help please

[mejulie]

I just brought a western master with e link for my husband put the disc in and couldnt get the activation key to work so after trying for 2 days phoned the help line who said the disc was out of date so they sent a download via email downloaded it done everything that i was ment to used the activation key i had with the disc and still wont work so phoned them again and they told me to come here for help can anyone help please as getting rather annoyed with it at the moment thanks in advance 

[Chrissaf]

From the forum 'Home Page' click on the "Hornby Railmaster & Trackmaster" link. Then click the "Railmaster: Setting Up and Getting Started" thread (second one down from the top). Work your way systematically through that thread. You could also have a look at the 'Railmaster Help Site' link located just above it too.

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Also, if Hornby sent you a download link, then the probability is the version of Railmaster installed is 1.64.x

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Better still. At the very top of the 'Hornby Railmaster & Trackmaster' forum page you will find a RailMaster download link. Clicking that link will download the very latest version of RM. Just 'Right Click' the downloaded file and choose 'Run as Administrator' to install over the top of your current version (there is no need to uninstall the existing version first).

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You should find a link has been placed on your Windows Desktop for Railmaster guides and documentation. One of the guides is called 'Security'. You need to work your way through that guide too. Railmaster activation failures are virtually 100% due to your anti-virus and/or firewall software blocking communication between Railmaster and the activation servers.

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It would be helpful if you told us:

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1. What version of Windows are you using?
2. What Anti-Virus product are you using?
3. What controller are you using.......is it eLink?
4. Have you successfully installed the controller driver software.....this is an additional task over and above just running the Railmaster installer?
5. Even though the software isn't activating.....does it actually move a loco on your track?. Without activation, RM still functions in 'Evaluation Mode'. If you can confirm that you can move your loco using it, then that will eliminate a number of supplementary questions from being asked by us.
6. When you ran the downloaded rm_setup.exe file. Did you 'Right Click' the file and choose 'Run as Administrator'.

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Unfortunately, it is just a fact of life, that Railmaster installation for some does not go smoothly and needs a certain amount of manual software configuration. For which being 'computer literate' is not essential but is a big help. How would you rate your PC level of knowledge?

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If the answer to 4 above is 'I don't know', then if the answer to 5 above is 'Yes I can move a loco using Railmaster. Then you must have installed the driver correctly, else you would have no loco control.

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If all else fails, don't dispair. Hornby RailMaster Support (HRMS) have the ability to log onto your PC remotely and set it all up for you. Note: HRMS is NOT the same Hornby people you spoke to on the phone. HRMS are an external SW development company that wrote RM on behalf of Hornby. There are only two ways of contacting HRMS to request their remote configuration assistance (they do not publish a telephone number).

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a) Use the 'contact support' link contained within the 'Help' screen of RM. If you do not get an immediate auto e-mail acknowledgement then your security settings are not only blocking the activation process, but also blocking your contact 'support request' message from getting through.

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b) Send a direct e-mail to HRMS requesting their assistance. Their direct e-mail address is support@rail-master.com

 

 

[Chrissaf]

Further to above: Ignore my question 3). Just re-read your query and you state it is the Western Master with eLink set. So the answer to Q3 is 'Yes it is an eLink'.

[poliss]

Mejulie is using Windows 10.

[mejulie]

Chrissaf thank you for replying to my query i am using windows 10 the anti virus is disabled the soft ware has been installed properly (wouldnt work with the disc i got with it so phoned Hornby who said the disc was out of date so sent me email with the latest software ) downloaded that set it all up firewall is set to except it i put the activation code in that came with the trainset in the disc sleeve as i was told on the phone and got this message  key was not downloaded correctly

ensure you have entered it correctly if you have , you may have a problem with your internet connection or rail master does not have access rights(admin)to your hard drive or internet connection you must insure that you are logged into windows as admin 

yes the loco does move working through the evaluation mode also right clicked and clicked run as admin 

have sent email to hornby enquiry on saturday just had mail saying they received my mail the link you sent to support@railmaster.com doesnt open a page but thank you for trying to help me 

[Chrissaf]

support@rail-master.com won't open a page, it is not a web site. It is an e-mail address for contacting HRMS direct if the inbuilt request support function does not work.

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Regardless of what you say you have done with regard to anti-virus, even disabling it does not always allow RM to communicate to the outside world correctly. Your issue is almost certainly a security configuration issue. Many on here have sworn blind that they have followed all steps. HRMS have then logged into the users PC, fixed the issue and reported back here that the user didn't deal with every aspect of the security configuration requirements. They can be extensive and onerous to complete fully.

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The good news is that if you can control a loco in 'Evaluation' mode you are 60% of the way there. Some users don't even get that far.

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You didn't answer the question as to what AV product you're using. If it is either McAfee or Norton Security, then these two products are very aggressive and are linked to your issue more often than not. Just disabling AV is not always enough when using these particular products.

[fooju]

we have tried on three differnt computers and one of them we uninstalled all the security features and we still could'nt activate the program and that is when i phoned Hornby customer care and spoke to a manager who sent me the link and instructionsto download we installed that as per instructions and we still cannot activate it.

[Yelrow]

We seem to be going round in a full circle, as once again, a new batch of Elink activation probs are occurring. These new guys, need to read the locked threads on rm, which talk them through the process. We know, some laptops are harder to make work than others, as are some anti viruses/ servers. Knowing the model,/make might help. I am not sold on  servers as i have AOL, which has never been a problem.  Read through the locked threads, and most of all, allow time to lapse in between stages, eg, wait, wait, wait, let the hard drive finish searching, for the elink, before you move on. john

[poliss]

Oh no John no John no John no. What the new guys need is something that works straight from the box.

[Yelrow]

Poliss, could not agree more, but mine did not. Took a lot of  help from Mark, to start it off. He was the guy that told me to wait.    he/ i, never touched aol, nor Norton, both of which are now being regularly thrown up as culprits.. We would all love it to be plug and play, and a great deal of time would have been saved, if twas. john

[mejulie]

I  have tried it on a windows xp laptop that hasnt got any anti virus or firewalls on it we have been trying now for 4 days to try and get it working we even had a microsoft certified enginer check that there was no firewall or anti virus on the laptop we loaded it via the disk and couldnt activate the code so today my husband phoned Hornby customer care spoke to a manager who said the disc was out of date so sent a new update and told us to use the code that come with the disc and it still didnt work I wouldnt say 4 days is being impatient we have had it running in the evaluation part its just the code that it wont accept I dont think i am asking much for asking for a bit of help

[Chrissaf]

Are you using Wi-fi....if you are. Then I suggest turning off the Wi-fi interface and connecting your PC directly to your Broadband Router via an RJ45 cable and trying to activate again. Can't do any harm to try.

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You do really need to communicate with HRMS via e-mail ( I gave the e-mail address in my earlier reply). Hornby CustomerCare telephone help desk have no training on the RM software product as it is all outsourced to HRMS.

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As I said previously, if you ask them, they can log remotely into your PC and configure it up for you.

[fooju]

hi Chrissaf i am mejulie's husband we have tried it using a cable instead of the wifi and it still wouldnt load we have emailed HRMS and done everything that they told us to do and still no luck have replied to there email as they told us to explaining we still couldnt get it to work but thank you for your help and patients as we are both new to the forums we can only post 3 times in 24 hours 

[Chrissaf]

If you keep on pushing for HRMS to log on remotely, I'm sure they will sort you out. They themselves have stated on other threads that it is very rare indeed for the issue to be PC hardware related. Most users on the forum, have reported that once HRMS have remote accessed their PCs they have been left with a working installation.

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The 3 post new poster limit has been a recent restriction introduced on the forum to counteract auto-bots that were spamming the forum with rubbish.

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PS - A bit late now, but if you had posted your original question in the 'Railmaster & Trackmaster' forum section. HRMS monitor the posts made in that section and sometimes respond directly into the topic thread. They do not monitor this 'General Discussion' section. Thus they will not have seen the content of this thread thus far.

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You could ask admin "forum@hornby.com" to move this thread into the Railmaster forum section. It might just help your situation if HRMS can see your questions and replies. Alternatively, if you click the 'report' button in your wife's original very first post in the thread and fill in the popup text box requesting the thread be moved to the Railmaster section. That is the same as emailing direct.

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I would also ask admin to change the topic title from 'help please' to something that will catch HRMS's eye. Perhaps something like "Railmaster Activation Failing". Not only will this more likely be looked at by HRMS, it is a more informative topic title for contributing forum users to see and perhaps instigate more comments and suggestions.

 

[Fishmanoz]

Just checking through this thread and I can't see you reporting that you have followed the full instructions Chris gave you in his first post back on page 1.  Have you in fact gone right through the instructions in the RM: Setting Up and Getting Started thread in the RM forum?  If not, I suggest you do.

 

I agree if you have without success you will most likely need HRMS to log in to fix it, and they will be able to.  But let's just double check a couple of things in the meantime.

 

First, can you put your RM disc back in its packet and throw it in the bin, it is useless.  Don't throw your activation code with it, keep that.  Then go to the link at the top of the RM forum, download that version and install over the top of whatever version you have running.  Even if you've done that already, please do it again.  

 

Then activation codes not working are 99.9% likely to be caused by RM not being able to access the Internet, as has been said before and despite your saying there is no AV or firewall blocking you.  There is an easy test for this though.  Open RM, go into the Help window and email HRMS from there, referencing any other communication you've had with them (and indeed with Mark Lodge from HCC).  Send that email and you should immediately get an auto response.  Please report back whether you do or not.  Then we can discuss further until HRMS logs on if necessary. 

[fooju]

i have just downloaded and installed another version onto my laptop,checked that it is running as admin, went into the windows firewall and made sure that both public and private boxes was checked, made sure that Railmaster was excluded in windows defender have tried to activate Railmaster again with no luck

[HornbyRailMasterSupport]

Please contact us directly at support@rail-master.com.  Something else is clearly happening on your computer which requires some further investigation.

[Fishmanoz]

I'm sorry fooju/mejulie but there you go again trying yet another computer and you've yet to let us know that you've actually gone through the entire setup procedure.  The entire procedure is essential to success.  Whatever you are doing is producing a consistent result - failure - and you are only going to change this by doing something different.  The something different is going through the entire thing as Chris and I have suggested.

 

HRMS, I doubt it is something on the computer as I think they have tried 3 different ones now.  I think they are making a consistent mistake in their setup, even though they believe they are not.

 

Don't despair, you will get it running.  Most problems are something simple that HRMS will find for you in short order if you can't find it for yourself.

[Chrissaf]

On a positive note. As I predicted. Now that your thread is in the 'Railmaster' forum section instead of the 'General'. It has come to the attention of HRMS. See their reply above.

[mejulie]

Fishmanoz we have been using the same computer for the past 2 days and have read and re read everything that has been said we have done everything that has been suggested from Chrissaf and yourself we have allowed rail master access private and public through windows firewall and allowed it through windows defender and we still cant get it to activate 

HRMS i have emailed you again 

[Yelrow]

Mejulie. Hi, its frustrating, several of us, have been there. HRMS, will contact you, advise a download, then take over your machine, remotely, and fix. You have to be at your machine, and arrange a time with them. Its all painless, takes about 40 mins. From personal experience, it will not be a Railmaster/ elink problem, simply something, on your machine, which they will sort. They are brilliant at it, and once fixed, you will never look back. john

[poliss]

I would never allow anybody to have remote access of my computer.

[mejulie]

not a lot we can do but try it Poliss we have tried everything else we have done everything that people have suggested checked everything and double checked everything 

[RB51]

All I can say mejulie is that HRMS are a reputable outfit and they only have access to your machine whilst you permit it. You are there and will see everything they do. In fact, they can only see your screen - you have to perform the keystrokes. It is safe - and if anything goes wrong you know where to go to get it fixed. You can be confident that if, in the unlikely event, their intervention does not sort your issue out it will at least identify what it is. R-

[Chrissaf]

If you sit at the screen watching whilst it is under remote control you can see everything that is being done. You can see the screens being opened and closed and the mouse movements etc. Let's be honest, HRMS are unlikely to seed a virus or do anything malicious.

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I've not had to go through this remote log in process myself, but I believe there is a two way communication text box visible on screen, giving instructions on what the user needs to do to assist HRMS. Like disconnecting the USB lead or controller power for example or pressing physical buttons etc. Thus it is necessary to sit in front of the screen monitoring the remote login procedure, if only to pick up and action any instructions HRMS give via the text window.

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I am basing the above statement, not on the HRMS remote log in process, but a similar experience when I was being given remote log in support from my Anti-Virus software supplier company. The remote login process can't be too dissimilar.