FTX Users ... Mode Switch Problem?

[pastorpilot 0]

Fellow FTX Users ...I couldn't draw any attention on the FTX Payware Support Forum, so I thought I would try here.Have any of you had this issue with the FTX switch? Here's my problem. Everything works fine in the FTX mode in the USA, EXCEPT I'm not finding my water. I have UTX. This happened a couple of times about a year and half ago. By restarting UTX from its control panel, everything would be restored. BTW the UTX patch was installed. Not so now.So, I turn off FSX. Then I go to the FTX mode switch and turn it off. It turns red. I start up FSX and the following occurs:1. The powered hang glider does not appear.... only the sky and background. I tried several other airplanes and none of them appear.2. It is possible to go ahead and load the default flight. BUT, The loading bar immediately skips over to the 85% position. No textures load. [Where the loading time, with all of my add-ons may be a minute or so, now about 5 to 15 seconds]. When the screen opens up, there is nothing but blue sky and a horizon line, and a lighter blue field where ground should be. 3. I find myself in the hang glider is in the virtual cockpit view ... but the eye point is well above the seat.4. Sound works right and ATC works and will identify radar contact on flight following mode.5. Again, there is NO scenery ... only blue sky and a horizon line below which there is a light blue field.6. I change planes again and the situation is the same.7. Airplane flies normally.8. There are no external views ("s" and "a" keys) ... only virtual cockpit.8. In my scenery settings ... almost everything has been reset to zero. Restoring the sliders, still does not change anything on the screen.You may recall that the FTX Mode Switch in Green displays in information bar that says FTX should be "OFF" when loading new scenery, etc. That's why I turned it off, besides, I usually turn it off when I fly stateside.Any thoughts?Does anyone know what the mode switch changes? Inoticed that the Scenery files update while the splash screen is on. Obviously the cfg is changed.I wanted to load some MegaSceneryEarth titles in the USA, but I read that you should not do that while in FTX mode. What could happen? Do you think I am safe in loading that scenery while in FTX mode or not?The Sim seems to work normally with FTX switched "On" in Australia and there IS water there. But there is NO water Stateside. So far as recent add ons ... I did add JustFlight's TrafficX a couple of months ago and a couple of freeware sceneries. I'm not positive whether I remembered to swithc the FTX mode off or not. This all happened in the last few days.I run a Core2Duo E6700 at 3.6 ghz ... 8800GTX nVidia card.Any thoughts would be most appreciated.Thanks, Steve

[meshman 109]

Oh boy, another FTX situation.Here's what you might try to see if you get things somewhat back to normal. Within the main install folder for FSX is a clean version of the Scenery.cfg file. It normally isn't used, as there is one located at C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX that gets read from and written to. Find your file at the location mentioned, note this is from an XP install and Vista may be different, rename the Scenery.cfg file found in the folder above to something like Scenery.cfg.backup. Then go into your main FSX folder and copy the clean and pure Scenery.cfg file over into the folder mentioned above. Try starting FSX and see if anything looks like it should. If the Trike appears try loading at Seattle - KSEA and see if there is water and the sorts all around you.If nothing has changed, well I fear a complete reinstall may be necessary, as I can't imagine what would void the FSX world of everything?!?

[Orbx 123]

Hello Steve, Holger Sandmann has responded to your support request on the Orbx forums http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?to...g72114#msg72114 , so I am not sure why your needed to post here. I am sure AVSIM folks are not interested in FTX tech support issues :)However, just to clarify, the only files FTX Mode affects in FSX are:\terrain.cfg\Texture\BLDG2.dds\Texture\BLDG2LM.dds\Texture\BLDG3.BMP\Texture\BLDG3LM.BMP\Texture\BLDI2.dds\Texture\BLDI2LM.dds\Texture\BLDI3.BMP\Texture\BLDI3LM.BMP\Texture\BLDT2.dds\Texture\BLDT2LM.dds\Texture\BLDT3.BMP\Texture\BLDT3LM.BMP\Texture\BLDZ2.dds\Texture\BLDZ2LM.dds\Texture\BLDZ3.BMP\Texture\BLDZ3LM.BMP\Texture\BLDY2.dds\Texture\BLDY2LM.dds\Texture\BLDE2.dds\Texture\BLDE2LM.dds\Texture\BLDE3.BMP\Texture\BLDE3LM.BMP\Texture\BLDV2.dds\Texture\BLDV2LM.dds\Texture\roof_Australia.dds\Texture\roof_Australia_North.dds\Texture\roof_Australia_North_LM.dds\Autogen\default.xml\Autogen\RoofDescriptions.spb\Autogen\RoofDescriptions.xml\Autogen\AutogenDescriptions.spb\Autogen\AutogenDescriptions.xml\Scenery\BASE\Scenery\lclookup.bgl\Scenery\Global\Texture\BridgeRoads.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_ChestnutMaple.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_ChestnutMaple_FA.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_ChestnutMaple_HW.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_ChestnutMaple_SP.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_ChestnutMaple_WI.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_CottonwoodElm.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_CottonwoodElm_FA.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_CottonwoodElm_HW.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_CottonwoodElm_SP.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_CottonwoodElm_WI.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_MesquiteOlive.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_MesquiteOlive_FA.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_MesquiteOlive_HW.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_MesquiteOlive_SP.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_MesquiteOlive_WI.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_OakSycamore.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_OakSycamore_FA.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_OakSycamore_HW.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_OakSycamore_SP.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_OakSycamore_WI.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_thin.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_thin_FA.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_thin_HW.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_thin_SP.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_Broadleaf_thin_WI.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_conifer1.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_conifer1_HW.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_palm1.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_savanna1.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_savanna1_FA.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_savanna1_HW.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_savanna1_SP.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_savanna1_WI.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_tropical1.dds\Scenery\Global\Texture\veg_tropical2.ddsOf the above files, you will note most of those are just autogen and tree vegetation textures, something we can't avoid switching out due to limited texture palletes in FSX and the SDK being broken in the case of custom autogen sheets. The remainder are a little more important, with lclookup.bgl not really affecting anything outside Australia with FTX Mode on, and also terrain.cfg is backed up and replaced by the switcher. In the case of terrain.cfg losing its entries, most folks simply run the UTX configurator and those entries are restored.Orbx is soon releasing our own terrain.cfg configuration tool which does the same as UTX and VancouverX in working with other addons to co-inhabit that file.The Roofdescriptions.spb and autogendescriptions.spb can cause the 'gabled roofs' issue which is a strange bug in FSX's default autogen annotation GUIDs which we can't explain. However, we're going to release a workaround shortly which adjusts the default annotation of larger flat roof buildings to remove the gables.With the terrain.cfg configurator and also the gabled roof fix, in most cases you should be able to leave FTX mode ON permanently. The only thing we'll need to continue to switch in/out are different tree sets for regions of the world. Something we just can't avoid.Your issue appears to be a corrupted scenery.cfg file, which is probably not related to FTX utilities, since we only write our scenery folder entries to that file, but do nothing which would remove critical global area folder which seems to be your case. Check Holger's post where he gives you some pointers on how to resolve your issue. We're sorry if we took longer than you expected to respond to your query.All the best!

[Orbx 123]

Oh boy, another FTX situation.

An interesting comment :) Kindly let me provide you with some "FTX situation" statistics.../defensive_mode ONFTX installations number well over ten thousand users worldwide. The number of customers who have reported corruptions seemingly caused by FTX can be accurately measured based on our tech support logs, and it numbers around 0.8% of all users. That's less than one percent. Of those, we've assisted customers each and every time to remedy the cause of the corruption, which is usually caused by not turning FTX Mode [Off] before installing any other addon - something we mention in every single piece of documentation and our support forums very clearly.We did have a bug for some unicode characters with our scenery.cfg application, but that's been fixed quite a long time ago now.So I would say a < 1% RTFM rate for our customers is pretty good considering :)/defensive_mode OFF/resume_normal_programming ;)

[pastorpilot 0]

Hello Steve, Holger Sandmann has responded to your support request on the Orbx forums http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?to...g72114#msg72114 , so I am not sure why your needed to post here. I am sure AVSIM folks are not interested in FTX tech support issues :) Emphasis mine (Steve)

Thank you very much for your detailed response, both here and for Holger's response on the Orbx forum. I look forward to studying and experimenting with the suggestions. But ...As I stated on the Orbx forum I totally enjoy and am grateful for such fine products as Orbx has created. I have purchased everything available. I have no complaints AT ALL with either the FTX programs or tech support or speed of response. I have never had a question in the months that I have used the program. I have read the tech responses, and so far as I can tell, Orbx support is the about the best of the best, in terms of speed of response, information, follow-up and throughness. I also do not have a running concept of time zone differences ... nor do I know what holidays may be happening in Australia. I don't know when a question posed may be at a heavy/bad or unavailable time for Orbx support.When I can't get my sim to work right it is serious and important to me to get the fastest solution possible. There are many discussions and requests on this fine AVSIM forum in regard to issues with other third party products, notwithstanding the support forums existing with each company. I addressed my request to "FTX users." Consequently I think I was not intentionally "bothering" anyone else. Why become defensive about a simple question in related to your fine product, which, in fact, may be entirely MY issue?????Again, thank you very much.Steve

[pastorpilot 0]

Just wanted to report what outstanding customer support Orbx offers. Taking advantage of it for the first time, Holger identified my issue as being a corrupted file/s? in the back-up folder in the orbx/scripts folder. He provided me a fresh back-up folder via e-mail. I just mention this, because, as suspected, the issue was more than likely mine, rather than FTX. Possibly my folder was corrupted by some add on ... not certain. But I wanted to post in case anyone encounters a similar issue.Steve

[Paul J 246]

Holger Sandmann has responded to your support request on the Orbx forums http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?to...g72114#msg72114 , so I am not sure why your needed to post here. I am sure AVSIM folks are not interested in FTX tech support issues :)

Consequently I think I was not intentionally "bothering" anyone else. Why become defensive about a simple question in related to your fine product, which, in fact, may be entirely MY issue?????Again, thank you very much.Steve

Precisely put, Steve; But for Orbx to be "sure that think that Avisim folks are not interested in FTX support issues" is a big, wrong-headed business mistake! We are interested in support issues indeed. This forum thrives on discussing support issues. Ask CaptainSim; ask Ariane! :( Now, of course - I'm interested as to why Orbx might want to keep their support issues quiet.......... hmmmmm? :(

[Holger 0]

Hi Steve,thanks for the "wrap-up" post, glad I could help.

Precisely put, Steve; But for Orbx to be "sure that think that Avisim folks are not interested in FTX support issues" is a big, wrong-headed business mistake! We are interested in support issues indeed. This forum thrives on discussing support issues. Ask CaptainSim; ask Ariane! :( Now, of course - I'm interested as to why Orbx might want to keep their support issues quiet.......... hmmmmm? :(

Paul, good point about posting here at Avsim because then at least even the most boring technical issue will be spiced up with a conspiracy theory :( Cheers, Holger

[Paul J 246]

B) :( :( :(