MarkMods Support Ticket Center

If your server goes offline and will not restart properly after attempting to load a BRL track for the first time, be sure to install the BRLAddons.MAS into your GameData\Locations folder.

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The full explanation of what is causing this specific crash, as described by Giovanni:

The original BRL track makers created a .MAS file with mostly art files that they would reuse on tracks. I assume they chose to make a standard .MAS file with those textures and 'call' it in their .SCNs. The space saving is minimal, but large downloads or bandwidth limitations may have been an issue in 2007'ish. 

Any BRL track, and probably a few others that track makers have worked on since, will most likely call this .MAS file. There could be tracks floating around with copy/pasted .SCN sections, calling the BRLAddons.MAS even though they don't utilize any of the compressed textures within the .MAS. I'm not sure if the server will care if the .MAS is being used or simply called, I didn't go that far in testing.

The .MAS file in question is/was never included in the individual track installers. It was provided via a separate installer and placed into the GameData/Locations folder (where commonmaps and terrain.tdf live as the only other raw files). Most racers grab this file early in their online racing foray, and forget they even have it (two thumbs pointing at this guy). The Markmods server (and possibly any gaming server) went into that offline/shutdown state as soon as I tried to load a track calling the BRLAddons.MAS. My mistake was hunting around the configuration files for an error when it was simply tripping over the .MAS call in the track's .SCN.

I found it by looking through the .SCN for something in it's event folder structure that might have been out of place (or too long, another rFactor limitation). That's when I noticed the BRLAddons.MAS call and the profanity began. I uploaded the .MAS to the server, and the came right to life with a restart, and loaded the track I was attempting to use immediately.