18 replies to this topic

[Steve Franks]

Greetings,

The fellow I bounce new ideas off of and send 'in progress' benches to for feedback is having trouble opening my last bench. He says that his RCT2 fails to open the selected save game due to a missing dat file...Amazing Earl's Dreamwoodie Wooden Coaster dat file.

I had similar problems when trying to use Amazing Earl's Dreamwoodie wooden coaster train dat and his Jungle Boat ride last year. Earl came up blank for suggestions as his dat files were 'green flagged' as ok by Dat Checker.

After finalizing my selection of 'user created' dat files for my new master bench, I decided to reinstall a fresh RCT2 to remove the hundreds of useless dats that accumulated in my folder. With a fresh RCT2 and its default dats only, I proceeded to install my benches anew which, in turn, loaded all the 'user contributed' dat files that were required in my benches. Now, the two troublesome dats work just fine!

I expect my 'partner in crime' may have to do the same. Either his RCT2.exe file is somehow corrupted, or another dat file is somehow interferring with the Earl's two dats despite what any Dat Checker utility might say. Has anyone else experienced this situation?

I certainly do not wish to strip Earl's Dream Woodie and Jungle Boat rides from my distributed scenarios. The trains he created for his Dream Woodie dat closely resemble Morgan style trains which I want to use where required in several of my v2 track pack updates.

Your feedback is most important.

Edited by Steve Franks, 17 January 2008 - 05:11 AM.

[Levis]

its no in the rct2.exe

sometimes custom rides wont export properly because of theire size.
it could be that your bench tried to export the dream woodie and jungle river but didn't export them right and so created a corrupt version of the ride.
I sugest downloading the two dats from the site and include them in the file (without exporting so just the dat). if you copy them to your obj data folder first that often solves such problems.

to solve the problem now I think redownloading the files will help.

[JV7]

I had a problem once with a scenario I created. A lot of people couldn't open it, and we found out that some custom rides didn't export. I ended up having to copy all the ride files into a different folder, zipping them and including them in the zip file for the scenario. They then had to open the rides zip file and install them before opening the scenario.

I know The Amazing Earl's rides, Methusalems, and MidWestBoyInLa's Tumble Bug ride were among them.

Edited by JV7, 17 January 2008 - 10:40 PM.

[Emergo]

It´s (by now), a known issue that quite some custom-rides won't export/import automatically with the park, even if you open a park in which the objects/rides have been exported.

AE's Dreamwoodie is one of those rides that won't export (amongst other AE-rides, while many other AE-rides just are exporting fine...).
No, they are not corrupted, but they just cannot be installed by just opening the exported park-file.

As Levis said above, the only thing for those kind of rides you can do is: include the .dat file in the download-file, and warn people that they have to manually add this .dat to their ObjData for the park to work.

Havingfun made a complete list of exporting and non-exporting rides.
You can find that list here

Hope this helps ?

Emergo

[Steve Franks]

Greetings,

Thank you guys for headsup on this issue. I do want my benches to load trouble free and this puts a kink in things. If I understand what you say, one must manually copy the dat file in question to the objdata folder. Then the bench should open. But.... can you explain my original problem?

1. When creating my benches, I manually copied the Dreamwoodie dat into the objdata folder and the ride was checked off in the scenario editor. Upon selecting the new scenario on the game play side, the bench would fail to open. The error pointed to the Dreamwoodie dat.

2. Going back to the editor and removing the dreamwoodie check mark, the bench opened when selected on the game play side.

3. I now deleted my entire RCT2 and reinstalled a fresh copy, then opened my benches which imported all the new dats.

4. I manually placed a fresh dreamwoodie dat BACK into the folder again, and checked it off in the editor. Now the bench opened properly and the dreamwoodie works. Same issue and cure for his Jungle Boats.

The only difference in procedure was reinstalling my RCT2. It failed to open with the old copy, and successfully opened with the fresh copy.

Can someone explain what happened in this situation? My experience does not seem to be covered by the above explanations. My fix seems to have been a fresh RCT2.

[Levis]

probally the dreamwoodie got somehow corrupted ...
an other explaination I cannot think off.
like I said the problem cant be in the rct2.exe
it only could be in the data/plugin.dat where all custom objects are stored also. maybe something got ****ed up there. but I actually never tought that file could get corrupted.

[bernts_matte]

Hm i had same problem like you with an costum coaster, i had the objckectdat in the folder, but it did still say it wasnt thear :S,

But i fixed it by removed it from the park with Parkdata

I not sure how this happend, but im intressed to find out

Edited by bernts_matte, 18 January 2008 - 03:50 PM.

[Steve Franks]

Greetings,

Naturally, universal compatibility with every user who takes the time and trouble to download my new benches is of the greatest importance. And, when I update all my coasters for Version2, this problem would jeopardize the tracks as well. None of their stations and other buildings would be visible unless they are run on the new benches.

When I deleted my old RCT2, it had more than 2,200 dats. Since many were silly, or not being used in my new benches, I decided that once I was satisfied with my final dat selections to just completely delete my old RCT2 and install it fresh.

All the (selected) 'user contributed' dats were imported back to my objdata folder when opening my benches for the first time with the fresh RCT2 without incident. I had written off Dreamwoodie and Jungle Boats, so they had been removed in my final benches long before. It was only after getting up and running again under the fresh RCT2 that I thought of trying the woodie and jungle boats again by copying them back into the folder and then checking them off again in the editor. They then worked. The exact same dat files I used before, so they were not corrupt initially.

I only wish I had let a bench import the two dats to see if they would work.

I can only ascribe my fix to a fresh RCT2. What was amuck before is not now.

At least the only two tempermental dats in my stable seem to be the Dreamwoodie and Jungle Boats. Every other dat file which I originally selected for my new benches imported back in automatically without a whimper. So, taking your advice, I will include those to dats just in case anyone has import trouble with them. I will still recommend that anyone who has further troubles may be best advised to reinstall a fresh RCT2.

Right now Coaster Crazy is kind enough to test one of my benches. He already has Dreamwoodid and Jungle Boats in his folder. Hopefully, I can get my partner's copy to run too. I sent him the two missing dats.

In the meantime, thank you guys for your interest and kind assistance. I've worked too hard and too long to be quashed a second time.

[JV7]

Steve, with all you do for RCT, it would be unfair not to offer you help.

[Emergo]

Greetings,

Thank you guys for headsup on this issue. I do want my benches to load trouble free and this puts a kink in things. If I understand what you say, one must manually copy the dat file in question to the objdata folder. Then the bench should open. But.... can you explain my original problem?

1. When creating my benches, I manually copied the Dreamwoodie dat into the objdata folder and the ride was checked off in the scenario editor. Upon selecting the new scenario on the game play side, the bench would fail to open. The error pointed to the Dreamwoodie dat.

2. Going back to the editor and removing the dreamwoodie check mark, the bench opened when selected on the game play side.

3. I now deleted my entire RCT2 and reinstalled a fresh copy, then opened my benches which imported all the new dats.

4. I manually placed a fresh dreamwoodie dat BACK into the folder again, and checked it off in the editor. Now the bench opened properly and the dreamwoodie works. Same issue and cure for his Jungle Boats.

The only difference in procedure was reinstalling my RCT2. It failed to open with the old copy, and successfully opened with the fresh copy.

Can someone explain what happened in this situation? My experience does not seem to be covered by the above explanations. My fix seems to have been a fresh RCT2.

No, alas!! I cannot explain exactly what happened in this situation......

The only thing I know - from quite some experience - is that older AE's rides do export/import without any problems, but that many of the later ones don't. As well as quite some rides from other designers (see the list I pointed to in the other post).

That the Dreamwoodie worked for you (from the scenario) after you had re-installed your RCT etc, is great of course, but the fact stays that in general the DreanWoodie and some others just won't export/import and that you have to place them manually into your ObjData before you can open the park (unless of course if you already have them in your Objdata).

Re-installing RCT freshly might only help for a very short time....

I remember testing one of Mama Bear's parks that she made especially for Dan's marriage ("the Merry Manor"), lovely park! with of course as much as possible of AE's rides/scenery used and included.
I tested it just a few weeks after a re-install of my RCT.
Still it would not work without manually adding the DreamWoodie and some other rides into my ObjData.
Heard the same from many other people.

As you cannot expect everyone to be willing to install RCT anew, especially as this does not seem to solve the problem permanently, I do fear you'll have to include the .dats of those non-exporting rides...

Anyway, great that and how you are working on these new ones,
thanks a lot and cannot wait til they are released!!

Success

Emergo