FTX Central 3 Topic

[Guest]

 

 

And yes, FTX Central finally crapped out on me about an hour ago without finishing the download.

 

Take not that when you restart FTX Central your download won't automatically resume but not all is lost: when you select to download Southern Alaska again, it should resume where it left when FTX Central stopped.

 

I have to agree though that quite often speeds are not as good as they should be. Did you try the manual download option on the OrbxDirect site? Log in to the site, go to the product, click on View order details and then somewhere near the bottom you will see:

 

The preferred way to download this product is with the "Download via FTX Central" button above. However, if you are unable to download the product via FTX Central, you can use the manual download (but we strongly recommend using FTX Central).

 

The words 'manual download' is the link to the file. Maybe this will give better results. Be sure to use a downloadmanager that supports resume!

[BlueStar 323]

 

 

Well, since you are so smart, tell me what I am doing wrong

 

I downloaded a new library yesterday evening while in UAAA without any problems.  Don't know what to tell you?

 

I will be back in the World on Wednesday afternoon and will check again.

 

blaustern

[Samaritano 304]

The warning for other flight simmers is:  Do not switch to FTX Central 3 until Orbx gets their act together.

 

Thank you Thomas. I'm still in v2. There is no need for me to update to version 3 at this moment. Eventually I'm going to have to but what's the hurry. Hopefully you are able to sort everything out.

[tjstreak 53]

There are now 24 PAGES of complaints by customers that FTX Central and FTX Direct are not working.  Most of those complaints remained unanswered.

 

Orbx claims that they are limiting manual downloads to fiver per day.  I have been unable to get even one.  I keep on getting an error message I have exceeded my downloads.

 

Also, the manual downloads do not work with Get Right.  They do not work with the Internet Download Manager.  They do not work with Down Them All (for Firefox).

 

Contrary to a comment here, FTC Central does not always save its place when it crashes.  When FTX Central crashes, it often really crashes.  In my experience, more often than not, it just starts the download all over again.  This is particularly frustrating when a download has been going on all night, and it crashes just before finishing.

 

I have tried manual downloads with Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox.

 

Stupid me!  I relied on Orbx's generally good reputation for producing a quality product in transferring my licenses.  This trust appears to have been about a $3,000 mistake.

 

At this time, their webstore is largely dysfunctional.

 

I understand Orbx's desire not to share with a retailer the money people pay for their products.  However, the Flightsim Store is a competent retailer.  Orbx, not so much.  They really needed to have a functioning webstore in place before demanding that licenses be transferred.

 

Contrary to some of the comments here, one should not have to read a 100 page manual, or have to read any instructions at all to download a file.  There should be a download button at the site.  A consumer should only have to push the download button, or right click it to use a download manager, which should work.  This should not be difficult or complex for the consumer.  The first rule of salesmanship is one does not make it difficult for customers to give you their money.

 

Blaming flightsimmers who have paid for products in good faith for problems with Orbx is just plain wrong.  I kinda sorta understand the desire by some to defend a developer and blame the consumber...  But not really.  People, and a lot of them, are having very real problems accessing products they have paid for.

 

Support for these problems has been non-existant.  If one complains, they get mad and refuse to help.  In dealing with internet merchants, I have never encountered such miserable customer support.  From many of his comments on his own site and elsewhere, it is fairly obvious JV should not be in the customer support business.

 

I have purchased nearly 100 Orbx products.  By any account, I have been a good customer.  With the problems I have experienced, I doubt I will be buying any more.

 

My advice to other flightsimmers would be under no circumstances should you transfer your licenses from the Flightsim store until they get these problems fixed.  Also, flightsimmers should be wary about purchasing any products directly from Orbx until they get their webstore straightened out.

 

Anyone who tells you otherwise is doing you a grave disservice.

[Penzoil3 480]

What could possibly be wrong with dial-up speed downloads. I love having a download manager tell me that my download will finish in 586 hours. It's just wonderful to be able to back up my install like this.

 Sue

[Jimm 437]

Um folks, there is another option for those with issues with download speeds.  In the settings menu for FTX3 (click on the cog icon in the lower left), there is a check box you can check for "Use the ORBX CDN".  This supposedly helps ensure your downloads come through.  I haven't had a need to use it, but it was mentioned a couple of times in the ORBX forums.

 

 

Orbx claims that they are limiting manual downloads to fiver per day.  I have been unable to get even one.  I keep on getting an error message I have exceeded my downloads.

This is because John limited download capabilities for people who were downloading their products that were already installed, for the purpose of archiving.  Yes, there is a limit, not sure if it is still in effect, but the point is, if you have the products installed, there is no need to re-download them.  There are many other people who are trying to get their products ported over to FTXC3 and bandwidth is a commodity.  If you feel your issue is more serious, then by all means file a ticket with their support forum.

[tjstreak 53]

Actually, I tried the Orbx CDN option, and it didn't help.

 

I was not archiving my copy of Southern Alaska.  I was updating it.  I recently switched to P3d from FSX.  My last version of Southern Alaska was version 1.30, which does not supported P3d v. 3.  I was trying to download Southern Alaska version 1.50, which does.  And. no I could not get version 1.30 to work with the Estonia migration tool.

 

Also, I don't see why downloading from the site is worse than downloading through FTX Central 3.  The files are the same size, aren't they?  And they all take bandwidth.

 

Besides, how many webstores can you name that limit the number of downloads you can make?  Aerosoft doesn't do it.  Simmarket doesn't do it.  Just Flight doesn't do it.  Flight 1 doesn't do it.  The Flightsim store doesn't do it.  Perhaps, these stores don't do it because they are retailers, and they want people to purchase their products?  Orbx's attitude here is truly weird.  I don't see why JV has to blame his customers for trying to download products they paid for.

 

I suspect part of the answer is that JV did not realize just how expensive it can be to run a retail operation.  Most merchants have sufficient bandwidth to support their customers.  But having that bandwidth is expensive and it sucks a lot of the profit out of sales.  Welcome to retail!

 

By the way, I have been a retailer.  I owned a bookstore and actually had  a webstore.  I wish I had had even 1/100 of the traffic Orbx has!  I actually paid another company to host my webstore.  Retail is hard.

 

What I really suspect is that JV is trying to force people to use FTX Central 3. even though he knows it is buggy and has slow download speeds.  For heaven's sake, if he didn't know it when FTX Central 3 was released, 24 pages of complaints should have given him a hint.  He certainly has posted about the problems and has promised a new release of FTX Central 3 -- release date unknown.

 

Another part of the problem is that Orbx has nuked the ability of customers to download from the Flightsim store.  I guess if you read the fine print, you are giving up your right to download your files from the Flightsim store.  That is, once you start using FTX Central 3, you can no longer download from the webstore where you bought the product.  Once you switch, there is no going back.  This would not be so bad if FTX Central actually worked as promised.  Again, this is truly weird stuff;  if Orbx were truly concerned about people archiving their purchases, why not let them use the Flightsim store's bandwidth? Sneaky stuff, that fine print.

[Guest]

 

 

check for "Use the ORBX CDN".  This supposedly helps ensure your downloads come through.

 

No, not really (or not at all): you will be using another server, that's all. For some it works (sometimes) and for some it won't (sometimes). Choosing this will not ensure a download comes through.

 

I just had my first experience with a manual download from the site. Shortly after the release of Central 3 I downloaded and installed PNW and four airports (which I didn't have installed yet). That took about a complete evening. Not really a huge problem but things were clearly slower than usual. I want to install OpenLC EU now (for when LOWI gets released, which I may get) and decided to not do this at home (because it would take a bit too long) but at work. On my work I have a superfast internet connection which usually downloads for instance 5 GB in a few minutes, no problem. OpenLC EU, which is around 6 GB, took two hours (still ok compared to others...) but 1. I had to continue the download some 5 times due to time out errors and 2. the zip was faulty... it won't unzip. Soooooo not too happy about that here. I will see if using Central 3 at home will give a better result.

 

Anyway, I am beginning to feel the pain some of you are having. If a superfast internet connection gives this result, I really feel sorry for those with regular or even lower internet connections. Specially if you have to download every addon you have. At first I was happy with Central 3 because I also like Steam but Steam downloads are perfect and Orbx downloads aren't. Huge difference. 

 

BTW I also am dazzled by the fact the downloads don't have logical filenames... pretty odd. I knew about this but it still amazes me.

[Jimm 437]

No, not really (or not at all): you will be using another server, that's all. For some it works (sometimes) and for some it won't (sometimes). Choosing this will not ensure a download comes through.

 

I just had my first experience with a manual download from the site. Shortly after the release of Central 3 I downloaded and installed PNW and four airports (which I didn't have installed yet). That took about a complete evening. Not really a huge problem but things were clearly slower than usual. I want to install OpenLC EU now (for when LOWI gets released, which I may get) and decided to not do this at home (because it would take a bit too long) but at work. On my work I have a superfast internet connection which usually downloads for instance 5 GB in a few minutes, no problem. OpenLC EU, which is around 6 GB, took two hours (still ok compared to others...) but 1. I had to continue the download some 5 times due to time out errors and 2. the zip was faulty... it won't unzip. Soooooo not too happy about that here. I will see if using Central 3 at home will give a better result.

 

Anyway, I am beginning to feel the pain some of you are having. If a superfast internet connection gives this result, I really feel sorry for those with regular or even lower internet connections. Specially if you have to download every addon you have. At first I was happy with Central 3 because I also like Steam but Steam downloads are perfect and Orbx downloads aren't. Huge difference. 

 

BTW I also am dazzled by the fact the downloads don't have logical filenames... pretty odd. I knew about this but it still amazes me.

I never claimed that option would work better, but it is an option to use.  Since you and the OP proved it is about the same, then we're back to square one. :(

 

I experienced slow downloading through FTXC3 to get the latest library (last night), but that could have been due to other network traffic on my end, so I can't jump the gun and fault ORBX.

 

I can't totally get behind ORBX for this new system, nor can I say it's junk.  So far, my own personal experience with FTXC3 in downloading and installing (even migrating) has worked and that's all I can ask for right now.  I can understand the OP being upset (I've been there), but ORBX did make the announcement about the move a while ago, so there is that, but as far as the influx of downloading overloading the servers, that's on them and I have to agree with a lot of people that we really shouldn't be penalized.  All in all, ORBX can do whatever they want.  We pay for the license, not the software so they can change the product, change the delivery methods and installation process however they like and we still have the choice of whether to continue using their products or not.

 

 

 

I don't see why JV has to blame his customers for trying to download products they paid for.

 

 

His blame comes from the information he gets from the servers, indicating that many were downloading the content that the users already had installed, and they were using the archive feature, allowing users the ability to maintain a "copy" to have handy if no internet connection was available at the time of a reinstall.  This was all outlined in his explanations.  His team can see who is downloading, what they are downloading and why.  It's pretty simple now:

 

Buy a product right now - no restriction on bandwidth

Download for the purpose of reinstall with no existing installation - no restriction on bandwidth

Download for the purpose of archiving - restriction

 

John also said this would be a temporary measure.  Also, another option is if you still have the FSS installers for your products (provided they are up to date as of the shutdown/restart, you can install the content.

[pmb 5,137]

Downloaded, installed and archived the complete 130+ products ORBX product range using FTX Central 3 into a brand-new system within 3 half-days. No issues, all working as far as I checked.

 

Kind regards, Michael 

[Guest]

Downloaded, installed and archived the complete 130+ products ORBX product range using FTX Central 3 into a brand-new system within 3 half-days. No issues, all working as far as I checked.

 

Lucky you. :wink: After the failed download this afternoon I used Central to install OpenLC this evening. It took 1 hour and 45 minutes and I had to restart Central at one point because the download seemed to be stuck. After restarting Central and clicking on install again (because it doesn't auto-resume) the download seemed stuck once more but suddenly, after some 15 minutes, the addon was installed.

 

Seems to me the progress bar needs some updating. It tells you it is downloading at a speed of 0.0 while it is actually (I suppose) installing things. Hopefull the update they are working on will fix this.

 

Still I wonder how you managed to download etc. 130+ products if one product takes this time already. And compared to others 1 hour and 45 minutes is pretty quick!

[Penzoil3 480]

I just submitted a ticket asking to have my FSS downloads reactivated.  I've been trying (manually) to download a backup of Germany North for 2 days. Today it's been running an average of 70kbs, and after 4 hours it's at 14%.  Bleeping ridiculous.

 Sue

[Penzoil3 480]

29 hours in, my download is a 91%. I'm told by OrbX that I can use my FSS files. That would be great if I had all of them. I hadn't burned my last couple purchases to disc before I migrated. My fault there, but I would like to back them up without taking 2 days each.

 
Sue

[Ron Attwood 3,464]

....  Bleeping ridiculous.

 Sue

Sue, however bad things are and I can see they are pretty bad, there is never an excuse for such outrageous profundity. Now behave before you get yourself banned from here!

 

 

 

 

I guess I should add that I am of course kidding, before all the Sir Galahads come riding to your defense.

[Penzoil3 480]

OMG "there is never an excuse for such outrageous profundity."  Ron, I love it!

 ROFL !

 Sue