FSX-SE Ultimate Traffic Live issues

[Rusty Gunz 2]

I know this is not the UT Live support forum, but there are a lot of knowledgeable users here. Perhaps someone will have some information that will help me. I am also posting this in the UT support forum.

I just purchased and installed UT Live. The installation went smoothly without errors and I followed the InstallGuide to the letter. After the installation completed, I started UT Live and proceeded to configure it as per the InstallGuide - set the UI to run as an administrator, started UT Live and checked that Dovetail Games FSX Steam Edition is the current active flight simulator and attempted to start the simulation.

First problem - the hide/expand/close options are not visible on the screen and neither are the Save Settings or Start Simulation buttons. The UT Live window extends above and below the limits of my monitor's display area. (Screen resolution is set to 1920 x 1080.)

I am only able to exit the application using ALT-F4. For some reason the hide/expand options do no respond to keyboard shortcut keys. Through a process of trial and error, I was able to determine the sequence of buttons accessed by the Tab key and then by pressing Enter could save settings and start the simulation. I know this because text appeared indicating the save process was successful and the simulation was initialize and running.

I have FSX-SE running with no default (or any other) AI. My airports are completely devoid of aircraft other than the one I am using in the sim. I next start UT Live. (NOTE: I read in another post somewhere that UT Live starts automatically when you start FSX-SE. Is that correct? If I start the ui, the flight map and the status are not active until I start the simulation as outlined above. I can see flights moving on the map and the status board changes as flights arrive and depart, but nothing happens in the sim.)

Second problem - there are still no aircraft at any airport I visit Lambert Field in St. Louis, JFK, Heathrow, etc. Nothing at the gates, nothing on the ground anywhere, nothing in the air, nothing landing or taking off. I have a flight world inhabited only by my own aircraft. How frustrating!

The only way to get traffic is to put the trafficaircraft.bgl back in to Scenery/World/Scenery.

What have I done wrong? Is there, perhaps, an entry missing in the fsx_se.cfg? Was it an error to install UT Live on my G: drive where my FSX-SE lives rather than the default 😄 drive? I can't find any help anywhere at this point.

Can someone point me in the right direction, please?

Ken in Kansas

[norman s 15]

Hi,

When starting your sim do you get a UTL box showing that it is in fact present.

When first using the sim after installing UTL you should have had the permissions box to tick.

 

If not ,I would do a complete re-install.

[Rusty Gunz 2]

Thanks for the response, Norman.

No, I do not get any UTL notifications when I start FSX-SE.  In researching my problem, I did find mention of something like that and wondered why I wasn't seeing it.

When all is working as it should, does UTL start itself whenever I start FSX-SE?

I will do an uninstall and re-install as per your suggestion.  Hopefully that will resolve the matter.  I will report back here on my results.

Ken in Kansas

[Rusty Gunz 2]

Norman,

After re-installation still no joy - no notification from UTL when starting FSX-SE and no traffic anywhere.  All airports are barren.  I re-installed as follows:

1. Uninstalled UTL
2. Ran RegCleaner
3. Ran CCleaner
4. Removed all folders/files associated with Flight1 and UTL, including those on C:  and in %\AppData\Roaming
5. Restarted Windows 7 in Safe Mode
6. Made certain AV was off and no other programs were running
7. Re-installed UTL per instructions in Install Guide, including setting app to Run as Administrator and starting UTL to verify FSX-SE was selected
8. Checked FSX-SE config file to make sure SimObject entry was present and pointing to the utLive Aircraft
9. Started FSX-SE

Results - NADA, BUPKISS, ZILCH, ZERO, MIA!!  😢

At the end of my rope, now.  I've not been able to find any information anywhere to help with my problem.  Very frustrated and angry.  😠

Ken in Kansas

[Dave_YVR 968]

 Have you set from within UTL the Target Frame rate to Zero? Also to try and is common for some users is that you need to install the appropriate Simconnect for your sim. 

[Rusty Gunz 2]

OK, another update. After all the above-mentioned steps and having not made any apparent progress, I began researching once again. I found references to possible SimConnect issues and the UTL utl_client.exe file as possible contributors to my situation.

One forum post cited the possibility that the SimConnect version being used might not be correct for FSX-SE. I found a youtube video with instructions for reloading/restoring SimConnect. I followed those directions, but my results didn't look like the video. Remembering that a version of SimConnect was apparently installed by UTL, I wondered if the version was incorrect for FSX-SE. I went to Steam and validated all my FSX-SE files. Some 480 were in need of updating so that was done (automatically by Steam). Back to the sim, hoping that was the answer I was looking for. Nope, still no traffic.

More searching of forums until I found a post that talked about making sure that the utl_client process was running while the sim was running. Started the sim and then started Task Manager. No aircraft and no utl_client process running. So I started the utl_client manually (it's in the UTL directory that contains the Imagery, SimConnect, Uninstall and utLive Aircraft folders). Back to the sim.

BINGO!! 😄

Aircraft on the ground everywhere. Wait 8-10 minutes (as per recommended in some other forums) and the Ground Controller begins to chatter, planes begin to move on the ground, planes takeoff and planes land.

Now, everything I had read in other forums indicated that utl_client was supposed to start when the sim started. Apparently not, in my case. I will, until another solution comes along, have to manually start the process. Either before the sim is started or after - both ways work and planes appear relatively quickly when utl_client is started.

I hope my 20+ hours of work will benefit someone else struggling to get Ultimate Traffic LIVE working.

Excuse me now while I go fly in some heavily populated (and hopefully, friendly) skies.

Ken in Kansas

PS for Dave:  The frame rate was set to 0 all along and I don't know if the SimConnect was an issue because it didn't seem to help as per the statements above.  Of course, it could have been a combination of SimConnect and utl_client - both needing to be done in order for things to work. 👌

[Dave_YVR 968]

That's great to hear. The utl_client not starting when you start the sim is one of those weird anomalies that only a few users get a (goes back to my other post about  system oddities). During the install process, an entry into your exe.xml is supposed to be added enabling utl_client to start automatically. You can however add one yourself.