Hi,

 

It's been quite a while since I posted. Slowly but surely I'm getting back into flight simulation largely because I have recently installed VFRGenX Scotland Vols 4,5,6 and 8 + Scotflight Photo 2.4 + Treescapes Vols 6 and 8 + the freebie Treescapes coverage of Vols 4 and 5 of VFRGenX Scotland.

 

Has anyone come across this issue? On exiting the Scenery Libray a message pops up:

 

"Scenery.cfg error. Invalid Remote scenery path in scenery Area.-001"

 

I press OK and I'm returned to the sim.

 

The entries top and bottom of scenery.cfg are:

 

[Area.-001]
Title=
Local=
Layer=-1
Active=TRUE
Required=TRUE

[Area.001]
Title=Default Terrain
Texture_ID=1
Local=Scenery\World
Layer=1
Active=TRUE
Required=TRUE
+
+
+
+
+
[Area.160]
Required = FALSE
Active = TRUE
Layer = 160
Local = D:\Earth Simulations\\ES-3D
Title = ES-3D-Library

 

 

I have tried deleting this 'rogue' entry [Area.-001] but the entry reappears next time I enter and then exit the Scenery Library.

 

Any ideas to explain what may be happening? What is this entry [Area.-001] referring to and why is it being added?

 

Thanks.

 

Mike

 

The top one is wrong. This is how I have it in mine:

 

[General]

Title=FS9 World Scenery

Description=FS9 Scenery Data

Clean_on_Exit=TRUE

 

[Area.001]

Title=Default Terrain

Layer=1

Active=TRUE

Required=TRUE

 

You need to go into your scenery.cfg to fix. The working one is in C:\Program Data\Microsoft\FSX. I've never heard of the -001 Area before.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Are you sure you're updating the right scenery.cfg file? Make sure it's the one Jim mentioned above.

 

Interestingly enough, the top of my cfg is slightly different than Jim's.

 

Regards,

-Ivan

 

[General]

Title=FS9 World Scenery

Description=FS9 Scenery Data

Clean_on_Exit=TRUE

 

[Area.001]

Title=Default Terrain

Local=Scenery\World

Texture_ID=1

Layer=1

Active=TRUE

Required=TRUE

Must have been changed by an addon....

 

Best regards,

Jim

What Operating system are you guys using?

With FSX and Win7 it's  C:\Users\users name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX

Users name is your name or the name in your computer.

Joe W.

Ok , you need to find which scenery is giving the error , launch fsx , click settings , then scenery , then un tick all the add on scenery file boxes , click ok & see if the error has gone , if it has you know its one of the add on ones , so tick one at a time & click ok til you find the fault causing one , if un ticking all the add on ones you still have an error you know its the default scenery , I think a repair will be your option if that's the case , un less someone on here has another way to correct the default scenery. If its an add on one un install the package , launch fsx , let it build scenery cfg , close fsx & re install the scenery , hope that gets you fixed.

I use the freeware Scenery Config Editor 1.1.1 to make sure the scenery.cfg has no errors and fixes errors found.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Hi Everyone,

 

Thanks, clearly this is going to take a while to sort out :(

 

Ah well, here goes....

 

Regards,

 

Mike

What Operating system are you guys using?

With FSX and Win7 it's  C:\Users\users name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX

Users name is your name or the name in your computer.

Joe W.

Are you sure about that? I'm using Windows 7 (64 bit) and my scenery file is located at: C:\Program Data\Microsoft\FSX

 

There is a scenery.cfg file in the path you mention, but it's old and not being used. There's one in my FSX folder too that's old.

Hi,

 

Problem resolved!

 

As stated, I have VFR GenX Scotland Vols 4,5,6 and 8 installed along with Scotflight Photo and Treescapes Vols 6 and 8. Earth Simulations (ES) Treescapes was the last to be installed.

 

The 'ES-3D-Library' was not appearing in position 1 of the Scenery Library - the 'Scotflight Libraries' were at the top and there was a blank entry at the bottom of the Scenery Library - presumably the mysterious [Area.-001]

 

I downloaded the handy utility 'Scenery Config Editor' from the Avsim library (thanks Jim! 'firehawk44') and it advised me that there was a duplicate Area. Scanning down wasn't very helpful so I ended up deleting Area.-001 and then renumbered the areas in sequence from 126 down to the bottom of the file. The 'ES-3D-Library' entry now appears. I noted also that a double forward slash had been entered in the path: Local = D:\Earth Simulations\\ES-3D so I deleted one of the slashes.

 

All is now well

 

BTW, I came across another issue after installing UK2000 Edinburgh and Glasgow Extreme:

 

I tried to disable these two areas so that I could see Scotflight's excellent photo renditions of these two airports. "UK2000 Glasgow Extreme is required and cannot be turned off" Same message when I tried to disable Edinburgh. I attempted to disable the other UK2000 related entries and was blocked every time with the same message.

 

When I checked the scenery.cfg file I found that the 'Required=' entry for each area had been set to 'TRUE'. Changing this to 'FALSE' resolved this issue.

 

Mike

Glad you were able to resolve your issues Mike.  The Scenery Config Editor is a great utility.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Glad you were able to resolve your issues Mike.  The Scenery Config Editor is a great utility.

 

Just note that it will store its data like color settings and grouping in the scenery.cfg file and from what I've seen addons that make changes to scenery.cfg will often rewrite the file, and don't understand those lines so strip them out (so you lose all the work you did grouping stuff).

 

scott s.

.

Hi Scott,

 

I assume you are referring to the line "X_Groups=" which appears above each scenery Area block in scenery.cfg?

I confess this had me puzzled when I first saw them and, yes, I nearly deleted them

 

Can you explain how this works and what we should expect, please? I can see that this might cause some problems in the future if an installer strips these out. My apologies if you have provided guidance and advice in a readme file but I am not at my PC right now to check.

 

Kind regards, and thank you for this very useful utility.

 

Mike

Hi Mike:

 

Thanks for showing us the complications we can end up with when 3rd party developers start arbitrarily modifying the Scenery.Cfg file.

 

 

IMHO, to work properly, the "active" Scenery.Cfg must either be left entirely alone (unlikely), or FS Developers must agree on a standard way of working with it... for the good of the FS community as a whole.

 

 

For the innocent end user, "consumer beware !" is a prudent consideration. :blush:

 

 

Much of what can be done with FS keeps pushing us towards creation of a 3rd party GUI which loads before FS does, so we can configure things as needed (...or as preferred).

 

The FS Development community has already identified some "best practices" for working with the Terrain.Cfg and other FS system files, so perhaps it is now time for FS Developers to work cooperatively again and establish some "best practices" for working with the Scenery,Cfg file(s) < yes... 'files' plural, since there are at various times, (3) different working versions of that file >. :Thinking:

 

 

Until such time as more awareness and cooperation is manifest on the part of FS Developers who are modifying the default FS system "active" Scenery.Cfg, end users might be advised to keep multiple backups of that file.

 

It might also be preferable to use a 'switching' type batch file which is run before loading FS... in order to swap between various loadup scenarios using different copies / versions of Scenery.Cfg, and/or to accommodate different Scenery.Cfg management utilities.  :Nerd:

 

 

 

FYI: "Active" Scenery.Cfg file locations (...all other locations to be found are reportedly only 'templates' FS uses to restore a default Scenery.Cfg such as one would have after a fresh install of FS from CD's / DVD's).

 

FSX - Windows 7:

 

C:\Users\[user profile / account name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\Scenery.Cfg

 

 

FSX - Windows XP:

 

C:\Documents and Settings\[user profile / account name]\Application Data\Microsoft\FSX\Scenery.Cfg

 

 

 

FS2004 (aka "FS9") - Windows 7 or Windows XP:

 

[FS9 install path]\Scenery.Cfg

 

 

Hope this stimulates more awareness of the need to protect the often very large investment of time and effort we all have in building and configuring our often very complex FS installations, by keeping backups, of key FS system files such as Scenery.Cfg, and finding properly written (not arbitrarily written), comprehensive scenery mangement utilities. :Idea:

 

 

PS: On a practical basis, since most of us want to have FS load up fast, we need to keep in mind that even though we may "un-check" an entry in the Scenery Library GUI to deactivate it from being displayed, the continued presence of a scenery entry as a Area in the stack of layers (whether set "Active" or not), will still cause EVERY object in that linked layer to be inventoried by FS during startup along with any mapped textures etc.

 

Area layer entries must be physically removed from Scenery.Cfg to stop them from being inventoried (...and otherwise adding to FS load up time).

 

 

BTW: The same is true of FS aircraft, and to stop them from being inventoried by FS during load up, one must hide the Panel.Cfg file from FS search pattern during startup; that files is at:

 

[FSX install path]\SimObjects\Airplanes\[aircraft name]\Panel\Panel.Cfg

 

...or:

 

[FS9 install path]\Aircraft\[aircraft name]\Panel\Panel.Cfg

 

 

This can be done by ex: making a ZIP backup of the 'Panel.Cfg' file, then deleting the original file or renaming it to ex: "Panel.OFF"

 

 

NOTE: The reason we do not instead hide / remove the Aircraft.Cfg, is so that the aircraft is still available for AI traffic and/or Multi-Player display of the 'visual model', which does not need a panel for those functions.

 

 

Otherwise, FS will inventory all aircraft and scenery objects (and all their countless mapped textures etc.) each time it loads ...unless we effectively "hide" or remove them from FS' search path during startup.

 

IMHO, this is clearly something which must be done before FS loads... thus the need for utility functions which work outside FS.

 

Rather than using a "Addon Manager" which copies / deletes / moves and then re-writes vast numbers of files while 'managing' scenery and/or aircraft < ...thereby fragmenting ones storage drive(s), and potentially shortening the life of SSD drives >, simply modifying the Scenery.Cfg file, and (1) Panel.Cfg file for each inactive aircraft not needed for our current FS flying session could be an easy and less disruptive task via a batch file or external utility run before starting FS.

 

OK, I'll step down from the podium (...and then I'll go work on a better batch file routine to manage my own FS configuration !) :smile:

 

 

GaryGB

PS: On a practical basis, since most of us want to have FS load up fast, we need to keep in mind that even though we may "un-check" an entry in the Scenery Library GUI to deactivate it from being displayed, the continued presence of a scenery entry as a Area in the stack of layers (whether set "Active" or not), will still cause EVERY object in that linked layer to be inventoried by FS during startup along with any mapped textures etc.

 

Hi Gary,

 

Now that's something else I didn't know. However, I have been noting very long load times since installing all the VFR GenX Photoscenery, and terrain (perhaps not surprisingly) is mainly responsible.

 

Thank you for your very detailed and informative post - must have taken an age to put together for us. We should all be copying, cutting and pasting this for future reference.

 

Regards,

 

Mike