Elite/eLink Losing Connection to Railmaster

[Dace21uk]

Hi Guys 

Second topic of the day! Both my controllers keep losing connection to Railmaster. I have an Elite on Com3 which is Controller A and an eLink on Com 4 which is controller B. They both appear in the System Settings menu and are correctly(?) set up. For some reason they just seem to drop off after a while and I have warnings appear saying lost connection (to either or both) to Com 3/Com 4.

I am running Windows 10. I have checked Device Manager and both Com 3 and Com 4 are still connecte. Does anyone have any ideas? Also when I first connect my eLink, Railmaster tries to update the firmware from 1.06 to 1.07, but it fails as it says it can't restart the eLink. What am I doing wrong??!!!

Thanks Guys 

[Chrissaf]

This can probably be fixed by amending your railmaster.ini file.

 

Open the railmaster.ini file editior. Bluish COG icon in the bottom left corner of the 'Help Screen' click the COG and follow the on-screen prompts.

 

Look for "Reset eLink on Start=1" if it isn't already, change it to Reset eLink on Start=0

 

Look for the following lines (where X is either =0 or =1):

[Take a note of their existing X values]

 

Check controller2=X

Alternative comms2=X

Check controller=X

Alternative comms=X

 

Delete them. Don't worry if not all four lines above are present. If only the bottom two of the lines are present, then that could be an indicator of why you get the reported issue.

 

Now type these four lines again with the values shown as the very last four lines at the bottom of the .INI file.

 

Check controller2=1

Alternative comms2=1

Check controller=0

Alternative comms=0

 

Save the edit, close and restart RailMaster, you might then need to re-check the Comm 3 & 4 assignments between 'Windows Device Manager' and RailMaster 'System Settings'.

 

The values above are the theoretical optimum values for your set-up. If there are no improvements re-instate the previous values you noted earlier. Then post a copy of your whole .INI file listing back here to be reviewed.

 

Also, tell us what version of RailMaster you have installed. The latest current version is version 1.73 [at the time of this reply].

 

[96RAF]

Extra to what Chris is asking you to do...

 

Bear with me as its a long story...

That sounds exactly like what happened recently when I tried reconfiguring my Win 10 laptop to two controllers. It had previously been working fine in single controller setup so I copied across the ini file settings from my Win 10 tower PC which is fine with two controllers and hooked up two controllers, but on the laptop I hit the same snags as you.

 

eLInk was already at v1.07, but RM reported it as needing to be updated then the update failed. I tried to manually update it to force sn overwrite but the installer reported I was already at that version (which I knew) and did I want to continue, which I did just in case there was any corruption.

 

RM kept reporting loss of comms but only on eLink. Oddly if I hovered over the controller icon at screen top right it said I was using two eLinks both at v1.07.

 

In the end after swapping out USB leads, switching com ports around (I only had a choice of three on the laptop), pulling out hair I can’t afford to lose, I contacted HRMS using the inbuilt reporting system. After some discusion they suggested my laptop USB ports were somehow faulty. It was certainly looking that way.

 

As a last resort I decided to try the Elite that I use on the main layout and it was at this point I spotted the box which the laptop Elite came from had a label on it saying ‘comms problems with RM’. I booted up the known good Elite and it connected straight away,  no comms drop out and no warning flags about eLink update. Hovering over the controller icon showed the correct controllers at the correct versions. All is now well.

 

Summary - it looks like that first Elite definitely has USB comms problems which was causing all sorts of other false reports. If you can, try using another Elite or even just put the eLink in Contr A slot for now and relegate Elite to Contr B, having tweaked the ini file check controller and alt comms 1&2 lines to suit.

 

I shall be having a look at that dodgy Elite on the bench to see if there is anything I can swap out USB-wise from an old Elite that died for other reasons, but it looks like hat was the root cause of all my problems.

[Dace21uk]

Hi Chrissaf, 

You were right, I had 2 lines missing. The only thing is that currently the last line is:

Elite feedback=1

Should I put the four lines after this?

RAF96 - I will try the ini file changes first then I will have a look at swapping the Elite/eLink. 

Thanks for the help guys. 

Andrew

[Chrissaf]

Should I put the four lines after this?

 

Yes

 

Remember to delete the original lines that were not missing. These four lines must only appear once in the file.

 

And don't forget to make the 'Reset eLink on Start=1' line equal =0

 

[96RAF]

Forum member St1ngR4y has a handy utility that by way of simple tick boxes puts the ini file in the correct configuration, including moving those pesky lines to the end of the file.

Another utility of his will amend all your point and signal settings if you want to move them across when adding a second controller, as well as reflect these settings into any programs you may have saved, 

Have you drawn your trackplan and found out it would be better orientated at 90, 180 or 270 degrees. He has a utility for that as well.