We've been having more problems (than usual) with SimTraffic re-running/recording simulations. As an example, I ran some lengthy simulations last night. This morning, I opened one of the Synchro files, made no changes (ie, didn't have to save the file) and then clicked the icon to open SimTraffic. It is now re-running and re-recording the simulation.

Is there any way of preventing this? I tried making the .hst file read-only, and that didn't work last night (even though it has in the past.) I did not update the software.

James,

You can always open your Synchro files directly in SimTraffic or by right clicking the synchro file in your folder and selecting "Open With" and browse to SimTraffic. This doesn't always keep SimTraffic from rerunning the network though.

You can also exploit the multi-run feature. SimTraffic will only rewrite the initial run, but not the multirun files unless you tell it to. The multirun files are named the same as your SYN file with a "-1" "-2" etc at the end of the name. There is no reason there has to be a number after the hyphen, so you can rename them "-archive" if you want.

Then again, I sometimes also just zip the files to a backup folder in the directory... just in case.

some ideas:
1) create a shortcut to open simtraffic without going through synchro and clicking the "animate" icon.
2) if you save synchro after animating the first time, you may force a re-seed of the simulation when you open it again. Often when it asks me if I want to save the file when I close it, I don't, when all I have done is pan around the area and examine a few values here and there.
3) is your default seed value a number, or blank? If I recall, a leaving this blank goes to a random seed.