I take it  you don't  use  live weather  addons  for  your  flights  than

There are plenty of ways of using real time weather without being connected to the Internet.

 

Edit: Also, thanks for posting off topic.

There are plenty of ways of using real time weather without being connected to the Internet.

 

Edit: Also, thanks for posting off topic.

OOops my mistake  to get back to the question than it  cant  be live  than if your not  connected  to the net  than,  thought it  also  could be  related  to the issue  of  activation  issue  etc

I take it you don't use live weather addons for your flights than

No, I create my own weather themes based on METARS from my iPad.

No, I create my own weather themes based on METARS from my iPad.

ah  k no worries

ah  k no worries

 

And I might add that I do this in part because automatic weather engines rarely choose the right kind of cloud cover in my area. I also find that FSX clouds aren't dense enough, probably to save on performance, so I usually have to turn up the density a few notches.

And I might add that I do this in part because automatic weather engines rarely choose the right kind of cloud cover in my area. I also find that FSX clouds aren't dense enough, probably to save on performance, so I usually have to turn up the density a few notches.

have you tried  using   cloud_coverage_density=12 in your  fsx cfg if  you do  and you make  any changes it  reverts  back to 8 again

have you tried  using   cloud_coverage_density=12 in your  fsx cfg if  you do  and you make  any changes it  reverts  back to 8 again

I do, but thanks anyway!

As I understand it the eSellerate Fatal FAILURE message is a result of a problem validating a license with the servers?

More or less. But there are many other error messages that Esellerate reports. Most of them are much more clear, the "Fatail Failure" is very rare and it's a generic error that comes only if there's no better explanation.

If this is a correct statement, is this just a one time problem of Activation/Deactivation message or does validation happen every time I start FSX at an FSDT airport?

This is so important to clarify, that has always been included in our FAQ PAGE:

 

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/faq.html

 

Do I need to be constantly connected to the Internet to check for activation?

 

Absolutely not. The connection is needed only when you buy the product, or only when an hardware change is detected, so the product needs to verify on the server how many activation you have left. During normal use, the connection is not required.

GSX will also go online every 24 hours for a brief moment, to check if there's a Live Update for it. But no activation checks are made in that case and the program will continue to work if there's no internet connection, just you won't get a notification if there's an update available.

 

Knowing what this message really means would go a long way in avoiding unnecessary support tickets and/or posts on FSDT or AVSIM and probably free up your time and avoid these types of posts/threads.

You should understand the problem more clearly:

 

- There are TWO Activation procedures available on Esellerate:

 

1) The standard online activation, which is the easy one, that asks only for the Serial Number, and then activates without any other operation required.

 

2) The offline activation, this is the alternate way of activating any product on Esellerate, which doesn't even require a working internet connection. It's usually comes out automatically, if no internet connection is detected.

 

This one require the user to:

 

- Insert the Serial Number. This will result in an Installation ID

 

- Go to a PC with a working Internet connection an go to http://activate.esellerate.net. In our case, the web site will open automatically, because the connection IS working, no need to go to another PC.

 

- Insert the Installation ID in the web site. This will result an Activation ID

 

- Insert the Activation ID into the Esellerate dialog box in FSX. This will activate the scenery.

 

 

The issue that happened THIS WEEK with SOME Esellerate servers not being reachable, resulting an "Esellerate Fatal Failure", is affecting ONLY the standard online activation method. After the failure message, the offline activation would automatically start and THIS one is working normally as it always had.

 

But of course, since there users DO mistakes when typing just ONE Serial Number (we have our error logs and we can see all the failed activations due to mis-typing, and there are plenty, each day), it won't be any better if they have to enter 3 of them, with the manual activation. So yes, the offline activation might be more difficult to use.

 

But in order for the user not being able to activate, even this week, with some of Esellerate servers down, ALL the following must happen:

 

1) The server randomly selected for activation must be one of the affected ones. They are not all down, just some of them, since I can see lots of users activating online normally, even now.

 

AND

 

2) The user must have made some kind of mistake with the manual activation, which is NOT affected in any way by this issue.

 

Checking the activation logs, I can see that most of the users have figured it out how to use the alternate offline activation method without needing any help. Perhaps, some of them being new customers might have thought this IS our standard activation system because, it doesn't work any differently than any other offline activation system out there.

 

So, those having to contact us because they couldn't activate at all, not even with the offline method, were those users that did some kind of typing error during the offline activation. Not many of them, and they were of course all supported, if they contacted us, of course.

 

 

For example, trapping the eSellerate Fatal FAILURE and rather than reporting it directly back to the user, provide a more informative message

You make it sound as if the only message we every give when there's a problem, is the "Fatal Failure". That's not obviously the case. There are about 20 different error message that Esellerate can report to explain a failed activation, and of course we can display all of them.

 

The Fatal failure is the "default catch-all" message that only appears when the Esellerate library can't figure it out itself what really went wrong, and I'm not even 100% sure it's because the servers are just "down", so it's something that could be checked with just a ping. I THINK they have changed something in the servers, because they have another .DLL that developers can use, and that doesn't have that problem.

 

Esellerate hasn't confirmed it's just a "server down" problem,. they only said their are aware of it, and working on a fix, and for the time being, users can just use the offline activation method, which is not affected in any way by this problem.

 

 

I do have a concern that if eSellerate go out of business and/or Virtuali moves on to other pastures (for whatever reason), will all my Virtuali controlled products stop working? The FSX 3rd party community has seen many vendors come and go.

If Esellerate will go out of business, it's not something that will happen without warning, considering they are part of Digital River, which is a very large public company on NASDAQ. If this really happens, we would move to another e-commerce partner and update the Addon Manager to work on top of another activation system.

 

About WE go out of business ?

 

What happened when Cloud9 went out of business (and not because sales were bad, just because the owner decided to change life, exit from the flightsim business and buy a farm. He *really* bought a farm, he's still alive and well...) ? Nothing happened to customers, they just passed the order database to us, so we can keep supporting them and reactivating them in case of need.

 

And, it seems some keep forgetting TWO other backup measures we have in place:

 

1) The ability for the USER to DEACTIVATE a product, without having to contact anyone

 

2) The 90 days window, which means you'll be reactivated automatically after 90 days, even if you exceeded all your activations AND you always forgot to Deactivate.

 

So, even if we went out of business, and didn't do anything about it (like passing our customers data to another company), those two backup measures are there in place to allow you to reactivate forever, at least as long Esellerate exists.

Why is there an extra E in Loath? HA HA!  :lol:

@Jim(firehawk)

 

Add-On Update

 

Ran the latest Add-On Manager and did not get that error flag this time. Installation of KJFKv2 now as it should be.

 

........................now, if I could only get that GSX to recognise the Freighter version and go to the Main Cargo Door, instead of the two flat-bed loaders going to the same rear cargo door, that would be nirvana. Everytime I try anything, the parked plane just goes slewing forever. Not well inter-faced, IMHO.

if I could only get that GSX to recognise the Freighter version and go to the Main Cargo Door, instead of the two flat-bed loaders going to the same rear cargo door, that would be nirvana.

That's why I wrote in one of my previous post:

 

Now, if you please, I would really like to go back doing what I had planned for the week: modeling an high-loader cargo model, in order to be use the main cargo door for the PMDG 777, MD11, 747 and other large freighters. Free of charge, of course, for all GSX users...

Everytime I try anything, the parked plane just goes slewing forever. Not well inter-faced, IMHO.

You mean if you try to EDIT the airplane config, it goes all around the world in Slew mode ?

 

That's because your joystick null zone is not properly calibrated so, as soon the GSX editor put the airplane in Slew mode, the not-centered null zone of the joystick will sent it away.

 

You can fix this in two ways:

 

- Turn off the joystick before edit and airplane, using CTRL+K

 

OR

 

- Configure your key assignment in FSX to remove all joystick axes from the Slew commands.

Why is there an extra E in Loath? HA HA!  :lol:

Extra? :rolleyes:

But no activation checks are made in that case and the program will continue to work if there's no internet connection, just you won't get a notification if there's an update available.

 

Thanks for the clarification Umberto.  So this activation process should ONLY happen once and only once provided my hardware does not change.

 

Can you add some details on what hardware must change in order to trigger an activation check?  You don't need to be very specific (for obvious reasons) but can I assume hardware changes need to be more than GPU or HDs to trigger activation check?

 

You make it sound as if the only message we every give when there's a problem, is the "Fatal Failure". That's not obviously the case. There are about 20 different error message that Esellerate can report to explain a failed activation, and of course we can display all of them.

 

Not suggesting you only get one return message at all (pretty sure I never said that), just suggesting putting a wrapper around Esellerate return messages to benefit the end user and yourself (less support calls or need to add to a FAQ).  In other words, improving the exception processing as to benefit end user and yourself.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

You mean if you try to EDIT the airplane config, it goes all around the world in Slew mode ?

That's because your joystick null zone is not properly calibrated so, as soon the GSX editor put the airplane in Slew mode, the not-centered null zone of the joystick will sent it away.

You can fix this in two ways:

- Turn off the joystick before edit and airplane, using CTRL+K

OR

- Configure your key assignment in FSX to remove all joystick axes from the Slew comman

Thank You, very much,Umberto. Noted.

Thanks for the clarification Umberto.  So this activation process should ONLY happen once and only once provided my hardware does not change.

Exactly.

 

Can you add some details on what hardware must change in order to trigger an activation check?  You don't need to be very specific (for obvious reasons)

I can't be very specific, because I don't have the slightest idea. Hardware detection is entirely a blackbox for us, because it's done entirely inside the Esellerateengine.dll

 

They say what triggers an hardware change are major hardware components, like the cpu or mainboard or the hard drive Windows boots from, and that's seems to be confirmed in my experience, changing the video card or expanding the RAM doesn't usually trigger a reactivation, unless you do it at the same time you also reformat Windows.

 

just suggesting putting a wrapper around Esellerate return messages

It's obviously already using a wrapper, I surely don't print Esellerate error codes as they are, everything is already translated in human language, and they are usually fairly clear.

 

The issue us, THIS particular error, means the Esellerate .DLL doesn't have any clue by itself on what went wrong, because it could be caused by internal causes (for the example, the .DLL begin blocked for some reason) but also from external causes, like a problem with servers. In fact, this was the first time I ever saw that message in relationship to something that happens externally.

 

So, basically, if I simply had to add more to the "Esellerate Fatal Failure", I would need to translate it into something like "Esellerate has failed for some reason, we don't have any idea why this happened, nor does Esellerate, please contact support".

 

Not so much more helpful...

 

In any case, just got an email from Esellerate they'll be on maintenance for the whole weekend, so they will hopefully have everything back to normal by Monday.