No airports in database

[qqwertz 781]

Hi,

all of a sudden I am having a strange problem with the new 747: regardless of which airport (CYYZ, EDDF, EHAM) I enter into the FMC, I always get the message "not in database". When I load a PFPX-generated flight plan into the FMC, it states that the route is invalid.

I have tested this behavior with various Navigraph cycles (they are correctly installed into P3Dv4\PMDG\NavData\). airports.dat in that directory contains all airports that I tested. ARPT_RWY.dat is empty, but I have not installed RAAS.

The last time I flew the 747 was about a month ago, then everything worked just fine. The only change that appears to be relevant since then is an update of the 747. P3D is not in the default directory and runs as administrator.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Best regards,

Peter Marlin

[downscc 1,327]

Delete ARPT_RWY.dat file. It shouldn't be empty.  Blow it off and then either the 777 or 744 will rebuild that file.  Hope this helps.

[qqwertz 781]

Hi Dan,

thanks for your suggestion. I already tried to rename it. When I do that, another empty ARPT_RWY.dat file is created. I presume that happens because I haven't RAAS installed. 

Best,

Peter Marlin

[downscc 1,327]

11 minutes ago, qqwertzde said:

Hi Dan,

thanks for your suggestion. I already tried to rename it. When I do that, another empty ARPT_RWY.dat file is created. I presume that happens because I haven't RAAS installed. 

Best,

Peter Marlin

Peter, that file has nothing to do with RAAS. When it builds a new one and it is empty then something else is wrong.  Basically this file is a cache used by the FMC coding to speed up processing. You mentioned it occurred after the last update.  Was it a micro-update or was it a full update that required uninstall and install of new installer?  I am sorry, with so many products and an on going beta I am lost as to what updates are due and when.

[qqwertz 781]

Thanks again for your reply, Dan. It was just a micro-update via the operation center. I read in some older threads that ARPT_RWY.dat is related to RAAS. 

 

Peter

[qqwertz 781]

OK, problem solved: I had RAAS manually disabled in dll.xml. I suppose the last update deleted ARPT_RWY.dat, and without the RAAS module the file was simply replaced by an empty file. After enabling the RAAS module again, and after a restart of P3D, the file is not empty anymore and my CDU recognizes all airports again.

Peter

[downscc 1,327]

5 hours ago, qqwertzde said:

OK, problem solved: I had RAAS manually disabled in dll.xml. I suppose the last update deleted ARPT_RWY.dat, and without the RAAS module the file was simply replaced by an empty file. After enabling the RAAS module again, and after a restart of P3D, the file is not empty anymore and my CDU recognizes all airports again.

Peter

Interesting. Thanks for update.  Surprising too, since PMDG released QOTSII to market before RAAS was available for P3Dv4 and without RAAS everything worked as expected. Regardless, now that you have a data file with data in it you are good to go.  RAAS uses a runway data file found in the simulator's root folder. One can get makerunways tool to update that file.