Airport Chart Viewer Problem

[A32xx 129]

I'll check my Scenery.cfg lines layout for you this evening, (I'm at w*rk too) but I wouldn't want to start re-ordering them manually either - I wonder if the DB Builder searches .bgl files for certain file names? Most of my AFCAD's begin with AF2, but I also have a few AFX and ADE afd's which I'll also check this evening. Come to think of it I'm sure the radio frequencies and taxi numbers it displays can only come from the actual afd files rather than scenery.cfg.
Another thought: why would the compiler work in Win7 x64 but not in XP SP3? Most apps like this require a particular version of .Net Framework and Visual C++ runtimes installed. I don't know which versions apchart requires, but I have them all installed up to the current versions.

[Dave Morgan 68]

Hi again.

 

I notice you mentioned above that your database 'took an hour to build'. Mine took two and a half minutes, which initially had me thinking that the builder failed to find any addons. That can't be right, though, as it does show addons for which there aren't any corresponding stock afds.

 

My afd files begin variously with AP (the stock bgls), F1UT_, AF1_, ADE_ and other random developer formats. At least one of the addons that do show begins with ADE_ so I suppose that's not it either.

 

Maybe the OS thing is a red herring, as you implied, and the failure really is down to scenery.cfg or whatever else tells the builder where to look. I can't think of anywhere else it could get the folder information from.

 

So in scenery.cfg, the row order I'm using is below.

 

[Area.172]

Title=VHHH Hong Kong

Local=..\avsim scenery\vhhh2005b

Remote=

Active=TRUE

Required=FALSE

Layer=172

flatten.0=0,N22 19.92,E113 52.64,N22 19.92,E113 57.27,N22 17.37,E113 57.27,N22 17.37,E113 52.64

flatten.1=19,N22 18.59,E113 53.56,N22 19.64,E113 56.79,N22 17.36,E113 56.29,N22 17.66,E113 53.68

flatten.2=0,N22 18.44,E113 53.09,N22 18.44,E113 53.73,N22 17.91,E113 53.73,N22 17.91,E113 53.09

 

My scenery.cfg sorter is FSTscenery.exe by Steve Greenwood. it does a pretty good job but doesn't after all remove duplicate layers. There were none in any case. What I have noticed is some variation in the structure of the 'Local=' rows...

 

Local=G:\Program Files\Playsims\VFRPS\Volume10\10-5mp1

Local=..\..\Scotflight\ScotFlight scenery

Local=sbuilder trial

 

... and occasional use of an ampersand and a colon, at least one of which could be some sort of special character. When I consider that the aircraft utility, ACA2005, doesn't like characters with grave or acute accents and replaces them with a 'missing character' rectangle, I suppose apchart may have a similar problem.

 

Best regards,

D

[A32xx 129]

Hi Dave, I think we've eliminated afd file names and scenery.cfg entries (mine are the same layout as yours) and apchart installs it's own runtime libraries, so I suspect Internet Security/Antivirus is blocking certain calls from the DB Builder. I use Comodo Internet Security because it's free and pretty keen - even when you switch it off it's still on in the background. I added the apchart.exe and DB Builder.exe to Comodo's 'Allowed' program list just in case it started popping up 'allow or deny' requests while DB Builder was running, can you do the same with your IS/AV or shut it down while running DB Builder?

[Dave Morgan 68]

Hi.

 

Mine's a standalone PC (hence never upgrading XP when support ran out). Aside from Noautorun (for my memory stick), it has no anti-virus software.

 

 

The only protection it has comes through only downloading via my work network (utterly paranoid firewall & malware hunter-killers). So I guess it's not that either.

 

I think I'll install MS Access when I'm not laying loft insulation this weekend and if that won't open the database then I'll start looking for a copy of Paradox or dBase.

 

Enjoy your weekend.

D

[A32xx 129]

Thanks Dave,

 

I did promise to print some of my Scenery.cfg entries here for comparison, so here goes fwiw:

 

[Area.053]
Title=uk2000 part 1
Layer=99
Active=TRUE
Required=FALSE
Local=Addon Scenery\UK2000 part 1

 

I don't think the line order is significant, but your example above has the line "Remote=" with no TRUE or FALSE statement, whereas none of my entries have that line at all. As an experiment it might be worth (after making a backup first) doing a find and replace all Remote= entries in Notepad to remove it and trying the DB Builder again.

 

Also, none of my entries have abbreviated scenery paths like this:

Local=..\..\Scotflight\ScotFlight scenery

 

Mine are in full, like this:

Local=C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\LAGO\Reggio

 

Although FS is quite happy with the abbreviated path, maybe DB Builder requires the full path?

 

P.S. Thought for the weekend: Why is Abbreviation such a long word?

[Dave Morgan 68]

Well, Access couldn't open it. It probably would have but the database is password protected, a bit of a joke as that doesn't protect the developer's work, just prevents me accessing a list of what's on my PC.

 

Removing the Remote= lines in scenery.cfg had no discernible effect, but then I don't cache scenery from a disc or a server so it wouldn't.

 

Rewriting the Local= lines with full paths left me with a database of zero airports. I have no idea why that should be the case as it works ok for you. FS9 worked fine. Moreover, the old CollectAirports.exe then also found zero airports. Deleting SceneryStatus.dat and all Scenery.dat and rebuilding them had no effect.

 

So I uninstalled Airport Chart Viewer.

 

On cleaning what was left and reinstalling backups, I noticed that Super Flight Planner also fails to find any airports in layers where the full path is shown. This -

 

[Area.228]

Title=VFRPS airports

Local=G:\Program Files\Playsims\VFRPS\VFRPS airports

Active=TRUE

Required=FALSE

Layer=228

 

- left me with none of the unique Playsims airports in my flight planner. It's not an entry I've edited for myself but I can't recall whether or not Playsims' installer created it. I think it must have as all the Horizon/Playsims layers had full paths. Working within FS9, I deleted the scenery layer, shut down & restarted FS9, then re-added the same layer and ended up with this in the scenery.cfg:

 

[Area.228]

Title=VFRPS airports

Local=..\..\Playsims\VFRPS\VFRPS airports

Remote=

Active=TRUE

Required=FALSE

Layer=228

 

Now, when rebuilding SFP's database, the unique airports show up. I may at some point rebuild all my scenery layers and reinstall Apchart for another go but for now I've had enough...

 

Cheers,

D