To all,

I've encountered this error every so often while using Activity Master on my own system. I've also encountered this error while helping a few others during an online session using Activity Master. I have no idea what causes this error but may have come up with short term solution. I have also written to Steve regarding my own solution to this error. My own solution was to load a rolling stock list instead of using every piece of rolling stock on my hard drive. This has worked for myself and about 3 others that I have worked with. Using the Rolling Stock List, I have limited the number of cars that can be used for replacement. I just made sure that there was at least one car or locomotive for each car type that I have created for use in Activity Master. I've create other car lists, that can be used if I want more variety, but I use those after the initial stock change. My initial purpose was to get an activity, that I downloaded, to run in the shortest amount of time.

For online sessions, I use a program named TeamViewer, http://www.teamviewer.com/en/download/index.aspx?os=windows, to access computers remotely. It's a free download and works similar to a session using Remote Desktop.

Jim

Jim,

I am amazed - are you saying you've been helping folks to use AM using TeamViewer? I owe you a debt of gratitude - thanks for your help!

I used to have a remote desktop program I used to help users but it cost me $50 a month and I couldn't afford to keep using it for just the few times I needed it. But with Team Viewer being free, I can help folks again. So I'll add that to my tool suite!

As for this error, I am not exactly sure what is causing it but you've given me a clue in that it appears to be related to being unable to find a piece of rolling stock of a given type to replace with. Of course it would be better if the program just replaced with the wrong type if the right type couldn't be found, but informed the user.

If someone is having this problem they can email me their debug.txt file found in the \Program Files\ActivityMaster folder (after turning on the "generate debug file" feature by checking the box). I'd like to see if I can track this down and fix it. I don't get the error here so I've been unable to solve it.

Thanks Jim!

Sincerely,

Steve Davis

Steve,

Yes, I have been helping some users with TeamViewer. It started out with me suggesting they purchase Activity Master to help get activities to run without downloading all the stock. It picked up momentum from there. A friend in IT uses the program (TeamViewer) to support his friends and family and suggested it for me to use as well. Once you use it, I think you'll like what it has to offer. We've done most of sessions on the weekends (free cell phone usage) and have discussed the following topics:

Car Types and why it is important to use them.
Why it is important to assign a Car Type to items not found on your hard drive.
What to do with articulated cars, dumb cars, car strings etc.
Car Lists and how to use them for the best effect.
Why I use 'Specific List' when replacing stock.
Modify an activity's time, season and printing workorders and why Activity Master won't print a workorder. Not printing a workorder is always the case when the activity does not contain 'Action Events'. I've run into many activities that have a workorder that someone created, but never added any action events to the activity.

An online session allows me to show them and also watch them as they do one themselves. In most cases, we can have an activity running within 15 minutes or less. We use a Car List and the setting to only replace cars we do not have on our hard drive. With the Car List loaded, we just go down the list and check the car type for simplification. The only items we make detailed selections on is the locomotives. After this, most understand how they can really drill down for cars in the various types. The primary purpose, of the session, is to get the activity to run. It was during one of these sessions that I found I could get around the error with a Car List. Another thing about the error is it seemed to show up only when we used the 'Specific List' during replacement.

If I get this error again, I'll go back and see if I can create a debug file again.

Jim