Ive been pulling hair out for most of the week trying to get this to work and its about to drive me mad.  I cant find any recent how to guides and HiFi doesnt seem to be interested in network support. The guides on HiFis help section were written when folks had windows 7 and FSX, talk of FSX files and service packs just add to the confusion.

• So, Ive got two Windows 10 machines, both freshly formatted and updated. Connected via ethernet cables to a Linksys WRT1900AC.
• Fresh install of P3d V4.1 with no add ons.
• Entire C drives on both machines shared with full permissions.
• All of the sim connect service packs from Prepar3d/Redist installed on both machines
• ActiveSky Connect installed on server machine.
• SimConnect XML and CFG, I have edited and put in my server PCs ip address

I have a couple of questions. 

1. Do I need to install the Prepar3d SDK on either machine or get any files out of it?
2. Do I need to install ActiveSky Connect on the client machine?
3. I understand a simconnect.cfg needs to be in my documents folder of client PC. Does it need to be a folder labeled Prepar3D v4 Files since thats how its listed when P3D creates folders in my documents? Or is simply putting the cfg file in my documents on client machine enough?

I have done everything I can think of to the best of my understanding of how this is supposed to work and all I get when I open Active Sky on client pc is "initializing" "waiting for simulator"  and I cant click on any of the  options tab.

 

Id be grateful if someone could help me out here or if someone wanted to connect to my machine and try to help. I cant pay much but Id be willing to paypal a few dollars if need be. 

Thanks

 

 

Follow this Guide. Still in play for P3D.

Works exactly the same for Windows 10, don’t forget to share your P3D folder and P3D Config file location so you can point AS to it. 

Yes install ASConnect on your P3D machine.

You need to install all the SimConnect versions on both machines. They are located in your P3D root folder under ‘redist’.

Good luck,

James

Save yourself time - open a ticket and they'll get you squared away asap.

support.hifitechinc.com

 

Vic

Thanks for the reply James. I have watched that video a few times now, double checking my steps and I still cant get it to work. 

 

Vic, I thought I read somewhere on HIFis site that they didnt offer networking support or am I mistaken?

Jason, try turning off your windows firewall on both machines to see if it will connect. If it does, then you need to set up some rules in your firewall settings. I had to do this. I run two computers, both with Windows 10. 

1 hour ago, JasonW said:

I understand a simconnect.cfg needs to be in my documents folder of client PC. Does it need to be a folder labeled Prepar3D v4 Files since thats how its listed when P3D creates folders in my documents? Or is simply putting the cfg file in my documents on client machine enough?

No, in "My Documents" folder on the client computer.

Client: networked computer that is not running P3D
Server: main flight simulator computer that is running P3D

1 hour ago, JasonW said:

Do I need to install the Prepar3d SDK on either machine or get any files out of it?

No.

1 hour ago, JasonW said:

Do I need to install ActiveSky Connect on the client machine?

No only on the server machine.  If you look at my AVSIM P3D guide ... page 118/119 I think:

You'll need network drive mappings for ASCA aspect if you're using that.

Cheers, Rob.

1 hour ago, JasonW said:

Vic, I thought I read somewhere on HIFis site that they didnt offer networking support or am I mistaken?

You are mistaken. What is not supported is installing AS on a server and trying to network several systems, like multiplayer.

Open a ticket. Usually it's permissions or an AV blocking connection but they'll sort it out.

Vic

Thanks for the replies guys, I really appreciate it. Im gonna go over Robs guide and try one more time and if it doesnt work Ill try a support ticket. 

1 hour ago, vgbaron said:

Save yourself time....

...and, depending on your system specs, just run it on your primary computer.

Networked AS a while back on V.3xxx. A LOT of work.

I'm now running AS via command line and assign cores at the same time in 4.1.

No difference between those two setups, as far as fps are concerned. 30fps is 30fps regardless of setup.

Cheers,

Mark

Make sure all computers on the network belong to the same Workgroup also.

As noted above, check ip addresses - make sure they are dedicated ip on the flightsim box and make sure you're on the same workgroup.  Almost without exception when I have trouble it's because I thought the IP was dedicated and it was DHCP.

50 minutes ago, JasonW said:

Im gonna go over Robs guide and try one more time

Also check pages 127 - 131 in my guide, I go over troubleshooting and setting up DHCP reservations in your router so that each device that uses DHCP will always get the same local (none public) IP (associates the device name to IP and keeps that association for as long as you don't hard reset the router).  And also check the various SimConnect files and make sure you are setting the IP for the "server" computer (PC running P3D) in those files (all of them, it's always the IP address of the server NOT the client).

Cheers, Rob.

57 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Also check pages 127 - 131 in my guide, I go over troubleshooting and setting up DHCP reservations in your router so that each device that uses DHCP will always get the same local (none public) IP (associates the device name to IP and keeps that association for as long as you don't hard reset the router).  And also check the various SimConnect files and make sure you are setting the IP for the "server" computer (PC running P3D) in those files (all of them, it's always the IP address of the server NOT the client).

Cheers, Rob.

Thank you, that made the router setup easy.

 

So im reading through your guide, on page 117 youre showing simconnect.INI file in your documents/P3DFiles. I just fresh installed V4.1 and loaded all of the service packs that come with V4. I dont see the simconnect.ini file in my documents. Does V4.1 put it somewhere else?

 

Another question I have is on page 121 with the xml file. You talk about the two ip addresses to edit in the xml, global and scope. Before I was only adding my server (p3d) pc's ip address for global. Where does the local host scope address come from?

 

Thanks for your help Rob. 

The SimConnect.ini is really only used for logging, it doesn't "configure" connections.  It might be helpful in your case to enable Verbose and log the output and then check the output after you attempt to connect.  If you see some error entries that's actually a good sign, but in your case I suspect you aren't getting that far.  You have to manually add the SimConnect.ini file.

The Local scope is just a loopback and this will be the same IP (127.0.0.1) for every computer, just make sure the port  value (in example one is 4506 and the other is 4507) is different from the global scope.  The SimConnect.xml on your P3D PC will be your P3D PC's IP.

The SimConnect.cfg (on client computer "My Documents") IP address entry on your "Client" PC will be the IP address of your P3D PC.

You shouldn't need to disable your firewall or any 3rd party anti-virus ... BUT, if you've run out of options as a last resort you can disable both AV and firewall (local not public firewall).

Cheers, Rob.

EDIT: network connections don't have to be this difficult ... some 3rd party software I use (specifically "ForeFlight") will connect to XP11 and P3D V4.x completely seamlessly ... auto detect and connect all wireless from my iPad and I don't have to configure anything other than select my flight simulator from within ForeFlight.  My hope is vendors will get a little more progressive and invest the time to make this process a lot less "fiddly".

 

 

If it's still not working you can download TCPView from Microsoft (older program but still works): https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/tcpview

This program will show you ports in use (sort by port) and you'll be able to see if there is a conflict with the SimConnect port specified.

Cheers, Rob.