Help Please for Lost Settings After MS Network Meltdown

[MM 426]

Your help please.

After Microsoft dropped its network yesterday( June 12-13), I have just now (June 13) retried to start the simulator only to discover that MFS now wants to rebuild everything as from new. It asks for accessibility options. Then for graphics settings. Then for a rebuild of the “custom” settings for the controllers. At this point I stopped the simulator, hoping that a restart would reset my settings to those that I have laboriously built over two years of experimenting and tweaking. (This labor is especially detailed on the custom settings for the controllers.) So far, repeated attempts to restart hit this roadblock.

(I am properly signed on at both MS Store and Xbox. And MFS recognizes my name on the little upper-right sign. So it knows who I am. But it cannot recover my MFS settings as it has maybe a thousand times before.)

Do you know how to manually recover the settings from a day ago, before Microsoft’s network meltdown? (Or, if that is not possible, can you recommend a way to save everything on my own hard drive so I could recover when Microsoft next drops the ball?)

You may have experience with this. And you certainly may have a better understanding of how this information is stored and linked. Your assistance would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Mike

[Noel 4,501]

I can't help Mike but just curious--when you discovered the MS servers were inaccessible for a period yesterday,. what did you do in terms of trying to get it back up and running before you realized the issue was not on your end?

[glennav8r 20]

Same problem here I just had to configure everything again including all my joystick settings! 

[micstatic 4,319]

this has always been one of my big fears.  Is there really no way to manually backup settings/bindings etc?

[pete_auau 1,159]

41 minutes ago, micstatic said:

this has always been one of my big fears.  Is there really no way to manually backup settings/bindings etc?

maybe  this link may help

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/590418-print-controller-assignments/

 

[Noel 4,501]

8 hours ago, glennav8r said:

Same problem here I just had to configure everything again including all my joystick settings! 

I encountered the server outage, signed out and back into the XBox app and MS Store, and after that kept generating the 'Please Insert the MSFS Disk' message shut it down until the next day when it logged in correctly and all has been well--and lost no assignments of anything.  Did you do anything different?  Curious why some have this, and I didn't.

[MM 426]

Thanks for the help. Peter (@pete_auau), your link pointed to a discussion about where the bindings are saved locally on the user computer. This discussion got me to look inside the saved settings (in XML language). Reading this, and then finding the xml files on my machine, gave hope that things were not entirely lost.

(For MS Store, @loge offers specific instructions: https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/590418-print-controller-assignments/?tab=comments#comment-4419750 )

I got lucky. On restarting, I did plow through to the controller settings page, dreading the task ahead. But when I started, I discovered that I had previously set an alternate profile for the keyboard, joystick, and throttles ... “Standard” rather than “Default”. These much tweaked alternate settings were available and offered as options under each controller’s tab. I applied these and they worked.

So one idea would be to set these alternate profiles for each controller. And then finding their locations as described in the links above. Then saving-as-backups those xml files. And of course, get lucky.

More seriously, my amateur-hour observation is not a solution. Some of our better-informed colleagues may have much more useful suggestions.

Best,
Mike

[MM 426]

@Noel
Not sure. I did almost the same as you. I checked my correct connection to the Xbox app and MS Store. But I did not sign out and back into the two programs. Maybe that is important. (?)

[lupedelupe 315]

Mike, this has happened to me as well (some months ago).

I jumped through the hoops (all the while cursing MS and their cloud system), and on a subsequent flight it asked me which version of the settings I wanted to use: Cloud or Local. So it seemed that the previously backed version of my settings did eventually become available. It's annoying, and really not a good advertisement for Microsoft's Cloud Computing (when other systems appear to work so much better) but it is, unfortunately, part and parcel of this iteration of Flight Simulator.

Luckily running through all the settings again is pretty quick. Good luck. 

[Eclex 102]

So you clicked on 'cloud', right?

[MM 426]

@Eclex. Dave, yes...sort of. I did click on using live data, of course. However... In some previous instances, where the settings were to be rebuilt, we got a “use cloud or update” sort of message and we all properly used “cloud” to resurrect our previous settings. In this instance, this week, this “cloud” option was not on offer.