The Captain90 Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Thanks Fishmanoz from a not so young player. Have finally sorted the loco Id problem and am now having fun. I think Hornby's instructions for this were a bit vague but your knowledge is great.Have done what you said re my connection problem but it still persists. Hopefully support can fix but in reality I think the problem is RM is not designed for Win 8. They better update soon - Win10 is in the way and I understand it's a free upgrade from 7 so most people will be using it.Again thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Captain, it is generally accepted that windows 8 has been a disaster for microsoft, it is a windows, rather than RM problem. Most people, i know, will make NO attempt to go to windows 10, despite any offer of free upgrade, preferring to stay with the tried and tested windows 7. The reason for the free upgrade offer, is to try to sell the product, by recommendation, from any converted 7 devotees. It will not happen. From the initial report back from windows 10 testers, it has a long way to go, to overcome the last disaster, which they tried to deflect by avoiding windows 9. RM, works exceptionally well on XP, and you could have a dedicated laptop, for about £40. If you look through the forum posts, you will barely find any probs with windows 7, or XP.. john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
westernwill Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Hi Captain I had similar problems using RM on a new Windows 8.1 PC. Railmaster Support logged on to my system and eventually told me that there was a problem between the USB subsystem on my PC and Win 8.1 which they could not get round. They had come across this a few times and their thoughts were that there was a batch of faulty USB subsystems that had gone into some PC's. They suggested taking the PC back and exchanging it. I had an older laptop running Vista so used that and RM/Elink starts everytime now and runs perfectly.RM is great once you get used to it. I am looking forward to trying out some programs and eventually Loco Detection. Bryan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Western will, thanks, that supports my earlier post. It is a windows 8 prob, of which, there have been a few. As you say, RM, is great system, and vista/ xp/ 7, do not appear to have any concerns. Heaven help those who upgrade to windows 10. When i bought my desktop, i insisted it came with windows 7. john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 John, did you actually read what Bryan said? When I read it,che says the problem was a faulty USB sub-system. And at the risk of repeating myself - RM works with 8.1, as it did with 7 and 8, at least it does at my place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Fishy, you are not normally gullible, faulty usb sytems?, i think not, faulty windows 8, certainly, why do you think it is being replaced. RM, XP, Vista, &7, great. Windows 8, another story. If you had an elink, which is where the majority of RM problems are occurring, with windows 8, it would be another story. Your fellow aussies problems, are such. There are no problems with elite, with windows 8and RailMaster. Look at the threads, all majestic, or other sets with elinks, and all windows 8. You have no such problems, as you have not the same system. john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted January 22, 2015 Share Posted January 22, 2015 Let's just put some logic into this john and see where we end up. For a start, Windows version - 8/8.1 is little more than 7 with a fancy yet despised interface on the screen. As a generalisation therefore, if it works with 7, it will work with 8. Notice I've said generalisation, there are some specifics that may be a little different. RM - it is abundantly clear that RM runs under either. Don't start jumping up and down here, read on. Elite v eLink - just let's put Elite to bed first. With the advent of eLink some 2 years ago, I would imagine Elite sales have dropped. And most current sales will be to people wanting to use it standalone without RM. So the Elite/RM group is pretty static and been around some time. We solved our RM issues ages ago before you found the forums so, no, you don't see questions from Elite users on here now. eLink - is it different to Elite? Yes, a little. How? For a start, the operating system gets a very limited look at eLink or Elite. To the OS, it is just a data stream operating through a USB port. The difference of course is the data rate, as opposed to the data itself which must be the same, where eLink is much higher. Consequently it is pushing the port harder and can be assumed to be possibly a little more finicky on driver operation. Hardware - here is where things get interesting, and note this is largely independent of RM, OS, Elite or eLink - in general, those using eLink and 8 are using more modern machines, machines which now have USB 3 ports as well as 2 (in fact, my new laptop only has 3). And we know there are issues with some 3s and backward compatibility to 2, hence the HRMS recommendation to use 2s not 3s. And then there is the faulty 2 hardware problem above, which you have poo pooed but I find perfectly understandable. So my conclusion - there is no OS issue. However, there are some issues with USB hardware and protocols and these have the potential to be worse for eLink v Elite at the higher data rate. You can't blame MS for these, it is the hardware manufacturers doing things on the cheap. Just quickly on 10 - will this be a problem? Most likely not, just like XP, Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1 aren't. Now on perceptions before I finish. If new users perceive they will have a problem then guess what, they will. And if they are told they can blame it on 8, they will. What most of them need to do is fix their RM setup, their increasingly intrusive AV and the bloatware installed on their new laptops. They need to be led through all of the setup steps and understand the consequences of their AV and its attempts to intrude even when asked not to. Solution is beyond a number of them so they need to be encouraged to contact HRMS, something many seem reluctant to do. I seem to remember your own reluctance early on. What they don't need in my humble opinion is people telling them they are going to have to go out and spend more money on a second hand laptop, or a 4Amp supply, before they have gone through the basics with what they already have. Apologies if I appear critical here but the very clear number one priority to me is to encourage people to stay positive by saying they will get their system running, just as 99.9% eventually do, and to follow the basic steps to do so. Giving them excuses to fail on the other hand, are likely to be self-fulfilling. PS. Graskie, I've well and truly put your hat at risk here. John is most likely to try to shoot holes in my argument, many of those shots will miss, and some of those misses are likely to result in collateral damage to the hat. I'll try to keep it out of the firing line. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Kiwi, totally agree, the last new poster asked for an idiots guide to all this, which i have provided. The last thing they want are pages of technical explanations, that they cant understand. Thats why they leave. john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 I find the answer is usually the drivers, either electronic or human, more often than not its the latter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 The trick is to start at page 1 in the Guide, which is all the basic and very necessary setup instructions. Only then is there a chance everything else will work. Page 1 is in my first post on page 1 of this thread. And yes it covers drivers, of the software kind. PS. Just like it is necessary to start on page 1 of the Hitchhikers Guide so you can wake Arthur C Clarke and get him out of his bedroom and house before the Vogons demolish it and Earth for the hyperspace bypass. Else there won't be any fish to be thankful for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 Nurse - put him to bed please after giving him his meds.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted January 23, 2015 Share Posted January 23, 2015 That's just what they said about Douglas Adams when he wrote the Guide in the first place. No one had heard of a trilogy in 4 parts for a start back then, or had to deal with Vogons. The Babel Fish is very handy though, given all the weird accents people on here talk in. Maybe you could each get one of those and you would still understand me when I'm talking through Graskie's hat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted January 24, 2015 Share Posted January 24, 2015 Just to illustrate my point further at the top of this page on perceptions, go to the RM forum and the thread "Doing my head in". Here is a guy convinced he has been sold a pup because his brand new package doesn't work with 8.1. So rather than trying to solve his problem, he first thinks there is no solution and gives up. And this thread is typical of something like 10 new RM user posts just this month. To help these people better, we need to stop giving them flimsy excuses as to why their systems don't work and stick to the basics of how to ensure they do work. And if you think my advice on page 1 of this thread is too long or technical, it is only the necessary steps to ensure, from the time you open the box, that RM/eLink is working correctly. Telling them anything else or less would be selling them short. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
choralc Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 I totally agree Fishmanoz. A very good explanation. Maybe not technically precise in all areas but close enough. 90% (+) of the problems we see on these (and other forums), which are likely less than 1% of elink/RM sales, are faults summarised industry wide as "PEBCAK".(for the uninitiated it stands for Problem Exists Between Chair And Keyboard)I had ID10T errors! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Amid all these paragraphs of instructions, should newcomers have the patience to read them, may be a solution, but a lot of newcomers are like me, limited patience, not prepared to read for hours, and not a boffin. Given this could we not come up with a Dummies guide to Elink/railmaster, in particular for windows 8, which seems to be the common area. When i started DCC 18 months ago, if i had been given all these pages of solutions, i would have opted out. At this time, of course, windows 8, had not fully reared its head. The people who helped me, are still on this forum, but are not contributing quite so often, unfortunately, may be, for a variety of reasons, but i was given very concise easy to follow advice, that WORKED. The only difference was it was for windows 7. I really feel for these guys, as all they and i wanted to do was to run trains, but i do feel that a list of bullet points, might make it easier. If you look at the names of posters, many have not returned, after their initial problems, and there must be a reason for that. I would like to think its because they were sorted, but i dont belive that to be the case. john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 I suppose if anyone asked for a 'guide to idiots' then there is a long list here, just take your pick, amongst all the good and valuable advice.Is that '...not a boffin...' or '...not a bufoon...' John? I imagine neither. Regardless of our individual skill levels few of us are idjits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yelrow Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Guide to idiots, would be a lot easier, admin have just banned one, and there is another, on a different forum. its the putting over bit, thats more difficult. When i could not understand programmes, you gave me a simple guide. Thats all these guys need. No one doubts the skills level of the forum, it is excellent, but the putting over bit, is harder. I for example, dont read. Its not that i cant, i just dont, never have, so a written guide to me, is a total waste of time. Trial and error, has been my bible, but with this technical age, it becomes harder. I also, have a low threshold on patience, and tolerance.. Photographic, or pictorial instructions, like you get with a new router, or tv, might be the way to go. john Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted January 25, 2015 Share Posted January 25, 2015 Ah such as the universal illustrated IKEA leaflet...but for model railways.I would be no wiser after making it wrong and having lots of bits left over, which I suppose I could sell on flea-bay... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Graskie Posted January 26, 2015 Share Posted January 26, 2015 I've had to add, delete and rewrite parts of business instructions before now, when I was still at work. It's not easy. Not enough detail or info, users complain. Too much detail, people complain. And, with the best will in the world, some instructions can be wrong because the writer is not actually au fait with everything, having to rely on user departments. I'm afraid things have become so technical in so many areas that instructions are vital. They run to masses of pages because there is so much to cover. I myself used to read all instructions fully years ago, when they normally covered just a few pages. And loads of instructions nowadays do not come with the product but need to be downloaded, sometimes well over 100 pages! The alternative of referring back to the relevant website every time is often not convenient. And think of the items you own which have far more features than you either realise or are even interested in. I don't read instructions from beginning to end any more, but they do, of course, usually come with pretty comprhensive indexes to the areas you are interested in. I do it that way most of the time, because life's too short.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Spratt Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Fellow Majestic Fans, I will like to join in on this tread as I have followed it for a while and I experience similar problems that I cannot fully solve. I believe I have managed to install RailMaster correctly.I did uninstall the MacAfee anti virus program o do this, reinstalled after installing RM with updates 1:59, Com port 3, ticked the box run as manager ect. All locomotives will run, but only as: "Bon Accord" 0003. They will run at same time as well. I call up 0003 to give a new ID, I fill in top box "Locomotive DCC ID: 0111" -Shall I fill in the lower box "Detection ID" as well? I get asked to "type in address above 99 but check decoder"? -what does that mean? And how, what and where should I enter new address in loco CV? I have managed to change the ID numbers for the locomotive from 0003 to 0111 but they will only run as 0003. At top rigth hand corner the Internet and DCC Controller highligths but not Loco detection, it is inactive. What have I done wrong? I am new to the hobby and using forum, so I hope I have entered my question at the rigth place. I have a laptop with wndows 8.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Spratt Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Fellow Majestic Fans, I will like to join in on this thread as I have followed it for a while and I experience similar problems that I cannot fully solve. I believe I have managed to install RailMaster correctly.I did uninstall the MacAfee anti virus program to do this, reinstalled after installing RM with updates 1:59, Com port 3, ticked the box run as manager ect. All locomotives will run, but only as: "Bon Accord" 0003. They run at the same time as well. I call up 0003 to give a new ID, I fill in top box "Locomotive DCC ID: 0111" -Shall I fill in the lower box "Detection ID" as well? I get asked to "type in address above 99 but check decoder"? -what does that mean? And how, what and where should I enter new address in loco CV? I have managed to change the ID numbers for the locomotive from 0003 to 0111 but they will only run as 0003. At top right hand corner the Internet and DCC Controller highligths but not Loco detection, it is inactive. What have I done wrong? I am new to the hobby and using forum, so I hope I have entered my question in the right place. I have a laptop with windows 8.1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted February 1, 2015 Share Posted February 1, 2015 Hi Mecken, welcome to the forums. Despite what you have done, if your loco will only run on ID 03, you haven't managed to reprogram it yet. To do this, first remove all others from your layout and connect the programming output of the eLink to your track. Now go into the Loco Setup window of RM and select the one you want to change (I'm assuming both are showing there after you selected the Majestic set when you first set up RM). Now go down the bottom of the window and hover over the buttons there until you find the one to Change Loco ID. Select this and it brings up a box to type in your new ID, so enter 0111, the address you want. This should bring up some prompts to help you through the process, suffice it to say the final step is to write/save the new ID to the decoder, again using the button for this at the bottom of the window. Now reconnect the track output of eLink to the layout, select your loco throttle, which should now be showing with the new ID and see if it runs. If so, you should now do similarly for the other loco to get it off ID 03, leaving that available to test run the next new loco you buy. All new locos come with the default 03 address. If you are still having problems, then email RM Support from within the Help window of RM. If you don't get an immediate automatic response, then turn off your AV again and try to email again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard1950 Posted February 2, 2015 Share Posted February 2, 2015 I too have problems with the majestic set, initally I installed the software on my Win 7 64 bit laptop, after many hours of not getting a train to run I decided to unistall it and install it on my Win 7 32 bit desktop, I didn't know at the time about the deactivation procedure of the activation key, any way to cut a long story a bit shorter I have got the software back on the 64 bit win 7 laptop, it turns out that although I uninstalled the software the activation key was still active on that machine when I reinstalled the software, so that problem is solved for now, however I still can’t run a train with it, this is where I’m at, I have the software running and the locos set up again but there is no activity when I try to run a train, When I open the railmaster software if I hover the mouse over the green DCC controller icon it tells me DCC controller active, still nothing, I have noticed that if open the system settings tab and then close it and then hover the mouse over the green DCC controller icon it tells me DCC controller inactive, I have read through the manual and checked all my firewall and virus software settings and everything looks to be in order, Currently the usb driver is set to com 3 I am a reasonably competent computer user and can normally work my way trough most problems but this one has me stumped can you please suggest what I try next??? Richard Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fishmanoz Posted February 2, 2015 Share Posted February 2, 2015 Richard, welcome to the forums. Go to the RM forum and work your way through the Railmaster: Setting up and Getting Started thread at the top and see how you go. And just for your reassurance, it should make absolutely no difference whether it is on a 32 or 64 bit Windows computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted February 2, 2015 Share Posted February 2, 2015 Going back to what Graskie was on about earlier. It amazes me the thickness of some of the instructions we get with kit. Then you see a book for sale entitled 'idiots guide to xyz' and that is an inch thick or more.There seems to be more money spent on after market books than was supplied with the product.I do find e-books are not as easy to read as paper books especially if flipping pages to refer back to stuff.Lets hope the collective aid to RM that is published here is a lot more user friendly. At least we will know it is pucka gen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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