FSX-SE Couatl and FSX-SE

[kiwiflyer45 123]

2 minutes ago, cmpbellsjc said:

Been there done, done that, lol.

I was so obsessed with it being perfect that if I started a flight at night time, maybe 7:30 or 8pm locally and ran into a problem, I'd literally stay up all night until I tracked the issue down and fixed it. It was like I wouldn't be able to sleep knowing that I had a glitch in the system that needed to be fixed. Of course, I'd be super tired at work the next day, but at peace that my sim was ok.

Ive since let that go a bit, however I'm still anal about keeping the sim in perfect working order, installing only reputable addons, keeping textures at the right sizes and formats. If an issue crops up before bed, now I'll just wait until the following day.

I think we need a new forum ---- the "FIXIT ADDICTION RECOVERY" forum... "Hi, my name is Ian and I'm an FS fixit addict." ...... The problem would be our spouses would never see us again, we wouldn't have time to actually fly in our sims and we would probably all become unemployed because we'd spend all our time obsessing about helping a fellow addict deal with his/her obsession....

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

2 minutes ago, kiwiflyer45 said:

I think we need a new forum ---- the "FIXIT ADDICTION RECOVERY" forum... "Hi, my name is Ian and I'm an FS fixit addict." ...... The problem would be our spouses would never see us again, we wouldn't have time to actually fly in our sims and we would probably all become unemployed because we'd spend all our time obsessing about helping a fellow addict deal with his/her obsession....

That's true!

Fortunately for me, issues have been far and few the past few years.

The one thing that I do now when considering a new addon aircraft or airport/scenery is to wait a few weeks after it's released and read all the feedback I can find before making the purchase.

Doing this has help immensely as I've been able to wait out bugs and other issues until they are satisfactorily fixed or patched before I buy and install. I also do the same when products get major updates as I don't want to give up a perfectly good addon that somehow gets worse due to a faulty patch or fix.

[Jim Young 2,356]

1 hour ago, kiwiflyer45 said:

Fortunately, my daughter-in-law is a Microsoft tech so I'll exert a little fatherly pressure and get her to come and do a diagnostic on it

You do know her family has priorities on any tech support.  I think in most families around the world, the daughter-in-law, although a nice human being, favors her parents over her husband's parents.  So, good luck!    I was fortunate to have a son and he was raised as an IT Professional and currently employed as a Corporate Vice-President for IT.  Problem with that, his wife, my daughter-in-law, says her parents computer system comes first and then he can help me when I have problems (if they don't need more help building a deck or patio or fixing the car).  I was fortunate to have him in my household long enough to help me learn computers before he left and subsequently brought under the total control of the daughter-in-law....

But, there is still hope for us who have son's with daughter-in-laws!  I found a neat program to repair Windows for free and I put details about it in the AVSIM CTD Guide, page 24.  But, essentially, this Windows Repair utility was developed and is being maintained by Microsoft techs, former and current techs.  I have found the program to be very safe and, in fact, they tell you to put your system into safe mode first before running the repairs.  It also backs up your registry (if you want) in case anything goes amiss.  You are in control.  It does not mess up any currently installed programs and it will not harm FSX or any of your addon's.  It just repairs your Windows installation (Windows 7 and higher - I have Windows 10).  I found it to fix many of the errors I was getting in the Event Viewer and it will turn on Services you might have turned off or another program turned off.  It cleans up your User files and folders too.  The only thing I found wrong was the fact it returned all my programs like my browser back to the default but those are easy to get changed if you want.  The program is called Windows Repair and you can check it out at the following link - http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/windows_repair_all_in_one.html.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Jim

[kiwiflyer45 123]

8 minutes ago, cmpbellsjc said:

That's true!

Fortunately for me, issues have been far and few the past few years.

The one thing that I do now when considering a new addon aircraft or airport/scenery is to wait a few weeks after it's released and read all the feedback I can find before making the purchase.

Doing this has help immensely as I've been able to wait out bugs and other issues until they are satisfactorily fixed or patched before I buy and install. I also do the same when products get major updates as I don't want to give up a perfectly good addon that somehow gets worse due to a faulty patch or fix.

Excellent advice!!! I will try to exercise some uncharacteristic self-discipline in future and follow it

[kiwiflyer45 123]

5 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

You do know her family has priorities on any tech support.  I think in most families around the world, the daughter-in-law, although a nice human being, favors her parents over her husband's parents.  So, good luck!    I was fortunate to have a son and he was raised as an IT Professional and currently employed as a Corporate Vice-President for IT.  Problem with that, his wife, my daughter-in-law, says her parents computer system comes first and then he can help me when I have problems (if they don't need more help building a deck or patio or fixing the car).  I was fortunate to have him in my household long enough to help me learn computers before he left and subsequently brought under the total control of the daughter-in-law....

But, there is still hope for us who have son's with daughter-in-laws!  I found a neat program to repair Windows for free and I put details about it in the AVSIM CTD Guide, page 24.  But, essentially, this Windows Repair utility was developed and is being maintained by Microsoft techs, former and current techs.  I have found the program to be very safe and, in fact, they tell you to put your system into safe mode first before running the repairs.  It also backs up your registry (if you want) in case anything goes amiss.  You are in control.  It does not mess up any currently installed programs and it will not harm FSX or any of your addon's.  It just repairs your Windows installation (Windows 7 and higher - I have Windows 10).  I found it to fix many of the errors I was getting in the Event Viewer and it will turn on Services you might have turned off or another program turned off.  It cleans up your User files and folders too.  The only thing I found wrong was the fact it returned all my programs like my browser back to the default but those are easy to get changed if you want.  The program is called Windows Repair and you can check it out at the following link - http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/windows_repair_all_in_one.html.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Jim

My daughter-in-law is a bit different to the average. An offer to grill some steaks (on the Barbie) and provide a few cold beers works pretty much every time. As several people have observed, she's "the son I never had." LOL Thanks for the excellent information - as always, you are a fount of wisdom and understandable advice

[scianoir 610]

Came across this thread today during a lot of forum searching after running into problems last night following installation of an addon manager update for my many FSDT and FlightBeam airports. After almost 9 solid hours spent trying to resolve the issue (and thus far failing), I realise that I definitely fall into the obsessional category of simmer you describe Ian and badly need some FIXIT ADDICTION RECOVERY THERAPY - we won't abbreviate that!

Leaving that aside and getting back to the topic of Coatl in your original post, I have been using FSDT airport scenery since early in my FS9 days and continued using it in FSX, regarding it as visually superb and up there with the best sceneries available. However the Coatl / Addon Manager used with them has probably given me far more headaches than the installers of all my other sceneries combined (and I have a vast amount of addon scenery!) and continues to do so to this very moment although I have taken the advice given earlier in this thread and decided not to stay up all night tonight! I was hoping that your request for some sane guidance and clarity regarding Coatl might have been answered somewhere but sadly it remains mysterious, obscure and frustrating to me despite what I think is a reasonably deep level of knowledge of the 'innards' of FSX. 

Nothing for it but a nice drop of Irish whiskey now and leave the decision on whether to bother re-installing the Coatl dependent scenery until after a good night's sleep!

Bill

[Jim Young 2,356]

They are not going to get rid of Couatl completely anytime soon.  The only solution I know of for fixing Couatl errors (or any errors involving FSDT products) is to download and install the latest Standalone Addon Manager as I described earlier - https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/516250-couatl-and-fsx-se/?do=findComment&comment=3684124.  I am like many others and have not had any serious issues with it.  I always install their products with Admin Privileges and the installer easily installs them into the FSX directory.  I have had issues with entering the activation codes as the box for entering the data will be behind FSX on the desktop and I don't see it.  That gets my temperature and blood pressure to rise but, once installed, I have had no problems other than having to install the Standalone Addon Manager as that is how they update the products and make sure everything is installed properly.

Best regards,

Jim

[rafikihd 11]

Here´s the deal with the update of the latest standalone Addon Manager.

How am I supposed to know when to update it, what I mean is how am I supposed to know when I am outdated and should run the updater?

[scianoir 610]

Thanks for the advice Jim! I was aware that you need to download the latest Standalone Addon Manager and that's what I have always done to deal with a Coatl/FSDT error and it has usually worked. On this occasion however it did not appear to be performing as expected and after running the new Standalone Addon Manager I could still only see jetways at my FSDT airports. I then uninstalled the airports and reinstalled a couple of fresh airport downloads from the FSDT site but despite the fact that they are listed as installed and active on the addon manager, the problem persists. As a confirmed fixed addict however no doubt I will eventually get it resolved!

Kind regards,

Bill

[Jim Young 2,356]

11 hours ago, rafikihd said:

How am I supposed to know when to update it, what I mean is how am I supposed to know when I am outdated and should run the updater?

If you are loading the airport that requires to be updated, it will tell you after you have loaded the product.  GSX is updated frequently and that covers all FSDT/FB airports installed so it will run the updater whenever GSX is updated.  If it is not doing that, then perhaps you did not install the airports with Admin privileges and Windows will not allow access.  When I right click the FSDT/KLAS and select Properties and then Security, I click on User permissions to make sure I have full control.  In my case it is checked as I installed the product properly.  I usually have the Standalone Manager in my Downloads folder so, if I have a problem I will simply rerun the Standalone Manager program in that folder.  But you have to understand the Standalone Manager is updated frequently too.

1 hour ago, scianoir said:

it did not appear to be performing as expected and after running the new Standalone Addon Manager I could still only see jetways at my FSDT airports.

Whenever I load a FSDT airport and I only see the jetways, I go to the Addon Manager menu and select Couatl and select Restart.  The airport then appears.  You should also make sure you (the User) has full control and, like I just posted above for rafikihd, go to the FSDT folder and right click and select Properties and then click on the Security tab and make sure you, as the user, has Full control.  If you are the Administrator of your computer, you should be able to change this to Full Control.  If you are not the big boss over your computer, then you will have to have him/her change the permissions for you. 

You should never uninstall/reinstall a FSDT airport.  Just run the installer again and select Repair (if you get that option or reinstall).

You mentioned the airport was not performing as expected.  I do not know your system specs but you must understand FSDT/FB have a lot of eye-candy and you probably cannot use the same FSX and Display Driver settings as you used with the default airport installed.  If you have a system made after Sandy Bridge (i7, i5, i3 2600MHz or better), it should run very well w/o tweaking.  When you click on the Addon Manager inside FSX and lookup to see if your airport is installed, the developer has tweaks that you can automatically install in FSX.  I strongly recommend you do not use them.  Maybe back in the old duo-Core days but not in today's modern systems.  If you have those tweaks installed, they are most likely causing your performance problems.

Best regards,

Jim

[scianoir 610]

3 hours ago, Jim Young said:

 You should also make sure you (the User) has full control and, like I just posted above for rafikihd, go to the FSDT folder and right click and select Properties and then click on the Security tab and make sure you, as the user, has Full control.......

You mentioned the airport was not performing as expected. 

Well, once again, you were spot on with your very sound advice Jim! The problem was that although I had installed and run the updated Standalone Addon Manager as administrator, I must have omitted to run the actual airport scenery installer as administrator as, when I checked the security setting as you suggested, I did not have full control. Amending this setting to give myself full control did the trick and my FSDT airport scenery was restored.

By the way with regard to performance, I was actually referring the Standalone Addon Manager not appearing to do its job and not the performance of the actual airport scenery, but, although I studiously avoid tweaking, I appreciate your advice on that also!

Many thanks for your help and kind regards,

Bill

[kiwiflyer45 123]

On ‎8‎/‎28‎/‎2017 at 6:56 PM, scianoir said:

Came across this thread today during a lot of forum searching after running into problems last night following installation of an addon manager update for my many FSDT and FlightBeam airports. After almost 9 solid hours spent trying to resolve the issue (and thus far failing), I realise that I definitely fall into the obsessional category of simmer you describe Ian and badly need some FIXIT ADDICTION RECOVERY THERAPY - we won't abbreviate that!

Leaving that aside and getting back to the topic of Coatl in your original post, I have been using FSDT airport scenery since early in my FS9 days and continued using it in FSX, regarding it as visually superb and up there with the best sceneries available. However the Coatl / Addon Manager used with them has probably given me far more headaches than the installers of all my other sceneries combined (and I have a vast amount of addon scenery!) and continues to do so to this very moment although I have taken the advice given earlier in this thread and decided not to stay up all night tonight! I was hoping that your request for some sane guidance and clarity regarding Coatl might have been answered somewhere but sadly it remains mysterious, obscure and frustrating to me despite what I think is a reasonably deep level of knowledge of the 'innards' of FSX. 

Nothing for it but a nice drop of Irish whiskey now and leave the decision on whether to bother re-installing the Coatl dependent scenery until after a good night's sleep!

Bill

Hey Bill

I had surgery this morning (outpatient) and am in serious pain right now ---- but your Fixit Addiction Recovery Therapy made me LOL. You're just lucky I didn't pop my stitches or I would have had to call my lawyer! 

I seriously think we need to add that to the flight sim community lexicon. As long as we use periods, it ought to pass by the eagle eye of the moderators. (Not you Jim - you are way too cool to get upset about someone writing F.A.R.T. to describe a serious affliction  common to so many of us!!!)

[scianoir 610]

Hi Ian,

Glad it made you smile even if the timing was unfortunately inappropriate LOL! As someone who has experienced life at both ends of the scalpel I know  that laughing when the stitches are fresh is no fun! Hope that the pain settles quickly and doesn't interfere too much with your flying. But if you can't sit in front of your simulator yet, at least you'll  have time to contemplate the mysteries of Coatl (made much more understandable by the clarity of Jim's excellent explanations above)!!

Bill

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

1 hour ago, kiwiflyer45 said:

I had surgery this morning (outpatient) and am in serious pain right now ---- but your Fixit Addiction Recovery Therapy made me LOL. You're just lucky I didn't pop my stitches or I would have had to call my lawyer! 

I'm with your brother, never say die, never surrender.  Ten hours after having major shoulder reconstruction surgery 7 weeks ago ago I was back Beta Testing the CRJ for two 3 hour sessions.  Then again we're nuts!  At least I was smart enough to move my throttle quadrant and mouse to the other side the night before the surgery. 

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

Another tip for you guys that may have only jetways showing sometimes. This has been repeated many times, but I'll say it again in case you missed it.

Do not ever disable/uncheck these airports using the default FSX scenery library or other scenery configuration tools then try to start a flight, otherwise you'll only get jetways. You'd have to restart FSX again to get the whole scenery. 

In an attempt to save VAS people use these tools to disable all the airports that they won't be flying to. In the case of FSDT or FlightBeam airports that still use Couatl, disabling them won't really save you any VAS since Couatl will load and unload the scenery when you're out of the scenery radius. If you disable one of these airports and run FSX and forget to close FSX and restart it, you'll be faced with only jetways.

Best thing to do is just always leave them active in the scenery library and just disable other sceneries.