Railmaster lost the plot

[Gazza-1]

Railmaster is driving me nuts at the moment. I have 2 laptops both with railmaster Pro. One laptop has windows 8.1 and the other windows 10. Windows 10 is fine locating and initialising the elink interfaces, but has suddenly started acting up and I am having problems editing the layout. It basically just hangs and I can't to anything. The windows 8.1 was working fine until today, just when I wanted it to work as the grandson is coming round. It cannot see either of the e-links and despite having been thought the config and ini file and made sure all the changes suggested are in place, it just flat refuses to see them despite both being in device manager. I have tried uninstalling the device and allowing it to be rediscovered with no affect. Neither are used on the internet, other than railmaster looking for updates when it starts, but I have put antivirus software on, ran scans many times and it finds nothing, so I am at a loss as to what is going on. So if anyone has any suggestions, they would be appreciated.

The other problem I am having is with train-tech semaphore signals. All but 2 signals are lights using either Hornby or Train-Tech. The semaphore signals use a train-tech controller and for some reason railmaster seems to think one of the signals is the opposite to what it is actually showing. I've tried reversing the polarity, not affect. The startup position is clear, and it never sets it, its as if railmaster has lost the plot and you cannot convince it that the signal is at danger. The signalling configuration is quite complex as there are quite a few 3 aspect signals, but I have been through the whole thing visually and thought the configuration and I cannot seem to convince it that it has got it wrong. Even manually changing this one signal, railmaster always says it is the opposite to what it is showing. Any offers again would be appreciated, its really beginning to annoy me as I have spent a long time getting this all working and now it just seems to have a mind of it's own.

[P-Henny]

You really should have posted this in the Railmaster forum. If you lose sight of this thread, a mod might have moved it there for you.

Have you followed the guidance in Railmaster FAQ 1 in the pinned sticky 'FAQ Index' thread at the top of the Railmaster forum.

[Yelrow]

Gazza, hi, are you aware there is a starting up sequence with RM, and Elinks. You have to stick strictly to it, and then normally, it all comes good. This is explained on the sticky thread. I know, cos i originally, wrote it. You need to read it. Its all about, wait, wait, wait. You have to allow RM to find laptop, etc. My memory, aint what it was, but i belive you turn on elink, wait, wait, then turn on laptop, wait wait, then all necessary lights come on. Have a read, if you cant find it, post again. Usually, once one sticks to the required sequence, its fine. I have Elite, now, instead of Elink, but sequence exactly the same. Last thing RM does, is light up Green Elite symbol. Let us know how you get on. bon chance.

[Fishmanoz]

Paul and John, given that Gazza has given some detail on what was working previously but now isn’t, I suspect the problem will be neither configuration nor startup sequence. Not to say it’s not worth double-checking though.

Gazza, if the double-check fails to fix things, I’d be going straight to HRMS via the email in the Help tab on each of your laptops together with descriptions as above. Do it this way as the email is accompanied by a log.txt file which tells HRMS exactly what you did prior to emailing.

[Yelrow]

Fishy, yup, dont disagree, except, its very easy to forget/ change sequence, without thinking. If you remember, there was a spate of these, in the past, that reverting to correct start up sorted. I suspect HMRS, may advise, similarly, once they have looked into it.

[Gazza-1]

Firstly, apologies for posting on the wrong forum.

Since posting the 8.1 laptop has decided it can see the elinks without changing a single thing, which is frustrating. So I am left with it not knowing which state one of the semaphores is in on that laptop. The other laptop still hangs when trying to edit the layout.

Looks like I will be getting on to hmrs.

[Yelrow]

Gazza, if they offer, let HRMS take over both your laptops, remotely. they can then sort both for you. They are very good at so doing.

[Gazza-1]

As most things were working, I have been teaching little un about signalling. It was all working , then the b elink appeared to stop working . Shut down railmaster, power cycled the elinks and restarted. This time everything came back and the semaphore signal went to the correct state. I have done this more times that I can remember to no effect. I don’t for one second think I couldn’t have made a mistake somewhere,, but this is all a bit random, and it works most of the time. Definitely one for railmaster support.

[Gazza-1]

As most things were working, I have been teaching little un about signalling. It was all working , then the b elink appeared to stop working . Shut down railmaster, power cycled the elinks and restarted. This time everything came back and the semaphore signal went to the correct state. I have done this more times that I can remember to no effect. I don’t for one second think I couldn’t have made a mistake somewhere,, but this is all a bit random, and it works most of the time. Definitely one for railmaster support.

[Callum-357583]

Is the green light on the e-link on steady or is it blinking?

[P-Henny]

Gazza, make sure that the line "Reset eLink on start" in the 'railmaster.ini' file is =0 and not =1. Changing it to 0 (if not already) will make eLink connections more stable.

[Gazza-1]

Thanks for all the advice. I appear to have resolved all the problems without changing any configuration items. Baring in mind this was all working before it went south, I am not sure what I did that kicked the 8.1 machine back into life. After an hour or so hunting for a clue, I connected it all back up to the layout and it mysteriously burst into life. The semaphore signal still wasn’t playing ball but after the B e-link gave up the ghost and was restarted, again mysteriously that resolved itself. All that now seems to be happy, and it has been restarted a number of times and yesterday the little controller had a supervised go. I have reviewed the start up sequence to make sure that there is a good gap between each set of points being reset by sequencing it such that it moves around the decoders until all have been done. I did the same with signals, I don’t have points and signals on the same decoder. I don’t for one second think it made any difference, but there really should be no related problems

The windows 10 machine, a complete mystery. Copied the layout plan from the 8.1 machine, as this was the most up to date one and put it on the windows 10 machine. Quite why, I don’t have an answer as the layout plan was copied the other way at the back end of last week, All I could think of was some corruption. After a bit of hesitation it sprung into life and everything worked fine.

Having spent 40 years working in IT support and development, this has been about as frustrating as it gets. It’s resolved, but if it happens again, I have no idea how to fix it again. Have still put a question into railmaster support in the hope they can explain it.

[Fishmanoz]

As the IT Crowd used to tell us most weeks of the show - “have you turned it off and on again?”

And why does that work? Because it helps for the 1s and 0s to get their ducks in a row and their act back together from time to time. As I’m sure most in the IT know would agree.