Railmaster activation and IE11

[tim_hull]

HI,

I purchased aWestern Master trainset for my son as a Christmas present to begin his upgrade into the world of digital railways.  His grandad already has a DCC layout and his fleet of locos is already decoder fitted.

Upon attempting to activate the elink software, I was met with the wininet.dll 12003 error.  I have looked into this and found it to be a known issue in IE11 since March 2013!  So my question is this, why has this not been addressed in the railmaster software?  I'm running the latest version (1.63) and still face the issue on my windows 8.1/10 PCs and laptops.  I don't have anything that is even capable of running anything other than IE11.

With support for anything other than the latest IE ending in January (yes, January 2016), what is hornby doing to address this rather significant issue?

Microsoft support details for Internet Explorer:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/search?sort=PN&alpha=internet%20explorer

I've logged a ticket with Hornby support for assistance, unfortunately I can't log a ticket with railmaster support for the same reason I can't activate the software.

Regards

Tim Hull, disappointed dad

 

[Augustus Caesar]

Hi Tim... first off this is not a Hornby problem and they cannot rewrite a .dll file within Microsoft Windows due to copyright as I am sure you will understand. The problem here is the file uses FTP (File Transfer Protocol) in IE11 and causes some instances of said program to crash. It doesn't usually happen all the time though.

Microsoft now really couldn't care less about IE11 as they are pushing Edge, the newest of their browsers, which appeared in Windows 10.

 

Simple solution? Download the latest version of Firefox which is far more stable and is updated very regularly. You won't have issues surrounding .dll files with this program at all. More stable, more secure and much faster the IE.

Just for those who don't know yet... IE11 is the LAST version of IE to be released.

 

Link for Firefox... UK version: (will open new tab) https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/#en-GB

[Fishmanoz]

Tim, IE11, supported or not, simply shouldn't have a say in activation which goes directly from RM to the HRMS servers.

 

This problem, and the inability to email from within RM, are both caused by your AV blocking RM from accessing the Internet.  If I were you, I'd turn them right off and it should work.  You should also read the AV PDF which should be on your desktop.

 

If still having problems, which will still be your AV or your Windows firewall, you can reach HRMS directly at support@rail-master.com, don't forget the hyphen.

[Chrissaf]

Tim as others have said. Your issue is likely to have nothing to do with IE11. The 12003 error code is a common error code usually related to problems accessing the Internet. Railmaster being affected this way with that error code by your Firewall and Anti-virus product is an extremely common well documented issue.

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There is a flurry of these Railmaster Internet access issues EVERY Christmas time as new users try using RM for the first time. Having bought Christmas Digital train sets for their children.

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There is NO one single easy fix that will resolve it. Some users fix it easily by just following the instructions provided by the Security.PDF document installed as part of the Railmaster installation. Some users have to resort to replacing their Anti-virus product completely with something different to resolve it.

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By all means try installing Firefox. I use it, it is my preferred browser.

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The second user category above is usually users that have either Norton Security or McAfee Anti-virus installed. These two AV brands are particularly troublesome to Railmaster users. I do agree with you, that in an ideal world this should not be case. Other branded applications handle these products OK, so should RM in theory, but it doesn't.

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Have a look through the locked posts (yellow icons) at the top of the Railmaster Forum Section. AV issues are covered there.

[Tim Hull]

Thanks for the reply everyone.

Just to clarify, the issue is in the wininet.dll that is supplied with Internet explorer.  This DLL is used by railmaster in it's activation routines.  I'm not able to roll back to an older version of IE (and this and older version of the DLL) to get Railmaster to activate on any machine in my house.  For information, I use Chrome or Firefox as my preferred browser.

It is not an AV or firewall issue and I've gone through all the supplied documentation already. 

I've also taken a network monitor trace, which shows the Railmaster software connecting to the FTP server, but being unable to complete the activation request.  Everything I can see shows that Railmaster is connecting to the activation servers, just can't complete because of this 12003 error.  This is with all AV and Firewalls disabled.

The information I have found on this issue so far, points to the fact that when the FTP call is instatntiated in the Railmaster software it is using an Active connection, which is causing an issue in the WIninet.dll.  Changing the railmaster software to use a passive connection at this point "should" resolve the issue.  that is, however a very simplistic answer and without access to source code etc, I couldn't be any more specific

See this KB article for more information: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/168492

I realise that hornby can't re-write a windows DLL, however they can use the two year old information on the problem to implement a fix (detailed in the above KB) in their code.  considering the fact that IE11 is becoming the standard with windows 8/8.1 and 10 becoming more common, I would expect this issued to get bigger over time until it is resolved, either by removing the dependence on the IE FTP functionality or resolving the DLL conflict.

I'm more than happy to work with HMRS support on troubleshooting and capturing data to help get this sorted for myself and other users.

Regards

Tim

 

[Fishmanoz]

So email them at support@rail-master.com, tell them everything you've just said in your post and let us know the outcome.

[Chrissaf]

Tim, you obviously have more software experience than your first post intimated. May I suggest you copy your last post directly to the Railmaster software development team at support@rail-master.com

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They do monitor the Railmaster forum section so will probably have seen your post, but sending them a copy with a covering note will mean that you are being proactive in establishing dialogue with them.

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EDIT: Once again Fishy beat me to it, but only by 44 seconds.

[Tim Hull]

Thanks everyone, I've sent them an email with my log file and netmon cap as well.  I'll update the thread with more information as I get it.

Merry Christmas all

Tim

[Fishmanoz]

Only because I typed 2 lines while you typed 2 paras Chris.

[Chrissaf]

I admit it. I'm totally incapable of writing anything briefly. Amazon and e-bay feedback is an issue for me due to limited character counts. Twitter is a complete no..no as far as I am concerned.

[Fishmanoz]

You've missed the point on Twitter I'm told Chris.  Good Twitter items are usually just links to where the actual stuff is.

[Chrissaf]

Links I can do......links I'm good at.

[Fishmanoz]

Should join the Twitterati then?  No good for those who like to send the Google Search result link though, as someone did a little while ago.

[Augustus Caesar]

Maybe Chris you should ask Twitter to expand the space allowed for you to have a go... :-) Then drop off it again when your first post is done!! :-)

[tim_hull]

HRMS loged in and changed some settings and now the software activates.  I think it was specific permissions on the railmaster exe file in the end, which is good as it means I can put it onto a windows 10 box in the future without having to worry :)

 

[HornbyRailMasterSupport]

What we did was set permissions for the RailMaster icon for all users, added RailMaster as an exception to your antivirus software and also added a single entry for a RailMaster exclusion to your Windows firewall for both public and private networks.  Essentially, your PC's security was blocking the activation process.  A simple one, which catches many out which is why we wrote the Internet Security PDF guide that is installed, with RailMaster, onto the Windows dekstop.

 

 

[Chrissaf]

So at the end of the day, our initial comments that it had nothing to do with IE11 was correct. Once again, the 12003 error code was proven to be an Anti-virus / Firewall issue. Even though the OP swore blind that all the Security.pdf recommendations had been followed.

[Fishmanoz]

And as HRMS attests, by no means the first to be caught out this way.  And it also seems to be the case, the more people swear black and blue they have done all the Av stuff and still have the problem with activation and sending emails from within RM, the more likely they are going to need HRMS to come and find what they haven't done.

 

Not having a go at you Tim, just happens to be the way we see it working from having been on here for a while.