Lost half of assets and all routes.

[HankySpanky]

I may have been rushing the program a little while I was trouble shooting why it failed to restore an asset on a given route. Long story shore, the result is that all routes (including the route folder) and half of the assets were lost. The issue is that the HD space these files once occupied still remains. If they were deleted by the program then the HD space should have been freed up but it didn't. I can't restore now because I don't have enough disk space.
So where are these files? What are they renamed?

[HankySpanky]

I thought I posted this in the "StoreThem" thread. This problem is a result of using StoreThem.

[buzz456]

Oops, my bad.

[mikesimpson]

StoreThem does not delete any files, all it does is rename the folders, Assets becomes StoreA and Content becomes StoreC still within the Railworks folder. As you say the room on the disk has not changed, then check if you have both Assets and StoreA folders and Content and StoreC folders? If so you should still see these listed in the StoreThem lists?

You should not have lost anything, as both my web site and the StoreThem help file clearly say that you should have backups of your Assets and Content folders before using the program in the first place.

Mike

[HankySpanky]

Thanks for the reply Mike.

I have used my backup to restore everything. I did find half the asset files were in the StoreA folder, but the rest had vanished. I have used your program several times and this is the first time something like that happened. I was rushing so there may have been a buffer issue. If you are curious, I would be happy to email you a copy of the error file for your review.

[mikesimpson]

Thanks for the reply Mike.

I have used my backup to restore everything. I did find half the asset files were in the StoreA folder, but the rest had vanished. I have used your program several times and this is the first time something like that happened. I was rushing so there may have been a buffer issue. If you are curious, I would be happy to email you a copy of the error file for your review.

Thanks, but the error file is never much help, I am unsure how this can happen, but there have been one or two reports in the past of things disappearing and I have never been able to discover where the problem lies.

I don't know if many people actually use this program, and if they do, do they find it useful? If not, I may just withdraw it because I would hate people to lose all of their work because of something I have done, even if it was caused by a 'user problem' such as shutting the program down before it finished ?

I would appreciate any comments on this.

Mike

[OlPaint]

Mike

I am finding StoreThem extremely useful. With my huge collection of routes and assets safely tucked away in the StoreC and StoreA folders, I only have to restore the route that I am currently playing. RailWorks now loads super fast since the TS2014 program does not have to process all the routes that I am not currently interested in. But I just have to remember to restore all my routes and assets if I ever have to run a "Verify..." or purchase some DLC from Steam Store.

Just one thing that I noticed. When I restore a route, many times all the assets for a particular scenario are not automatically restored. I now always check the scenario in RW_Tools for missing assets. Then it is a simple matter to restore that particular Provider/Product folder to grab the missing piece of rolling stock.

Great Job, Mike. I like...

OlPaint

[gkbaldwin]

Mike;

I love the utility. It is a great additional tool for Railworks in managing the growing volume of addons. I do manually the same thing that StoreThem does, but in a much more complicated way to reduce loading times and performance when running Railworks. This takes a lot of harddrive space and lots of time coping files back and forth when changing routes and changing out rolling stock. I to have many routes, both payware and freeware and have them separated into their own stand alone libraries, both by content and assets for each route. These I can swap in and out of Railworks to run different route scenarios but as I said the setup is time consuming and requires continued maintenance. This tool eliminate the need to use stand alone libraries, which will save on PC resources and file maintenance (including updates).

Yes, I have broken StoreThem, but in every case it was my own ignorance in using the tool or other steps of my own doing (example, executed a store when I had route file open and StoreThem errored out). However I always keep a duplicate backup of all my Railwork relate files, so I never have lost anything. Bottom line, this is a great utility and once I learned how to properly use it I have found it a great resource and time saver.

Regards, Gerry

[buzz456]

This is a recording backup, backup, backup, backup. In that way any time we push the wrong button, the evil windows deletes something, or the more evil Train Simulator does something to the unsuspecting user well then you just plop it back and go again. Problem solved.

[HankySpanky]

I hope you keep it around. In my case, I'm sure the program was in the middle of a task and didn't allow it to finish. Other than that, I really haven't had a problem other than what olpaint mentioned that sometimes all the assets don't load, again, this may be due to thinking the program was done, when it actually hadn't finished.

I tend to be the HD LED type - if it ain't flashin', then its done!

Just an after thought, maybe adding a "processing" message might be all it needs?

[Chacal]

It is quite useful. Please don't withdraw.

[OlPaint]

The only other problem that I have encountered is that a subscribed Workshop scenario, that was stored with its route to the StoreC folder by StoreThem, will get duplicated back into /Content/Routes/xRouteNumberx/Scenarios/ directory when Railworks is re-launched. This causes a conflict since the Workshop Scenario gets stored in both locations. And this confuses StoreThem.

Gkbaldwin suggested a work-around http://railworksamerica.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=52&t=11464&p=132799&hilit=Storethem#p132799 that works quite nicely to eliminate RaiWorks duplicating a subscribed Workshop scenario that has been stored.

OlPaint

[mikesimpson]

Thanks for the feedback, it does look like it is useful for experienced users, so I will keep it there, but will add more warnings about 'BACKUPS' just in case...

Mike

[artimrj]

I like it also, it is very usefull when you have 124 gig of stuff. It is becoming the utility you use before you run Railworks.