P3D V4.2 and problems installing add-ons

[antonvs 76]

@Lorby_SI Thanks and yes I have your cleaver tool and have used it in this case (if you follow my Evernote link in my first post you will see screen shots).

I have found in this case Scenery organiser did not write to my Config.sys file even though I had two OZx entries showing at the top of the screen in dark green. I then pressed “save” and exited Lordy_SI but when I checked my scenery.cfg file the entries were not there.

Cheers Anton 

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

Btw, as those were mentioned above:

- there is no point in managing ORBX scenery addons externally - FTXCentral will put them into your scenery.cfg every time that you run it.

- You shouldn't edit cfg files manually, because in P3D V4 their character encoding has changed. If you use an unsuitable editor (like Windows Notepad) you can screw up the cfg files beyond recognition. 

- "Don't use the add-on.xml method" is a thing of the past too. Starting with P3D V4.2 the issue with texture corruption while using too many XML files has been fixed by LM.

Best regards

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

12 minutes ago, antonvs said:

@Lorby_SI Thanks and yes I have your cleaver tool and have used it in this case (if you follow my Evernote link in my first post you will see screen shots).

I have found in this case Scenery organiser did not write to my Config.sys file even though I had two OZx entries showing at the top of the screen in dark green. I then pressed “save” and exited Lordy_SI but when I checked my scenery.cfg file the entries were not there.

Cheers Anton 

Dark colored entries are external ones, using add-on.xml's. They will never show up in your scenery.cfg unless you migrate them (then they become light colored and are removed from the add-on.xml - you can only use one or the other).

Maybe I misunderstood you but -> No external scenery definition will show up in the scenery.cfg, that is the whole point of the add-on.xml. <-

Best regards

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by Lorby_SI

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

Looking through your Evernote log, there are two key misunderstandings.

1. When you add an add-on.xml based content with P4AO, the sim will never ask you if you want to activate it - P4AO did that for you

2. When you add scenery with add-on.xml files, you cannot manipulate them with the scenery library dialog in P3D. That is just how it is, and one of the reasons why I made the P4AO. 

Best regards

Edited March 17, 2018 by Lorby_SI

[antonvs 76]

2 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

Dark colored entries are external ones, using add-on.xml's. They will never show up in your scenery.cfg.

Best regards

 

Ah, good point. I had been advised by Elaine about that but had forgotten. Maybe I am closer than I thought to solving my issue.

With regard to your first post, I’m confused as my recent install of P3D is v4.2 and I also thought that using add-on.xml was their prefered method for addons. Certainly when I loaded Drzeweicki Design’s Baku using their installer they use the add-on.xml method.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

IMHO, the real problem is, that the issues that you were seeing are not related to the actions that you are showing in your log. And you got sidetracked by issues that were no problems at all.

1. The first error "cannot load Area002" was caused by a corrupted scenery.cfg, which had NOTHING to do with the XML file that you created. Something else must have happened at that point (the add-on.xml files don't change your scenery.cfg)

2. Your setup was probably working fine the first time that you reached 9.0. Did you test it at that point or did you just see the grey entries in the scenery library (which are perfectly normal) and decided to retry again and again?

3. What happened after that is a lot of trial and error which probably didn't improve matters.

My recommendation still stands - install your OZ scenery into an empty folder like you would install it into the sim. Then analyze the folder and use P4AO to build one add-on.xml file with references to all types of content that you find in that OZx folder.

Edit: the reason why I recommend installing them into a separate folder (via their installer) is, that when you do that, you will also see all the content that goes beyond the obvious, like Effects or BGL that are copied into \Scenery\World. Those need to be linked with the add-on.xml too (but only once).
An extreme example: you could link all the content of a previous FSX installation into P3D V4 with one single add-on.xml.

Best regards

 

Edited March 17, 2018 by Lorby_SI

[antonvs 76]

@Lorby_SI Hello Oliver and thanks again for your timely help. In review I think you might be right as all along a gut feeling told me that I have been getting close to my end goal.

And I also think that although I have been very capable of nurturing a FSX installation along for 10 years and a past in IT and electronics, age may also be catching up (72 years young) and clouding my decision making.

I will wonder off and try your sensible suggestion of installing OZx to a temporary folder and then refigure it using Lorby_SI. Having a much clearer understanding of how your app works and how the Config files operate in P3D v4.

I will start by deleting config.sys and add-ons.cfg again and build from there.

Cheers Anton.

Edited March 17, 2018 by antonvs

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

10 minutes ago, antonvs said:

@Lorby_SI Hello Oliver and thanks again for your timely help. i review I think you might be right as all along a gut feeling told me that I have been getting close to my end goal.

And I also think that although I have been very capable of nurturing a FSX installation along for 10 years and a past in IT and electronics, age may also be catching up (72 years young) and clouding my decision making.

I will wonder off and try your sensible suggestion of installing OZx to a temporary folder and then refigure it using Lorby_SI. Having a much clearer understanding of how your app works and how the Config files operate in P3D v4.

I will start by deleting config.sys and add-ons.cfg again and build from there.

Cheers Anton.

Hello Anton,

personally, I don't think that you have that big a problem on your hands. You should have stopped at 9.0, had you known that those grey entries are normal in that situation. Just forget about the P3D internal scenery library dialog for now, until LM makes the add-on.xml based entries accessible for the user. Currently you will have to use external tools instead, like the P4AO.

And be careful with the deleting. For example, you should not delete the add-ons.cfg that is in \ProgramData\ - that would be fatal for all addons that were using it. P3D cannot rebuild the contents of this file. P4AO has a backup and restore facility, which will keep all your config files safe (if you are using the latest version of the tool).

Having the old FSX ways in mind is the most dangerous aspect. Try to forget all that and keep an open mind about what is possible with the new sim.

Best regards

Edited March 17, 2018 by Lorby_SI

[antonvs 76]

@Lorby_SI Thanks, understood

[antonvs 76]

Well a new day and a fresh start works wonders.

1. Checked all my .xml files

2. Deleted scenery.cfg

3. Started P3D so it rebuilt the scenery.cfg

4. Ran Orbx Central 3 to re activate

5. Checked what I had showing in lorby_SI. All looked good 

6. Ran P3D *** Everything runs including OZx

7. Made config backups

8. Then went on to add a detailed OZx freeware airport by @Flukey - YBSU Maroochydore Sunshine Coast regional airport. This I added to the existing OZx_AUS add-on.xml and this worked as well.

Couple of screenshots over the airport

OZx YBSU Moorchydore Sunshine Coast Airport flying in Realair Lancair Legacy v2

Here is a copy of the file.

____________________________________

<SimBase.Document Type="AddOnXml" version="4,0" id="add-on">

  <AddOn.Name>OZx_AU</AddOn.Name>

  <AddOn.Description>OZx_AU</AddOn.Description>

  <AddOn.Component>

    <Category>Scenery</Category>

    <Path>E:\Lockheed Martin\Addon_Scenery\OZx\OZx_AUS</Path>

    <Name>OZx_AUS</Name>

    <Layer>348</Layer>

  </AddOn.Component>

  <AddOn.Component>

    <Category>Scenery</Category>

    <Path>E:\Lockheed Martin\Addon_Scenery\OZx\OZx_LIB</Path>

    <Name>OZx_LIB</Name>

    <Layer>347</Layer>

  </AddOn.Component>

  <AddOn.Component>

    <Category>Scenery</Category>

    <Path>E:\Lockheed Martin\Addon_scenery\OZx\OZx_AUS\YBSU Sunshine Coast Airport fk</Path>

    <Name>YBSU Sunshine Coast Airport fk</Name>

    <Layer>349</Layer>

  </AddOn.Component>

</SimBase.Document>

______________________________

Thank you all. Off for some Australian flying

Edited March 18, 2018 by antonvs

[blaunarwal 432]

I ran into this thread when I also had a problem P3D4.2 wasn't recognizing my scenery recently compiled and added. The solution was stupid simple. I just had copied my .bgl into

Addon Scenery\MyAirport

instead of 

Addon Scenery\MyAirport\scenery

The error code of P3D4 is just a bit weak, saying could find scenery. It could also say, there's no scenery directory in MyAirport. Hope this helps others.

Dan