Panelscreens going dark after 25 secs - PMDG747-400 (FS9, XP SP3)

[bene 0]

Hello dear Precisionmanuals team,

 

 

I already owned the PMDG738/9 (FS9) for many years and it is my favorite payware addon, as it works like a dream.

 

Of course I had the same high expectations about the other PMDG products, so I purchased the PMDG747-400 (FS9) some days ago and was very looking forward to it. It's the boxed version that I bought from Aerosoft. The CD says Version 1.1b.

 

I installed it, it let me the choice to install 2005 Navdata and 2005 flightplans, which of course I didn't want, as I have the current navigraph AIRAC already working in my PMDG738/9. So I unselected those in the installer options.

 

Plane installed, first try: CTD after only 2 seconds.

 

Troubleshooting done, looked for the reason on the web: Turned out the boxed V1.1b version installer is buggy and that you apparently are forced to install those outdated navdata and flightplans (which I personally would never have wanted to use anyways), because if you don't, the installation will lack some important other soundfiles (oddly enough)??

 

So I installed again, over the first installation (without deinstalling the plane). I chose "Modify installation" and selected "Flightplans". Done. Then I saw that the flightplans were in the navdata folder. Ok. BUT, somehow nearly half of the files which had been actually all there after the first installation in my PMDG747-400 aircraft folder, now had vanished. (Model folder and all the sound folders!) uhm?

 

So started the CD installer again, and clicked on "repair installation". Done. The missing files in the PMDG747-400 aircraft folder had not come back. The option "repair" did not repair anything for me.

 

Did another installation from the CD (1.1B), this time with the entire plane selected + flightplans and without the 2005 navdata.

 

Ok, the missing Model files and soundfiles have come back. I light up the sim, try the plane again. This time it will at least not crash to desktop. BUT, and now my actual problem:  The panelscreens (like Eicas etc) will show for some short moments, and then will vanish and never ever come back. No matter if you have the engines running, all the power connected etc. The FMC seems to work fine, it finds my AIRAC, nice. I also handflew the plane for some circuits, but without any working panel screens. Basically everything seems to work now, except the screens.

 

So I did some more reading on the internet. I saw on the Precisionmanuals website, that there is an 1.2 update available for my FS9 PMDG747-400. So downloaded that and installed it over my installation. Set up the sim again, very same problem. This is really getting annoying now. The aircraft.cfg was also updated since the 1.2 update. So I took all the bunch of liveries which I had already installed (some from the CD, and some manually from avsim.library) before actually having tested the plane, cause in no way I would have expected any problems, and copied the entries into the new aircraft.cfg and did NOT alter anything else.

 

 

By the way, I had no troubles while entering my product key during the first installation from the CD either. Just for your info, I unfortunately permanently deleted the backupped aircraft.cfg from V1.1b before the V.1.2 update, because in no way I would have thought that this is getting so very complicated to get this product to function properly.

 

And yes, I did the procedures, I fired the plane up the very same way the manual said, and I also checked tuturial vids on youtube, and all those guys got their panel screens lighted up. If I repeat the startup procedures they did, my screens stay dark and will never come on.

 

My aircraft.cfg I have now starts by:

 

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
//25APR08
//VERSION 1.20
//        
//PMDG 747-400
///////////////////////////////////////////////////////
 

And later on:

 

 

//Do Not Alter the following line or your 747-400 may cease operating.
[AFDSAuth]
---BEGIN SHA1---
---END SHA1---
// Do Not Alter the above lines.

 

 

But there is nothing in between ---BEGIN SHA1--- and ---END SHA1--- anymore, and I did not even touch this! What can I do to avoid deinstalling, and to avoid deleting the fs9.cfg and altering registry stuff, cause seriously, I had a very tidied and perfectly working FS9 installation which I was very happy with, no FS crashes at all, and in no way I would like to mess around with it now.

 

I mean I can understand that you protect your products against piracy, but please, why do you come up with those messed up installers and frustrate your honest costumers? We payed a lot of money for this, so I expect this to work, and not only after days of troubleshooting.. I have to admit that I'm dissappointed so far.

I'm sure it is a great addon, but only if it works for me.

 

I still have some slight hope you have some alternate hint than "deinstall the plane, delete your fs9.cfg, do this and that in your registry and twenty more other things"  just to get the B747 working but cause a lot of other inconveniences that I would never have expected to face.

 

 

Thanks in advance for your help, I'd really appreciate it. And still a Happy New Year to the Precisionmanuals team!

[scandinavian13 5,192]

 

 

Thanks in advance for your help, I'd really appreciate it...

 

Go ahead and submit a ticket at support.precisionmanuals.com

 

While that's the product that got me into PMDG products, I never had to support it, so I don't have much of a clue about where to start (especially because it's not a download directly from us). Guaranteed one of the other guys will know what to do, though.

[bene 0]

No worries Kyle:)

 

And thank you, I will do that.

[bene 0]

Well, looks like it messed up my PMDG738/9 too, whose autopilot is completely unusable now, not working properly at all anymore:( This was my very favorite plane, was flying it daily! Anybody knows what might be going on?

 

I was doing a testflight with it, and somehow something has resaved or maybe even modified its aircraft.cfg during that, but only in the version I just flew, I see the aircraft.cfg date and time, I don't find though what or if anything has been altered in it at all. I swear I did not touch the file at all, so how is this possible? I don't want this PMDG747 on my system to ruin my PMDG737...  no idea what to do now. I'm already thinking about throwing the PMDG747 off completely, I'm so damn dissappointed, I would never have thought that it messes other things up as well... oh well..

[scandinavian13 5,192]

 

 

Anybody knows what might be going on?

 

Just send us a ticket and I have a feeling we'll be able to give you quicker/better help.

[bene 0]

I did so, yesterday already.

[bene 0]

With the help of your support mail I was able to solve the problem. Thank you very much guys, this plane is AWESOME!!

 

Well, the PMDG738 autopilot is still a bit Kamikaze since I have the PMDG747 working, but I guess it's not gonna get better than this. And yes I respected the correct install order.

 

Anyways, thanks a lot for your help! And happy flights. I still wanna appologize for my remarks in the first post, but I was a bit frustrated.