P4AO Unhandled exception, enable sceneries

[longrangecruise 57]

Hi Oliver,

I ran into some big problems. It all started with the following error:

“The following files have an incorrect character encoding:
AppData/Roaming/Lockheed Martin/Prepar3DV4/add-ons.cfg”

After clicking OK I lost the groups and decided to uninstall. Unfortunately I had several sceneries disabled. They don’t show in the sim anymore, although they are listed on the add-ons.cfg as true.

I then tried to reinstall using the latest version and I’m getting following error trying to double-click on some scenery: 

************** Exception Text **************

System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

   at P3DV4AddonOrganizer.MainDialog.PopulatePackageView()

   at P3DV4AddonOrganizer.MainDialog.treeview_nodeMouseDoubleClick(Object sender, TreeNodeMouseClickEventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.OnNodeMouseDoubleClick(TreeNodeMouseClickEventArgs e)

   at System.Windows.Forms.TreeView.WndProc(Message& m)

   at System.Windows.Forms.NativeWindow.Callback(IntPtr hWnd, Int32 msg, IntPtr wparam, IntPtr lparam)

Could you help me get my sceneries back, please?

 

 

Edited April 12, 2018 by longrangecruise

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

Hi, 

this sounds like something has shot one of your add-on.cfg files. Did you try to edit that file or did you use any other tool besides P4AO - or an installer?

The file is here:

"C:\Users\<yourusername\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3DV4\add-ons.cfg”

If you send that file to me via email, I can see what I can do (address is on the last page of the user manual). This is unrelated to the P4AO, so installing or uninstalling things will only make it worse.

As a short term measure, just rename this file to add-ons.cfg.off. When you restart P3D it will create a new one and everthing will be back to normal.

The disabled sceneries you can only get back with P4AO or by restoring the initial add-on.xml files (there is a copy of the original in every folder named "*.orig".

Best regards

Edited April 12, 2018 by Lorby_SI

[longrangecruise 57]

Thanks for your reply. I installed some scenery.

The short term measure didn't work. They are all reenabled under add-ons, but don't show in the sim . 

Edited April 12, 2018 by longrangecruise

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

13 minutes ago, longrangecruise said:

The short term measure didn't work. They are all reenabled under add-ons, but don't show in the sim . 

You can only reenable them with P4AO. There is no other practical way. It uses a special method to disable individual scenery entries that the simulator can't understand.

The Package and the Scenery Entries are not the same thing. If you disabled the package, then it will be back when you can see it in the Addons dialog. But if you used P4AO to disable a scenery entry within the package, then you must use P4AO to get it back.

Btw. you don't have to create an add-on.xml for every single scenery. You can add multiple sceneries to the same add-on.xml. For example, you could create one for each developer and add the sceneries accordingly. There are some entries in your file where I am pretty certain that the developer already has changed his installer to external installation. There is no reason why they should be in this file (for example Fs DreamTeam)

A friendly advice: NEVER edit CFG or XML files manually unless you have sound knowledge about character encoding and XML format rules.

Best regards

Edited April 12, 2018 by Lorby_SI

[longrangecruise 57]

The tool is running again.

Many thanks for your kind support also through email.

I didn`t modify  these files, as I know  too little about it, but there was an additional cfg reading error after opening the tool. When removing mentioned folder from \Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons the tool startet working again. 

Best regards

Edited April 12, 2018 by longrangecruise