P3D Update Rant

[ShortFinal 41]

Well im in a fine mood.... disclaimer, I'm still newish to P3D. Came from FS9. went to update P3Dv5.2 to the latest hitting. Seems simple enough right? Uninstall the client, Download the new client, and reinstall. Good to go. Well I read on LM's page that you need to run the delete generated files cmd for the update or something. So I did. Well it deleted my Scenery.cfg. not a huge deal, except the fact that now I lost all my scenery entries, and ORBX is being a pain. I had it set up that I could activate or deactivate any ORBX airport or region etc if I didn't need it. Well I can't get that to work now as it added them back in as an addon.xml. I really really just want to enjoy the sim for the last month im home before the Air Force takes me away for a year. Instead I'm met with issue after issue after issue and I just cannot seem to make a flight without something dumb happening to the sim. Crashes, bad FPS, etc... soo. Any tips on how to Unscrew my situation and get my sim back to pre update status? End rant. 

[Bob Scott 7,716]

The "Delete Generated Files" process is a fairly extreme measure that, as you have discovered, wipes out any add-ons that are not installed to the default Prepar3D vX Add-ons folder, which is most of them in my case.  P3D auto-detects the add-ons in that one folder, but it relies on a couple of Add-ons.cfg files to point to the rest, and the "Delete Generated Files" process erases those config files, leaving any add-ons outside the default folder installed but effectively orphaned.

Honestly, your best bet without a backup to fall back on, is to start over and rebuild Rome.  And when you're done, get yourself in the habit of backing up often.  The free Lorby-SI P3D Addon Organizer utility has a one-click feature that backs up your critical config files and restores them just as easily.  And nothing replaces a good monthly full system image backup in case of a catastrophic problem.  Without backups, you're working without a net.

[Dick 47]

Yes. I feel your pain. I did the same and also saw the mess this delete generated files advice had given me.

However all the deleted files were still in the trash/recycle bin so I could restore them.

Dick

[Sparkrite 188]

4 hours ago, ShortFinal said:

I had it set up that I could activate or deactivate any ORBX airport or region etc if I didn't need it. Well I can't get that to work now as it added them back in as an addon.xml.

If that's the case then surely you can select/de-select the entries as needed within the 'addons' menu in P3D?

Edited July 4, 2021 by Sparkrite

[shermank 166]

Actually, P3D give you the option to delete the generated files, or the much less drastic removal of your shader folder in users\owner\.app data\local folder....the sim always rebuilds the shaders. BTW, do not remove the SHADER/HLSL within the P3D folder.

Sherm

Edited July 4, 2021 by shermank

[ShortFinal 41]

8 hours ago, Dick said:

Yes. I feel your pain. I did the same and also saw the mess this delete generated files advice had given me.

However all the deleted files were still in the trash/recycle bin so I could restore them.

Dick

Yes I made the mistake of emptying my recycle bin out of habit so recovery is impossible 

[ShortFinal 41]

4 hours ago, Sparkrite said:

If that's the case then surely you can select/de-select the entries as needed within the 'addons' menu in P3D?

The ORBX addons won't let me now. They used to, but are now all Greyed our. And all my addon.xmls in the documents p3dv5 addons won't load in the sim either. 

[fluffyflops 1,848]

i applaud LM for trying to make something seamsless, but in reality its a farce this "unistall this",  "delete that", "reinstall this one"

 I remember years ago the guy who was 85 years old trying to do it.  and each time simbols advice was always to reinstall the whole program, not tinker and faff about with client and content etc 

So in short people just can't  be bothered to do it., so they Then run into a host of issues. 

Everything nowadays is a quick down and dity patch and then people run into issues. As a society we have become lazy people dependent on quick fixes and short term highs 

Edited July 4, 2021 by fluffyflops

[Sparkrite 188]

2 hours ago, ShortFinal said:

Greyed our. And all my addon.xmls in the documents p3dv5 addons won't load in the sim either. 

Are you sure they are greyed out in the 'Addons' menu and not just greyed out in the Scenery Library?

Usually all items added via an 'xml' can be activated/de-activated by a simple click in the box beside them in the 'Addons' menu.

Edited July 4, 2021 by Sparkrite

[onebob 125]

Have you tried the ‘Sync’ option in Orbx Central , in the help menu

bob

[ShortFinal 41]

1 hour ago, onebob said:

Have you tried the ‘Sync’ option in Orbx Central , in the help menu

bob

 

1 hour ago, Sparkrite said:

Are you sure they are greyed out in the 'Addons' menu and not just greyed out in the Scenery Library?

Usually all items added via an 'xml' can be activated/de-activated by a simple click in the box beside them in the 'Addons' menu.

SO that was my issue. it seems that if they use an xml file they get enabled and disabled through the addons menu rather than the scenery library. All the ORBX addons can be switched on or off through there. testing now to make sure it works as I need it to. Now to find out why I have those horrible lime green 3D trees everywhere even with them unchecked in the graphics settings.

[Sparkrite 188]

8 minutes ago, ShortFinal said:

SO that was my issue. it seems that if they use an xml file they get enabled and disabled through the addons menu rather than the scenery library. All the ORBX addons can be switched on or off through there

 

You're welcome.

[jfmitch 33]

No wonder that 5.2 scared the bejesus outta me.

 

 

[JonP01 104]

I think it should be a priority (and habit) of every serious flight simmer to make a full drive image of their newly built machine at the outset with nothing but the OS installed. Then, if and when they run into updating or any other issues down the track they have an untainted installation to fall back on.

I have several drive images - firstly the one I mentioned above. Then another image which is just my flight simulator installed "exactly as downloaded" but not added to in any way at all. Then yet another which is a 100% stable and fully working install with add-ons and tweaks. Then yet another again which contains more recent updates that are considered a WIP (because no flight simmer is ever "done" - at least for more than a few weeks...).

This way it takes me ten minutes to resolve the seemingly unresolvable (and I needed to go back to one of the images just tonight otherwise I was in for a world of pain trying to fruitlessly track down where I have gone wrong in the last few days with my "WIP" setup).

But quite honestly, having hung around flight sim forums and gaming forums for overy 20 years now, it astonishes me that so many do not make full drive images. It is a one off expense for the software and 15 minutes work to make an image or restore one.

[CaptainIronside 52]

Yeah the sync option in Orbx has saved my life more times than I can count. Matter of fact, I do it after every scenery install just to be sure. 

Edited July 7, 2021 by CaptainIronside