Railmaster 1.64 Bugs

[MikeC176]

Good evening all,

I have recently updated to the latest railmaster and wondered if anyone can help me out with some bugs.

I am running a laptop with Windows 7 x64 Service Pack 1.

Since upgrading to the latest Railmaster, 2 main issues I have are as follows - 

1) When a loco / wagon de-rails and shorts the track, the software no longer prompts to state that a short has been detected and click ok once its been cleared. Instead I have to restart the software and the eLink.

2) When using the mouse to increase or decrease speed on a loco from the min Rail Master screen, the software seems to think the mouse is still increasing the locos speed when its not. This results in a loco fyling around the track, and the resolution is to restart the Rail Master software.

Any help will be much apprciated.

 

[Chrissaf]

With regard to issue 1).

Your railmaster.ini file needs these two lines in it.

Alternative comms=1

Check controller=1

.

To check and edit your railmaster.ini file, open the 'Help' window (RM top navigation bar). Click the 'COG' icon on the 'About' tab and follow on screen prompts. After editing the file and saving it, close and reopen RM.

.

TIP: even if the two lines above are present as written. Delete them and re-type them again at the end of the .INI file as the last two entries. Doing that sometimes helps.

.

Can't help you with issue 2)

[96RAF]

Pages 50/51 of the RM maual talks to mouse control. Also Page 26 talks to how the throttle slider behaves when the mouse is clicked/unclicked depending upon certain other settings.

It may be that your RM setup is not correct or it maybe your basic mouse config (in Windows) is set such that the wheel is set to scroll more than 1 line with each click, which may affect how RM sees the commands - could be wrong - often am, but worth a look.

If not then report the snag to HRMS.

[Mantagt]

I have been experiencing the the same problem with the mouse, the pointer seems to stick to the slider and i have to click it to release it. This can happen on other icons too and changing the mouse has no effect.

1.64 does seem to have a lot of annoying bugs including slower start up and slow communication with the elite, it also looses contacted with the elite if left for a few minutes and has to be restarted. Most bugs seem to have appeared with rev 1 and I am considering reverting to 1.63 as a had no problems with that and was a lot quicker on my Win 8 laptop

[96RAF]

Yes I have had the expanded throttles sticking to the mouse and being dragged around the screen, not just with this revision.

[Chrissaf]

There have been two undocumented revisions to revision 1 since the 5th Sept download update date shown on the RM forum page. The file stats still report it as 1.64.1 though. Depending upon when you ran the installer, you may have an earlier version.

.

The slower start up was introduced on purpose (it is not a bug) to fix a different bug in the initial 1.64.1 release on 28th Aug 16 where some users (me included) lost the points setting on 'start up' feature. This was fixed in the 29th Aug release when the slower start up was introduced. There have been two further unannounced (silent) revisions to the installer file since then. One on the 12th Sept and the last one on the 17th Sept. I suggest downloading and running the installer from the download link at the top of the RM forum again to ensure you have the very latest version. 

.

The mouse and throttles seem to have been a long standing issue though. It doesn't affect me as I use a 'touch screen' for RM. I seem to vaguely recall someone posting a 'work around' so worth searching the forum for it.

[96RAF]

I do wish RM would adopt plain to see industry standard software configuration control, then we would all know exactly where we stand, rather than relying on the likes of Chris to try to keep tabs on what on earth revision state we are all operating.

 

For goodness sake its not rocket science (which in itself isn't so difficult), so why they can't run with v1.64.1.n I do not know, then in the bottom RH corner hover over it could say Rev 1.0, 1.1, 1.2, etc.

 

How can they even know what partial hidden revision state we are each at when we are reporting a fault in, unless there is a covert code in there somewhere.

[Chrissaf]

I suspect that some, not all, of these silent revisions relate to the loco database background updates. In other words, when a loco database background update is released the modified database is incorporated into the downloadable installer. This affects the byte count of the installer and that is what I see on my daily checks.

.

With regard to the background loco database updates. These normally happen silently without much notification. I did recently (maybe just due to a temporary glitch in my Internet connection) catch a glimpse of a red text message appearing in the RM notification bar just to the right of the 'program' running box. The red text flashed up very briefly, so I didn't have time to fully read and memorise, but I did see the words 'Downloading' & 'Update' in the text. This occurred during the RM starting up & loading procedure, just prior to the points going through their start up firing routine.

[MikeC176]

Thanks for all your suggestions guys, I will look into them tonight and let you know how I get on.

 

Personally I think there are a lot of these bugs due to Rail Master trying to cover too many operating systems. I know a year or so ago it included the ability to run on Windows 2000 - my view is if Microsoft have not supported a product for years then why should Rail Master?

[Chrissaf]

I have a different view. RM has in my view been tinkered with over the years to make it run on later Windows Operating Systems. It's core code was and still is, again in my view, written for XP. Thus RM is long overdue for a complete ground up back to basics rewrite for the currently available 'Operating Systems'. Then it should auto detect what controller is attached and any comm ports that change and not need to have .INI files tinkered with. In other words, much more user friendly from a setting up perspective and less prone to need manual configuration edits to overcome hardware communication problems.

[Yelrow]

Quite right Chris, several XP users, and Vista users, run it without fault, as do i 99 % on windows 7. The difference between  Mike and i  being that i have NOT upgraded to  1.64, any more than i have with Elite/ select. My view was, as it ran fine, why tinker.  There is quite enough to do on the layout, without continually making problems for yourself by grabbing all these relatively untested up dates., and then finding  new snags. john

[TonyO]

I also agree with Chris but I suspect the problem is that Hornby cannot financially justify a rewrite.

[Gitter]

Hi gents,  as some-one who likes  to come on to the  forum 3 or 4 tmes a day, I have noticed ( no doubt, so have others) long periods where there is a distinct lack of posts on Rm  category. Am I wrong in my thinking that the reason for this is Hornby are now getting a grip on all the snagging , that in hindsight was always going to rear  it's ugly head.  (  just glad  I wasn't having to foot the bill ). No doubt a lot of credit for this goes to  Hornby and their  associated teams, but a great deal of the imput came from forum member, past and present.  Great stuff.  But keep putting your posts in, as I am getting withdrawal  symptons when there is nothing to read, regards,

[MikeC176]

I think thats a very good point Chris.... makes me think perhaps finding an old XP laptop would be the way forwards......

[MikeC176]

... although not rewriting the code may give the competition the upper hand?

[MikeC176]

I have edited the .ini file and that part works perfectly - thank you so much Chris.

Now onto the mouse issue... ill keep you posted on how I get on....

[Yelrow]

Gitter, the lack of posts is down to the problems mostly being the same. There are still little niggles that await sorting, and no i dont think  there grip has improved. john

[MikeC176]

Thank you RAF96 for pointing me to the 'mouse control' section of the manual - I definitely think this is whats causing the issue and will look into it in more depth during the week.

 

[Gitter]

ah John , go back a couple of yrs to the forum , and the problems , as you say were of every type, you were quite a regular, who like myself, required some coaching to get satisfaction. I consider myself fortunate that I was running xp and i had an elite. Now I very rarely get any agro , apart from things that I could or should have done better. I am very satisfied with Rm and I am sure you yourself are not experiencing the  hassle which perhaps was eating up time and enjoyment of our great hobby.  All entitled to our opinions , but I think Rm is on the way up from a hard time. regards.

P.S.  when we get Loco Detection  from Santa for Xmas we can all have champagne, and every thing in the garden will look great. You'll get the drink cheaper than we will.

  

[Yelrow]

Gitter, pity  about your wishful thinking. Would have liked to open the champagne, but belive that particular boat has sunk. john

[RDS]

... when we get Loco Detection  from Santa for Xmas ...

  

 

Is that a guess for LD sweep?

[Gitter]

Hi RDS, no, like everybody else I was miles out the last time. but suprises do happen now and then. Just trying to get the glass of water into 1/2 full mode I guess, but we live in hope.

[markp123]

I have a different view. RM has in my view been tinkered with over the years to make it run on later Windows Operating Systems. It's core code was and still is, again in my view, written for XP.

 

Your correct that's it's for "optimised" for XP as RM is written in the language Microsoft Visual Basic 6. Microsoft actually ended official support for VB6 back in April 8, 2008.   Fortunately for the RM developers and Hornby, Microsoft have continued to support the VB6 runtime through to Windows 10.    How much longer though I cannot say.

As a developer by day we now use the modern equivalent Visual Studio .NET and C#.  I still have one legacy application in VB 6 and although it "works" it's screaming to be brought up to date.  But the company cannot afford to because VB 6 does not migrate well to newer languages without a lot of changes.  

 

 

 

[Chrissaf]

I was fairly certain that RM was written in a near obsolete Visual Basic version, but didn't want to make such a statement in text in case I was wrong.

.

Microsoft have continued to support the VB6 runtime through to Windows 10.    How much longer though I cannot say.

.

Maybe, MS would be doing RM users a favour if they did finally pull the plug. Then that would force HRMS's hand to do a full rewrite to create a more modern application. HRMS hinted that the next proper update to RM would be sometime nearer Christmas......I wonder if........but I doubt it.