Okay, I need someone to point me in the right direction. When P2A clears me to use a STAR, I can descend to the published altitudes only if it's "Descend via the SID," correct? But if I am "cleared for the RNAV approach" then I can descend on my own to complete the approach as long as I obey any restrictions in the approach, correct?

I was cleared for an RNAV approach and never given descent instructions which is why I'm asking. Thanks!

In the current version there are some scenarios where a bug causes P2A to not give descent instructions when it should.  This should be fixed in the 2506 update that should  be coming out soon.

If you are not flying a STAR, then ATC should give you a step descent starting near the P2A TOD.  

As a workaround, you could ask for a descent to the approach initial altitude after you are a minute or so past TOD.  (This is to give P2A enough time to start the descent first.)  You may only be cleared part way down because of terrain, but at least you'll be closer to getting down to the approach initial altitude.

Dave

Okay, understood. I did run into this problem again but this time I also didn't get vectored to my final approach at the approprate time (or at least what I would consider appropriate).

Flying from KDAB to KMIA via J79. I was told to expect the ILS to 27 via HENDN. Using the request descent workaround I did eventually get cleared down to 7,000 but made it all the way to DHP before I was cleared for the approach -- no vectors or anything.

Remind me where the log files are stored? I can post some of those in the future if I run into this again.

Log files are located in: 
C:\Users\<UserName>\AppData\Roaming\P2A_200\Logs 
where <UserName> is your PC user name. Portions of the path may be hidden by default, so be sure Windows Explorer has Show Hidden Items checked in the View tab.
A new one is created each time you start Pilot2ATC, so if you take the most recent one when you have the error, you should have the correct one.  

Please email them to me at [email protected] as they are easier to deal with when I have the actual file.

Thanks,

Dave