Need help - PHNL Duplicate airport file somehow

[sddjd 117]

I'm at wits end- I have 60+ sceneries installed, #1 on the list being FSDT PHNL. This past weekend I installed both ORBX Ketchikan/Pac Fjords and Drzw Seattle Airports.

A week later I visit HNL and find my airport is somehow completely ruined. There is clearly another airport afcad for HNL active, as it's overruling my FSDT afcad (none of the parkings are correct, and default scenery buildings are visible). 

I've run, run again, and re-run airport scanning tools, disabled ALL scenery even remotely related to the Hawaiian islands, and still this default garbage is appearing. The scanners report that there are no other active HNL files, but the sim says otherwise. 

ORBX? Drzewiecki design? These are the ONLY two scenery changes made in months.... Right now I'm supremely pleased that my money was well spent adding those two products that apparently hosed my FSDT installation.

Can anyone suggest another way to determine WHERE this phantom HNL afcad is sourced other than reinstalling 60+ sceneries? I cannot understand how it is overruling a scenery that is priority 1 in the xml list of add-ons.... 😡

[cmpbellsjc 2,963]

Two questions should help you figure it out.

1. Do you have GSX installed which works for free at FSDT airports? If so, open the GSX editor when your at the airport and it will tell you which AFCAD is being used and it’s location.

2. Are you using MTX or any other traffic pack that installs AFCADs, besides UT or UTL which don’t install AFCADs? If you have MTX Installed then likely one if it’s AFCADs is being read.

 

[sddjd 117]

Hi cmpbellsjc,

Thanks, nope, only using UT2. When I use GSX to view the airport file it's correctly pointing to the FSDT afcad, yet P3d (4.3) doesn't list these gates at all when using the go-to-airport function. Somehow the sim and the add-ons (like GSX) are reading different files concurrently. If I warp to, for example, gate 25 heavy in GSX it places me correctly. If I use the go-to-airport function and select gate 25 it shows as small and places me nearby in the FSDT terminal.

The file p3d is using is clearly a default, as some of the generic jetway markings are visible along with the default buildings. Since none of the scanning utilities come up with a result, I have no more ideas on how to find out WHERE p3d is finding this trash file....

[downscc 1,327]

8 hours ago, sddjd said:

I have no more ideas on how to find out WHERE p3d is finding this trash file....

I've got several ideas but I've not had this problem before so I'm just brainstorming here.  First place I'd look is in your LM programdata folder for scenery_addons.xml and look in it for any duplicate PHNL instances.  This file is created by P3D each time is starts and includes all addons added by any one of several xml methods.  I'd be surprised if that worked since it implies you have an addon you didn't know about, so the next thing I'd do is run MakeRunway with Lorby's AddOn Organizer installed (installed but not running).  This will create a MakeRunway_Scenery.cfg file that contains all scenery library entries, default and addon.  Look for a duplicate PHNL there.  Also, the MakeRunway tool will give you several long files in the P3D root directory that are a list of all runways found... a scan of one of those should find any duplicate PHNL runway entries.  Just brainstorming... hope this helps.

Edited August 24, 2018 by downscc

[Bob Scott 7,760]

Rather than guessing at what the conflict might be, go get Simple Airport Scanner at www.scruffyduck.org and use that tool to scan for duplicate ADEs.

Another possibility could be multiple entries for the same scenery in one or both of the add-ons.cfg files, e.g. two entries for FSDT's airport.

Regards

 

[Dave_YVR 1,000]

 You could also run a manual scan of your sims folder as well as any add-on folders for anything PHNL. Another option would be to temporarily disable the FSDT Honolulu and then see what Afcad GSX shows as active.

 Chances are far more probable that you have added something and forgotten about it rather than blame ORBX or DD.

[Bob Scott 7,760]

A couple more thoughts here.

I'd check the two add-ons.cfg files located in "C:\users\<your username>\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\" and "C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\" and make sure the numbering on all the listed packages is sequential, that Active=True and that there is no duplication.

In "C:\users\<your username>\Documents\Prepar3D v4 Add-ons\FsDreamTeam PHNL\add-on.xml" there should be one section with a texture component, and one with a scenery component.

Make sure the elevation correction file (FSDT_PHNL_ALT.BGL) is present in \scenery\world\scenery

This might not be a duplicate ADE, but rather a duplicate or leftover exclude file somewhere.  Layering behavior for excludes has always been a bit flaky.

Does disabling or even uninstalling the recently-installed ORBX and DD sceneries fix the problem?

Are you using ORBX Vector?  Is it altering the PHNL elevation if you are?

Is ORBXLIBS above all the ORBX sceneries in the scenery library priority order?

Regards

[sddjd 117]

Thanks all for the tips- I've performed most of these checks already, which is my main cause for frustration. Seems like the classic causes for duplicate scenery bgl's don't yield results. SAS shows only the PHNL_ALT bgl as active, and it's alone in the correct location, but SAS also doesn't scan xml-added sceneries so it's of limited use in this case.

I've combed my xml files as well as compared them to their backups (made prior to each major scenery install) to no avail, all entries are correct without duplications or ordering issues. Same for my cfg files.

This has become stranger- I've been able to confirm that the PHNL visible below the add-ons is the default (via renaming the APX bgl as a test and restarting the sim). So, once back from work I'm going to start investigating all the airport related bgl's that may no longer be correctly excluding this base layer. The CVX files for PHNL appear to be in place.

No idea why this came after the DD & ORBX installations- those are the sole changes to the scenery configs/xml's in quite some time but as always it could be purely coincidental. It would make zero sense that two sceneries more than 2K sim miles away would have affected PHNL. 

Time for mad scientist mode now 🛠️

Edited August 24, 2018 by sddjd

[downscc 1,327]

Be sure you have the beta version of Simple Airport Scanner....the one that you download from Scruffy Duck Software does not work with P3Dv4... at least the one I just downloaded does not.

SASv1.70 I think is the one that has been out since Jun and is still work in progress.  I'm not sure where Jon is at in it's development.

EDIT UPDATE:  Reading the full post on his beta in FS Developer forum I see that not even the latest beta will look for AFCAD files if added with any addon xml method.  This means that running SAS and not finding duplicates only means there are no duplicates that can be found using scenery.cfg to find the files.

Edited August 24, 2018 by downscc

[pgde 571]

I'm not a home to check but look at the "default" sceneries at the bottom the scenery.cfg file. I don't remember if LM/Microsoft provided some Hawaii scenery. The reason I know that is I had a similar problem with DD Washington X. It turned out that the LM Washington DC default scenery was activated. Deactivated it and all was well. Just a suggestion.

[Indy511 686]

@sddjd Photo real scenery? Sometimes they include airports.

[Bob Scott 7,760]

18 hours ago, downscc said:

Be sure you have the beta version of Simple Airport Scanner....the one that you download from Scruffy Duck Software does not work with P3Dv4... at least the one I just downloaded does not.

SASv1.70 I think is the one that has been out since Jun and is still work in progress.  I'm not sure where Jon is at in it's development.

EDIT UPDATE:  Reading the full post on his beta in FS Developer forum I see that not even the latest beta will look for AFCAD files if added with any addon xml method.  This means that running SAS and not finding duplicates only means there are no duplicates that can be found using scenery.cfg to find the files.

The trick is to run Lorby-SI's (free) P3D Addon Manager...in the Backup/Restore tab there's an option to "Export library for external tool" which consolidates the scenery entries from all sources to the scenery.cfg file, including the xml files pointed to in both add-ons.cfg files and the legacy scenery.cfg file.  You click on that button, then click on the first step in the popup window "Export library to scenery.cfg" and then run SAS, which will use the now-consolidated scenery.cfg file.  When done, remember to click of the step 3 button "Recover original scenery.cfg" and everything goes back to the way it was before.  This is the same process used to run Pete Dowson's MakeRwys utility to produce a common runway data file in P3D that is used by many other add-ons like Radar Contact, PF3, etc.

Regards

 

[downscc 1,327]

9 minutes ago, w6kd said:

This is the same process used to run Pete Dowson's MakeRwys utility to produce a common runway data file in P3D that is used by many other add-ons like Radar Contact, PF3, etc.

Ah sooo.... I got a chuckle from this because I have used the Lorby addon organizer in conjunction with make runways for the purpose of running the Vector AEC setup, but for some blind reason I didn't connect the dots and think to use it with the airport scanner.  Thanks Bob for the wake up.

Edited August 25, 2018 by downscc

[Bob Scott 7,760]

21 minutes ago, downscc said:

Ah sooo.... I got a chuckle from this because I have used the Lorby addon organizer in conjunction with make runways but for some blind reason I didn't connect the dots and think to use it with the airport scanner.  Thanks Bob for the wake up.

🙂  I just re-read the thread and noticed your comment there about using it with MakeRwys. Don't know what I'd be doing now without Oliver's tool...it's really become the Swiss army knife of scenery management.

Quote

No idea why this came after the DD & ORBX installations- those are the sole changes to the scenery configs/xml's in quite some time but as always it could be purely coincidental. It would make zero sense that two sceneries more than 2K sim miles away would have affected PHNL.

The installation of any ORBX scenery means running FTXCentral, which can change things in the scenery.cfg and terrain.cfg, and perhaps others.  I've had issues in the past with it re-ordering things in the scenery.cfg that caused problems, which is why I use the same Lorby-SI P3D Addon Manager program to make backups of all my config files on a regular basis to have something to go back to.  Did you try runnning FTXCentral and in the settings page force a re-migration of the lcLookup?  That's actually cured a couple of odd seemingly unrelated problems for me in the past, too.

I hate to bring this up, but I had something happen months ago that caused a weird problem with my sceneries in Alaska that had all the terrain elevations messed up...all the ramps and taxiways in the airports in the region were on plateaus or sunken into canyons, and I tried everything I could think of for weeks until I finally just decided to do a complete rebuild of P3D (in conjunction with the 4.3 release).  Sometimes unidentified queertrons get loose in the system and all that's left is to do is a complete exorcism.

Regards