FSX-MS FSX Conington - disappearing runway lights

[JonP01 104]

I bought this Just Flight add-on a couple of days ago, but I have a very odd problem with the runway edge lighting. When I am rolling along the runway, still at ground level I can see the runway edge lighting perfectly. But as soon as I am more than about 30 feet into the air, the runway lighting completely disappears. I will then never see it again until I am in the landing flare. The only other time I can see any lighting at all is (sometimes) if I am flying towards the lit runway at around 90 degrees. But 100% of the time, whenever I am lined up on either of the runway headings (10/28), i never see any lighting at all - not till I am either on the tarmac or just floating above it.

I spent the last two days Googling runway lighting problems but nothing was of help in this instance. A browse of the Just Flight forums doesn't reveal any previous topics on the subject either (and nor does Google in general). So I am guessing this has only effected me. Very odd though as I probably have the most vanilla FSX installation of any add-on user around. The install is all stock save for the GEX ground textures / landclass and two A2A aircraft. So far I have tried deleting the fsx.cfg, removing GEX, trying the default aircraft, trying different combinations of lighting within the aircraft (in case that has some bizarre relationship to it), deleting the default flight, trying to load the flight at night to begin with, versus day then changing it to night, trying different weather, trying different seasons, trying dawn and dusk, seeing if the lighting might be pilot controlled (but not documented in the manual), checking all my FSX textures, changing large numbers of display / effects / scenery sliders (all the way right, all the way left and all combinations everywhere in between), changing resolutions, changing graphics card settings. But no luck.

This is the only airfield I have ever come across in 20 years of flying MSFS that has this issue. All the stock airfields still work perfectly as regards runway lighting and i also tried a couple of add-ons demo airfields and the runway lighting on them was perfect too.

I have started a support ticket with Just Flight but since this does not seem to be a known issue, I am not confident they will know how to fix it.

Any ideas?

Edited November 24, 2019 by JonP01

[SteveFx 258]

Do you have DX10 preview enabled?

[JonP01 104]

No, have only ever used DX9 in this installation.

[SteveFx 258]

In that case its most likely an issue with the airfield scenery.  You could check that your halo.bmp is the original though  (i.e check the date modified)  - sometimes add on scenery can install a replacement which isn't aligned correctly for all use cases.

[JonP01 104]

Thanks for both the replies Steve. The halo file is the one that was installed the day of the original installation, so it hasn't been altered / replaced. I'll wait to see what the vendor says since I agree with you that the problem is likely scenery specific and that being a VFR airfield perhaps there wasn't as much night testing as there should have been (afterall, we can still fly night VFR in real life if we have the associated rating!).

[JonP01 104]

Turns out it is a bug, but Just Flight are checking to see if it only effects FSX or P3D as well. I am a bit surprised this bug got through to be honest - someone would only have had to make one single approach or take off at night to reproduce it. That said, the support has been pretty good so I am hopeful it will get resolved with an update.