I followed the instructions to apply the patch and it worked well.  I do not have FSUIPC or ASN, so I avoided issues with that software that was not yet 2.3 compliant.  It would be beneficial, however, to have a simplified patching process.  Perhaps LM will do that some day, but until then we will all have to follow the patching instructions precisely and assure that your add-on products are compliant to the new version.  To me that is just how software works.

Mike - while I understand where you are coming from I take objection to ONE premise of yours - you imply that the patch is inherently flawed. That may be true for YOU and a few others but would you really want EVERYONE (including myself) who had success to post same?  Just as you state that it is inherently flawed, I can state that it is inherently stable - except for a few. See my point?

 

As to LM analyzing the patch - I really doubt that they will - the bulk of their business is commercial and unless they have issues with THOSE clients, I don't believe our user base will effect change.

 

Consider - they provide the main FULL install option which should work for everyone. The fact tht we might have to take time to reinstall all our add-ons is irrelevant. I'd guess that the commercial clients really don't use many add-ons. So they also provide the patch - which MAY work and MAY not - that's a bone to this user base.

 

If all else fails - do the full install - they've fulfilled their obligation.

 

I feel you are beating a dead horse and that there are not enough users having the issue to warrant their time.

 

Vic

One possible reason for the patch failure, assuming you did everything correctly, is the presence of the ASN link. ASN is incompatible with 2.3. You have to either uninstall ASN or disable "as-srv" in the DLL.XML file and delete or rename the "as-srv" folder in the P3D folder. This happened to me also.

 

Frans

I've seen this reason before and it is impossible that it was at fault as LM and Rob stated you have to backup and remove the folder that contains the dll.xml, the fsx.cfg, the scenery.cfg, etc., etc., and then patch. So the patch did not even see those files during the installation. It is only when the installation is completed successfully (and it was NOT for me), that Rob suggests reloading the backed up scenery.cfg and reloading each module in the dll.xml one at a time.

 

You see, this is what I can't understand!

I agree Mike. My upgrade was not successful either and I downloaded the complete new version, installed it, and now in the process of adding a lot of commercial addons and it is very time-consuming. A lot of people are saying it must be our setup but when you remove the LM folder with the dll.xml, fsx.cfg, exe.xml, scenery.cfg, and the P3d folder in Documents (well, everything as recommended), it should have updated without any problems. I tried updating several times before deciding to reinstall everything. I'm really shocked that so many people are saying they had no problems and it was updated the first time they tried. I had my installation in the default installation folders with UAC turned off. Never had a problem with that before but maybe it was a sharing/ownership issue. Don't blame you for being so frustrated.

 

Best regards,

Cruachan, people need to post here that the patch installation worked because you are trying to make believe that it doesn't work for most of the people, which isn't true. Noone likes to lose hours on a full install if we don't have to. I even installed without deleting any folders (just made backups just in case) and it worked as it should.

 

Regards.

I've seen this reason before and it is impossible that it was at fault as LM and Rob stated you have to backup and remove the folder that contains the dll.xml, the fsx.cfg, the scenery.cfg, etc., etc., and then patch. So the patch did not even see those files during the installation. It is only when the installation is completed successfully (and it was NOT for me), that Rob suggests reloading the backed up scenery.cfg and reloading each module in the dll.xml one at a time.I agree Mike. My upgrade was not successful either and I downloaded the complete new version, installed it, and now in the process of adding a lot of commercial addons and it is very time-consuming. A lot of people are saying it must be our setup but when you remove the LM folder with the dll.xml, fsx.cfg, exe.xml, scenery.cfg, and the P3d folder in Documents (well, everything as recommended), it should have updated without any problems. I tried updating several times before deciding to reinstall everything. I'm really shocked that so many people are saying they had no problems and it was updated the first time they tried. I had my installation in the default installation folders with UAC turned off. Never had a problem with that before but maybe it was a sharing/ownership issue. Don't blame you for being so frustrated.Best regards,

Exactly! Thanks Jim, at last someone who really does understand!

 

Best regards,

Mike

 

 

Cruachan, people need to post here that the patch installation worked because you are trying to make believe that it doesn't work for most of the people, which isn't true. Noone likes to lose hours on a full install if we don't have to. I even installed without deleting any folders (just made backups just in case) and it worked as it should.

 

Regards.

Careful, Alvega. Where exactly have I stated that the patch doesn't work for most people? Actually, we have no documented evidence either way. What about the silent majority who have visited these forums? In fact, I suspect the majority of users who have chosen to follow the patch route have indeed experienced success - there would certainly have been a storm of protest if the converse was true. LM would then have had to pay attention irrespective of whether or not they were commercial clients.

 

Regards, Mike

To be perfectly honest, the patch "failed" for me as well, but...

 

...I truly believe I was the one who failed in that I stupidly used the Windows Remove Program function in an attempt to remove the previous "flight planner patch."

 

When I then tried to run a "Repair" on P3Dv2.2, it simply generated an AppHang error since files it expected to see had been removed!

 

Remember that the "patches" replace files that have changed. Repair would have replaced the changed files with the original files, but my stupidity simply removed several hundred files...

 

I can say that all previous patches have worked seamlessly for me, and frankly probably would have worked this time were it not for my lapse of sanity.

 

OTOH, I will state for the record that I consider Microsoft's .msi installer to be the clumsiest and absolute worst system ever devised...

I patched the P3D v2.2 to P3D v2.3 even without removing any folder and P3D v2.2 was the version 10438 too, which folks mentioned it won't be able to be patched. It worked and I got a nice running P3D v2.3.

 

Can it be that all the troubled users have a troubled Windows system or a troubled way to do the patch?

 

Just a guess

Spirit

Can it be that all the troubled users have a troubled Windows system or a troubled way to do the patch?

This really is not helpful to the OP or to anyone else having a problem running the update only. What is a troubled Windows System? What is a troubled way to do the patch? The OP already stated he followed the directions as stated by Rob in the pinned topic and LM's recommendations. The fact that you upgraded without following the LM or Rob's installation instructions (i.e., you did not remove any of the folders or downgrade) may be helpful but this has been stated already, here and other places.

 

 

Exactly! Thanks Jim, at last someone who really does understand!

 

We all understand Mike, but there isn't a heck of a lot any of us can do.  All I/we can do is post what has worked and give people insight on why some aspects fail and can't just be updated by LM.  I made LM aware of the install issues I had pretty early in the Beta process.  However, LM were clear that there might NOT be a patch at all and a full wipe/install will be required ... so I was actually surprised a patch was even made available on release day.

 

The key to the issues of patching is as follows:

 

1.  A patch has NO control or understanding of 3rd party add-ons. LM can only work from what they know and produce.  They don't know what ASN does, what FSUIPC does, what CS 777, what Aerosoft does and the thousands of other 3rd party products do to the EXE.XML, the DLL.XML, the Scenery.cfg, the SimConnect.XML, etc. etc. etc. 

 

2.  There are many products that replace/change base files, REX, Orbx, and others ... LM aren't aware of these, they can only patch what is known to them (their content).

 

For example, suppose LM fix a problem with a base .bgl in the scenery directory ... but suppose that file has been changed by 3rd party ... what's the patch supposed to do?  Install the new .bgl or leave the modified one?  Suppose LM's patch installs the "fixed" .bgl, but now Orbx stuff is broken? (this is a hypothetical situation) ... so now what?  LM are damned if they do and damned if they don't.  As you know, 3rd party content providers don't always work within the bounds of the SDK ... they have come up with creative ways to get more done, but may reside outside of the SDK.

 

There are 1000's of 3rd party content providers, LM can't manage and know what every single one of them does, just impossible ... many of which are keyed to a certain version of P3D in order to work so when that version changes, they don't work.

 

On top of the 1000's of 3rd party content providers, very few are actually designed for P3D V2.x ... most are designed for FSX and many (not all) developers will admit that they don't want to deploy two products (two complete sets of files), one that works with P3D and one that works with FSX ... for the most part they just want to adjust the installer ... path of least resistance.  I can understand 3rd party logic and desire behind this, but I honestly doubt as LM progresses with P3D that this process/logic will be sustainable - more "things" are going to change.

 

If you want the patch process to be "perfect" or at least let an end user know they don't meet a certain requirement, then you are looking at getting 3rd party involved in a WHQL certification process, where they have to provide their product to LM first who will then test it and go thru a testing cycle with the 3rd party vendor.  Even if LM could get 3rd party to agree to such a process, it would increase product costs (for both 3rd party and LM and then passed on to you and I and everyone else) and most certainly a dramatically increase in the time to get a version delivered.

 

What you seek Mike can be done, but it's involves 100's of people/resources to make that a reality ... those resources just don't exists.  So, folks like myself and others are "the resources" ... now I can't prevent people from skipping steps I listed, ignoring hard disk space free warnings, say they have done everything when they haven't, etc. etc. ... people more often than not "do it their own way" (never read instructions) primarily because they want a short cut and many will admit they are just too lazy to "get involved".  The downside is that you/others exhaust available resources, there simply is nothing more we can give and you are left with a sense of "why should I have to do all this" and some frustration in not knowing how things work in P3D and what 3rd party does.

 

I'm not defending LM, the patch process could have been better and hopefully they will attempt to do so next time around (there are many things they can do to inform and warn users of incompatibilities and what is being disabled during the install process) ... but they will never ever be able to resolve 3rd party content nor end user hardware/OS issues.  Hopefully LM will find some middle ground next time around for v2.4.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

......What is a troubled Windows System? What is a troubled way to do the patch? ......

I guess you know what I mean? Can be a corrupted registry or other flaws which resulted from careless changes to Windows Systems.

Spirit

Can it be that all the troubled users have a troubled Windows system or a troubled way to do the patch?

 

Just a guess

Spirit

Hi Spirit,

 

Please try to understand what I'm trying to do here. This is an attempt to prove once and for all whether or not patching, as currently offered by LM, for some of us will likely always prove to be a useless exercise. We believe there is nothing especially unique about our installation configurations nor our Windows systems as everything else seems to be working just fine.

 

I consider myself as having a pretty firm grasp of the workings of Windows and experience has taught me what I should and should not be doing. In fact, since the tweaking days under Windows XP I have preferred, in the main, to leave Windows 7 to its own devices. My installation of Prepar3D thus far has been created with great care and avoidance of products where compatibility could be an issue.

 

Currently in v2.2 I have the following 3rd Party Products installed:

 

ORBX - FTX Global Base, FTX Global Vector, FTX EU Scotland, FTX Global OpenLC Europe, FTX ORBX Libraries (140703), FTXG Lights Configurator.

 

PILOT's - FS Global 2010 FTX Compatible (recommended by ORBX)

 

Scenery Addons - only the one, at present, - AS_AYER'S_ROCK-X_FSX_P3D

 

FSFlyingSchool Pro 2014 (P3Dv2)

 

EZdok Camera with the EZCA 1.17 update

 

Accu-Feel v.2 AL&S. Global FSX Enhancement

 

Aircraft: Accu-Sim C172 Trainer, Piper J-3 Cub, Cherokee 180 (P3D) Academic, Core Update v2.0, Majestic Dash 8-Q400-Pilot Edition

 

FS Global Real Weather v1.7 Build #023

Plan G v3.1.0.82

 

REX4 - Texture Direct v4.2.2014.0520 (I have to confess that I haven't used it yet other than to create backups of the Prepar3D v2.2 default textures)

 

FSUIPC v4.9.3.4 (I have the 'f' beta version ready and waiting)

 

I believe none of these products alter core system files in P3D nor do they alter/modify any source code that might cause the patch updater to fail so spectacularly.

 

So, I would suggest that most if not all of the above were present in many other Prepar3D v2.2 installations prior to a successful patch update.

 

You may have noticed, by now that I have discovered how to create a verbose log file which documents each and every step of the patching process. Perhaps you might feel able to help by offering to examine this file for me. At present my expertise does not extend to the interpretation of such a log file other than to note the apparent success of its operation! .....which is very puzzling.

 

Regards,

Mike

 

 

We all understand Mike, but there isn't a heck of a lot any of us can do. All I/we can do is post what has worked and give people insight on why some aspects fail and can't just be updated by LM. I made LM aware of the install issues I had pretty early in the Beta process. However, LM were clear that there might NOT be a patch at all and a full wipe/install will be required ... so I was actually surprised a patch was even made available on release day.

 

The key to the issues of patching is as follows:

 

1. A patch has NO control or understanding of 3rd party add-ons. LM can only work from what they know and produce. They don't know what ASN does, what FSUIPC does, what CS 777, what Aerosoft does and the thousands of other 3rd party products do to the EXE.XML, the DLL.XML, the Scenery.cfg, the SimConnect.XML, etc. etc. etc.

 

2. There are many products that replace/change base files, REX, Orbx, and others ... LM aren't aware of these, they can only patch what is known to them (their content).

 

For example, suppose LM fix a problem with a base .bgl in the scenery directory ... but suppose that file has been changed by 3rd party ... what's the patch supposed to do? Install the new .bgl or leave the modified one? Suppose LM's patch installs the "fixed" .bgl, but now Orbx stuff is broken? (this is a hypothetical situation) ... so now what? LM are damned if they do and damned if they don't. As you know, 3rd party content providers don't always work within the bounds of the SDK ... they have come up with creative ways to get more done, but may reside outside of the SDK.

 

There are 1000's of 3rd party content providers, LM can't manage and know what every single one of them does, just impossible ... many of which are keyed to a certain version of P3D in order to work so when that version changes, they don't work.

 

On top of the 1000's of 3rd party content providers, very few are actually designed for P3D V2.x ... most are designed for FSX and many (not all) developers will admit that they don't want to deploy two products (two complete sets of files), one that works with P3D and one that works with FSX ... for the most part they just want to adjust the installer ... path of least resistance. I can understand 3rd party logic and desire behind this, but I honestly doubt as LM progresses with P3D that this process/logic will be sustainable - more "things" are going to change.

 

If you want the patch process to be "perfect" or at least let an end user know they don't meet a certain requirement, then you are looking at getting 3rd party involved in a WHQL certification process, where they have to provide their product to LM first who will then test it and go thru a testing cycle with the 3rd party vendor. Even if LM could get 3rd party to agree to such a process, it would increase product costs (for both 3rd party and LM and then passed on to you and I and everyone else) and most certainly a dramatically increase in the time to get a version delivered.

 

What you seek Mike can be done, but it's involves 100's of people/resources to make that a reality ... those resources just don't exists. So, folks like myself and others are "the resources" ... now I can't prevent people from skipping steps I listed, ignoring hard disk space free warnings, say they have done everything when they haven't, etc. etc. ... people more often than not "do it their own way" (never read instructions) primarily because they want a short cut and many will admit they are just too lazy to "get involved". The downside is that you/others exhaust available resources, there simply is nothing more we can give and you are left with a sense of "why should I have to do all this" and some frustration in not knowing how things work in P3D and what 3rd party does.

 

I'm not defending LM, the patch process could have been better and hopefully they will attempt to do so next time around (there are many things they can do to inform and warn users of incompatibilities and what is being disabled during the install process) ... but they will never ever be able to resolve 3rd party content nor end user hardware/OS issues. Hopefully LM will find some middle ground next time around for v2.4.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Hi Rob,

 

Many thanks for taking the time to provide such a comprehensive explanation as to why I may be onto a loser here. I accept that, in the end, you may be proved to be correct. However, having come this far, I would like to pursue this for just a little longer in the hope that something positive and useful may come out of it.

 

You may have noticed that I have discovered that there is a way of creating a verbose log file documenting each step of the patching process:

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/449591-p3dv22-to-v23-patch-log-created-help-needed/

 

I know you are a busy chap but I wonder whether you might be prepared to look at this file for me? It was generated yesterday and is 15.5MB in size. Rather frustratingly, the last few lines report a successful installation yet the evidence, stubbornly, continues to contradict.

 

If you are willing then I can provide a link to the file in any way you feel would be most convenient.

 

Kind regards,

Mike

Hi Spirit,

 

.............

 

You may have noticed, by now that I have discovered how to create a verbose log file which documents each and every step of the patching process. Perhaps you might feel able to help by offering to examine this file for me. At present my expertise does not extend to the interpretation of such a log file other than to note the apparent success of its operation! .....which is very puzzling

 

..........

 

Hi Mike,

well, I read about your success to create a kind of logfile. Related to the file size it must be a huge pile of information. I'm sure without profound detailed knowledge of the internals nobody will be able to find the reason for your problems in it.

 

You should offer the log at the LM forum and maybe you'll find a kind hearted developer to look a it.

 

For me I've to confess that I'm 99% sure that I won't be able to find out anything of importance in the log. Ok, it's a saying that even a blind chicken can find a corn - sometimes - but I doubt that it will be me.

 

I've the feeling that you're on a mission now and you want to proof LM that they were not right to purge your forum thread. I recommend to forget your hurted feelings and step forward with a complete P3D v2.3 installation. Better to enjoy P3D v2.3 than to get bad feelings about it for too long.

 

Sorry, I can't help you.

Spirit

Hi Mike,

well, I read about your success to create a kind of logfile. Related to the file size it must be a huge pile of information. I'm sure without profound detailed knowledge of the internals nobody will be able to find the reason for your problems in it.

 

You should offer the log at the LM forum and maybe you'll find a kind hearted developer to look a it.

 

For me I've to confess that I'm 99% sure that I won't be able to find out anything of importance in the log. Ok, it's a saying that even a blind chicken can find a corn - sometimes - but I doubt that it will be me.

 

I've the feeling that you're on a mission now and you want to proof LM that they were not right to purge your forum thread. I recommend to forget your hurted feelings and step forward with a complete P3D v2.3 installation. Better to enjoy P3D v2.3 than to get bad feelings about it for too long.

 

Sorry, I can't help you.

Spirit

Hi Spirit,

 

Sorry you feel that way. As far as the log file is concerned I can assure you it is perfectly legit and was created using msiexec.exe. Yes the file is large but, assuming I am interpreting what I am seeing correctly, much of it is simply taken up with scanning and confirmation that texture files, etc are already installed correctly. This, of course, implies that the patch updater must include a database of file names and registry entries. So we have learned something already.

 

I'm really surprised that you are not even curious about all this as you do seem to spend a great deal of your time trying to help others on the forums.

 

It's almost as though there is a blind acceptance of what may prove to be the inevitable. Yes, LM do provide some support, but the level is not nearly as high as some might be suggesting. In fact, I would say their involvement on their support forums is only marginally higher than was provided by the ACES team. Doubtless they are ignoring stuff like this in the hope that it will finally go away..and they are probably right as it's a not uncommon attitude these days.

 

One final point before I 'go away' (lol) and that is I'm willing to wager that LM have Prepar3D installations with all the core ORBX products and these same installations have been tested with the patch updater yet they appear unwilling to share their experiences doubtless because it might be misinterpreted as advertising/recommending a third party product.

 

Why oh why is this proving to be such an uphill struggle? So much resistance to what might prove to be helpful to a significant number of users.

 

Regards,

Mike

 

 

So much resistance to what might prove to be helpful to a significant number of users.

 

They've already installed the full version and are flying.

 

Let it go.

 

Cheers,

Mark

Went ahead and tried to upgrade from the hotfix version and yadda yadda key error, tried to fix permissons, no joy. Didn't expect it to work as none of my previous P3D upgrades ever worked. It's always full install or nothing.