Hi,

Doing a bit of housework on P3D and I have a few questions.

1. I've been told to rebuild my terrain.cfg in order to try and solve my terrain.dll CTD's. Is this simple as moving the terrain.cfg to a different folder, running P3D and letting it build a brand new one? Or is it just better to rebuild the p3d.cfg which will reset everything back to default?

2. I'd also like to completely reinstall my ORBX products. I use FTX Central 3 and I've noticed there isn't an option to uninstall the scenery libraries. How would I go about successfully reistalling ORBX Global, LC Europe, the libraries and FTX Central? Is there a certain order to uninstall then install? 

Thanks for the help!

Regards,

Flemon

You're going to get a lot of suggestions. Mine is to head over to the official Orbx forums and read through the stickies for the information you need.

www.orbxsystems.com

Unfortunately the stickies there are for reinstalling ORBX assuming you've reinstalled the whole of your flightsim or OS. What I'm doing this just reinstalling ORBX products. Can I just use the 'uninstall' button in FTX central and then reinstall? Or is it more complicated?

On 29/10/2017 at 2:02 PM, flemon said:

I've been told to rebuild my terrain.cfg in order to try and solve my terrain.dll CTD's. Is this simple as moving the terrain.cfg to a different folder, running P3D and letting it build a brand new one?

Hello

Follow the steps in this order 

1) Delete your terrain.cfg file,  Copy the TEX below and Paste it into your windows search bar,  click on the result and delete your terrain.cfg file 

%PROGRAMDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4

 

2) Then Launch Prepar3D to the first screen and close it,   Your terrain.cfg file will generate again as default   

3) After this Launch the FTX Central control panel and wait 10 \ 15 seconds, as this will configure your terrain.cfg file again for Orbx use

After this you are ready to launch Prepar3D and test 

 

On 29/10/2017 at 2:02 PM, flemon said:

I'd also like to completely reinstall my ORBX products. I use FTX Central 3 and I've noticed there isn't an option to uninstall the scenery libraries. How would I go about successfully reistalling ORBX Global, LC Europe, the libraries and FTX Central?

 

If you need to reinstall any Orbx products navigate to the location below and Delete the version TXT file you wish to reinstall again 

Prepar3D v4 ► ORBX ► User Documents ► Versions

 

Then Launch the FTX Central control panel and navigate to the scenery you wish to reinstall and click Install 

Click here  for an example of FTX Trees and Global Base 

Click here  for an example of the Orbx Libraries 

May I ask: what could possibly corrupt the terrain.cfg? I had an terrain.dll crash recently and I have no idea what could have caused this. Are there any drawbacks regarding the workflog Elaine proposed? How do sceneries using the add-on.xml variant go along with a rebuild of the terrain.cfg? Any culprits there? In my case, I started to add an "layer=xxx" entry to all my addon sceneries added via the add-on.xml version to keep them below the ORBX stuff. Anything to consider in such a setup?

Thanks very much Elaine!

9 hours ago, AnkH said:

May I ask: what could possibly corrupt the terrain.cfg?

Hello

Any Add On that modifies the terrain.cfg file can possible cause a corrupt "terrain.cfg"   Basically sometimes stuff just gets messed up.   At worst Prepar3D will not launch throwing out all types of errors.  One of the lighter symptoms of a corrupt terrain.cfg file would be patches of water where land is supposed to be.  For Orbx Scenery you can just delete this file,  Launch and shut down Prepar3D,  then launch FTX Central and that's it sorted.   For other Scenery Add On's like UTX which I'm pretty sure also modify this file,  I don't use this Scenery so I am not sure if there is a Control Panel like Orbx Central that will automatically Insert these entries back again,  that i don't know.

 

9 hours ago, AnkH said:

I had an terrain.dll crash recently and I have no idea what could have caused this

With Prepar3D v3 using high Scenery \ Mesh settings would cause this among other things,    In a lot of causes setting the Mesh to 5 and lower via Prepar3D > Options would fix this.  

With Prepar3D v4 its hard to know because different users are claiming x, y or z have resolved this terrain.dll error,  Like removing an overclock, updating drivers, refreshing the scenery.cfg and the terrain.cfg file and so on 

Some folks recommend refreshing the terrain.cfg file as a process of elimination because it is a small and quick step to try,  and of course additionally to this lowering all your Settings and then test 

 

9 hours ago, AnkH said:

I started to add an "layer=xxx" entry to all my addon sceneries added via the add-on.xml version to keep them below the ORBX stuff. Anything to consider in such a setup?

All your 3rd party scenery Airports and Photo scenery (non Orbx)  need to be Above the FTX entries,   Only for best results of course 

4 hours ago, Poppet said:

Any Add On that modifies the terrain.cfg file can possible cause a corrupt "terrain.cfg"   Basically sometimes stuff just gets messed up.   At worst Prepar3D will not launch throwing out all types of errors.  One of the lighter symptoms of a corrupt terrain.cfg file would be patches of water where land is supposed to be.  For Orbx Scenery you can just delete this file,  Launch and shut down Prepar3D,  then launch FTX Central and that's it sorted.   For other Scenery Add On's like UTX which I'm pretty sure also modify this file,  I don't use this Scenery so I am not sure if there is a Control Panel like Orbx Central that will automatically Insert these entries back again,  that i don't know.

After running FTX Central, I cycle each of the UTX configurators (USA/EU/Canada) by going to the Terrain menu in each configurator.  I disable UTX using the "Quick Ultimate Terrain Enable/Disable" menu option, then immediately re-enable it.  This makes sure the UTX terrain.cfg entries are rewritten in case they were overwritten/corrupted by FTXC or another installer.  The most common symptom of an ORBX conflict (for me anyway) was dry land where lakes and oceans should appear.

Regards

 

7 hours ago, Poppet said:

All your 3rd party scenery Airports and Photo scenery (non Orbx)  need to be Above the FTX entries,   Only for best results of course 

Ok, that's diametral different from what I used to have since my FSX days and also FTX Central default settings. I know you can adjust the entry point of FTX, but so far I used FTX Central "out of the box" and like this, it always puts everything from ORBX back on top of the scenery library (with the exception of the global stuff, of course).

You are now telling me that for example the Aerosoft Airports have to be on top of the ORBX stuff such as the ORBX Libraries etc.? Really?

Hello

When you launch the FTX Central control panel this will check and arrange the FTX entries Only for you,  In some case you will just need to pop into the Library Insertion point tool and arrange the OpenLC below the FTX Airports and Regions and so on but usually all will be good by default 

If you have other non Orbx Scenery,  they recommend the following scenery order 

1)  3rd Party Airports and Photo Scenery 

2)  Orbx Libraries

3)  FTX Airports 

4) FTX Regions

5)  And so on............

If you are Installing scenery using the add-on.xml method, these will be fine as they will stay at the Top of your scenery library

Using the old way where you can move Scenery up & down,  well these non Orbx Scenery's will need to be moved Above all of FTX stuff 

I done a Basic write up about Troubleshooting Prepar3D v4 & Orbx,  Click here and have a peep at Correct Scenery order for Orbx there is also an additionally link at the bottom of that paragraph with a more In-depth look at the correct scenery Order.

9 hours ago, w6kd said:

After running FTX Central, I cycle each of the UTX configurators (USA/EU/Canada) by going to the Terrain menu in each configurator.  I disable UTX using the "Quick Ultimate Terrain Enable/Disable" menu option, then immediately re-enable it.  This makes sure the UTX terrain.cfg entries are rewritten in case they were overwritten/corrupted by FTXC or another installer

Good Information,  Thanks Bob 

15 minutes ago, Poppet said:

I have done a Basic write up about Troubleshooting Prepar3D v4 & Orbx,  Click here and have a peep at Correct Scenery order for Orbx there is also an additionally link at the bottom of that paragraph with a more In-depth look at the correct scenery Order.

Ok, great. I will try to rearrange my scenery.cfg according this guide then. Means I had the ordering wrong all the time and did not even notice it ;-) Thanks for the heads up!

Update: I now adjusted my FTX Central settings as outlined in the link from Elaine. All my addon sceneries now above the FTX stuff etc. And guess what? Nothing changed. I am happy, at least the moving around did not break anything and I have now the correct order.