I have a notification in the ops centre informing me of a new update to my 737NGX for P3DV4. When I select install update and OK I am informed that my product is being updated. However when I rerun the ops centre I still have the yellow triangle notification saying there is a new update available. What is it trying to tell me?

1 minute ago, pipeorgan said:

I have a notification in the ops centre informing me of a new update to my 737NGX for P3DV4. When I select install update and OK I am informed that my product is being updated. However when I rerun the ops centre I still have the yellow triangle notification saying there is a new update available. What is it trying to tell me?

I'm assuming the notification saying there is a new update available is the same one that was there for the NGX? Sorry if that seems like a dumb question, but it's important to be clear, as it could be a notification for an update to the OC, or to the 600/700, which is a separate update. Any one of those is telling you about a different update.

If it's the same update as the original one for the base pack, it's telling you that the updater failed, likely due to interference of some sort. After clicking on Install Update, did a black window appear? If not, it's likely AV interference. If it did, and then it closed, it's either AV interference, or something wrong with your registry, or network.

Thanks for your reply. I only have the base pack installed at the moment and the installed version is 1.20.8396. The update version available is 1.20.8443.

Yes the black screen appears for a second or so then disappears with the Operations Centre saying that "You have no notifications". However in the Menue on the left the notifications has the yellow triangle indicating that I do have a notification, which is correct!

When I then check the version I can see the update has not installed.

Seems from what you say it is either AV interference, or something wrong with my registry, or network. I am using w10 for virus checking so would appreciate any further advise in trouble shooting.

 

On 14/09/2017 at 3:48 PM, scandinavian13 said:

I'm assuming the notification saying there is a new update available is the same one that was there for the NGX? Sorry if that seems like a dumb question, but it's important to be clear, as it could be a notification for an update to the OC, or to the 600/700, which is a separate update. Any one of those is telling you about a different update.

If it's the same update as the original one for the base pack, it's telling you that the updater failed, likely due to interference of some sort. After clicking on Install Update, did a black window appear? If not, it's likely AV interference. If it did, and then it closed, it's either AV interference, or something wrong with your registry, or network.

FWIW I doubted the update at first but, you have to let it run as It seems that nothing is happening for a while but tells you when it's done. Don't expect it to work quickly, mine didn't either.

 

1 hour ago, G7USL said:

FWIW I doubted the update at first but, you have to let it run as It seems that nothing is happening for a while but tells you when it's done. Don't expect it to work quickly, mine didn't either.

The updater has a function that displays each download's progress. Was this not visible somehow in the command window?

Just now, scandinavian13 said:

The updater has a function that displays each download's progress. Was this not visible somehow in the command window?

No Kyle. I only saw a DOS screen rolling.

Just now, G7USL said:

No Kyle. I only saw a DOS screen rolling.

Command window is coder speak for DOS screen (since DOS technically doesn't exist anymore). It'll actually pause on each download as it downloads, but if it downloads quickly, each progress bar probably flashes by pretty quickly.

Kyle, further regading this matter. I have been having simular problems ever since RJR's message date Wednesday September 13th last.

The OC notifies me of the various updates upon which I start the installAt the bottom of the OC I notioce a blue bar in which it is stated "Download completed" upon which the DOS screen appears with 6 sentences *last one staing "Fetching available product information for P3D..."

Than it stops after which I get a white pop up box stating and I quote

PMDG_Updater_77L_P3D.exe has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

Unquote

Same happens on all my PMDG A/C. The only AV I have installed is Malwarebyte.

What I find strange is that having newly downloaded from the PMDG Web the previous order and installing it in a just newly installed P3D v4 I keep getting the update messages on the OC.

Hopefully the aforementioned information is meaningfull to you and will enable you to find a slution to my queries.

 

Kind regards

Dirk Karmelk (The Netherlands)

 

22 hours ago, karmelk said:

Kyle, further regading this matter. I have been having simular problems ever since RJR's message date Wednesday September 13th last.

The OC notifies me of the various updates upon which I start the installAt the bottom of the OC I notioce a blue bar in which it is stated "Download completed" upon which the DOS screen appears with 6 sentences *last one staing "Fetching available product information for P3D..."

Than it stops after which I get a white pop up box stating and I quote

PMDG_Updater_77L_P3D.exe has stopped working. A problem caused the program to stop working correctly. Windows will close the program and notify you if a solution is available.

Unquote

Same happens on all my PMDG A/C. The only AV I have installed is Malwarebyte.

What I find strange is that having newly downloaded from the PMDG Web the previous order and installing it in a just newly installed P3D v4 I keep getting the update messages on the OC.

Hopefully the aforementioned information is meaningfull to you and will enable you to find a slution to my queries.

 

Kind regards

Dirk Karmelk (The Netherlands)

 

Yes Dirk, It's happening to me too. 'Update is available' when I have already selected yes, three times.

On ‎9‎/‎17‎/‎2017 at 5:37 AM, karmelk said:

The only AV I have installed is Malwarebyte.

This is likely the issue. I'm getting to the point where I'm just straight up recommending that people remove after-market AV. It does more harm than good, honestly. I've seen more reports of programs not working properly, AV software straight up removing programs without warning, and otherwise being a nuisance and performance hog on a system.

What else can end up on computers to sap performance, damage program files, and just start deleting things? Viruses. Is that AV actually AV, or is it the exact same thing that it's meant to defend against?

Now, I also understand that people pay for these things, and they're not entirely awful, so if you'd prefer to keep it around, research for your specific AV suite, how to create exclusions, and otherwise limit its ability to run amok on your system.

Kyle, please excuse me bothering you again. The reason why is that I am a 71 year old man and believe to have reasonable amount of computer knowledge but deffinately not as much as these the present younger generation.

Ever since FS 9 have I been on FS and have been a PMDG customer since the start.

You keep referring to "After-market AV" and I have no idea as to the meaning of smae. I assume Av stands for Anti Virus and if that is so I only have Malwaebyte up and running with which I, up and till the latest update, never encounter any such problem with the OC.

My question to you is, why all of a sudden now since the latest update, and is it your suggestion that I delete Malwarebyte from my system?

Regards

Dirk

   

10 minutes ago, karmelk said:

Kyle, please excuse me bothering you again. The reason why is that I am a 71 year old man and believe to have reasonable amount of computer knowledge but deffinately not as much as these the present younger generation.

You're not bothering, and I can understand.

11 minutes ago, karmelk said:

Ever since FS 9 have I been on FS and have been a PMDG customer since the start.

You keep referring to "After-market AV" and I have no idea as to the meaning of smae. I assume Av stands for Anti Virus and if that is so I only have Malwaebyte up and running with which I, up and till the latest update, never encounter any such problem with the OC.

My question to you is, why all of a sudden now since the latest update, and is it your suggestion that I delete Malwarebyte from my system?

By aftermarket AV, I am, as you had guessed, referring to anti-virus programs (specifically those not designed by Microsoft - Windows actually has one built in, and I'd argue that it's good enough for most all home users).

A couple things happened here:

1. Aftermarket AV has gotten competition from Microsoft (theirs is built-in, and free). This somewhat means that the aftermarket AV programs need to prove their worth. To someone who doesn't know computers, if their AV program is always saying "hey look at all this stuff I caught" even if it's not actually a threat, people are more inclined to continue paying...which leads me to:
2. AV programs have gotten increasingly aggressive, and people forget that AV definitions (the "rules" that the AV program uses) are updated all the time. This means that even though the program behaved itself a year ago, that doesn't mean that it will continue to do so today - it has new rules daily/weekly/monthly/yearly, as long as you keep paying. So...what changed? This is one thing that constantly does. And finally:
3. The updater itself looks a lot like a classic Trojan virus, and many aftermarket AV programs will flag it, intercept it, and delete since it isn't specifically on their rule sets' white list (usually without warning - a change that has happened over time with aftermarket AV...they don't even tell you that they're taking control of things anymore, even if you didn't want it to take control). White lists are lists of specifically exempted, known, popular programs (iTunes, and so on) that the AV will leave alone since the developer is large/well known/etc. Since we're small, and the updater is unknown, and not on the white list, the AV program sees a new program trying to download a bunch of files, which looks suspicious, and instead of saying "hey, did you authorize this?" it simply says stops the updater, and potentially deletes it without warning you, or asking if that's what you wanted done.

...and that's also not mentioning that the level of resources those programs hog up to be that aggressive is quite a lot. In the past, they used to be relatively light, clear, clean cut, and simple. Now they're somewhat nebulous, and lurk in the background, while hogging precious resources on your computer. Furthermore, even the "disable" function of AV programs only does so much. 'Disable' to me, means that you should have the ability to temporarily take care of whatever you want without it interfering. In my experience, there is something still going on in the background preventing you from actually having the full control that you might need.

So, corporations who need the volume licensing, aggressive protection (keeping in mind that most corporations also have an IT group keeping those up to date, properly configured, and so on - and also don't need to run much other than Word, Excel, and PowerPoint), and the rest are great candidates for aftermarket AV. Home users? Not so much. Even if they might need additional protection, properly configuring it so that it isn't interfering with anything outside of the basic Office Suite, and a well-known browser is outside of the realm of most, which can cause more issues than the benefit of the supposed added protection.

2 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

A couple things happened here:

- snip -

Kyle:

Your comment above is an excellent rundown of what's going on with these AV programs. You may want to consider posting and pinning a version of this to the general forum so that you can point to it anytime it comes up (and it will come up again ).

Kyle, thanks a lot for your clear explanation. I agree with the former writer (wsmeier) that it is definitely something to be shared with a broader audience. 

I will have to see what I can do about cleaning up my present AV and which will help getting OC to work properly again.

 

Regards

Dirk