RailMaster upgrade fails ( 1.44 CD version to current 1.65 )

[Fishmanoz]

AC, would be interested to hear your view of a phantom RM program running and how to get rid of it, including its use of comm 4.

 

Elite and eLink are both NMRA compliant to our knowledge with the differences being the different baud rates as included in RM setup.  Can’t rmember what has been said previously about whether JMRI can work with eLink, it’s definitely been said on the forums so a search might find it, but try telling it that iit is connected to an Elite and see how you go.

 

PS.  Just did a JMRI search myself and it’s been previously reported JMRI only works with Elite not eLink.   Firmware version of the eLink has probably been updated since then though so still worth a try with an Elite specified. 

[96RAF]

Dragging up old reports again...

 

Years ago I tried elink with Rocrail by a straight swap with my Elite (which works fine) and as a second controller and it oddly sends all commands 5 times (echoed on screen and confirmed by my points relays clacking in time to the commands). 

 

Way back a guy on RM-web forum back engineered eLink and RM in attempt to make it work better, but the forum deemed his activity in breach of the RM licence so the topic was pulled by site admin.

 

These controllers use a PIC chip to convert key strokes into a DCC signal so an electronics bod with a scope could probably suss out how it does it.

 

Rob

[dragoncity]

SUCCESS !! ITS ALIVE !! 

As I mention in the below reply to support, I completely removed Win 8.1, as I felt RM had totally corrupted it  😀, reinstalled Win 8.0 off my MS CD, then installed rm 1.66, which INSTALLED and displayed the RM form, upgraded itself to 1.68, I then used my activation key -- which worked !  

So I have run my engine along a short test track -- happy engine driver now!

I thank you all very much for your interesting and useful input to trying to solve my problem, which really stemed from the failure of 1.44 to install properly -- we will never know just what RM did to Windows to cause so many problems.

No we need to get a clue stick onto support so they start serial numbering their RM releases  😆 ( unlikely)

Cheers, Brett

 

BTW: Win 8.0 is unbelievably SLOW -- slow to load, slow to display forms, slow to get around explorer, no wonder it caused so much fuss when released -- what were MS thinking ??? And shutdown option is hidden under three levels of interaction !

=============== email reply to support ======

Hello Support,

thank you for your reply. Unfortunately you missed the line in my email ( Win 8.1, elink ), so your detailed instructions re Win 10 are not very useful I'm afraid

However, I decided , after some thought, that my Win 8.1 system has been so corrupted by the various Rail Master failures to install ( ie: run rm-setup.exe ) that I had to completely remove Windows, clean the hard drive and reinstall Win 8.0 off my Windows 8.0 CD , then attempt another install of Rail Master.

This took considerable time as I think win 8.0 must be the slowest O/S MS have offered -- took nearly 1 hour ! ( My usual Mint Linux is installed in about 15 minutes -- compete ready to run ).

I then downloaded RM-setup.exe ( 1.68 ) and it installed and ran ! in test mode, so I then tried to activate RM using my activation key off the CD cover. I was hesitant to do this as ver 1.44 failed & locked up Windows ! However it was successful !!

Unfortunately neither MS or RM would detect the USB ports, even tho they were being used for the Mouse & Printer - so USB was active.

After many attempts at MS to update the Serial Port , many removal & insertions of the USB plug, restarting of eLink, IT FINALLY FOUND IT -- on COM3 which was interesting as yesterday the SAME USB slot was COM4 !! Must be Win 8.0 opens USB ports in a different order to Win 8.1.

Now the big test -- does it run a engine ?  Yes it does, and very nicely.

So its now working, only took a week of nightly effort and much advice from the blokes over at the Forum, without who I would have given Hornby DCC away as a very bad joke.

=================  end mail ================

[Chrissaf]

I dumped Win 8.1 for Win 10 without hesitation, as you say it was very slow to do the simplest task, and Windows updates took forever to install.. I still prefer Win 7, but 10 is much better than 8, so at least a step in the right direction. Given the saga of your experience and the inability to find why Win 8 was reporting that RM was running when it wasn't. Then an OS re-install or at the very least Windows 8x inbuilt refresh option was probably the only rational option left to take.

.

Don't forget to do my "railmaster.ini" modification regarding Alternative comms and Check controller that I described in an earlier reply, or at least check that the lines are present. These mods are essential for running RM on Win8.x and 10 come to that. They resolve most eLink / RM communication issues, but not Windows arbitrary changing USB ports. RM doesn't auto-monitor a changed USB COM port, so if you lose communication for any reason, this is the first thing to check. eLink doesn't like USB3.0 either, best use a USB2.0 if you can.

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If you need any help actually using and setting up RM, there is plenty of advice to be had on here regarding that too.

.

At least my suggestion to look at the 'log.txt' file went some way to finding a fix, once you have an inkling what's causing the issue.

.

I'm still convinced that if you hadn't done the initial install from the CD version 1.44 (written for XP by the way) and ran the 1.6x installer first off instead, you just might have not had any issues. But at the end of the day, it can be useful to start off with Windows 8x as a clean slate so to speak.

[Fishmanoz]

Having only last week done a clean install of 1.68 from the link, without my Elite attached, onto a W10 laptop to transfer my licensed copy from a dying laptop, I noticed that I was asked questions about what train set I have and what controller, eLink or Elite.  Then on checking my ini file, it seemed to have the correct lines in it but not being the last entries, there was one load international brand locos line below them.  A final tweak by HRMS needed to correct this order in the default files methinks. 

[dragoncity]

Hi Chris,

yes I rememebred to do the railmaster.ini edit, but  after I had RM 1.68 running, I went and rechecked the .ini only to find that there were TWO entries on the file , thus:

------ other stuff ----

Alternative Comms=1

Check controller=1

Alternative Comms2=0

Check controller2=0

------- 

interesting. ??

 

==================

Also, I had a reply from  RM Support and their ONLY idea is that my computer is faulty !!  Because RM should find the eLink in a few seconds -- well it does not !  According to them it cannot be RM causing the strange happening, even tho RM ( 1.44) failed to install or activate totally, THATS when the rot set in. I agree with you that had I known better, installing the latest version would 'probably' have avoided the problems. But such is life.

From my Computer Systems Support Days we had a rule of thumb about faults :

"Blame YOUR OWN program FIRST, then possibly the O/S software, and lastly the Hardware"

The fact that RM Support did not understand the meaning of the word "install" was a bit of a worry also  😀,

but I'll just let that go past to the keeper.

Now to update from win 8.0 to Win10 and see how that goes. ( Just to get some SPEED back)

Cheers,

Brett

 

 

 

 

 

[Chrissaf]

The XXXXXXXXX XXXXX2=0 can be ignored or deleted. They are there for 'if and when' you have a situation of installing a second controller as "Controller B". That is to say, you have an Elite as 'Controller A' controlling your track and trains and you have an eLink as 'Controller B' connected just to your Accessory Decoders on a separate DCC connection controlling just your points and signals.

[Augustus Caesar]

@Chris

 

The only explanations there would be that the software itself has either been installed from two different versions or the writers have had two distinct pieces of code within the program istelf (where one should have been erased from within) which is unlikely.

The former would be my guess here and without seeing the situation or knowing of it in its entirety one cannot give a definitive answer to your poser. Having said that it is extremely unlikely that one piece of software would write two exceptions to a single firewall.

However, It can happen that one piece of software may write an exception in Windows Firewall and another, with a different name, in a second firewall. That explains the scenario you gave from the member's example and question. Quite why two firewalls would be open is beyond me as they would inevitably cause problems.

I know RMRED had only one open at a time but did install using two different firewalls to test his installations.

The coders would then invariably write the code accordingly so they know what firewall entry is being made to which firewall. You don't write one entry for all firewalls because that just doesn't work.

 

Is this the answer you sought Chris? That's how I read your poser....

[Augustus Caesar]

AC, would be interested to hear your view of a phantom RM program running and how to get rid of it, including its use of comm 4.

@ Fishy

 

A phantom is usually residual software not being erased properly from a previous installation and the residue is normally left in the registry.

You would need to search that registry to delete the relevant keys etc. for RM's previous installation.

The port number issue would be part of that same residuality in the registry. Once all the relevant keys there are erased (of course, be extremely careful what you are doing in the registry and if not confident of going on to do this just leave it alone) then the phantom install should be gone after a system reboot.

 

I take you are having this scenario or are just wondering about it? If you want to get rid of it from the registry then open the registry editor and search for all entries of RM and delete where you KNOW the entries are from the phantom install and are shown relating the paths to the installation folder etc.

 

The only accurate way is to uninstall the current version completely and then go through the registry and delete absolutely everything listed for Hornby, RailMaster, Comm 4 and other related search items. Be careful if have other Hornby software installed though.

Once that is all done then reinstall the program and you should be free of the phantom program etc.

[Augustus Caesar]

@dragoncity

 

Glad you got it all working. I must tell you that Windows 8.0 and Windows 8.1 do both read ports in a different order and can, in fact, do it themselves more than once... for example a Win 8.0 install can read the ports and offer different numbers each time you install it as can Win 8.1 or even other OS versions from MS.

Just one of the daft things Windows installs do. Win Me was notorious for it.

 

Win 8.0 is probably the worst OS MS brought out closely followed by Me and Win 8.1. Far too many erros in 8.0, fixed mostly in 8.1 but with a terrible interface and user experience. Win Me was just so incompatible with current hardware at the time and it took so long for new drivers to be released it was awful. When XP replaced it the whole tech. world sighed a huge gasp of relief. It wasn't perfect when it first came out but it did move on quickly and very well. Windows 7 came close to it as being one of the best of their versions of Windows.

 

Anyway, chances are that it was your installations of W8/8.1 that was broken which stopped RM working properly and you know that by now of course. I'm glad I used neither of these issues of the OS for more than a couple of months. They drove me nuts as well a lot of my clients who installed them as instructed by their former IT teams.

[dragoncity]

@dragoncity

 

Glad you got it all working. I must tell you that Windows 8.0 and Windows 8.1 do both read ports in a different order and can, in fact, do it themselves more than once... for example a Win 8.0 install can read the ports and offer different numbers each time you install it as can Win 8.1 or even other OS versions from MS.

Just one of the daft things Windows installs do. Win Me was notorious for it.

 

Win 8.0 is probably the worst OS MS brought out closely followed by Me and Win 8.1. Far too many erros in 8.0, fixed mostly in 8.1 but with a terrible interface and user experience. Win Me was just so incompatible with current hardware at the time and it took so long for new drivers to be released it was awful. When XP replaced it the whole tech. world sighed a huge gasp of relief. It wasn't perfect when it first came out but it did move on quickly and very well. Windows 7 came close to it as being one of the best of their versions of Windows.

 

Anyway, chances are that it was your installations of W8/8.1 that was broken which stopped RM working properly and you know that by now of course. I'm glad I used neither of these issues of the OS for more than a couple of months. They drove me nuts as well a lot of my clients who installed them as instructed by their former IT teams.

 Thank you for  very nice everview of the worst MS releases, you may have missed the infamous Windows Ver 1.0 -- what a DOG, made DOS look quite fancy !

I shot the MS horse many years ago and have used various Linux/Unix/BSD systems ever since -- including right now 😀. I only have the MS based Windows machine for my Astronomy programs , which unfortunately are MS centric. So I naturally installed RM there -- and the current saga began.  I'm glad I had a separatemachine to install  on, as I would not have been very happy if RM had corrupted my working computer.

One could be VERY rude about the RM program but this is a family friendly site after all, in any case Hornby does not seem really interested in customer feedback, but using the excuse that "your machine must be faulty" when I mentioned the COM4 <--> Com3 Ports switch, which you have observed and addressed perfectly above.

Having fully restored Win 8.1 on a clean machine I'm reluctant to update to Win 10 as RM seems quite happy at the moment and starts up every time now, but I'll keep it on the back burner as a future project. Probably cheaper & quicker to buy a new laptop with MS 10 already installed.

Thanks to all of you for taking such a interest in my problem.

Cheers, Brett

[Augustus Caesar]

@dragoncity

 

Thank you for your kind words.

If I may... just for your indulgence...

If you are running RM on a seperate machine under Win 8.1 I would strongly recommend, if the machine can support it, upgrading to Windows 10. The edition (Home or Pro) doesn't matter but do try and use the 64bit version.

 

The drivers are far simpler to pick up and ports are rarely messed up. You will find RM works far better in the latest OS. The only thing is I would warn to scrap all unimportant software when Windows 10 is finally installed and check all privacy settings.

 

My own Help Site (linked to at the top of this sub forum) will help with the install procedure from start to finish under Windows 10 (it's virtually fool proof) and will also tell which settings will help to keep optimum performance by removing said unwanted software and altering those privacy settings. Check it out and it may just help in your choice of whether or not to upgrade to W10.

 

Hope this helps in your choice.