Track Design Group problem

[Northome]

Hi All,

To cut a long story short, I had a major problem with my Laptop I used for RM last week (It Died Completely) 😢 Anyway, Having now re-installed RM on my main laptop and gone through all the re-activate stuff with support I now find myself re installing eveything including all the loco's and more damaging than that had to do a whole new track design of which has taken me days to complete,  Its all well and good RM backing up important files when closing, but if like as in my case you have no access to the original hard drive "how can you restore RM back to what you had" ???

Anyway, having spent many long hours doing my Track Plan I seem to have a problem,,

I am trying to Group the track plans into Upper Track, Lower Track and Sidings Yard, however no matter what I do (right click, Double click, restart, save as new,) I just cannot enter the Group Managment to enter a new group, I just get the white box at the top right but It wont do anything,    Have I missed something, ????   

If I open the sample track layout It has 2 Groups, and if clicked it opens group managment, This does not happen on my layout.

Has anyone any ideas ??????

I am running latest version 164.rev1 which states last update 5/9/16, how I noticed on the 164 bug topic that it states new update of the 17/9/16 is this correct and if so how do you get that one ?????

[Yelrow]

When my machine died, i Emailed HRMS, who luckerly had a copy of my plan etc, and were able to take over machine and set up for me. They have a lot of our layout details, where we have asked them for help etc. Might be worth a punt. john

[Northome]

I have actually finished it now so all is good with the world, apart from NO Groups, I designed the previous layout in ver. 1.64 and I am sure I could get to the groups, but was just wondering if it was a problem with 1.64.rev1, it would be interesting to see if anyone else could try a quick new layout and see if they have the same grouping issue, ie. not being able to add new group,

And going back to the issue of backing up it would be nice to know just which files contain user info and setup so I could write a little batch file prog to back them up to my cloud, just in case of any further issues !!! Maybe thats an issue for its own post ??

But thanks for the reply and suggestions

cheers

Robert

[Chrissaf]

I noticed on the 164 bug topic that it states new update of the 17/9/16 is this correct and if so how do you get that one ?

.

Just by downloading the file from the link annotated with the 5th Sep date. The file that gets downloaded is currently the 17th Sept file. The forum stated date, is the date that admin updated the reference to the file i.e. when the file revision number on that part of the web page changed and nothing to do with the date of the underlying file itself.

.

Chrisaf - author of the 1.64 Bug post you are referring to.

[Chrissaf]

In the RM manual on page 132, all the RM files containing 'user' specific data are listed. Once you have finished setting up the new RM installation. Just copy the listed files onto a USB memory stick as a 'back up'. Or see below.

.

You should of course be 'wrist slapping' yourself for not having a robust PC backup routine to cover for these eventualities. Windows has an inbuilt 'backup & restore' feature for backing up to an external USB hard drive. The feature is there if one chooses to use it. The 'backup and restore' feature can either restore the whole drive, or just individual files.

[Chrissaf]

With regard to the 'batch file' just be aware that DOS batch file commands do not like file names with spaces in them. Just make sure that any RM files that you name yourself, like your track plan for example, have no spaces in them. By all means use underscore _ to replace spaces if required, these work fine in DOS.

[96RAF]

I believe ProPack allows you to properly backup to where you like, where as the shutdown routine just backs up certain (important) files into the RM folder. Check the manual.

[Fishmanoz]

Just because your computer dies doesn't mean all of your files are lost either.  They will still be on your old hard drive, and while any number of reasons may stop your computer from working, you can still get at some/all of your files if the drive itself still works.

 

All you have to do is remove it from your old machine and add it to your new one.  On a PC, it can go into an empty drive bay, on a laptop, put it in an external USB drive case.  You do need to have some tech knowledge to actually get it working (in a drive bay in particular). Once installed, just use file explorer to check out your old RM folder for your files.  Then you might go looking in My Documents for your files more generally, and for your emails etc.

 

However, be very careful about doing this if there is any chance that a virus or malware caused the crash, you could end up infecting your new machine.  Most unlikely though if you were running a reputable AV product.

[Northome]

This is all well and good teaching me the why's and wherefore's of making backups (of which just for info, my actual serious working pc's, laptop's and 3 tablets are all backed up to my server, my nas drive, and 2 seperate cloud servers every morning at 2.30am so dont think i need to give myself a "wrist slapping" for not having a robust back up routine, however RM is on a mickey mouse laptop I stopped using 5 years ago and demoted it run RM in the shed outside which is where it lives, and yes I could drop the hd into an external hd slave unit however all the ones i have are all sata drives, and the old laptop is a basic  3.5" IDE drive and who knows where my converter may be not used it in 10 years or so anyway......

This dosn't answer the original question I asked as to Why the Groups will not work on my Layout plan. ???

anybody any ideas on that ????

 

[St1ngr4y]

I had difficulty, at first, understanding what you meant by groups in relation to a layout. I think what you mean are also referred to as routes. Is it not just a case of visiting evry point and signal in your layout plan and specifying the names of the Routes (Groups) which that item belongs to. Each time you type in a new Route (Group) name, that name is created and will appear in the dropdown list of Routes (Groups) of each further point/signal you examine in the Layout plan. 

I am unaware of any "Group Management" facility within Railmaster, other than what I have described above.

Ray

[96RAF]

If we are talking routes then as these are generated they also appear in a scrollable box at the top right corner of the trackplan. THe number on show can be increased /decreased using the up/down arrows next to the box.

[Northome]

In the guide Hornby refer to them as "Groups" however this is the same as you are relating to as "routes", and yes you are correct regarding how it should work but as I stated This function is not working on my design,

The Guide states :-

"Groups

You can make signals and points members of groups by either selecting the group from the “Group” pull-down list or by typing the name of a new group in the Group box.  When you type in a new name you will notice that the new group name is listed on the top-right corner of the design screen. "

This function does not seem to work, if you float the mouse over it a box pops up and says "Double click to enter new group" however, double click, right click, left click, nothing will open the "group managment" box,  

If you open one of the sample plans that comes with RM which has groups listed, click on the group and the group managment box appears....

this does not happen on my plan

[96RAF]

I would report it in to HRMS (if not done already) and then when they respond send them your plan file from the RM folder to look at (Identified as yourplanname.pln).

 

Its a pity a help request doesn't send this file when it picks out the logfile, etc, as its usually the next thing they ask for.

[St1ngr4y]

I've just tried this in Layout Designer. I set up one route containing 5 or 6 points and it appeared in the list at the top right corner of the Layout Designer window. If you double click the name which appears there, it opens up the Group Management window. It doesn't work if you try it before you have set up at least one route.

Ray