Most of the aircraft I fly use the standard "Beacon", "Strobe", "Cabin" etc light variables from FSX. This appears to be in FSUIPC offset "0D0C", one bit per light.

 

The function:

ipc.setbitsUW("0D0C", 2)

for example does successfuly turn the beacon light on.

 

However, the corresponding function:

ipc.clearbitsUW("0D0C", 2)

turns off ALL the lights in offset "0D0C"

 

I have tested with other lights in the offset and the same behavior with ip.clearbitsUW

 

Is this a bug in FSX, an issue with the offsets, or an IPC function that is not working as it should?

 

Thanks for a great application and great support.

 

Henry

 

Henry,

 

I know about this issue (or strange behavior). This happening only on first ipc.setbits call in current session and then it work's fine. It looks like FSUIPC/FSX issue. There is a possible solution however, which I didn't test yet, so you could try it yourself.

 

As the only first call is wrong, we could try to make it this way - put into InitVars() section of your module this line:

 

ipc.setbitsUW("0D0C", ipc.readUW("0D0C"))

 

It should init setbits/clearbits with current lights state and may be it will work fine after that. Cannot test it myself right now.

Thanks for your quick response! I'm happy it's not just me!

 

I will try your suggestion and let you know what happens.

Artem,

 

Unfortunately the workaround to read and set the lights status did not work.

 

Some additional details and we will call it done for now.

1. This only happens in certain aircraft, not all of them. The RealAir SF260 and Virtavia A-4 for sure. Not a problem in the Conrad A-1H or the Iris T-6A.
2. My experience has been mostly with the beacon light causing this behavior (but it is one I use on every aircraft so not fully tested for other lights)
3. Using the FSX command "Toggle Beacon" for the switch assignment does not have the same behavior as ipc.write 0D0C. The FSX command does not behave badly.

My imperfect conclusions: this is an adverse interaction between the gauge programming in certain aircraft and the fact that the beacon light has only a native toggle command (not separate "on" and "off" commands).

 

If you would have any other suggestions, I would be happy to test them.

 

Thanks for all your hard work on LINDA.

Happens with the DODO as well...every time, not just the first time.  When I turn on the nav lights, the strobe lights always turn off...

When I changed the Dodo Nav light settings from Lib:default FSX:Nav on and Nav off to Control:66379, the cross talk between the switches ended.  All works well now.

When I changed the Dodo Nav light settings from Lib:default FSX:Nav on and Nav off to Control:66379, the cross talk between the switches ended.  All works well now.

I will give this a try on one of my "problem children".