FSDT Frustrations

[barramundilure 152]

Hi Everyone have recently made the move from FSX to P3D and made several flights including to FSDT sceneries in the PMDG B77W with no problems.  I got a message to update my fsdt sceneries via the live updater which I did with P3D closed, then did a flight only to find my KMEM scenery missing after a 5 hour flight from PANC.  Talk about frustration!! 

Looking at all my FSDT sceneries they have all disappeared despite them being active in my scenery library.  Does anyone know what to do in this situation.

In FSX a restart generally saw them return but not on this occasion.  

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edited March 31, 2018 by barramundilure

[Indy511 686]

2 minutes ago, barramundilure said:

Hi Everyone have recently made the move from FSX to P3D and made several flights including to FSDT sceneries in the PMDG B77W with no problems.  I got a message to update my fsdt sceneries via the live updater which I did then did a flight only to find my KMEM scenery missing after a 5 hour flight from PANC.  Looking at all my FSDT sceneries they have all disappeared despite them being active in my scenery library.  Does anyone know what to do in this situation.

In FSX a restart generally saw them return but not on this occasion.  

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Have you posted this at the FSDT forums? http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/

[pete_auau 1,158]

yep  first port of  call is the fdst  forum  first,  you can  try  manually  using the  addon manger  to  update  from the  fdts  web  page

[Hoang 108]

It happened to me several times during P3D V3 time. Already had a big dicussion at FSDT but after all, none helped. It happened every once a while.
Then I moved to V4 and it happened couple times again. That is before the new FSDT Live Update system take place.
I don't know now since haven't done any flights for months, but it seems you are talking about the same issue. It happened to me once after 16 hours flight. Unbelievable. 

Edited March 31, 2018 by Hoang

[barramundilure 152]

I ran the updater again and got them back but I have to say that i am done with FSDT and its upgrading system.  It truely sucks, and I am almost certain it's what crashed my FSX setup and forced me into P3D.

Its a pity - good sceneries let down by a terrible updating system.

[pete_auau 1,158]

simple  solution if  you  are  done  with  fdst   is  to uninstall  them

[Hoang 108]

2 hours ago, barramundilure said:

I ran the updater again and got them back but I have to say that i am done with FSDT and its upgrading system.  It truely sucks, and I am almost certain it's what crashed my FSX setup and forced me into P3D.

Its a pity - good sceneries let down by a terrible updating system.

Actually if you restart the sim the airport(s) will work fine again, no need to run the update or anything. Not only the airports but also GSX will not work. None of the FSDT products will work if we get into that situation.

[G-RFRY 1,710]

I tend to run the FSDT updater from my desktop not in the sim at least one`s a week and have never yet had a problem with FSDT airports and I have most of them, I also run make runways after installing addons in P3Dv4.

And in the sim you can check the addon manger to see if they are active and installed.

[Rocky_53 1,579]

edit

Edited March 31, 2018 by Rockliffe

[virtuali 4,421]

This issue has been discussed, answered, and SOLVED already, just a few hours after it was first reported on our forum. And I stayed up all night (until 7:00 AM), until I was sure it was completely fixed, because such hard crashes are taken very seriously.

It affected only users still running P3D 4.1, because we released an update by mistakenly assuming that most of GSX users would have upgraded to 4.2 by now, since 4.1 was extremely buggy with GSX, due to the missing texture problem, which has been fixed only in 4.2.

There was a single line of code that called into a specific 4.2 function, which resulted in the program crashing when run under 4.1, because we still linked to the 4.1 Simconnect, in order not to FORCE users to upgrade to 4.2, which is what would have happened if we used the 4.2 Simconnect, since it's not backward compatible with 4.1 so, the result would have been the same, the software wouldn't start, and GSX and all FSDT sceneries would be gone just the same.

Fortunately, LM stil let you download the 4.1 Client (even if they suggest not to do it)I was able to downgrade my install and found a solution that still works with both 4.1 and 4.2, which has been posted online just a few hours after the issue was first reported on our forum so, it would be enough to just run the Live Update again to get the fixed file, which so far seems confirmed to have fixed the problem for everyone that reported it.

Guys, these things HAPPENS, like when a specific release of FSUIPC (5.123c I believe) prevented P3D from starting, but I haven't see many complaints, other than the usual jokes about Pete being on vacation when a new P3D comes out. And in this case, it was ALSO a very similar problem of different Simconnect versions used.

The issue is, LM suggest developers and users too should always upgrade to the latest version. P3D doesn't use the otherwise pesky and complex Side-by-side loading method, so FSX (when it worked), allowed multiple addons using different releases of the SDK to all run together in the same memory space. It was nice, when it worked, but it was almosts impossible to troubleshoot when it didn't. P3D switched to a different method, which is Static Linking so, an addon made for 4.2, for example, won't even START on 4.1.

Since we know that, because of *other* addons still not compatible with 4.2, some users haven't upgraded, we stayed with the 4.1 SDK, which is compatible with 4.2 so, in theory, it was supposed to work in both versions but, unfortunately, I left a single line of code calling into something 4.2-specific, which resulted in a crash on 4.1.

And just for full disclosure, the function used was related to the new PDK camera SDK. In the constant strive for the maximum efficiency and performance, we stopped used the Simconnect method to ask the sim for the positions of the eyepoint (used by GSX *sounds*, to know where you ears are located) and, since this MUST be done at each frame (the sound would not be smooth if it wasn't), in order to reduce traffic on Simconnect, and be a better citizen in relationship with other addons, we switched to the native PDK solution, which gets data from memory in the official way (no hacking), without having to go through the Simconnect client-server connection, which is shared with all your other addons so, this solution is better for performance, more friendly with other addons, and it's 100% officially documented. It's just what we used in the "4.2 way", without noticing it, but it's all fixed now: the method is still the same, just it's compatible with 4.1 too.

Edited March 31, 2018 by virtuali

[anden145 2,285]

50 minutes ago, rjfry said:

I tend to run the FSDT updater from my desktop not in the sim at least one`s a week and have never yet had a problem with FSDT airports and I have most of them, I also run make runways after installing addons in P3Dv4.

And in the sim you can check the addon manger to see if they are active and installed.

I actually do the same, and I never have any issues or problems with coault or FSDT's sceneries.

Can't for the life of me understand why people keep complaining about this... In my experience, most of the times, it's the users own mistake, fault or misunderstanding of their system setup, which is leading to instability or weird behaviour of the sim or addons...

Edited March 31, 2018 by Anders Bermann

[virtuali 4,421]

25 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

Can't for the life of me understand why people keep complaining about this... In my experience, most of the times, it's the users own mistake fault, which is leading to instability or weird behaviour of the sim or addons...

Well, in this case, no user was at fault.

If we tested it on 4.1, we would have found it before release but the issue is, 4.1 was so bugged with GSX, that I couldn't foresee a GSX user not updating to 4.2 as of today. 

Now, before it starts getting funny, let's say that 4.2 add its own different class of issues to GSX (and every other addon with a menu), but there are workarounds, while there was no way to fix the black textures problem in 4.1, other than just reducing the number of addons installed.

Edited March 31, 2018 by virtuali

[CFIJose 5,485]

I did experience one issue where I flew from KSAN to KLAX and KLAX was not there. Even thought, the airport was successfully activated. I check the AM after the incident and it read activate. I double clicked on my activation file, and never had that happen again.

At first I was angry and was going to scream and shout, but I thought about how awesome FSDT sceneries are and I convince myself that it was worth it.

It has not happened again with P3d v4.2.

[downscc 1,327]

I've had my fair number of complaints with FSDT over the years, and I still have a pet peeve with their updater removing my customized AF files, but my experience with their products with their updater in the past past year has been good and I found if I mark the AF file as read only they will be left in place.  I look forward to their increased use of the PDK strategy which is a very good solution to the many limitations of simconnect.  My biggest complaint today is that KORD update is loooong overdue!!

[Indy511 686]

19 minutes ago, downscc said:

I mark the AF file as read only they will be left in place.

+1 Thanks for this tip.
I have to add KIND to several sim.cfg files otherwise the default GSX liveries loaded instead of the current desired airline.