P3D 4.4 addon autodiscovery broken

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

2 hours ago, onebob said:

Yes you are right, it was a path problem, It didn't appear to like the 'Texture' folder in the Effects folder so added a separate line for the path in the xml file.

many thanks   bob

 

Hi,

that shouldn't be necessary - when adding a component of category "Effects" on the "other addons" tab, you only have to point it to the effects folder itself. It is not required to add the texture folder inside it as a component too, the effects logic of the sim finds it anyway.

Best regards 

[Mace 1,924]

3 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

Hi,

that shouldn't be necessary - when adding a component of category "Effects" on the "other addons" tab, you only have to point it to the effects folder itself. It is not required to add the texture folder inside it as a component too, the effects logic of the sim finds it anyway.

Best regards 

Is this problem with 4.4 related to the fact that I'm seeing a scenery called "FSDreamTeam Exclude" in purple in P4AO?

While its path does exist, and it does have a scenery and texture subfolder, it contains no bgl file(s), which may be why it's showing purple.

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

5 hours ago, Mace said:

Is this problem with 4.4 related to the fact that I'm seeing a scenery called "FSDreamTeam Exclude" in purple in P4AO?

No. It is shown in purple because it is empty. Empty or broken scenery paths both used to freeze P3D 4.3 on the initial splash screen. Not sure if this is still the same in 4.4, but the logic is still there. 

Best regards

Edited February 3, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[onebob 125]

8 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

Hi,

that shouldn't be necessary - when adding a component of category "Effects" on the "other addons" tab, you only have to point it to the effects folder itself. It is not required to add the texture folder inside it as a component too, the effects logic of the sim finds it anyway.

Best regards 

Thank you for your reply, this is the xml file now

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<SimBase.Document Type="AddOnXml" version="4,0" id="add-on">
  <AddOn.Name>Global AI Ship Traffic V1+2</AddOn.Name>
  <AddOn.Description>Global AI Shipping by Henrik Nielsen</AddOn.Description>
  <AddOn.Component>
    <Category>SimObjects</Category>
    <Path>SimObjects\Boats</Path>
  </AddOn.Component>
  <AddOn.Component>
    <Category>SimObjects</Category>
    <Path>SimObjects\Animals</Path>
  </AddOn.Component>
  <AddOn.Component>
    <Category>Effects</Category>
    <Path>Effects</Path>
    <Path>Effects\Texture</Path>     …..   added path to Texture folder
 </AddOn.Component>
  <AddOn.Component>
    <Category>Sound</Category>
    <Path>Sound</Path>
  </AddOn.Component>
  <AddOn.Component>
    <Category>Scenery</Category>
    <Path>Scenery\World\Scenery</Path>
    <Name>Global AI shipping traffic</Name>
    <Layer>163</Layer>
  </AddOn.Component>
</SimBase.Document>

Tried adding the \Texture to the line above but it did.nt like it

regards bob

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

3 minutes ago, onebob said:

<AddOn.Component>
    <Category>Effects</Category>
    <Path>Effects</Path>
    <Path>Effects\Texture</Path>     …..   added path to Texture folder
 </AddOn.Component>

This is wrong. An <AddOn.Component> tag can only have one single <Path> entry.

For a Component of Category "Effects" you only need to reference the top folder to the effects (.fx) files. The sim should find their textures on its own. And if it doesn't, you have to add another Component of category "Textures".

Best regards 

Edited February 3, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[onebob 125]

5 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

This is wrong. An AddOn.Component tag can only have one <Path> entry.

Best regards 

Ok thanks for getting back, I'll see if I can contact Henrik Nielsen regarding this issue.

bob

 

[Bytehunter 1]

Im afraid im a victim of this behaviour....trying to find the reason for some ordering issue i have since many many hours now... without any luck. Devs arent really helpful too.

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&amp;t=132637

https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/143270-problem-with-scenery-order-part-ii/

Edited March 9, 2019 by Bytehunter

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

4 hours ago, Bytehunter said:

Im afraid im a victim of this behaviour....trying to find the reason for some ordering issue i have since many many hours now... without any luck. Devs arent really helpful too.

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&amp;t=132637

https://forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?/topic/143270-problem-with-scenery-order-part-ii/

HI,

if I read that correctly, you are trying to manipulate the add-ons.cfg files to force a certain sequence in the scenery library? IMHO this will never work, especially on larger setups. You are fighting two automated sim-internal processes (CLI and autodiscovery) so results become unpredictable - you have no guarantee that any editing that you do has the effect that you want or that it will stay that way. A small change (adding/removing an addon) can screw it all up - and that change doesn't even have to be scenery related, since all external add-on packages are listed in these two files. I always saw the package number as only an ID, not a sequence, comparable to the Area number in the scenery.cfg (where we have the additional Layer tag to control priority).

Personally I discarded that process on day one of P3D V4. It is a very old rule in IT that you don't try to manually override files that are managed by the software itself. Instead I made P4AO, which assigns proper layer numbers to all scenery components in the whole setup, scenery.cfg and add-on.xml references alike. That usually ensures that the scenery sequence stays in order.

Can't comment on SimStarter, sorry. 

Best regards

Edited March 9, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[Bytehunter 1]

9 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

HI,

if I read that correctly, you are trying to manipulate the add-ons.cfg files to force a certain sequence in the scenery library? IMHO this will never work, especially on larger setups. You are fighting two automated sim-internal processes (CLI and autodiscovery) so results become unpredictable - you have no guarantee that any editing that you do has the effect that you want or that it will stay that way. A small change (adding/removing an addon) can screw it all up - and that change doesn't even have to be scenery related, since all external add-on packages are listed in these two files. I always saw the package number as only an ID, not a sequence, comparable to the Area number in the scenery.cfg (where we have the additional Layer tag to control priority).

Personally I discarded that process on day one of P3D V4. It is a very old rule in IT that you don't try to manually override files that are managed by the software itself. Instead I made P4AO, which assigns proper layer numbers to all scenery components in the whole setup, scenery.cfg and add-on.xml references alike. That usually ensures that the scenery sequence stays in order.

Can't comment on SimStarter, sorry. 

Best regards

Thank you for the comment.

I dont really try to order it in a different way because i want it like that, the sim orders it wrong and i try to fix it 🙂

I added a post in night, im not sure it was there already when you read it. I found the problem and its related to what you said in your post.

In my current state of the sim weird things happen when P3D loads the scenery from all 3 locations, the %appdata% addons cfg, the %program files% addon cfg / autodiscovery and scenery cfg entries. Whenever i do that at some point when installing other scenery the whole sim breaks basically.

And most of the time this happens after installation of WSSS from Imaginesim, wich comes with 4 layers of scenery done over a way that im not sure if its the right one. I didnt read the SDK yet but they dont write into

C:\Users\sdsd\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4

but into 

C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4

But its not an autodiscovery scenery, they install to whatever place (outside the documents/P3D addons) and probably do it over CLI. But im not sure yet.... was a long night.

What happens is this:

When one is installing WSSS, at least in my case it will be added as  

[Package.0]
PATH=E:\P3D\Addon Scenery\ImagineSim\WSSS Singapore P3Dv4
TITLE=Imagine Simulation WSSS2_PD4
ACTIVE=true
REQUIRED=false

to this file

C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4

There are 51 other entries and the last one is UUEE with the nr [Package.51]

Despite that it will be shown on top, next to UUEE. So WSSS = 0 and UUEE = 51 and still it shows like here

This only stays until i add one other airport, doesnt matter wich one. Then WSSS gets either split up in 2 parts, 2 layers of it stay on top and the other 2 layers move down.

In this state i get blurries in the sim and some scenery overlap with payware. Like WSSS where suddenly the standard scenery overlaps. Seems the exclusion doesnt work anymore then.

So i thought why in all names can they both be next to each other in row when one is nr 0 and the other one nr 51 and saw that when i move WSSS from 0 to 51 all is fine.

Now all is like it should be, and they still stay together in row. Last one (nr 52) is WSSS and UUEE is 51, what is also reflected up there in the pic. No overlapping of standard scenery now too.

My simple question would be is what is the normal/right thing to happen when a scenery is installed into 

C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4

Lets say there are 30 entries in there. What happens when one adds the 31.th, does it get the number 31 or does it get 0 and all the others move one up in numbers?

Edited March 9, 2019 by Bytehunter

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

1 hour ago, Bytehunter said:

My simple question would be is what is the normal/right thing to happen when a scenery is installed into 

C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4

Lets say there are 30 entries in there. What happens when one adds the 31.th, does it get the number 31 or does it get 0 and all the others move one up in numbers?

That depends on how it is done. If the CLI is used, then I would expect that the addon is appended to the end of the list, getting the next free package ID. From what you describe, the installer of that scenery may be editing the add-ons.cfg directly instead of using the CLI, hence your problems. I don't think that this has something to do with what I wrote above, but I currently don't have an addon that uses CLI to try it out. And yes, the add-ons.cfg in ProgramData is the correct one for external package definitions that are not in the autodiscovery folder.

The part that is broken is, that P3D doesn't distinguish anymore between global and local addons. Global addons, that are supposed to be available to every user of the PC, are managed with the cfg files in ProgramData, while local, user-specific, addons and settings are supposed to be managed in AppData\Roaming, together with Documents\P3D Addons, since that is a local, user-specific folder too. You can have any number of different user accounts on the PC, each using the same P3D installation, but with totally different addons. (btw- this has always been possible, in FSX too.Minus the add-on.xmls of course). P3D V4.4 is throwing all of them into the same add-ons.cfg, and there is no telling what kind of problems that may cause - now or with the next P3D version that fixes it...

Just to repeat - the sequence of the packages doesn't matter at all if you apply proper layering. But you need a tool for that.

Best regards

Edited March 9, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[Bytehunter 1]

Well, it seems to matter.

Because when WSSS is Package.0 the scenery overlaps. And the half of the 4 layers roam around other places. They are not in order anymore in the scenery library. When WSSS is the last one all is good and all 4 layers kepp together in order, as intended. And in this state the sim will get immensely blurry. I think there are some things going on behind the scenes that are not easy to figure out in such moments.

I will ask them how they do it. Thanks so far 🙂

 

What i forgot, i asked a friend in the night to test this on his rig and its the very same for him.

When he has entries in the %appdata% addons cfg then the order of scenery of all addon xml entries changes. As soon as they are out and the file is empty they stay in order.

Also, how can it be that 0 and 51 are placed next to each other? That doesnt make sense to me.

 

EDIT:

ok i was wrong.... now even they stay together it reads the entries in the wrong order.... my god this is getting too weird really.

The right order would be

 

So P3D for whatever reason reads them opposite

Edited March 9, 2019 by Bytehunter

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

40 minutes ago, Bytehunter said:

Well, it seems to matter. 

The package sequence only matters when the scenery components inside it don't have a layer tag - which is most certainly the case on your end - installed add-on.xmls never have those.

Which is why I am using a tool to add proper layer tags to every scenery component - because then the packages can have any order that they want.

As I said before - it is useless trying to understand or influence the automated processes, one of which is broken anyway.

Best regards

Edited March 9, 2019 by Lorby_SI

[Bytehunter 1]

I guess i would be fine not understanding if i would know how to make the sim work again 🙂

 

Ill try it with your tool now...

[Lorby_SI 2,038]

2 minutes ago, Bytehunter said:

I guess i would be fine not understanding if i would know how to make the sim work again

You are trying to troubleshoot an issue that you can't solve with the methods that you apply. That will drive you crazy at some point...

If you want to try P4AO, please let it create a backup first - button is on the "Backup/Restore" tab.

Best regards

[Bytehunter 1]

Im amazed.... AddonOrganizer fixed it 🙂

It found some duplicates (even they never showed up in the sim lib inside p3d itself), cleared the indexes and viola. 

 

Thank you ^^

Edited March 9, 2019 by Bytehunter