Serious problem with my Routes and Assets Folders with ap file

[cnbalasub]

I want to know why are all the files in subfolders in any Routes and Assets folders with ap files under Content are empty. The day before I unzip all the ap files that I have in Routes and Assets folders and now all disappeared in subfolder. And I will have to unzip again after this message posted here in the forum. I did sent an ticket to DoveTail Games Support. They don't know why and told me to ask here in the forum for help. Anyone who know what caused this to delete all the files in subfolder under Routes and Assets folders with ap file. And leave the empty subfolders in Routes and Assets Folder under Content with ap file. I have see the Windows busy icon every 40 second to a minute on the monitor screen while I am in TS 2018 simulation with one route and scenario. It doesn't happen once but often and I am not a computer geek for this problem to solve and hopefully someone here know what is the actual problem.

I forgot to add this and the program of Train Simulator 2018 is not in C:\ and is in D:\ external hard drive with 1TB.

Thank you,

John

[peterhayes]

John
First question, why are you unzipping the .ap files in the first place?
TS then has to double its workload to start.
I guess that you have checked that you are extracting these files and folders to the correct file/folder structure in the appropriate Assets/Content\Routes folders? That needs to be checked.

Try this with a route with an .ap file. Go the route .ap file ight click with 7-zip and choose open ARCHIVE. You should now see the route details INCLUDING - the SCENARIO folder. Still using the 7-zip feature click on the scenario folder and select all Scenarios and copy them to the Route scenario folder outside the .ap structure, creating a scenario folder if needed. Now are these scenarios deleted as you have described in your post??? This is where you put the extracted scenario files say for Route 47 \STEAM\steamapps\common\RailWorks\Content\Routes\00000047-0000-0000-0000-000000002012\Scenarios with an .ap file thus:\STEAM\steamapps\common\RailWorks\Content\Routes\00000047-0000-0000-0000-000000002014\MainContent.ap

As you are aware if you run verification of the game cache that may well remove all files outside the .ap folder and leave empty files and folders behind?

Beyond the above - AFAIK there is no code in TS or Steam (or even Windows unless you have a Scheduled task to do that?) that removes files and folders automatically.

pH

[latimers]

John,

Based on my testing, what seems to happen is:

- Extract the files from within an .ap file for whatever reason (I use RW_Tools because it puts them in the correct place and makes them read/write.)
- This creates the old-style folder structure with the files in the old-style folders.
- Run TSXXXX and the files disappear from the old-style folder structure folders.

I suspect that what happens is that when you run TSXXXX is checks the files in the old-style folder structure and, finding that they are the same as the ones in the .ap file, deletes them.

Any files in the old-style folder structure that are not the same as those in the .ap file are left alone.

Bob.

[cnbalasub]

First want to say a big thank you to Peter and Bob for your help with me about this. What i did is to clear all the subfolders with ap file out that was suggested by Bob then I followed Peter's instructions about right-click ap file and choose open ARCHIVE. Hopefully will settle down with my serious problem.

Thank you again to Peter and Bob!

John

[latimers]

John,

If what I described is what is happening to you, it's not a "serious problem". That's just the way the .ap file works.

Bob.