Railmaster 1.74 freezes

[Tim765]

I have just upgraded to RM v1.74. I am now having a problem with derailaments and any other short-circuits> These cause all locos to be 'dead' and RM to stop responding. The only way to restart is to turn off the elink, quit RM, and restart both. Then all is fine until the next issue.

My old vsn was 1.67 I think, and this responded to short-circuits with a msg, asking you to clear it and click to continue. This was fine. Why in 1.74 is there no such msg ? This seems a big backward step..

[P-Henny]

Going from version 1.67 to 1.74 is a big jump that misses out the intermediate releases.

When RM went from 1.6x to 1.7.0 there became a requirement to make changes to the railmaster.ini file to regain stable operation.

The eLink 'short circuit' popup message is still present and capable in version 1.74 you just have to make amendments to your "railmaster.ini" file to get it back. For others reading this, the RM popup is not available when using an Elite, which has a physical reset button on it.

From memory. To edit the .ini file you open the main RM help screen, then click the small bluish cog located in the bottom corner. Then follow on-screen prompts to open the .ini file in its edit Window.

Now perform the following edits.

1) Locate the line "Reset elink on start=1" make this line =0 if it is not =0 already.

2) Now locate the lines "Check controller=n" & "Alternative comms=n" where n is either a 1 or 0.

3) Make a note of the n values, then DELETE both of these two lines. With an eLink I would expect these two lines to have n value equal to 1.

4) Now re-type afresh these two deleted entries as the two VERY LAST lines at the BOTTOM of the file. Be very careful to re-type the two lines correctly with exactly the same spelling and formatting as per the deleted originals.

5) Save changes, close and restart RM. You should now find that the 'short circuit' error message popup capability should be re-instated. You should also see a small red oblong in the corner of the Red Stop button. If this red oblong is missing, you will not see the short circuit popup appear when a short is created. Assuming the red oblong is showing, click this red oblong button when you get the 'short circuit' error to reset RM without having to power everything down and restart. Note that the cause of the short has to be removed first, else RM will stay in the error state.

This fix was originally documented by the late Chrissaf moderator, but I cannot find his original thread reporting it. Maybe one of the remaining mods could find it and reconstruct it as a new FAQ.

[96RAF]

@P-H

...unfortunately even if we could find the late Chris’s post it would undoubtedly contain several in-detail screen shots or diagrams which were likely lost in the last forum ‘upgrade’. We live in hope that Hornby IT lives up to its promise to recover these lost images.

There is we feel enough help material present in the sticky posts and ref outs to enable RM users to update to the latest version and configure their system screens and associated files accordingly, although some manual amendment will likely be required.

In the event this is inadequate then calling back to the forum for help should resolve any problems.

Edit- I managed to find a random post of Chris’ which allowed me to track back to his user. He had some 1450 pages covering tenfold those number of posts to wade through, hence a mammoth task to find the exact match to a guide for the OP’s problem. Best to refer to existing FAQs and AC’s remote help site.

[Fishmanoz]

All the info you need on such ini file issues is found in the FAQ Index post at the top of the forum, FAQ1 in particular.

[P-Henny]

I dug a bit deeper using Google's Search function and have found an earlier Chrissaf post documenting the above specific 'short circuit' messaging fix. His post does include a visible screen shot. It can be viewed by scrolling down the page on this link.

https://uk.hornby.com/community/forum/railmaster-short-circuit-reset-and-points-not-firing?ccm_paging_p=1#end-of-replies

Note that I have read the excellent FAQ1, but it does not address this specific issue as reported.

[Tim765]

Thanks for the replies.

As RM is on my laptop, which doesnt usually have an internet connection, RM has not been automatically updated in the past. I was also not aware you couldnt skip previous version updates.

Due to problems getting any life at all out of the elink when I first installed 1.74, I had already added the 3 new lines to my .ini file, having read another thread. However I've now made sure they match what P-Henny suggests. The rectangular red button seems to work now to reset the elink, which helps speed up the derailment process. I was not aware of its purpose before, so never used it, so it may have worked all along.. I still don't see the short-circuit message though.

[P-Henny]

I was also not aware you couldnt skip previous version updates.

 

 

I just pointed out that there had been multiple RM releases between 1.67 and 1.74. I did not say that each intermediate release needed to be sequentially installed. You can indeed skip previous version releases, not only that but you can (if you have previously saved the installer file) revert RM back to an earlier release. Essential when HRMS issue a buggy new version.

[96RAF]

Indeed the intermediate revisions are not generally available and in any case the new version is a stand alone upgrade.

[RDS]

@96RAF

I tried a while ago to find one of Chris's posts in the way you describe. If I remember correctly when I eventually found it, the supporting picture was missing!

[96RAF]

@96RAF

I tried a while ago to find one of Chris's posts in the way you describe. If I remember correctly when I eventually found it, the supporting picture was missing!

 

 

That is the problem, despite the Hornby promise in the Forum Index header to find them, we are no further forward a year down the road and a great deal of valuable info is lacking because of it.

[Tim765]

I just pointed out that there had been multiple RM releases between 1.67 and 1.74. I did not say that each intermediate release needed to be sequentially installed. You can indeed skip previous version releases,

 

 

I thought that was the whole cause of my problem. If not, why did going from 1.67 to 1.74 cause all these issues?

 

 

[96RAF]

I just pointed out that there had been multiple RM releases between 1.67 and 1.74. I did not say that each intermediate release needed to be sequentially installed. You can indeed skip previous version releases,

I thought that was the whole cause of my problem. If not, why did going from 1.67 to 1.74 cause all these issues?

 

 

Reconfiguration. There is a host of things happened between those two revisions which affect many settings, so making such a huge update jump will require some tweaking to get you back on track again. Just follow the advice given, checking the various things step by step.

If you want to know what those changes were there may be a few clues in the Read Me text file that resides in the RM folder on your computer and which is updated along with each revision.

[P-Henny]

I thought that was the whole cause of my problem. If not, why did going from 1.67 to 1.74 cause all these issues?

 

 

Railmaster is written in obsolete Visual Basic 6 for Windows XP. Yes it runs under Windows 8/10/11, but it is not fully 'plug n play' in the same way as a native Windows 8/10/11 application would run. It is just a 'fact of life' that changes are made in RM updates that sometimes require .ini file tweaks to be made to Windows 8/10/11 installations to regain operational stability. Going from 1.6x to 1.7.0 was one such update.

If you had been keeping up with the updates as they happened, then the forum raised these issues as they were found and solutions to them documented at the time. If you are not regularly reading the RM forum then you will have missed them. The 1.7.0 update issues generated significant forum activity, which you have obviously missed.