[Kazareh]

So taking a path(And I have tried SEVERAL including my own!) from DC to NY, there is a signal between the Perryville station, and the Perryville MOW Base, that is always red and sends the train into a TCS Emergency Braking session, and I have tried manual control, all that business, dispatcher window too. I can't even set it from red in the dispatcher window. The only response I get from it is if I set it to approach, it shows the '30' restriction next to the signal, but still stays on a stop indication and thus cannot avoid the above problem. This is a serious issue for activities and even Explore mode.

[vince]

Phantom Signals.
You have found a Phantom Signal. There are two other I have found, one exists on the #2 sb main at Trenton and theother in on the #2 main where the line is 2 tracks just south of Baltimore.(the normal nb track)

I used the Activity Editor to mark the always red signal as 'Failed'. This puts an entry in the *.act file . . .down near the end, that lists the coordinates in the TIT & eventually you trace down to the correct TDB entry.
TDB entry has to be edited to be a 'Real' signal (as opposed to the 'Phantom' signal so it can be selected in the Route Editor and manually deleted. This step is required to keep the TDB entries 'in sync'.

Not recommended for the faint of heart.

best,
vince

[R H Steele]

If the screenshots show the signal in question check your OR log for signal aspects that were skipped. Line 3392 and Line 4492. (I do not know if this helps, but I can use the dispatch window to change the signals)
Look for these>>>>>SignalAspects ( 3 >>>>>>>>>>>>>I changed this to read 4
SignalAspect ( STOP_AND_PROCEED Red
SpeedMPH ( 15 )
)
SignalAspect ( APPROACH_1 Yellow
SpeedMPH ( 30 )
)
SignalAspect ( APPROACH_2 Yellow
SpeedMPH ( 45 )
)
SignalAspect ( CLEAR_2 Green )

I can use the dispatch window to change the signal to either approach or proceed, however, the tab or shift+tab will not work. This may mean there is some other error in the sigcfg.dat or some other file. I do not know enough about signaling to speculate. (hmmmm... that's never stopped me before)

First, check the log for signal errors, while you are at it would not hurt to check for sound and other errors, there are quite a few that are fixable.
(I just found the nearest point using explore and opened the route...so I ended up reversing through the signals in the screenshot. I choose starting at Perryville heading to Enola Yard. I'm reversing toward the MOW Base)

Attached thumbnail(s)

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[mauried]

You can sometimes get rid of phantom signals with the Route Editor if you know where the signal is, ie on what section of track its on.
Open RE and delete the track section the signal is on.
Then try and save the route.
If you have successfully found the phantom signal, RE will give you an error message which will say something about a signal marker being present and do you want to delete the marker.
Answer yes , and the route will save.
Reload the route and put the track section back.
This usually gets rid of them.
If you have found one though, the odds are that there is another one, as they seem to come in pairs.

[vince]

mauried, on 05 March 2015 - 11:32 PM, said:

You can sometimes get rid of phantom signals with the Route Editor if you know where the signal is, ie on what section of track its on.
Open RE and delete the track section the signal is on.
Then try and save the route.
If you have successfully found the phantom signal, RE will give you an error message which will say something about a signal marker being present and do you want to delete the marker.
Answer yes , and the route will save.
Reload the route and put the track section back.
This usually gets rid of them.
If you have found one though, the odds are that there is another one, as they seem to come in pairs.

Hi folks,
Altering track (or roads for that matter) is never a good idea in a route that has interactives installed as the PRR has.
Add to this that the physical size of the PRR Track Database makes it very prone to meltdown if it is attempted.

The save after an interactive alteration will give you some idea of what you are up against as you sit there staring at your monitor screen for over a minute wondering whats going on as the save processes and maybe completes sucesasfully. Prr TDB size is OVER 49 megabytes!

That's why I recommend a manual method of altering the TDB to prepare the 'Phantom Signal'for removal.
Saving the TDB after a signal removal has none of the dangers to the TDB as has a save involving and saving of a track section.
Please do remember that a recalculation of the entire TDB (all the vectors) is done after a track or road alteration.This re-calculation is not done for an interactive object (a signal) removal.

There is a tutorial here >>===> http://msts.steam4me...om_signals.html that may help but as this also requires altering track with it's accompanying TDB re-calculation I'm not sure how the PRR East TDB will react to that.

I have sucessfully added and removed/altered many signals on the PRR East including the two Phantom Signals I have encountered but I never even remotely considered a method like the offered Steam4Me solution. Waaaay too risky for me as even simply moving around in the PRR East with the Route Editor caused me many recoverable crashes. . . . But never a TDB meltdown.
Either way, good luck.

Vince

[vince]

Method I used to delete the PHANTOM SIGNAL at Trenton south of Baltimore

1. In RE, remove any signals near bad one. Save.

2. In Activity Editor with a test activity locate Phantom and TOGGLE SIGNAL FAILED.

3. Save the test activity. Exit the editor.

4. Open Test.act file in wordpad.

5.At the bottom of the test.act you find the following:

ActivityFailedSignals (

ActivityFailedSignal ( 10223 )

6. The number 10223 is important; Write it down. Your numbers will be different!

7. Open the routename.tit file in wordpad

8. Search the file for 10223. Check there is only one instance! Here is the entry:

SignalItem (

TrItemId ( 10223 )

TrItemSData ( 838.684 00000002 )

TrItemRData ( 44.3064 20.8432 566.557 -11060 14282 )

TrSignalType ( 00000000 0 6.24638 ACPL_DLtd )

TrSignalDirs ( 1

TrSignalRDir ( 48.7344 20.8432 493.908 -11060 14282 6.17648 )

)

)

Make a copy of the above tit entry in a scratch pad unicode text file.

Close the routename.tit file.



Now we have a location 44.3064 20.8432 566.557 -11060 14282

The form is TileX TileY TileZ TileAddress

So . . . on tile 11060 14282 there is located IN THE TRACK DATABASE a signal.

There is supposed to be a matching entry in the relevent world file.

Searching the WORLD FILE will show this is missing.

Two ways to proceed now; One, add the entry to the world file at an unused UID position OR Hack the TDB. I choose the add to W file.

Pick a w file entry for a signal and copy it into the world file and renumber the UID, TileX, TileY, TileZ, TileAddress lines &.

Change the QDirection line to 0 0 0 1 (this is default rotation for object)

So:

Signal (

UiD ( 52605 )

FileName ( USswstnd_rg_R.s )

Position ( 44.3064 20.8432 566.557 )

QDirection ( 0 0 0 1 )

VDbId ( 4294967295 )

StaticDetailLevel ( 0 )

SignalSubObj ( 00000001 )

SignalUnits ( 1

SignalUnit ( 0

TrItemId ( 0 10223 )

)

)

)

Save the W file.

Now open the Route Editor, navigate to where the false signal was and you should see the signal.

Select it and immediatly deletE it. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE THE OBJECT AND SAVE!

JUST DELETE IT!

Recheck everything!!

ActivityFailedSignals (

ActivityFailedSignal ( 10223 )

ActivityFailedSignal ( 10221 )

SignalItem (

TrItemId ( 10221 )

TrItemSData ( 838.684 00000002 )

TrItemRData ( 44.3064 20.8432 566.557 -11060 14282 )

TrSignalType ( 00000000 0 6.24638 ACPL_Main )

TrSignalDirs ( 1

TrSignalRDir ( 47.3853 20.8432 493.822 -11060 14282 3.09915 )

:)
edited: location.Was Trenton. corrected to 'south of Baltimore'.:)

[R H Steele]

Vince, did the small errors that I corrected in the sigcfg file have anything to do with this. If I remember correctly the signal could not be controlled in the Dispatch Window until after I had made the corrections.
Maybe I was having an optical illusion (been known to happen) .... was that even the signal the thread was about? Just wondering.

[vince]

Hi Gerry,

In a word, no. This was not a signal file issue . . .
When the PRR East was being built, the NEC4 part was merged without first being run through the 'Horace' program to re-index the routes tsection file. The merged to route(s), I'm not sure exactly which, were Standardized GLOBAL\TSection complient. The NEC4 was not.The result as it turned out played havoc with the track database files. One result was leaving a bunch (more than 10 as I recall) of 'Phantom Signals'.A special program had to be scratch written to correct most of the database errors but a few errors had to be hand corrected.

The route is a magnificient achievment (the developers did a truly beautiful job on my NEC part, a huge amount of scenery added and such a beautiful run in Fall Seasom. Try it!
I was so tempted to write a really big activity for it, something that would never run on MSTS.
So I was writing a large activity, more that 80 AI traffic trains, I came across two show stopper Phantom signals. The one I provided the detailed removal process and the other was at #2 SB Main at Trenton.

The Phantom signals I found were Absolutes, no way to Tab past. Any AI would sit, never moving, tieing up all following AI.
I initially altered my path at Trenton to make a passenger stop to bypass the signal on the adjacent track.
Turned out I liked the added Trenton stop but I fixed the signal as an exercise.

The route is a real BEAR to edit. Frequent crashes just moving the camera and as I previously stated, any save of an interactive takes more than a minute to complete on my 3GHz Guad Core 8GigRam SSD drive system. Yikes! Upside? Just enuf time to nuke a cuppa coffee!:D

So, bottom line, bug had nothing to do with either OR code or Sigcfg files in the route. It's simple TDB corruption, thankfully correctable without too much pain.

Best,
vince

[Kazareh]

Thanks for the info guys, I'll try a manual edit or somethin' as suggested to fix this. No way in heck am I messing with the route editor though, I can't even get the PRR ER to -load- in Route Editor! Crashes. So, I'll make a backup of the route and try the manual removal, elsewise I guess I'll just have to deal with the phantoms.

Also no way in the H-E-Double Hockeysticks am I going to remove a track section, learned that the hard way by accident years ago with the RE and Cajon Pass 3. And as many interactives as the PRR ER has...Yeah.

[R H Steele]

Vince, thank you for the reply (post #8). That explains it. I do love the route. I'm learning steam on it , ran the entire "Coal Drag to Enola" activity in OR, actually did okay. I'll try the fall season in the NEC part. Also put on my to do list the phantom signal repair. :D.