MSFS Light "on" and "off" commands not working

[hamlinsw 4]

In several aircraft (tested Baron and King Air, but I suspect others), some light switches don't respond to commands from the keyboard or yoke/throttle switches.  They appear to respond to the "toggle" commands, but not the "on" and "off" commands.  That makes them unusable with physical switches on a device that stay activated.  The effect is that the affected lights can't be mapped on two-position switches on a device like the Bravo Throttle Quadrant.  The "landing" light on and off commands work on both a keyboard and when programmed into a physical switch.  Avionics on-off and pitot heat on-off also work, but not the beacon, strobe, nav, etc.  There may be other less common switches that would also not work.  I haven't tested every switch with corresponding on-off commands or every plane.  You can't substitute mapping the "toggle" commands for the affected lights to a physical two-position switch due to the always-on nature of the switch.  If you do, the on-screen switch just jitters.  I have reported this as a bug to MS-Asobo.

Does anyone know of a work-around until this is fixed?  Please don't say, "Fly x-plane."  :-) 

Please note:  I didn't post in the hardware forum, because the issue is with programming in the sim, not with a specific piece of hardware.  The commands don't work, no matter how they are activated.  Thanks.

[eslader 1,784]

Have you tried removing the assignments in MSFS and assigning them in FSUIPC? There's an option to uncheck the "repeat when held" box in FSUIPC which should solve your issue.

 

[kaosfere 3,115]

This can also be done with macros in Joystick Gremlin, which I prefer to doing such things in FSUIPC because I feel like it has greater configurability.  This setting will have my virtual joystick press a button for half a second, then release it, when I flip a particular switch "on" on my Alpha.  Bind that to the "turn on" setting for whatever lights you want to control.

Do a similar one for the "off" position and you're good.

Edited April 6, 2021 by kaosfere

[omikron777 0]

I noticed the same today while playing around with keyboard shortcuts. Seems the bindings for "ON" / "OFF" of all lights except landing light and strobe light are broken inside MSFS. Assign whatever you want to it and it won't work. 
The bindings for "Toggle xxx light" and "Set xxx light" work for all the lights.

[ultradianguy 0]

I've found for at least some of these that if you bind Set Light (or whatever) to the On position of a switch, and leave the Off position unbound, it will actually work as desired.  Flipping it from On to Off turns off the light.  I guess it "UnSets" it when you go to Off.