Autogen missing in Europe, but not in North America?

[GiancarloK 1]

So, I've had issues with my autogen lately. I use ORBX Global and the latest version of P3D (V4.5).

Previously, autogen across the globe on the simulator was missing. I then uninstalled and reinstalled P3D's Content, which made my autogen appear once again in North America, South America, and even Asia. However, nothing at all in Europe.

Any reason behind this discrepancy?
Thanks in advance.

Giancarlo.

Paris: https://prnt.sc/qcabhc
New York: https://prnt.sc/qcab4a

[Benjamin J 751]

Its not that you’re missing all autogen, you’re just missing the trees in certain areas. I think it has everything to do with the respective landclass textures used, as these are different between the locations. In my experience this comes down to using orbx sceneries and then adding a third party addon autogen. Whenever I’ve done this, I always lost my trees on select landclass textures, thus resulting in exactly what you describe here. You’ll have to dive into your addons and see which ones may have installed custom autogen.

But, I can tell you what I did... I ended up completely reinstalling P3D, and I very carefully installed sceneries by installing them outside the sim every single time, then looking what files were there, and then making sure it wasn’t installing any new autogen. That was the only way I got my autogen trees back.

[GiancarloK 1]

Got it. I'm following what you did. If I install my sceneries outside of my sim's root folder and I get the issue again, can I just deactive the specific add-on that's causing the issue or will I have to reinstall the sim once again?

[Benjamin J 751]

50 minutes ago, GiancarloK said:

Got it. I'm following what you did. If I install my sceneries outside of my sim's root folder and I get the issue again, can I just deactive the specific add-on that's causing the issue or will I have to reinstall the sim once again?

Yes, you can just deactive in theory. It depends on how the autogen was added. So, this is crucial: Back in the day, the only way to add in new autogen definitions was by way of Arno's AutogenConfigurationMerger or ACM. If ACM did the merging, then unraveling everything will probably be tedious and not worth the effort. These days, you can use the addon.xml method to add new Autogen configurations. Especially using Lorbi's Addon Manager tool, this is incredibly easy (they can be added as a "Component" to a scenery, amongst other things such as Effects, Sounds etc). So that is what I did. Indeed, if an addon DOES come with ACM, then most likely this is one of the potential addons that is messing your autogen up!

So here's the golden tip: do NOT allow ACM to be run or be notified to the sim, and you'll be safe. As long as new autogen is notified to the sim through addon.xml, you wil lalways be able to safely and easily decative the new autogen definitions.

I first installed P3Dv4 clean - and I mean clean. I removed every single file and folder it created on my computer and I uninstalled all my aircraft or any other scenery that was installed directly into the P3Dv4 folder. Then I reinstalled the sim, followed by all the OrbX Global packages. After every such install, I checked to see if the autogen still looked okay. Then I moved on to Orbx regions and airports - never more than four or five at a time, or in the case of the regions - one by one. BUT BACKUP FIRST! You will want to hold on to the P3Dv4 Addons folder in the Documents directory of your user profile, as it will contain nearly all the addon.xml-added sceneries. Vital that you keep this!

Now, fortunately, I had already started converting a lot of my sceneries from scenery.cfg to addon.xml. All these addon.xml files were, you guessed it, in the P3Dv4 Addons dolers in the Documents directory. So reinstalling them (or notifying their existence to the sim) was as easy as dropping them back into the respective folder, newly created by the sim in the Documents directory. What I did here was add four or five at a time, or I would just place all sceneries of a developer (e.g. all LatinVFR). Importantly, after adding the addon.xml folders (with the actual addon.xml file within them) back into the P3Dv4 Addons folder, you can open Lorbi's Addon Manager tool, and it will show a box saying "Addons detected: <list of addons>". This is great, because in most cases this wil;l also disable the "Do you want to activate this ddon?" dialog that P3Dv4 itself would show you on startup. Saves you some time.

Importantly, as you do this, make absolutely sure that ACM is NOT being activated and notified to the sim, and check every addon you add for any Autogen folder it might include. Biggest culprits here: Simwest, Richer Simulations and TropicalSim nearly always come with an Autogen folder.

Of course, NOT adding these folder means missing autogen in their sceneries. In the case of TropicalSim this is not a big deal, as their custom autogen only includes night lighting that is active at night, and it's of a similar style as OrbX's road lighting - so you wouldn't be missing anything. Richer is a bigger problem as you'll probably end up with autogen-less torpical islands. With Simwest you will miss all the vegetation that covers their photoreal addons. In the case of Richer it's a small price to pay for autogen issues globally. In the case of Simwest, I have ended up not buying their addons, knowing I'd end up with photoreal sceneries without vegetation - not worth it for me when alternatives will work fine. It's a shame, because ostensibly they create some beautiful stuff.

Richer is aware of this, though I don't know if this can be solved. I highly suspect that the issue is with Orbx. I think they are somehow doing something that is messing up the autogen definition files, and thus there is likely not much Richer can do about it. But, her'es hoping a workaround can be found, by either Richer, Orbx are somebody else... What;s clear is that you and I are not the only ones with this issue!

[GiancarloK 1]

Thanks for the reply, and thank you for finding the culprit! 

Looking back on it, as soon as I purchased a Richer Simulations scenery... you guessed it, that's when my autogen disappeared. I know there's an option for ACM once you use their installer. How can I counter that? Just avoid installing their autogen?

[Benjamin J 751]

7 minutes ago, GiancarloK said:

Thanks for the reply, and thank you for finding the culprit! 

Looking back on it, as soon as I purchased a Richer Simulations scenery... you guessed it, that's when my autogen disappeared. I know there's an option for ACM once you use their installer. How can I counter that? Just avoid installing their autogen?

You replied as I was editing my post - it's in there now but I'll just repeat it here.

Richer uses ACM, which means the core autogen definitions are altered. I have no idea how to properly unravel this once ACM does its job. I once tried deleting the autogen definition files entirely, reinstalling the P3Dv4 content top get the default ones back, then going through reinstalling all the different OrbX Global addons to make sure the autogen is synced with the landclass tiles, etc. But none of it worked. The only thing that got my autogen back to the way it was, was reinstalling the sim entirely, from scratch, and then making sure that ACM never got the chance to run. Heck, make sure it doesn't even install! I avoid it like the plague. So yes, make sure that, when you do install their sceneries, not to allow ACM to do anything and you'll be okay. I have installed some of his sceneries without further issues, and same with TropicalSim.

EDIT: I'll add that the Autogen files will still be there, in a subfolder of the scenery. So you can always add them manually via addon.xml if you wanted to - I just don't allow that to happen.

[GiancarloK 1]

Money down the drain unfortunately... won't be installing any of their sceneries then.

Anyhow, thank you for the help! Appreciate it 🙂

[Benjamin J 751]

So just to be clear, you can install Richer sceneries without having the autogen be merged by ACM. So you should be fine. I happily run their sceneries - I just made sure ACM did NOT do its job 🙂 

And one more thing: Those sceneries that you already installed you can keep installed. Make sure to keep the addon.xml files themselves and you can always re-notify the sim of their existence. The autogen are not part of their addon.xml files and so will not cause any issues. Like I said: for Richer, as long as ACM is not allowed to do anything, you'll be okay.

[GiancarloK 1]

Oh, so ACM is an option! Forget what I said! 

[Benjamin J 751]

Just now, GiancarloK said:

Oh, so ACM is an option! Forget what I said! 

Yes, ACM should not be part of the main installation routine of the scenery. I don't quite remember now exactly how it worked, but, what you could do is to try installing Richer's sceneries right after you reinstall P3Dv4. At least then you won't spend a week re-configuring your sim, only to make a mistake and have all that time wasted.

[Clutch Cargo 385]

If you install orbx sceneries outside the root P3D folder try installing the orbx libraries IN the root folder (but still leave your other orbx addons where they are).  We discovered vegetation agn issues (like missing trees), if this is not done when using other 3rd party add-ons.  It could originally be an LM issue due to using multiple autogen folders appears not to be working correctly or as expected in P3Dv4.

Just a suggestion to try.

[Benjamin J 751]

24 minutes ago, Clutch Cargo said:

If you install orbx sceneries outside the root P3D folder try installing the orbx libraries IN the root folder (but still leave your other orbx addons where they are).  We discovered vegetation agn issues (like missing trees), if this is not done when using other 3rd party add-ons.  It could originally be an LM issue due to using multiple autogen folders appears not to be working correctly or as expected in P3Dv4.

Just a suggestion to try.

My libraries were always installed in the root folder - for me the issues happened before the new Orbx Central and the possibility of installing them outside of it. I was actually hoping that installing the libraries OUTSIDE the root folder would be the cure, as no default autogen definition files would have to be altered under P3D's addon.xml system. However, they appear to still do that no matter where you install the libraries?

[GiancarloK 1]

Quick update: I've avoided the RS scenery as I found no options to enable/disable ACM or so. However, I've installed my TSIM sceneries, and by skipping the ACM option, I can confirm the autogen is still there!

That concludes my issue. Thanks for all the help and knowledge provided 🙂