Mixing P3D traffic with Voxatc traffic?

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

It doesn't matter where traffic bgl files are located in your scenery library list. They do not have any priority attached to them. I use AIG schedules and they are in their own folder in a scenery subfolder. 

[mikelockwood 3]

Hi Jab,

I’ve only just discovered this post in my search for answers to the lack of VOX AI traffic so apologies for extending this even further.

i was very interested in your discovery of the 4 lines that you tested in the VASettings XML file. They weren’t present in mine so I added them myself. Unfortunately they made no difference. For convenience I just put them at the top of the list but I was wondering if they need to be placed in a certain position?

Just to elaborate on that, I do have some traffic, for example at my home airport EGKK I get 40 to 50% with p3d AI set at zero and VOX at 100%, but if I try KMIA for example there is nothing. 

I started using P3D V4 earlier this year and installed all my WOAI traffic from my old FSX.  As far as I can recall the AI volume was excellent other than the fact that a lot of the models weren’t suitable for V4. I was so glad when AIG developed their OCI. I thought that this was a dream come true. I’ve installed everything that they have available so far so I’m not short of airlines. If I use P3D AI traffic at 100% then I get plenty of traffic everywhere including KMIA. You are right what you say not understanding how VOX reads the bgl’s. it’s a mystery to me too, surely the indexer should read the files exactly how P3D does but obviously it doesn’t.

I have been using UT Live but I miss the interaction that VOX gives. I was wondering whether to uninstall UT altogether in case that messes with the indexer in some way? I was also wondering if VOX needs an update? If you look at the VOX updates in VOX NEWS the first mention of V4 was 31st July 2018 with the last update being 3rd October 2018. We’re now up to V 4.5 with P3D so nothing’s changed for 9 months. I’m sure you know that VOX is not one of best developers for keeping us advised on progress.

Anyway, I hope that you may be able to offer me some suggestions or any further progress that you have made yourself.

Many thanks,

Mike

 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

On 7/4/2019 at 11:13 AM, mikelockwood said:

i was very interested in your discovery of the 4 lines that you tested in the VASettings XML file. They weren’t present in mine so I added them myself. Unfortunately they made no difference. For convenience I just put them at the top of the list but I was wondering if they need to be placed in a certain position?

No. Just make sure that you don't have a typo. Read further, as it seems you may have other problems. I'd also look into using the traffic limiter options in FSUIPC5, when you get your AI installation cleaned up. If anything, VOXATC will produce too much traffic, especially around big international airports.

 

On 7/4/2019 at 11:13 AM, mikelockwood said:

I started using P3D V4 earlier this year and installed all my WOAI traffic from my old FSX. 

These BGL files are by default in FS9 format. When mixed with FSX formatted traffic BGL files the results are unpredictable and often there is no traffic at most airports. Having only one non-converted FS9 formatted BGL file will gum up everything, unfortunately.

 

On 7/4/2019 at 11:13 AM, mikelockwood said:

I was also wondering if VOX needs an update?

 No. VOXATC 7.42 works fine with any V4 flavor of P3d. It's relatively bug-free, which is a good thing since official support is non-existent.

 

On 7/4/2019 at 11:13 AM, mikelockwood said:

I have been using UT Live but I miss the interaction that VOX gives. I was wondering whether to uninstall UT altogether in case that messes with the indexer in some way?

Get rid of all your payware traffic apps and old WOAI BGL files and install Alpha India Groups  Manager with One Click Installer:

https://www.alpha-india.net/2019/05/05/aig-ai-manager-version-0-9-release/

It's donationware and it automatically finds the best flightplans and models for each airline worldwide. There is a lot written about AIGM OCI both here and on the AIG forums. No AI add-on for FSX, P3d or XP even comes close.

[mikelockwood 3]

Hi Jay,

First of all, many thanks for replying to my post even when you are so busy.

On 7/9/2019 at 3:06 PM, jabloomf1230 said:

No. Just make sure that you don't have a typo. Read further, as it seems you may have other problems. I'd also look into using the traffic limiter options in FSUIPC5, when you get your AI installation cleaned up. If anything, VOXATC will produce too much traffic, especially around big international airports.

As far as I'm aware there are no typo's in my additional lines to the XML which I have copied from Notepad.

 <MaxParkedAircraft Value="50" />
 <MaxEnrouteAircraft Value="30" />
 <MaxActiveTerminalAircraft Value="20" />
 <TrafficGeneratedAtAllAirports Value="TRUE" />

The only other thing I did was space in 2 or 3 times to line the lines up in the list. Would this make a difference? I know that sometimes extra spaces, commas etc can affect things.

On 7/9/2019 at 3:06 PM, jabloomf1230 said:

These BGL files are by default in FS9 format. When mixed with FSX formatted traffic BGL files the results are unpredictable and often there is no traffic at most airports. Having only one non-converted FS9 formatted BGL file will gum up everything, unfortunately.

I ran a search on my drive for any old WOAI files bgl's or otherwise, it's all clean. I also ran AIFP and scanned the entire drive for any old FS9 bgl's. That came up clean too.

On 7/9/2019 at 3:06 PM, jabloomf1230 said:

Get rid of all your payware traffic apps and old WOAI BGL files and install Alpha India Groups  Manager with One Click Installer:

I've deleted UT Live now and as I already mentioned in my original post, I already have Alpha India's OCI installed and have downloaded every model/flight plan available.

Soooo... After all of that I've run P3D V4 using VOX ATC only at between 50% - 100% and I'm still getting the same. Traffic at some airports and none at others. As I mentioned previously,

there is absolutely zero at KMIA but if I switch across to KLAX for example, that is full of AI. Both are stock airports by the way. Sometimes a destination airport can be empty too.

So I'm at a loss......

Any further assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Many thanks once and again and best wishes,

Mike

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Okay, all that looks good. I wanted to get all the obvious causes out of the way so at least now we have a common basis for troubleshooting. First, I would download and install the freeware utilities AI Companion and possibly Little NavMap. First try AIC:

https://www.alpha-india.net/forums/index.php?topic=29651.0

Run AIC, the sim and get VOXATC all set up with an IFR flightplan with KMIA as your departure airport.  Check AIC's Live Mode and see what AI aircraft are active. Check that list against one of the other AIC modes to see what should be active. The AIC Live mode will not display some of the VOXATC AI aircraft fields correctly, because VOXATC uses SimConnect to create and manipulate its AI aircraft.

Lets go from there.

[mikelockwood 3]

Hi Jay,

Thanks once again for the reply. I’ve just had a glimpse at the link provided, it looks really promising. I will download later and experiment over the next couple of days.

Regards, Mike

[mikelockwood 3]

Hi Jay,

I've had a few days to get used to AIC which is a great utility. I set up everything as you suggested in your post but, using VOX with the VOX slider at 100%, I get 0 planes on the ground and 0 planes in the air at KMIA. Then, turning off VOX off and moving the P3D traffic slider to 100% I get 50 planes on the ground and 17 in the air. 

I've had a look at the other tabs in AIC and I see that one is labelled BGL report. I noticed that some airlines had warnings/errors ticked with an explanation given below. I'm not sure if this is relevant to my problem and affects VOX as I'm inexperienced with this information. 

I hope that you will be able to explain what the next step will be.

Regards,

Mike

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Mike,

If there's traffic at KMIA using the default ATC, then the problem probably doesn't have anything to do with the AIG schedules and models. But you might want to ask about the AIG errors on their official support forum. Which version of KMIA are you using?

Jay

[mikelockwood 3]

Hi Jay,

Thanks once again for the reply. I’ve just had a glimpse at the link provided, it looks really promising. I will download later and experiment over the next couple of days.

Regards, Mike

[mikelockwood 3]

Hi Jay,

I'm only using the stock airport KMIA. The only thing that I’ve changed is to reinstate the taxi links as the aircraft were running across grass. I also tried KSFO which is stock and has had no modifications done whatsoever but that has zero AI using VOX. On the other hand, KLAX is full of aircraft using VOX. I also tried a fresh install of VOX as well just in case it was corrupt in some way.

It’s frustrating that VOX is so hit and miss. It worked so well on my old PC with Steam FSX. My new PC was purchased with a higher spec with the sole purpose of using it for P3D V4 only. I will certainly see if AIG can help me further but thanks for all you help.

Mike

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I just checked both stock airports and I have tons of traffic with VOXATC. Here's KMIA:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4chumlhxqrui1dx/KMIA VOXATC.jpg?dl=0

Much of it is American and American Eagle. There's also Delta, Southwest and a lot of smaller carriers.What IFR flightplan are you using for KMIA?

 

[mikelockwood 3]

I would love to see that much traffic at KMIA using VOX ☹️. For the purposes of testing,  I created a flight plan KMIA/KJFK using P3D's own flight planner I also created a flight plan KMIA/KMUA using Sim Brief which is what I usually use. In both cases there was zero traffic.  It doesn't really matter if I use a flight plan or not, I can normally just start at a gate and if VOX is working for that particular airport, then there will be traffic, flight plan or no flight plan.

I really don't know what else to do now other than strip everything back to the bone and start from scratch which I am reluctant to do 😐

Regards,

MIke

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

I'm sorry that I haven't been able to help you with this. I've never seen a post here or elsewhere regarding a situation where the traffic could be made visible at specific airports with the sim's activity level sliders, but not with VOXATC. I'm not even sure how this could happen, since both the sim and VOXATC scan the same traffic BGL files and use the same AI aircraft models. Before you do anything else, try running the VOXATC Indexer again, then run P3d4 at KMIA with an IFR flightplan. The VOXATC Indexer needs to be rerun either every time AIG adds a new traffic file or you add a new 3rd party airport to your scenery library.  The VOXATC version of the traffic schedules are located in this file in a hidden folder:

C:\Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Internal Workings\VoxATC P3D 4\bglflightplans.dat

I have a large number of AIG airline traffic files installed and this file is enormous on my computer (1.2 GB).

Let me think about it some more.

[mikelockwood 3]

Hi Jay,

I ran the indexer again although do this religiously anyway. Set up another flight plan from KMIA but still zero traffic there. I agree with you absolutely that the traffic bgl files are scanned by VOX and the sim. It just doesn't make sense. One other thing that I thought of to try was to go into P3D/Addon scenery folder. I had some ADE KMIA files in there from when I reactivated the taxi links. I removed them from the folder and ran the indexer again with the hope that the airport should now be just stock again. Unfortunately it made no difference.

I found the flight plans file in my Internal Workings folder. It also is 1.2 GB. I ran the indexer file whilst I had the folder open and you can see it update to the current date and time.

I'm hoping that I'm gonna find something really obvious and stupid that is causing this. Then I can kick myself 😐

Thanks for your continued efforts. If you are like me, then this type of problem can bug you until you get to the bottom of it.

Mike

[mikelockwood 3]

Just to give you an update. I pulled out the entire P3D Addon Scenery folder which is full of all sorts of AVSIM freeware airport improvements/scenery etc. I was hoping that something in there could have been causing a problem but no, still no AI at KMIA with that folder completely removed.

Here's something weird. I tried KMIA again (after replacing the folder). this time a tried using VOX and reduced the traffic by 10% each time and running the indexer between each reduction. At 10% 6 aircraft appeared, 5 American Airlines and 1 Air Transport. At 30% I got 4 aircraft, 3 American Airlines and 1 Avianca. I got nothing at any of the other increments. When I tried to replicate this I got nothing again. I'm not sure what this means, if it even means anything. I thought maybe some alphabetical reason, only airlines beginning with A??? I'm clutching at straws but I thought that I'd tell you in case it triggers something.

I saw that you were over at AIG writing to Koala. I was hoping that he might have been able to experiment with VOX but he seemed to be having problems just getting it to work 🙁

Mike