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brodhaq

GTN 650 map does not display, the rest works

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Hello and thank you for your effort. I have just bought the GTN 650 and installed it in XPL 10. I installed the 2.4.0.0 version from the official RXP store, not the release candidate from this forum.

During installation I got the trainer install error, but I continued the installation. After finishing the RXP installation I manually unzipped and installed the trainer which the installed downloaded. I did not change any paths, and this is the only Garmin trainer installed.

In ProgramData/Reality XP I see foru .dll and one .rxp file.

My rxpGTN.xpl.log contains only 17/04/15 18:52:38.748 08836 -    ] # win.xpl version 2.4.0.0

My rxpGtnSim.dll.log contains only 17/04/15 18:52:43.370 08836 -    ] # rxpGtnSim64.dll version 2.4.0.0

Windows 7, latest X Plane 10 version here.

 

After loading my Carenado C172 in the X-Plane at LOWI, I was able to show both of the GTN units. They powered up. I see the home page, and buttons Traffix, Default NAV, Flight Plan, PROC and Nearest were tested and work (subsequent menus appear, I was able to start a simple LOWI DCT LKPR flightplan and even Review it in the Flight Plan menu.

 

The problem is that when I click either Map or Terrain, the unit freezes. No chance to use anything else than until Xplane restart. The Map button remains blue after clicking it, the Terrain button not. Tested twice with XPL restart, both units same behavior.

 

K7FQSEe.png

 

Any ideas? If you need any testing or debugging, let me know.

Pavel

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5 hours ago, brodhaq said:

I manually unzipped and installed the trainer which the installed downloaded.

There have been a few other similar reports in the past but feedback stopped at one point and we never concluded if this issue was solved, neither what the cause is.

The only reason I can think of for this issue is the manual installation, which might have locked files out.

Please help us out:

During installation I got the trainer install error,

Should you remember the exact message, can you please let us know?

Also, when you've manually installed the trainer, have you run it as 'admin'?

 


Jean-Luc | reality-xp.com
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It was something like that the installer could not find the trainer files, I believe. But they were at Program Data sucesfully downloaded.

I do not use run as administrator as my User Account Control is turned of, so it has no real reason.

Shall I try uninstalling it all and doing over again, or shall it keep broken for further analysis now?

 

Pavel

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9 hours ago, brodhaq said:

as my User Account Control is turned of,

Hence the problem. You should never turn this off, otherwise it changes the meaning of file/folder access rights to great extents.


Jean-Luc | reality-xp.com
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Since my post, I've spent time trying to find out simple enough information online about this.

In short: disabling UAC also disables layers in Windows which are designed no only to protect your computer, but also and more importantly in our case, designed to make legacy applications run (which is the case with the trainer).

In effect, even if the trainer is a recent program (compiled with one of the latest Visual Studio compiler, and released late last year), it is still not fully encompassing the coding standards of Windows Vista. Some portions of the trainer code are still developed in a pre-Vista pre-UAC model.

In short (very short), when running the application with UAC turned off, the application will write files and registry data to locations it is not supposed to. When trying to read the same locations it might be prevented to do so and fail to proceed.

Here is a link to try better understanding the issues with disabling UAC:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/patricka/2009/12/14/tales-of-application-compatibility-weirdness-demystifying-uac-virtualization/

And for a little deeper info:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/patricka/2010/05/13/if-im-an-administrator-why-do-i-get-access-denied/
 

From the link above:

A standard user is only allowed to change their own settings and environment (per user).  An administrator can change system wide settings (per machine). [...] UAC issues are caused by an application trying to make a change system wide. This means it’s trying to write to a per machine location or create something globally across all users.

 

Besides the trainer, this is worth reading: The Risks of Disabling the Windows UAC

 

 

 

 


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Okay, my update:

First of all, I have been using Windows 7 with UAC turned off since it was first introduced and I have never had ANY problem caused by UAC with FSX or Prepar3D addons. Never. But ok, for testing purposes, I turned the UAC back on to its default settings and restarted PC to apply changes.

No result in X-Plane, Map and Terrain still not showing.

I uninstalled the RXT GTN plugin and the Garimn trainer, manually erased any files that were left in Program Files or ProgramData, checked registry, not a single trace of RXP or Garmin being in my PC ever. Computer restart again.

 

Then I installed the RXP GTN again using the rxpGTN-650-XPL.exe with Run as administrator. During install I got the error message again (picture 1: translation says Sstem can not find the specified file). After finishing the installation, I manually unzipped and Run as administrator installed the trainer from C:\ProgramData\Reality XP\Common\GtnTrainer\GTN_GDU620PCTrainer_6211.zip to its default path.

Then I tried starting the trainer manually from Windows Start menu, it works, map is great. Then I started X-Plane 10 64bit (Run as administrator), but the problem was exactly as before - Map and Terrain pages not working.

I moved the trainer "sim" and "GTN Trainer Data" folders to my own "D:\X-Plane 10\GTN_Trainer" to avoid anything being loaded from system drive, or program files, or programdata. I added windows envorinmental variables as per the second image, started X-Plane and...wait for it...same problem remains, Map or Terrain not being loaded.

 

I did another test: uninstalled everything from RealityXP and from Garmin. Restart of computer. Installed Garmin trainer manually to its default location and started RXP installation afterwards. During the installation the RXP found the trainer installed thus not asked me to download those 2GB from internet again, and thus did not report any error during the entire installation. After finishing, same result in X-Plane: no map or terrain page working.

Last test: uninstalled everything from RealityXP and from Garmin. Restart of computer. Installed Garmin trainer manually to D/Garmin folder (sim and data) to avoid anything with C drive, program files, programdata, etc. Trainer working perfectly. Installed RXP GTN, no error message or trainer download during instal. Starting X-Plane, same problem - no map or terrain page.

Any other testing I should do?

Pavel Brodský

 

 

Side note: could you fine tune the uninstaller so that it removes everything that RealityXP installed? When I uninstall RealityXP GTN from my Control panel/Uninstall software menu, it leaves:

1) empty folder at C:\Program Files (x86)\Reality XP\GTN Simulation\X-Plane

2) at folder C:\ProgramData\Reality XP it leaves Common folder with flightplans, checklists and the Trainer.zips inside and Reality XP.dll, rxpGrnSim32.dll, rxpGtnSim64.dll and WinSparkle.dll there

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2 hours ago, brodhaq said:

using the rxpGTN-650-XPL.exe with Run as administrator.

 

2 hours ago, brodhaq said:

Then I started X-Plane 10 64bit (Run as administrator)

Hi Pavel,

Thank you for your patience and extensive reports. Why do you "run as admin" the installer and the simulator? Again, when you run as admin, the trainer, the simulator, and our plugin, are given access to registry and file paths which are not the same as when running as standard user.

For example, the trainer still writes some data to its install location, "C:\Program Files (x86)" which is a no-go when in standard user. Therefore, Windows redirects the writes to a "virtual store" folder (all explained in the links above). However, when running as admin, the trainer has write access to this folder. There are very similar redirections in the registry which the trainer also uses.

When 'running as admin' it is quite possible you are messing with these accesses and make the solution fails for some reason. You need to install the trainer and the GTN as standard user, and run them as standard user as well.

Otherwise, is your computer in Turkish locale? I can't ignore the possibility there might be a bug in our code related to the computer locale settings as well. You seem well versed with the system, is there a way you could try setting your computer locale to 'English' just for trying?

2 hours ago, brodhaq said:

so that it removes everything that RealityXP installed?

Most of the files left behind (the DLLs) are shared with other RXP products and there is no reliable mechanism in Windows to properly 'tag' them as no longer shared when uninstalling. We'll review the installer for the few others which are supposed to be deleted though.


Jean-Luc | reality-xp.com
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I've forgotten something: please try the release candidate v2.4.5 posted at the top of this forum instead. There has been changes that might prove to solve the issue on your system.


Jean-Luc | reality-xp.com
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Ok, my problem and my testing is over.

I tried re-installing with UAC turned on but not to Run as administrator. Same results multiple times as before.

I tried disabling Microsoft Security Essentials (which is my only virus protection software), no result.

My Windows User interface language is Czech, not Turkish :-) I have no chance to change it, using Windows 7 Professional the change is not supported without reinstalling the system. Multilanguage User Interface is only available for Ultimate and Enterprise editions. I even tried changing it to English by installing some strange online found exe and doing registry changes which almost bricked my system so that I needed to restore registry by "last known working configuration" tool, but no result.

Next I tried installing that 2.4.5 version which...works :-) Again I got those trainer errors during installation (maybe they are connected with the language pack, I dont know), but after installing the trainer manually everything works just perfect.

Just for reference I tried turning the Microsoft Security Essentials back on, without any result on the 2.4.5 - it kept working. I even tried disabling UAC again, no result - 2.4.5 working.

So the good news are that my 650 is now working, bad news is that I did not find the real cause what was preventing 2.4.0 from working.

 

Thank you for your support,

Pavel Brodsky

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1 hour ago, brodhaq said:

bad news is that I did not find the real cause what was preventing 2.4.0 from working.

 

Good news is that we've found the cause and implemented a fix in 2.4.5!

Thank you again for your patience, and in any case my advice remains: it is very dangerous to run as admin and disable UAC. Just browsing the net with UAC off opens up the door to every files on your computer as explained in the links above!


Jean-Luc | reality-xp.com
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