For some unknown reason P3D is no longer reproducing any effects such as contrails, wintip trails, etc. After reading posts made by people with similar issues no solution has been found, so I am now faced with two options do a complete wipe and reinstall of Windows + P3D or just reinstall P3D and it is this later option for which I would appreciate some guidance.

 

If I were to remove and reinstall P3D only, would my other addons already installed work? What would be the quickest and most efficient way to do this?

 

Grateful for any advice.

Off the top of my head, have you rechecked whether the special effects settings were turned off?  Another possibility is that an effects file was deleted or corrupted.  You could always try and repair P3D and see if it gets fixed.

Have you made any changes to you Sim?  If so what?    Do you have PreciptFS ?  

 

What Jim said 

 

Off the top of my head, have you rechecked whether the special effects settings were turned off?  Another possibility is that an effects file was deleted or corrupted.  You could always try and repair P3D and see if it gets fixed.

 

=================

 

If your going to Uninstall and then Reinstall Prepar3D,  The Add On's that you have Installed into your Prepar3D folder will have will have to be removed in Programs and Features. and Installed again.  The Add On's you have Installed Outside the Folder will be fine, you can link these back in, in various and easy ways.

 

Before you do anything like that,  Run a Repair first.   Right Click and run the Prepar3D.exe again and Click Repair  

Thanks for the replies.

 

Poppet, now that you mention it I do have PreciptFS and the packages for the 737 and 777 all installed. Didn't realised you could repair P3D, so I will try that first. Did read of similar problems on Forums and some posters did have the packages I mentioned above.

 

Regards

Did a repair but no contrails or other effects visible. Issue really started after installation of PrecipitFX, 737 & 777 Immersion. After removal of these packages no contrails appear. I have checked the effects folder to see if all files are there, but it wouldn't hurt if someone could let me know which effects files are needed for the contrails so that I can double check.

 

Thanks

Have you tried all the obvious stuff,  Open your PreciptFS Control Panel and Inject your Effects/Textures again.

 

I don't have the 737 & 777 Immersion pack,  I have the base pack,  have you checked the folders for the files after you Inject,  you will know them by date and name.

 

When I Inject my PrecipitFX into Prepar3D it will Install files into my Textures folder called something like fsx_PFX_xxx.   It will also Install  files into my Effects and a further 2 files in Effects\Textures called fsfx_PFX_contrail.bmp and  fsfx_PFX_Vaportrail.bmp. 

 

Check these as well.

 

It will also add an Entry with up to and maybe more 9 different effects to each one of my Planes in my aircraft.cfg located in Prepar3D v3\Simobjects.  You could verify this as well by checking under [effects].  

 

Check your Effects is up all the way in Prepar3D.  Oh and Delete your Shaders folder,  It seems to work for everything :smile: 

 

Apart from that,  You will have to contact Kevin Menard from fsfxpackages  

Also, try this program and see if helps. It used to be called Gauges and effects recovery. It should work in 3.2. 

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kb3a1f324e2vw70/gauges_effects_recover.zip?dl=0

 

Here's part of the readme

 

'Gauges Effects Recover 2.0 (formerly Gauges Recovery v1.2) For FS2004, FSX, FSX-Steam, P3D v1.4 and P3D v2.5

 

New in version 2.0 : Restoration is now compatible with all flight simulators based on Microsoft Flight Simulator, added DLL fix

 

DESCRIPTION:

 

This program RESTORE the original files of Gauges and Effects folders of your flight simulator.

 

Compatible:

- Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004

- Microsoft Flight Simulator X (any version)

- Microsoft Flight Simulator X Steam Edition

- Lockheed Martin Prepar3D v 1.4

- Lockheed Martin Prepar3D v 2.5

 

Gauges Effects Recover is very useful in case of instability of your simulator and allows you to avoid having to reinstall the game if you are missing some files.'

 

Cheers 

After uninstalling all packages and reinstalling PrecipitFX only, I can confirm the following:

 

Elaine

 

Aircraft.cfg 

//(Disabled by FSFX_PFX_Effect)touchdown=fx_tchdwn, 1

//(Disabled by FSFX_PFX_Effect)vaportrail_l=fx_dummy

//(Disabled by FSFX_PFX_Effect)vaportrail_r=fx_dummy

 

touchdown = fsfx_PFX_5451754250764F397544796D3272546754336958544C5A414562734555613368 //FSFX_PFX_Effect

contrail = fsfx_PFX_3263496B6372304972726C58476F30724A6E6642493438546C5369687130724B //FSFX_PFX_Effect

vaportrail_l = fsfx_PFX_34674C5337767A6562726E38486D6958794975646E594E357576646268717151 //FSFX_PFX_Effect

vaportrail_r = fsfx_PFX_34674C5337767A6562726E38486D6958794975646E594E357576646268717151 //FSFX_PFX_Effect

SnowEngineWash = fsfx_PFX_3263496B6372304972726D3730684D4C74476972496C62414973497447333165 //FSFX_PFX_Effect

WetEngineWash = fsfx_PFX_3263496B6372304972726B7A6C552B3438463674612F5544396C754D5A516C55 //FSFX_PFX_Effect

WheelSnowSpray = fsfx_PFX_77755038474E6775336E5979767345506C38564553346F68304B333832395476 //FSFX_PFX_Effect

WheelWetSpray = fsfx_PFX_77755038474E6775336E61444251543245683042306545366578725A326A6E6A //FSFX_PFX_Effect

SkidPavement = fsfx_PFX_77755038474E6775336E5A6C3231714C4F656D4E4E48576F4544356C6F36676F //FSFX_PFX_Effect

 

Effects folder

24 .fx files starting with fsfx_PFX

In the Texture folder:

fsfx_contrail.bmp

fsfx_PFX_contrail.bmp

fsfx_PFX_vaportrail.bmp

fsfx_WingTipCondens.bmp

 

Main Texture Folder in P3D

32 files relating to snow and rain and ending in .bkp - for example:  SnowVeryLightA.bmp.fsfx_VFX_PFX.bkp

 

Virginia340

 

All shaders deleted

Thanks for the download link. Did install and ran Gauges/Effects.

 

Still no contrails or effects.

 

I won't pursue this anymore, just tired of messing around. Will rebuild the PC from image and reinstall everything from scratch, not sure if I'll bother with these effects packages.

 

Big thanks to you all for your help.

 

Regards

I am probably too late in saying this but rebuilding your system is a little bit of overkill.  Your concerns and issues deal only with the sim so uninstalling the sim and related add-ons would be the furthest I would go.  I would also make sure that EVERY file associated with the sim is deleted prior to a reinstall.  I would also consult with any readme file or manual accompanying the software to ensure you get every file and every folder.   Something must still be resident to cause the same issue to repeat itself.

 

I would also contact the appropriate developer and if they have a forum, to consult with them as well.

 

Reinstalling your system isn't always a prudent measure to take when something like this happens.  I bet dollars to donuts it is constrained to only your sim directories.

Yashigashi,

 

Thanks for your input. I have a full installation of Windows and P3D v3.2 + Orbx sceneries on image and rebuilding the PC takes literally no more than 30 minutes. Most of my addons are outside P3D on a separate drive, so the only thing that I would need to do is install the payware aircraft and a couple of other minor programs. Rather do that than spending a lot of time finding the culprit, I am almost certain which one it is since the problem started after certain programs were installed, I cannot say anymore because I do not have absolute proof and it would be unfair to say anything else.

 

Rebuilding is a quick and sure way of getting everything up and running and being able to fly.

 

 

Regards

Yashigashi,

 

Thanks for your input. I have a full installation of Windows and P3D v3.2 + Orbx sceneries on image and rebuilding the PC takes literally no more than 30 minutes. Most of my addons are outside P3D on a separate drive, so the only thing that I would need to do is install the payware aircraft and a couple of other minor programs. Rather do that than spending a lot of time finding the culprit, I am almost certain which one it is since the problem started after certain programs were installed, I cannot say anymore because I do not have absolute proof and it would be unfair to say anything else.

 

Rebuilding is a quick and sure way of getting everything up and running and being able to fly.

 

 

Regards

I hear ya.  I take no pleasure in having to reinstall everything from scratch.  It ranks up there with moving and taxes. :(

Agree...... but long time ago I began to make use of images and I find them really useful and quick and well worth the initial time spent creating them.

 

Cheers.

Have you simply tried to uninstall PrecipitFX and check if the issue persists?

 

We are observing similar issues lately with P3D v3 and we are still trying to figure out the source of the issue.

Last time we had this issue, a bad NVIDIA driver was the root cause.

 

The particles system is currently a neglected aspect of the platform and is really easy to break will little to no effort. a simple Drivers update might break the entire particles system.

 

PrecipitFX does not remove default contrail files, it only reassigns them in each aircraft.cfg to point to the right files. Uninstalling the product will restore the original assignments and default contrails should be back. If they aren't, the issue isn't with PrecipitFX but an external force.

 

 

Regards,

Keven

Keven, first of all thanks for your reply.

I uninstalled and reinstalled your 3 effects packages, deleted shaders, deleted P3D.cfg and checked aircraft.cfgs to ensure effects entries where there (they were), however no effects or contrails appeared with our without effects packages. All was working fine until recently although I'm not sure when exactly they all disappeared. The only thing I added to the sim was this:
http://www.avsim.com/topic/487786-realismshaderpack-v11/

I don't have Estonia Migration Tool installed or any other external programs with the exception of Active Sky Next and vpilot (Vatsim pilot client).

As i mentioned in one of my previous posts, my intention is to rebuild the whole PC with images I have created. However until then (Saturday) I am more than willing to assist you if necessary in checking anything you may wish to investigate.

Kind regards

Great post Guys have to look for this and make sure mine are still working - just installed recently on new P3D install so really wasnt noticing that this may be an issue - I do have RSP so well see