FSX-SE Active Sky Next over a network

[Evil Pixie 0]

Hello there I as many do I'm having problems getting ASN to run over a network. I was wondering if anyone could help me.

 

 I have been running ASN with FSX-SE on my main pc for a while with no issues. I then however wanted to run it from a second pc on my network. So I have uninstalled it from the main pc. (server) and I have it installed on the client. I used both the add and remove uninstall method and the unistall via steam but ASN is still on my main pc all the files, everything.

 

I think whatever problems I'm having getting ASN to connect over the network I think they may well stem from  or be made worse by the fact that the program is installed in two locations.

 

How do I totally uninstall ASN from the server pc as if it had never been there. Many google searches just provide me with downloadable tools and such that I have no interest in. Surely the scenario I'm in is common with other steam active sky users who ultimately want to offload ASN to another machine.

If anyone has any detailed guides specifically on using fsx-se and ASN-SE over a network or has experience doing it themself I would love to hear from you.

 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,945]

@Evil Pixie, welcome to AvSim. I would urge you to keep ASN on the flying PC. It uses very few resources - a download every 15 mins or so. Injecting the weather into the sim is also far more efficient on the same PC rather than across a network.

If you insist on uninstalling make sure you do it in admin mode.

[Kronovan 14]

1 hour ago, Evil Pixie said:

How do I totally uninstall ASN from the server pc as if it had never been there. Many google searches just provide me with downloadable tools and such that I have no interest in. Surely the scenario I'm in is common with other steam active sky users who ultimately want to offload ASN to another machine.

I encountered issues with ASN when just uninstalling and reinstalling FSX:SE to a different drive on the same PC. From what I could find the ASN installation is tricky for 2 reasons 1) ASN on Steam doesn't install like a regular game or app, but is  configured under the Steam-Tools menu; 2) Addons / DLC are managed differently under FSX:SE in comparison to boxed FSX.

My problem was that the shortcut for the "FSX Active Sky Next Configuration Tool" on the Steam-Tools menu, continued to reference the previous install folder. The only way to get it to run error free was to create a desktop shortcut to ASNext.exe and start it from there. There's a Steam-Tools button under Properties > [LOCAL FILES] to move a tool's install location. However, not being able to find any doc on it I didn't want to risk further problems, as I initially had issues with ASN entries in EXE.XML and DLL.XML not being correctly written. That could very well be the way a Steam tool relocation is meant to be handled though.

As to having ASN on a networked PC; something I noticed is that there's an "as_connect" entry for ASN's as_btstrp.dll in the the FSX DLL.XML file. You can find that file in your \Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\ folder. On my PC it's set to an \364340\as_srv\ subfolder in FSX:SE's \DLC folder; not sure if the numbered folder is the same on all PCs. There's also an "as_btstrp_config_manager" entry in the EXE.XML that references the same \DLC subfolder. Those might very well need to be changed to reference a Network share where ASN is installed on the 2nd/remote PC. You'd also need ASN to make a networked SimConnect connection to the main PC running FSX.

Be WARNED, that invalid entries in the DLL.XML or EXE.XML files can cause other addons to fail to load and even cause FSX to crash on startup.  If you try editing entries in either those XLM files, always have a backup!

With my experience with how finicky the ASN files are, I'd echo the advice of Ray and recommend just running it on the same PC. If you really need to have it on a networked PC, I'd recommend opening a ticket with hifisimtech's support, which I've always found to be 1st rate.

Edited June 12, 2020 by Kronovan

[FOD 23]

Evil Pixie

Do not be put off. I have always run AS Next on a client pc - it seems tricky (I know from experience) but if you follow the HiFi guidance and advice you will have no problems.

At present, I am running

FSX SE on server - AS NEXT for FSX on client

P3Dv4.5 server - ASN P3dv4 client

XPLANE 11 server - ASN XP client

No problems injecting the weather across my network and I can interrogate the weather either via the dll on the server or via the client pc.

I do not use AS Next SE but it should integrate in the same way.  I recommend you again uninstall ASN completely via Steam - then delete any relevant folders from the server pc. Then search for the HiFi tutorial on setting up the sim connect network between server and client - an excellent guide. Then, after installing on the client pc, follow the ASNext manual to set up the shared folders and, finally, to install the as connect executable on the server pc.

BTW agree HiFi support is excellent but this should get you going - good luck

John R