Software download

[Josephbw]

I have been trying to download RE's  Railpro assistant program without success. Everything looks fine until this screen pops up. 

[MtRR75]

What screen?  I don't see a picture.

[G8B4Life]

What screen?  I don't see a picture.

Looks like Joe forgot to attach it. Joe if you have not done so already please take a screen capture of the error and then post it. Also please list the steps you took to try and download RPA.

- Tim

[Josephbw]

Sorry guys, I lost internet connection in the middle of this. I didn't try to post it so I don't know how it got here. Any way, the message I get is "Error - Could not copy files from Ring Engineering".

I've tried this on my old computer running Win 7, my notebook computer running Win 7, and my new computer running Win 10, and I get the same results each time. Which by the way is the definition of insanity. 

I get as far as the progress screen from RE, then everything stops until the above message pops up.

Sorry about the waste of bandwidth.
Joe

BTW, I did turn off my firewall during this process.

One more thing, I did send an email to Tim, but I have not heard back from him yet. (RE's Tim)

[G8B4Life]

No waste of bandwidth Joe, we're here to help, even if your aren't ready yet 

I just checked and it downloaded for me just fine so I'll just check a couple of things from your end.

1. Did you download the latest installer for RPA from RE. The latest installer version will say Revision 2 when you run it. Old versions will no longer work as the server the old versions connected to don't exist anymore.

2. I was going to see if you disabled your firewall, but your edit beat me to it 

If answer to Q1 = no, then download the new installer from RE (http://ringengineering.com/Software/RailProAssistantInstaller.exe) and give it another shot. If yes you used the latest installer then something else is going on that would require further investigation.

If you still can't download it even with the latest installer I can upload the RPA package to RPUG so you can download it here.

- Tim

[Josephbw]

Hi Tim,
A few minutes ago I heard from the other Tim. I have been using a wireless connection for all three confusers, and Tim suggested that I make a direct wired connection to the router. It's a real PITA due to the location the Hughes guy chose to set up the router and all it's accoutrements. I don't know if it makes a difference, but I now have Hughesnet as my internet provider, using satellites to scramble my electrons rather than cables.

I'll try that this afternoon and see if that makes a difference.

BTW, I did download the newest installer, and everything went fine until it didn't.

Thanks for the offer Tim, I'll try the direct connection first and see if that works, if not I'll let you know.

And Thank you for being such a wealth of knowledge and possessing the desire to share it with us, I know I'm not the only one that really appreciates all you do for us and the hobby in general. 

[Josephbw]

UPDATE:

I went to the basement, got my notebook confuser, took it to the room with the interweb connections and hooked it up with a cat5 to my notebook.

1. Without my approval it downloaded the latest iteration of Firefox.

2. Without my approval my notebook decided to do a backup.

3. I finally get on the interweb, and I'm getting cold (it was 30 F last night) so I bring in my heater. It's              loading Rings website,  I get up and get my Ring binder to make sure I poke the right buttons.

4. I get back, everything is off, and I see that the GFCI has tripped. I reset it, start over and it trips again.

5. I unplug the heater, start over and it trips again.

6. I unplug the power supply for the notebook and start over again. It gets all the way to the progress bar and all progress stops and once again I am notified that it cannot download the file from Ring.

7. I start from scratch and this time I get a window that the file I'm trying to download doesn't have authentication and after clicking the appropriate boxes, I proceed to the same blue progress box, and that's all folks. The End!!

I can't remember ever having a smooth download of anything from Ring, but I can usually manage it through dogged determination, but not this time. 

Joe

[William Brillinger]

I was able to download the file without any issues also. (win7, current firefox)

It would be very helpful if you could tell us the exact wording of the error you are getting, and also what security software your PC is running.
Then maybe we can point you in the right direction.

[Josephbw]

Hi Bill,

I'm using Norton Internet Security. I did have the firewall turned off yesterday, but I didn't think to do it on my notebook today. As far as the message wording, I was so PO'd at the time that I didn't think to do a screen shot of it. I don't know if I'm going to have time to try it again today, if I do, I'll be back.

Thanks,
Joe

[nodcc4me]

Joe, many years ago I removed Norton from my computer and subsequently to all computers I've bought since then. It was a memory hog that slowed down the machine and it was very picky about what I could and could not view/download. I would suggest that you disable it and try RPA again.

[Josephbw]

The day just keeps going downhill. This afternoon I was sawing a piece of wood on my ancient Dremel 4" table saw when the blade got in the way of my favorite booger hook. Buggered it up some, but it will heal eventually.

Anyway I then came upstairs and tried to load the file again this time using IE. I still didn't get the job done, but it did make a little progress. I took a couple screenshots, now let's see if I can post them.

[G8B4Life]

Well Joe, what can I say sounds like a sorry day all around for you 

Back to the topic. I really don't know why the installer supposedly doesn't like wireless connections but if there is some issue then that's something RE really needs to do something about, the issue will be with his software.

I have uploaded the RailPro Assistant package to the files area here (https://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php/topic,265.msg2840.html#msg2840) so you can bypass all that rigmarole of trying to get it from RE if you want but you'll have to manually install it as you won't get the benefit of RE's installer that puts all the files where they are supposed to go. Instructions are provided, of course.

Norton, well let's say if your protecting your banks web portal or your mega eCommerce site then what they offer is probably very good; much of the world seems to depend on them in that regard; their personal software; not so good. They could do good to hire Peter Norton back!

Once installed you may need to let Norton's firewall allow RPA to access the internet.

- Tim

[Alan]

Internet Explorer and Norton on a satellite connection... what an awesome combination <snarky>

RailPro downloads are not properly signed. Avast also blocks them. I have to temporarily disable Avast to download from Ring.

[G8B4Life]

I just made manual installation of RailPro Assistant a whole lot easier - I hope.

After I had written up and posted the manual installation instructions I thought "I have to come up with a better way for those who might not be as computer proficient". Then I had a brilliant thought, why not create a batch file. So digging into the dusty knowledge from my DOS days and with some revision I created a batch file that'll perform an upgrade (with storage file backup!) or a full install.

I have to say it should work on anything up to Win7. After that I don't know for sure, it depends on if Win versions after 7 have a command interpreter built in.

The batch file is included in the same post in the files area for downloading the package (https://rpug.pdc.ca/index.php/topic,265.msg2840.html#msg2840)

- Tim

[Josephbw]

Hi Tim,

Thank you for all your work, but unfortunately I didn't get very far. I have RP assistant V1.03 on this confuser so I ran the offline installer and got the following error messages.

RailPro Assistant v3.00 offline Installer
v1.0 by The other Tim

You use this offline installer at your own risk. It should work for any verions
of Windows though it has not been tested on any version other than XP. You may
need to run this batch file with administrator rights.

Press the Control (CTRL) and C keys together to exit now (and then press Y
when asked to terminate the batch job) or
Press any key to continue . . .
Checking for previous installation of RailPro Assistant...

Performing Upgrade

Backing up storage file to "RPA Storage.bak"
Storage file not found...

Copying RailProAssistantPackage.exe
Access is denied.
        0 file(s) copied.
Access is denied.
'"c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\"RailProAssistantPackage.e
xe' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.

Moving files...
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA Buttons.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA Common.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA EditPage.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA EditProgram.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA LightEffectManager.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA MainPage.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA NewProject.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA PageInformation.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA PageKeyboardAlphaNumeric.
rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA PageKeyboardNumeric.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA PageSelectButton.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA PageSelectText.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA PageSetup.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA PictureManager.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA ProjectManager.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA SelectFile.rsc
Access is denied.
c:\Program Files\Ring Engineering\RailPro Assistant\RA SoundManager.rsc
Access is denied.
        0 file(s) moved.

Tidying up...
Deleting unneeded installation files
Finished...

You performed an Upgrade of RailPro Assistant

Your storage file was not backed up as it was not found.
Press any key to continue . . .