APPR PHASE in Airbus 320 PM

I must be doing something wrong...I am trying to fly the Airbus A320 from slab to slab using only the FMGC. The Project Magenta MCDU appeas to working flawlessly in all regimes except one. I cannot get the approach phase to activate and revert to MANAGED speeds (Vapp) for the approach. It appears to be stuck in the DESCENT phase all the way down. If I hit the Approach pushbutton, the MCDU kicks out, the line track reverts to dashed green and I am now on regular the Autopilot...this is OK but the MCDU is out of the picture and not doing anything. I would like to get the MCDU to handle the aircraft all the way down to the LOC and GS capture and ultimately to LAND, FLARE and ROLLOUT. I think that I need to be 180 or 200 miles from DEST before I can activate the APPROACH phase but the ability never presents itself. I am using a Cost Index of 50 so that I should be slowing to at least 270 with a path of 2.7 in the default aircrat.txt file. I am using the A320200IAV.TXT file from Nicholas and all apeears to be well. However, I can never get the 4th Column of the FMA to annunciate anything...it has always been dark. Anyone having this problem.I am using the full suite of Project Magenta A 320.