BATS' Severn Valley Railway

Ged started a thread over at UKTS and indicated that he was having an issue with the SVR update from Just Trains. This is a separate issue from the other one raised, which was about the authorised unofficial Ottodad upgrade.

Being an ex-BATS employee (but not involved until long after SVR) I thought I'd have a look.

I tried exactly the same thing on two computers. One running W7 64bit and one running XP. The results were, puzzlingly, the same.

I started with a "fresh" MSTS install that had only the Official update and Bin applied. I installed from the CD and ran several tests and then installed the update (as Administrator on the W7 machine) and ran the tests again.

BEFORE UPDATE:
Route folder latest file stamp 16/9/2003 12:39p
Trains folder latest file stamp 3/8/2003 2:43p
Files that Conbuilder wouldn't load 2 (DEAD.....5764.eng and BA.....45110.wag)
Conbuilder tests:
Consists 30 syntax errors
Engines 34 sound file errors
Wagons no errors

AFTER UPDATE:
Everything was exactly the same except that there were 11 new files in the Routes folder, dated 14/10/2003 4:10pm (most, but not all, related to the ITR).

CONCLUSION:
It appears that, for some reason, the update is not writing the new files to the Trainset folder, (I too checked the 5764 coal texture and it hadn't been fixed.) but is writing them to the Routes folder.

I already have the route running on the two machines with no errors, but I suspect I installed it originally on a Windows 98 machine and just copied it over as I upgraded computers.

Does anyone have any clues as to why this should happen?

Bob.

P.S. If anyone wants to report my findings on the UKTS forums, feel free, but be sure to give me credit.

Link added to UKTS thread am 11/05/2013.
Alec

Thanks Alec.

Link added to Bob's message to the UKTS one for all of us to keep track.

Bob,

Have you tried extracting the files to a temp folder on the desktop instead of to the correct location?
From there you could see where the files are going and check if they are in the wrong place.
Unfortunately I can find the cd for mine (it is hiding somewhere in my room) and I can't extract the Official update without it, otherwise I could figure out what is going wrong.

Justin

Bob,

Could having Bin installed be part of the problem? Both the SVR and Southern Region addons were constructed without the use of BIN. BIN was in its early days when the Southern Region was built, and I remember having conversations with Mike Hambly about it and his decision was that it should not be used as it was entirely an unofficial build of a Microsoft product and as Blue Arrow was a commercial undertaking it (Blue Arrow) could not/ should not have anything to do with it.

Only the one official update was released and that is still available to download from Just Trains. There was a second update (by yours truly), in which all the signalling errors of the original route were rectified, but for some reason this was never released. Just Trains were supplied with the second update by me about two years ago but have done nothing with it since,

John

Thanks for the ideas guys. I've had another play.

Unfortunately, the update installer doesn't allow you to choose the target folder. It must get it from the registry entry created by the original installation. I've searched my C:, D; and E: drives (my MSTS is on D: in its own folder outside Program Files) for GWR57xx_060PT_03.ace, which is the file that contains the coal texture that needs to be updated, but it's not in any location that I didn't expect it to be. So I don't think it's installing the files in the wrong place. (I double-checked C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games just to make sure.) The fact that the update files for the Route folder show up in the right place would imply that it's not an installation location issue.

John, I remember Mike Hambly's decision about Bin and, being a stickler for copyright, I tended to agree with him at the time. With hindsight it wasn't a good decision. I don't think that having Bin installed would make any difference to the copying of the update files. However, who knows what's built into the update installer. It's getting late here now but tomorrow I'll try it on a non-Bin installation and see what happens. What happened to your signalling patch? Is it available anywhere?

Bob.

JohnY58 wrote:Bob,

Could having Bin installed be part of the problem? Both the SVR and Southern Region addons were constructed without the use of BIN. BIN was in its early days when the Southern Region was built, and I remember having conversations with Mike Hambly about it and his decision was that it should not be used as it was entirely an unofficial build of a Microsoft product and as Blue Arrow was a commercial undertaking it (Blue Arrow) could not/ should not have anything to do with it.

Only the one official update was released and that is still available to download from Just Trains. There was a second update (by yours truly), in which all the signalling errors of the original route were rectified, but for some reason this was never released. Just Trains were supplied with the second update by me about two years ago but have done nothing with it since,

John

John, I have the signalling update to which you refer installed. Have you any idea where I could have got it from?

David

Hi Bob, and all others who have joined this thread!
Many thanks for picking this topic up from UKTS and expanding on it.
At least I'm pleased that I'm not losing my marbles ... just yet!! The thoughts about the Bin patch are interesting, so I'll have a go without it.

Cheers,
Ged

EDIT : I've now tested, on a new virgin MSTS + MS Update installation, without the Bin patch, as suggested by Bob. Sorry to report, but there's absolutely no difference Maybe it's a Windows 7 thing?? I have an old PC, which, I think, multi-boots into XP; if so, I'll give it a try and report back.

Hi, again,
I created a new installation of MSTS, on the XP (32 bit) part of the old PC, then added the MS Update. The SVR route was then installed, followed by the update svrupdate01.exe. Unfortunately, the results were exactly the same as with Win 7!

It would appear that the only parts of the update which are actioned are those within the ROUTES\severn_valley1 folder; all those in the TRAINS\TRAINSET folder (sounds and vehicle amendments) are ignored.

Cheers,
Ged

Hi All,
Apologies for not keeping this Forum up to date on this matter, although you might well be aware of developments from my posts on UKTS.

To cut a long story short(er), the update offered on the Just Trains website did not address any of the amendments referenced on the same page!  Mark (markpullinger) very kindly sent me an SVR update he had, which was appreciably larger than the one available.  After testing it, I found that it DID address all the changes detailed on JT's webpage.  I contacted Just Trains and they have now made it available here : http://www.justtrains.net/supportfaq/severn-valley-railway  in place of the previous one.  That's no great problem because the original update was mainly concerned in updating the ITRs.

As a separate item, I found that one of the BA_LMR_Coaches used the incorrect texture file with the result that the 3rd Comp appeared exactly the same as the 3rd Corr !!  I have corrected the shape file and have received permission from Just Trains to upload it to UKTS.  This I hope to do in the next few days (as soon as I've got a suitable image!). This correction should be applied to both the CD and download versions of SVR.

My thanks go to Just Trains for their help in these matters, and to Mark Pullinger, without whose contribution none of this would have been possible.

Cheers,
Ged

And, of course, all our thanks go to the BATS guys who made such a wonderful add-on in the first place.

(For the avoidance of doubt, that was long before my time with BATS.  )

Bob.

Hi All,
I have, today uploaded to UKTS, with permission, a correction to one of the BA_LMR_Coaches.
The BA_LMR_3rd_Comp.s file originally called the BA_LMR_3rd_Corr.ace file instead of BA_LMR_3rd_Comp.ace.

The patch is available as download 31916 and may be applied to both the CD and download versions of the SVR.

Cheers,
Ged