Frustrated!! FS2002 Growing When it Shouldn't be.

[Guest Heather 636]

Hi guys! Sure hope someone can help me on this dilemma.I am on my second attempt of having reinstalled FS2002 and my scenery files.What has happened in both instances is that as I progressively add scenery, OUTSIDE of the FS2002 folder mind you, FS grows unacceptably huge!I have installed 1.35 gig worth of scenery in a separate folder under Microsoft Games, the same folder FS2002 is located in.However, my FS2002 has grown to 17.3 gig and crashes to desktop on about 2 out of three tries to boot up.Very little, with the exception of aircraft, LAGO products, and a few other items such as NOVA textures and Gerrishes trees have been placed inside the FS2002 folder. There are some mysterious files of huge size that have been created unbeknownst to me that have numbers for titles and a couple more such as "Index file" which, by itself, is 2 gig in size.In the past, before I got this new computer, I had installed ALL of my scenery INSIDE the FS2002 folders and was up to 10 gig in size but at least I could account for it. This situation is really baffling I hate to uninstall and start over a third time only to see this happen again. Can somebody tell me what is going on here?I'll be gone most of the day but am sure hoping there will be some solutions here when I return. Any help or advice would be GREATLY appreciated. I want to fly, not troubleshoot.Sincerest regards,Heather

[Guest daveg4otu]

Have you checked for viruses etc?

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

Others have reported such file, and have been able to simply delete them without further trouble.Since we are on the topic of unwanted files.. does anyone know why I end up with duplicate copies of some of my gauge files over time, with 001 tacked onto the file name?

[Guest daveg4otu]

I believe the duplicate files/001 may occur when you add an aircraft and add gauges for that aircraft to the FS Gauges file without saying "overwrite" for duplicates.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

OK.. that could be.. I always assumed that if I did not choose overwrite, the gauges would simply be skipped..I'll keep track and see.. Thanks!

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Heather....I went through the same recently. Then I realized my passion for aircraft and repaints was the culprit. One typical aircraft--the FFX 737-200, had grown to 200 megs alone, just due to repaints. It adds up.I've since went on a repaint "diet"... I limit myself to 2 repaints for the U.S., and 2 for Europe per aircraft. For GA aircraft, I limit myself to what looks nicest. Out of ten aircraft alone, I saved almost 2 Gigs! Imagine someone with 30-40 add-on aircraft...-John

[Guest Heather 636]

Thanks guys, I appreciate the input.I'm going to try deleting those "strange" files mentioned and see what happens. Nothing to lose at this point.I have scanned for viruses with everything coming up clean.I know what you mean about th aircraft folder getting full, but at least thats accountable. This other business really baffles me. Cheers!Heather

[Guest Milamber]

Ehh? If you don't say overwrite then Windows simply won't copy the file. It never appends an extension to a file if it finds one of the same name. It either overwrites or doesn't copy at all.

[Guest Grey_Wolf]

You'll get 001 added on to the end of a copy of any gauge, its an act that flight sim performs.If you have an aircraft with tow of the same gauge (such as an HSI on the 2D panel and the same HSI on the VC) FS will make a copy of that and tack 001 on the end, or 002 if you have three of the same gauge withen the same panel. I'm not sure the reasons why, but its how it is.You can delete the gauges ending in 001, 002, 003 etc, but FS will just make a new one when it needs to.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

OK... that is another view entirely... Interesting observation..I'll track these "phantom gauges" for a while.I was indeed deleting them, and they came back :-(

[Guest Philip Olson]

Hi Heather, I may be wrong but I seem to remember something in these forums about those large files getting created in the FS root directory because of some error probably in the scenery.cfg file. Maybe one of your sceneries was not set up correctly and for some reason FS keeps recreating those files that are filling up your hard drive. Like I said I am not sure, but I think that this is what I recall. Maybe you can search the archives here and find the answer. Hope this helps.Philip

[Guest N73GX]

Hi Heather, First time I talked to you 8-)I think the best thing to do is to find out what is what. Get some paper and a pen write down some folder names in the FS directory. Windows explorer becomes your friend at this point.FS2002 Addon scenery Aircraft Flights Gauges Modules ScenedbRight click and go to properties and write down how big each one is. Then you can find out what folder is taking up so much room. If it isn

[WebbPA 0]

On the duplicate gauges question, I first noticed it when I began using CfgEdit. When I notice some in there I sort my gauges by date and I can easily find and delete the duplicates.Then I run fsGauges (any gauge prog will do) to see whether any of deleted duplicates made their way into any panels.If any show up as missing I just have to edit the panel.cfg's with the correct gauges.

[gosta 0]

Hi Heather,the INDEX_FILE is your scenery index, and it should be somewhere around 3-6MB in size, depending on what you have installed. 2GB is quite large, so I suspect a corrupt scenery.cfg entry or .bgl file (more than likely among the traffic or AFD files), which leads to FS creating duplicate indices. You can safely delete it, and FS will write a new one. If it turns out to be the same size again, it's time to troubleshoot your sceneries...Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[Guest tcfica]

There is a utility here at Avsim called "scanbgls.zip" by Lee Swordy.If you get and run it, my guess is that you will find a bad AFD.bgl. That's what is probably causing the problem.TomIf it's not broke, fix it til it is!!!