexibility. john

[Wearside]

Cheers John I will be back

[Wearside]

Cheers John I will be back sorry my post went silly on my phone i will be back to dcc probably not with elink 

[Fishmanoz]

Good luck with whatever you go with Mick, and keep enjoying the hobby.

[RDS]

Like John and quite a few others on here, I use Elite with RailMaster.  It does give the best of both worlds.

[ph54]

OK so I been chuff chuffing about all afternoon trying to get the elink working on windows 10. And I can't get it to work, I have followed everyone advise with no unsucess.

So I goiung to let of some stream, a bit like a P2. Why can't Windows just leave there operating systems alone, They make something that work's perfect like are layouts. which we don't go a modify every 5 minute, What a bunch of ......

Thank that feels better, could somebody please help why I keep seeing 'Device Descriptor Request Failed'

[Fishmanoz]

Ph, you've given us very little to go on here.  May I ask if it was all working perfectly before you upgraded to Windows 10?

 

If so, all you need to do is go back to page 1 of this thread and follow all of the advice HRMS has given in their post towards the bottom of the page, starting by downloading and installing agsin from the link at the top of the RM forum.

 

If it wasn't working perfectly before you upgraded to W10, you should start by going to the second top locked thread in the RM forum and follow that first, then HRMS on page 1.

 

If after that, come back and tell us but also email HRMS from the Help screen in RM.  ensure you get an immediate auto acknowledgement from them, and let us know if not.

[Yelrow]

Its peculiar , this type of prob. On another forum, a poster has just given up, with an elink, whereas a guy in New Zealand has never had a problem, an moved effortlessly to other windows.  I feel a lot of it is to do with the antivirus installed, indeed, HRMS, comment regularly about this. I have never seen this particular message, and do not know what a device descriptor, is. You wont find any reference to that message in any HRMS posting, or locked threads. I would  certainly agrre with fishy, on his last point, email HRMS. this may be something new. john

[Fishmanoz]

Unlikely to be anything new John, Far more likely to be a setup issue just like everyone else having problems here.  And because he gave us nothing to go on, note I haven't just covered the latest issues but original correct setup too.  The auto acknowledge of his email to HRMS is part of that.  If he doesn't get one, he certainly will have AV problems. 

[ph54]

Fishmanoz and yelrow thanks for the posts, sorry of being a bit vague.

I have had it working from XP Pro and Win 7 Pro perfectly fine, I got a new Laptop as it was on offer the Asus T100TA which came with Windows 8.1 RT. Microsoft say that you can't upgrade to WIndows 10 from Win 8.1 RT, I have.

Moving on tonight (Monday 21st) I have uninstalled everything Hornby, Restarted the machine and then Installed the software again over the Network as this machine (Asus T100TA) has no CD/DVD-ROM. Re-downlowned Railmaster 1.63 Ver 2 from the forum and restasrted the machine with the elink pluged in.

Success :)

I see the elink on Com4, I load the program.

Sucess :) :)

Check the setting and change the BAUD rate to 115200, in both windows and Railmaster. I got a new VEP Class 423/1 for my Brithday the other week and have been waiting to give it a run. And Nothing :(

I've tried finding the Railmaster.ini and couldn't find it even in the windows search.

Any ideas please.

[Chrissaf]

By default Windows hides a lot of files it considers dangerous for users to see. This can be changed from within 'Control Panel - Folder Options'.

.

But never mind trying to do this, as RailMaster 1.63 includes an easy way to access and modify your Railmaster.INI file. This has been documented on this forum many times, but I repeat it here to save you looking for it.

.

In Railmaster click the 'Help' navigation button on the top row (typically a large ?). A little pop up will open. Look to the bottom left hand corner of the pop-up and you should see a small 'cog' icon. Click the 'cog' then follow on screen prompts.

.

See page 33 of the 1.63 manual where the .INI cog icon is documented.

[AncientMariner]

ph54

 

There's a bit of discussion about 'Device Descriptor Request Failed' on the net - try this one:

 

http://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/9419-unknown-usb-device-device-descriptor-request-failed.html

 

One suggestion is that win10 is booting too fast. You could try solving the Win 10 issue if the standard Railmaster/eLink fixes don't work.

 

AM

 

 

[ph54]

Hey guys and girls, Thank you for all your help.

It finally works.

For thoughts of you who are have problems, the easiest way I can tell you is you do what I have done. And it has worked for me Good Luck.

1. Uninstall everything Hornby
2. Restart PC
3. Install Hornby from Media device (i.e CD, DVD, Download)
4. Download Railmaster 1.63 ver 2 and install
5. When finished Click Start, File Explorer, and down the left side click on Local Drive (C:), Program files, Rail Master
6. Between Railmaster.exe manifest and Release notes is the Railmaster.ini file everyone is talking about. You need to open this as Run as administartor so you can edit the file. Add the following the the end of that file
7. Alternative comms=1 (press enter)
8. Check controller=1
9. Now save the file as the same name and in the same location.
10. Enjoy,

[MatthewCarty]

I have updated to the latest version of Railmaster today, and I am now having problems with returning to normal operation after a short circuit. If a short circuit occurs, no message is desplayed on the screen, and so to go back to normal operation, I am having to power down and power up the whole system (PC and Elink). Has anyone else experienced this or can anyone else give advice?

[ph54]

I have updated to the latest version of Railmaster today, and I am now having problems with returning to normal operation after a short circuit. If a short circuit occurs, no message is desplayed on the screen, and so to go back to normal operation, I am having to power down and power up the whole system (PC and Elink). Has anyone else experienced this or can anyone else give advice?

 

From what have read about this problem is you have to contact Hornby support. Hope you get it fixed

 

[Fishmanoz]

Ph, for yours and others future reference, don't only do all in the locked threads at the top of the RM forum for initial setup, and as per HRMS on page 1 of this, also don't do anything else.  So in your case:

 

-  Don't uninstall RM, that is completely unnecessary

-  Don't install the version on any CD/DVD you might have, it is out of date. Installing it is completely unnecessary, in fact throw it in the bin, all you need is your licence code, not the CD. Do just install the latest from the link at the top of the RM forum.

-  To fix your ini file, don't fiddle around with Windows File Finder and Notepad, just go to the Help screen in RM and use the cog icon to bring up and amend the file (HRMS put this feature in to make things simple for you).

 

And MC, the recovery from short circuit problem is well documented here in the Rm forum.  Install the latest version of RM from the link at the top of the forum, make sure your ini file is correct as described by HRMS on page 1 of this thread, and you should find the problem has been largely fixed.

 

Also AM, did you notice you gave W10 advice to someone who has told us he is running 8.1 and can't upgrade?

 

PS.  Would anyone like to count how many times I and others have given this advice in this thread and others, and whether there are any instances of it not fixing peoples' issues.

[ph54]

Fishmanoz

 

I did follow all the instruction from this thread and it didn't work. So the best solution is to start from scratch, that way you'll find where the fault lies. All I have read over the last couple of days is HMRS this and RM that.

 

You seem to forget that not everyone has PC knowledge so some people think that if the PC gets a virus there going to catch it. Trust me there are people out there that think this. So what I have done is 10 very easy steps so other out there can get there Rail master software working. Not only that when you load Rail master it automatically checks for updates.

 

Your advice is usful you just need to make it a bit clearer.

[Yelrow]

Fishy, thats a first. asking you to make your advice a bit clearer. I dont think any of your or chrissafs posts, could get much clearer.  . Even i can understand them.  . john

[AncientMariner]

Also AM, did you notice you gave W10 advice to someone who has told us he is running 8.1 and can't upgrade?

 

 

Fishy

 

I responded to this post

 

"OK so I been chuff chuffing about all afternoon trying to get the elink working on windows 10. "

 

So naturally I assumed that the problem was a Win 10 one. Perhaps not ...

 

AM

[Fishmanoz]

I see the problem AM, you are right he started by asking re W10 in his first post on the previous page, but in his second post providing more detail, he specified 8.1.  So my apologies, we were both right.

 

Ph, I'm afraid I'm sticking by what I said and, as you seem to have understood it from your reply, not sure why you are saying it is unclear?  You say many don't understand computers, and I agree with you on that.  Why make it more complicated for them than it need be?

 

Unfortunately, uninstalling and reinstalling the software unnecessarily (99% of the time it is unnecessary) is more then likely going achieve little more than give beginners problems with activation.  And why would you install twice, first with an out of date version, then with the real one, when you can just install the real one.  Throw the CD in the bin for all its worth.  More and more we will be finding people with newer lighter laptops with no CD drive anyway, the CD is certainly of no use to them.

[Chrissaf]

Just to bring to forum attention.

.

The recommendations made by HRMS originally posted on page 1 (5th post down) of this thread regarding railmaster.ini file modifications have been added this morning (Thurs 14th Jan) by Admin to the end of the locked "Railmaster: Setting Up and Getting Started" post at the top of the forum 'Railmaster' section.

[Fishmanoz]

Sorry Chris, didn't even look here before I added my new topic.

[Chrissaf]

Not to worry, your method will bring it to even more forum users attention. The more it is emphasised the better.