Addon Organizer error with addon.cfg file

[portanav 12]

Whenever I run a check "config file encoding" in TOOLS I get this error on screen -

I selected SAVE in Addon Organizer before exiting and checking, and it won't go away.

Does anyone know how to correct this.

Thanks.

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

This is not an error, just a warning. As long as your simulator works correctly, ignore it. The sim can handle different file encodings. 

This message only becomes relevant when your sim is NOT working, and you need to find out why. A file can be broken completely by programs that mess with the encoding, so this is one important item to check if there are addons missing or P3D is no longer starting.

[portanav 12]

I was able to solve the problem by deleting the two add-ons.cfg files and the add-ons.xml and let P3D re-build a new set of files. Since then I have not had the warning.

Edited May 28, 2021 by portanav

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

The contents of the add-ons.cfg in C:\ProgramData... are lost when you delete the file. P3D cannot rebuild that, it doesn't have a reference what needs to go in it. Same is true for all add-on.xml package files that you delete. 

Only the add-ons.cfg in AppData\Roaming is managed automatically by P3D - every time you start the sim.

Edited May 28, 2021 by Lorby_SI

[portanav 12]

11 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

The contents of the add-ons.cfg in C:\ProgramData... are lost when you delete the file. P3D cannot rebuild that, it doesn't have a reference what needs to go in it. Same is true for all add-on.xml package files that you delete. 

Only the add-ons.cfg in AppData\Roaming is managed automatically by P3D - every time you start the sim.

That is interesting, because when I started P3Dv5 after deleting the said files it asked me if I wanted to add every addon that is in my addons folder, to which I agreed. P3D then started in the start-up page, and all my sceneries were their and tested working. When I checked my %APPDATA% and ProgramData folders the files that I deleted were back and the Addons Manager did not give me any warning when I requested an encoding check.

So based on your comment I don't know what happened or how it's working. But it's working, without any warnings.

Regards,

Edited May 29, 2021 by portanav

[Lorby_SI 2,036]

2 hours ago, portanav said:

That is interesting, because when I started P3Dv5 after deleting the said files it asked me if I wanted to add every addon that is in my addons folder, to which I agreed. P3D then started in the start-up page, and all my sceneries were their and tested working. When I checked my %APPDATA% and ProgramData folders the files that I deleted were back and the Addons Manager did not give me any warning when I requested an encoding check.

So based on your comment I don't know what happened or how it's working. But it's working, without any warnings.

Regards,

All Addon packages (=add-on.xml files) that are on the discovery paths (the default is \Documents\Prepar3D vX Add-ons) are discovered automatically by P3D. That is why.

But it cannot discover addons that have their add-on.xml elsewhere (= those that are referenced in the \ProgramData\....\add-ons.cfg). Think about it. How is P3D supposed to know that an add-on.xml exists on an arbitrary drive\folder on your computer? It is most certainly not searching for them everywhere - only in the default discovery path, and any additional discovery path that you have configured - but which are also in the \ProgramData\ add-ons.cfg, so also lost when you delete it.

I can only recommend this - you can disregard at your leisure: NEVER delete config files from "C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D vX". P3D can only restore the DEFAULT .cfg files, it can never recover any addons that were in there.

Edited May 29, 2021 by Lorby_SI