SimDirector stuck on Loading Terrain 69% - Orbx Packages

[Ace9 12]

Hello,

I am looking for some help if you have: -

1) P3D4.5

2) Orbx Scenery

3) Orbx Central 4.0.35

4) Migrated / installed the  scenery to a library.

 

Relevant link to my unresponded to post at the ORBX FORUM LINK 

It should take SimDirector about 2 minutes 30 seconds (PC Spec dependant) to start SimDirector from within P3D, if you could take a few minutes to load the default scenario (F-22 at Eglin AP) and then go to Tools/SimDirector, the post the result here, if SimDirector fails to start, or better still if it fails to start post directly at the Orbx forum.

My system gets stuck at "Loading Terrain 69%" or if I start SimDirector by it self it get stuck at loading the Catalog.

The only way to get SimDirector to load is to switch off the Orbx Scenery using the "Options / Add Ons" dialog, this is not helpful when  

Any confirmation either way or help with this would be very much appreciated.

 

Many Thanks 

[AndrejS 25]

Well, i have a pretty old PC and had the same problem yesterday (never tried running the SD before). Until i unticked all but basic (vector) ORBX sceneries, it never came beyond "loading catalog" message. Now it starts in" no time", so yea, it's kind of funny to force us to provide "the help to the program" by reducing the number of active sceneries. Nowadays, they could have come up with the possibility to untick the sceneries in SimDirector,  not in P3d. 

From default F22@Eglin it takes 160 secs (it stops at 83% and then jumps to 100%) and exiting back to P3d only takes 5 secs. 

Edited January 19, 2020 by AndrejS

[Ace9 12]

Hey AndrejS, many thanks for trying that out for us, much appreciated, would you mind reporting this on the Orbx web site please, that would be fantastic, unfortunately I have had no response from Orbx as yet.

https://orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/186138-simdirector-fails-to-load-with-some-orbx-packages/

All the best and many thanks again.

 

[AndrejS 25]

Hey Ace, 

did some (actually quite a lot) of step by step adding sceneries, staring from (greens are Orbx)

32 Orbx airports (some 50 still not enabled)
Germany N+S
Global Airports
EU Lights
Australia 2
Europe OLC
Base
SloveniaX (not Orbx)
approx 50 other (non Orbx) airport sceneries
Vector
 

and was able to add these and have SD still working 

England
Norway
NCA
CRM
NRM
PF
PNW
SAK
SCA
NZNI
NZSI
SA lights
NA OLC
SA OLC
NA lights
IRL
NIRL
SCO
WAL

so i started adding my other nonOrbx sceneries and this is where i got so far and SD still in working order. It takes a bit longer to start (not more than 5-6 mins) but it still opens and enables me to add objects to the default F22@Eglin. 

Austria Prof
ChProx

Will continue tomorrow by adding those 50 or so additional Orbx airport sceneries and then some 25 or so additional sceneries (all of FranceVFR, Air Hispania and Italy photoreal), it's getting late here (1:30 AM). If i want to post a report on Orbx forum, i need to be specific of what i did. It is turning out that Orbx might not be the main culprit, maybe just to much data, more than 1,5TB of it. I'll see where it will stop. 

Edited January 21, 2020 by AndrejS

[Ace9 12]

Hey, AndrejS,

You are a star, I very much appreciate your help, support, time and effort with this, thank you so much, I know how long it takes to do this type of troubleshooting.

I believe we are correct, that it is not Orbx causing the issue, rather SimDirector, however Prepar3D have a set of rules to report 3rd party issues  unfortunately it seems that Orbx may well have to be the folk who raise this with them, all we can do is show the problem. 

I have just seen a new post (1230 GMT - 21/01/2020) on my Orbx topic, it says "turn off "Load Friendly Names" For Catalog Object Models" in SimDIrector settings, it also states that this has been an issue since the release of SimDirector.

I have tested this and it works, but the trouble is much of the names in the catalog are GUID numbers and not helpful at all, meaning if one is looking for a specific item, say a box of pallets, every preview image must be looked at or the GUID number known. 

Once again my friend, many many thanks for your support, hopefully this can be addressed by Prepar3D as was the slow loading times with Orbx scenery an update or so back.

 

 

[AndrejS 25]

Hey, right now i'm stuck, only succeeded adding one scenery, every other meant end of the game (being stuck at 69%, 22%, you name it). So it's been rather slow progress, hope i'll have more luck tomorrow.

Regarding the friendly names, yeah, that's known to help, but only to a certain degree.  

[Ace9 12]

Hey there, yep me too, stuck. Seems Orbx are not responding to the problem either, there is no reply from them..

What to do now to get this rectified, any ideas please?

[downscc 1,327]

Might be my poor memory, but isn't that pause at 69% caused by loading scenery object libraries?  I initially thought it was photorealistic scenery but now I'm thinking that that would be a pause at 10%.  There is a direct linkage to a specific thing... just don't have the good memory to pull it out.

[Ace9 12]

Hi, yes Autogen I think..

[AndrejS 25]

Hi, i'm moving on although not in Orbx direction (have an idea why i'm having problems, but will have to make some more testing). Added complete set of France VFR with the exception of recently released Rhone-Alps 2, which i haven't bought yet, and SD is still working. So amount of data isn't the problem, now i have almost doubled the number of scenery objects from when i "hit the wall" yesterday. Ok, i admit that i have disabled loading of friendly names when i started testing today, but this should only speed up loading times and should not be the key whether SD loads at all. It's getting late and tomorrow is a new day. The final SD numbers are 74351 objects, p3d takes 3.4GB of memory.

Oh, i'm getting the CTD when exiting from SD back to p3d, strange. 

Added Spain Photoreal scenery (all 17 regions) and SD still has no problems (cause it's photoreal, not lc). P3d still crashes on exiting from SD. 

Edited January 23, 2020 by AndrejS
Added Spain Photoreal scenery

[G-RFRY 1,706]

9 hours ago, AndrejS said:

Oh, i'm getting the CTD when exiting from SD back to p3d, strange. 

WINDOWS 7 problem most likely.

[Ace9 12]

17 hours ago, AndrejS said:

Ok, i admit that i have disabled loading of friendly names when i started testing today, but this should only speed up loading times and should not be the key whether SD loads at all.

Agree with you, it seems very odd that the unfriendly, nondescript unique GUID numbers load without issue, all of my Orbx addons A2A everything load with out issue quite quickly, certainly in less than 2 minutes. But Switch on Load Friendly Names and all hell lets loose, the CPU churns away in a loop with no disk reads.. definitely a conflict.

It reminds me of the earlier days when Orbx slowed down the loading of P3D and Prepar3D rectified the issue, now Orbx has little or no effect when starting my Flight Sim. 

[AndrejS 25]

Ok, not final, but almost final result. 

I've added Italy photoreal, the rest of Orbx airports, P3d cities and the rest of non Orbx airports and the number of objects went to 109103. And SD still cooperating , except for CTD on exit to p3d. 

What i haven't added yet are FTXAA_ORBXLIBS, and p3d sceneries SAME, OCEN, NAMW, NAMC, NAME, AUST. I'll add those tomorrow and i guess this will break the SD. 

[Ace9 12]

Fantastic, many thanks, is "Load Friendly Names" switched on or off? 

 

[AndrejS 25]

That wasn't really a question, right? Off, of course. Had it loaded in 4 mins, then turned the switch on and waited for like 90 mins, just nearly finished, but it didn't. I guess i will have a hard time turning it off, because it won't load to switch it off again. 

Tomorrow it's time to check whether the theory of "twin sceneries" is correct (have the whole day to be patient and wait), will post.