1 hour ago, virtuali said:

How a program that cannot even *start* because of a missing library can possibly "pop-up" a message, if it can't start ?

First, it started. The menu frame came up. The GSX-unique loading spinning circles came up. That it subsequently hung doesn't mean it didn't start.

Second, plenty of other programs out there run error checking at the start, and if a windows file is missing, they will tell you that so you have some inkling of what to do to fix the problem. 

Finally, you've been a great developer in the past which is why I haven't requested a refund despite GSX Pro *never* working right for me, across multiple reinstalls and even a complete wipe and refresh of the OS. I figure eventually you'll find the bug(s) and fix them. I had admittedly hoped the blaming your users because you're perfect phase would be a little shorter, but I still have faith you'll find and fix the problem at some point. 

7 minutes ago, eslader said:

First, it started.

So, this doesn't have anything to do with Windows "missing libraries". Those will just prevent to start, hence my comment about what you were asking, a program made unable to start because of missing windows libraries, notifying you about the very libraries the prevent it to start. Can't be done, unless possibly from another external program that, hopefully, *could* start itself and won't be affected as well by missing libraries.

 

Quote

The menu frame came up. The GSX-unique loading spinning circles came up. That it subsequently hung doesn't mean it didn't start.

So that's a completely different issue which of course is not a GSX "bug", we observed to be caused by EITHER of these:

- Having reached the maximum Simobject limit. When  this happens, Simconnect breaks and doesn't reply to commands anymore, and this will of course affect GSX which relies on it.

OR

- A bug in the Navdata API, which has been acknowledged by Asobo and would hopefully be fixed in SU13 Beta. Sometimes, the Navdata, which GSX NEEDS to use to read the airport data, freezes and it's even possible the simulator might crash or, in any case, not providing any data.

OR

- A bug in even a single jetway in the scenery. This caused the whole call to ask the sim for a list of jetway to fail entirely, even if just one mas missing/corrupted/not installed model. This is another bug that has been acknowledged by Asobo and, in SU13, the list will just not include the faulty jetway, instead of having the whole call fail, which resulted in an internal error in the sim.

 

 

Quote

Second, plenty of other programs out there run error checking at the start, and if a windows file is missing, they will tell you that so you have some inkling of what to do to fix the problem. 

And again, as I've said, the FSDT Installer does that and will even try to reinstall them, if needed, but it cannot obviously check for *everything* that might be missing. No program ever does that, unless it's designed to be a generic system "fixer" and even those sold as such, most of the times cannot fix and check for everything.

 

 

As someone with no dog in this fight, I must say that the developer's responses do sound very defensive and "it's not my fault". It doesn't inspire confidence when everything is blamed on the simulator or user error. Now of course the dev is likely correct in their assessment, but as a customer, all I get is that GSX doesn't work properly with the sim - whether it's the sim that's broken, or GSX, doesn't really matter to me.

If the sim is truly so broken that GSX cannot work correctly, maybe a pause on sales, or a clear statement that the software cannot work properly because the sim is broken might help. I read this thread thinking I would want to check out GSX, but it had the opposite effect. It just doesn't seem like this is a stable addon (and again, maybe that's all MSFS' fault, or the users fault.. but I'm not feeling like buying this product to find out)

Anyway, I wish the devs all luck in getting this to work as intended. Seems like it would be an interesting addon.

 

2 minutes ago, JonathanC said:

As someone with no dog in this fight, I must say that the developer's responses do sound very defensive and "it's not my fault".

The customer service style is an acquired taste, it's fair to say.
Then again, I didn't have customers screaming at me for months on end that GSX was causing P3D to crash somewhere over Canada on every TATL flight. Turns out, it was an error in P3D and had nothing to do with FSDT.

I can sympathise when it's your own PC where GSX Pro doesn't work and you've spent hours troubleshooting and it still doesn't play nice. However, it doesn't mean it's a crappy product when for the vast majority of people it works and people say it's an indispensable part of their sim flight.

2 minutes ago, F737MAX said:

The customer service style is an acquired taste, it's fair to say.

Nah, but that's the whole thing - the customer service, or customer communications, whatever you want to call it, is an easy thing to fix.

The devs are responding in a very "engineering" manner, but there's a reason companies have a customer service department. The skill set is different, and having the devs respond the way they are is "direct" for them, but can also be read as "brusque" by other people.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not really part of this thing and won't be commenting further, but in my humble opinion, the devs aren't doing themselves any favours with their public communications. 

2 minutes ago, JonathanC said:

Nah, but that's the whole thing - the customer service, or customer communications, whatever you want to call it, is an easy thing to fix.

The devs are responding in a very "engineering" manner, but there's a reason companies have a customer service department. The skill set is different, and having the devs respond the way they are is "direct" for them, but can also be read as "brusque" by other people.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not really part of this thing and won't be commenting further, but in my humble opinion, the devs aren't doing themselves any favours with their public communications. 

If the expectation is FS development teams need to have a separate customer service department that aren't the "engineering" team then expect add-on prices to skyrocket.  Most of these are very lean and small companies.

While FSDreamteam has a rough CS approach (I would also say this is somewhat cultural not just "engineering")  There are devs (cough* Orbx* cough) who hire CS people and their answers usually are one of "I'll add this to the list for an update", "Let me ask the developer", "I don't see that on my end" etc. etc. etc.  

While rough at least virtuali understands the intricacies and details of the software and is able to provide real time feedback on why a problem could or couldn't be a fault of his software.

I'm perplexed why this happens w/ GSX Pro.  To me it looks like this pushback could have easily kept turning left as requested to follow the lines on the tarmac but as happens often enough I had to manually stop the pushback before it went into the turf.  Why doesn't it simply complete the pushback as requested?  This seems very basic....

1 hour ago, virtuali said:

So, this doesn't have anything to do with Windows "missing libraries". Those will just prevent to start, hence my comment about what you were asking, a program made unable to start because of missing windows libraries, notifying you about the very libraries the prevent it to start. Can't be done, unless possibly from another external program that, hopefully, *could* start itself and won't be affected as well by missing libraries.

 

So that's a completely different issue which of course is not a GSX "bug", we observed to be caused by EITHER of these:

- Having reached the maximum Simobject limit. When  this happens, Simconnect breaks and doesn't reply to commands anymore, and this will of course affect GSX which relies on it.

OR

- A bug in the Navdata API, which has been acknowledged by Asobo and would hopefully be fixed in SU13 Beta. Sometimes, the Navdata, which GSX NEEDS to use to read the airport data, freezes and it's even possible the simulator might crash or, in any case, not providing any data.

OR

- A bug in even a single jetway in the scenery. This caused the whole call to ask the sim for a list of jetway to fail entirely, even if just one mas missing/corrupted/not installed model. This is another bug that has been acknowledged by Asobo and, in SU13, the list will just not include the faulty jetway, instead of having the whole call fail, which resulted in an internal error in the sim.

 

 

And again, as I've said, the FSDT Installer does that and will even try to reinstall them, if needed, but it cannot obviously check for *everything* that might be missing. No program ever does that, unless it's designed to be a generic system "fixer" and even those sold as such, most of the times cannot fix and check for everything.

 

 

The missing libraries thing was suggested by someone else way up the thread. I had no idea if that was the problem or not. It was also suggested to restart Cautl every time the menu failed to load, which not only didn't work but would be obnoxious even if it did. 😉

I do not know what is wrong with my GSX install. I'm not a developer. I only know enough about software to be dangerous. I haven't programmed anything since BASIC on the Commodore Vic20. The only thing I do know is that whatever is wrong with it, I will be told it's my fault, or the sim's fault, or Windows' fault. Any of these may well be true, but if that's not backed up with "and here's what you can do to make it work," it's not very useful.

RE: bugs in jetways. I hope not, because I was testing it at your O'Hare. I suspect it's safe to assume that any jetway bugs in your scenery have already been dealt with.

I don't expect the FSDT installer to fix everything, but if GSX is hanging because of a specific reason, whether that's missing files, bad jetways or too many objects it would be nice if that were echoed to the user so the user could have the possibility of doing something about it. 

Like I've said many times, I enjoyed GSX a lot in P3d, and I'm looking forward to enjoying it again in MSFS once it works. 

1 hour ago, F737MAX said:

The customer service style is an acquired taste, it's fair to say.
Then again, I didn't have customers screaming at me for months on end that GSX was causing P3D to crash somewhere over Canada on every TATL flight. Turns out, it was an error in P3D and had nothing to do with FSDT.

I can sympathise when it's your own PC where GSX Pro doesn't work and you've spent hours troubleshooting and it still doesn't play nice. However, it doesn't mean it's a crappy product when for the vast majority of people it works and people say it's an indispensable part of their sim flight.

Eh. You're not wrong, and having participated in a bunch of open betas/early accesses I know how over the top people can get. I definitely do not believe the customer is always right and I wouldn't advocate that he take that stance. On the other hand, the "I am never wrong" stance is somewhat obnoxious. I was (and still am) ready to sit back and wait for the thing to work. I only said something because the more time he spends pointing fingers at everything else instead of investigating what's going on or coming up with workarounds or, at least, a way to let the user know what's causing problems, the longer it will be before the product is usable.

At bare minimum, we should have access to information about what we could do - for example instead of saying too many objects are loaded, tell us what to do about that. How can we restrict object loading, and more importantly, what number should we restrict it to? If it's not something we can fix, then the product does not work with the sim in its current state which I'm perfectly willing to blame Asobo for, but it should be pulled from sale until it can once again work.

I definitely get that not everyone experiences these problems, but I also know that I am far from the only one experiencing them, and I know that people have been experiencing them for years, including in the P3d version which, presumably, cannot be blamed on Asobo's SU10 update.

I don't have a problem with brusque customer service. Hell, I'm here on Avsim, and that's where I was once sarcastically told by a mod to block ads on the site when I let them know one of the ads was a phishing scheme. That was not only garbage "customer" service, but pretty dumb to boot - after all, Avsim makes money off of those ads, its staff probably shouldn't be telling people to cut off that income stream.

And of course I have PMDG products, and they're famous for making you jump through hoops to get help. Abrasive customer service doesn't bug me. Insisting on the perfection of your product when it's obvious there is a problem is what gets under my skin. 

There is a problem with GSX that makes it not work well for many of its customers. That should be addressed. They can address it in as insulting and abrasive a manner as they wish, I won't care, as long as it actually gets addressed.

 

 

2 minutes ago, eslader said:

The missing libraries thing was suggested by someone else way up the thread. I had no idea if that was the problem or not. It was also suggested to restart Cautl every time the menu failed to load, which not only didn't work but would be obnoxious even if it did

You said a problem should advise you if it's missing libraries it needs to start. That's was the only point of my answer: it can't do that, because the missing libraries would prevent it from starting.

 

3 minutes ago, eslader said:

The only thing I do know is that whatever is wrong with it, I will be told it's my fault, or the sim's fault, or Windows' fault. Any of these may well be true, but if that's not backed up with "and here's what you can do to make it work," it's not very useful.

I always analyze each case individually. The issue is most of the times, it's NOT GSX fault ( which doesn't mean it's YOUR fault!! ) if something you don't expect happens. When something is really GSX fault, it DOES get fixed. If there's a simulator limitation, we can only use or suggest workarounds, but you make it sound as if GSX doesn't work at all, which clearly is not the case.

If it's completely unworkable for you, then open a proper thread, with a proper subject, either on our forum or send an email to support, so we can assess in the only proper way there is (making proper testing), what is the real cause.

 

8 minutes ago, eslader said:

At bare minimum, we should have access to information about what we could do - for example instead of saying too many objects are loaded, tell us what to do about that. How can we restrict object loading, and more importantly, what number should we restrict it to?

Of course we have explained multiple times the numerous means you have at your disposal to control the number of objects in GSX and are:

- The Passenger Density slider.

- The Clutter option in the FSDT installer (only meaningful to default sceneries where jetways has been replaced)

- In the GSX custom airport profile there's an option to disable Static VGDS, which will save on the max objects number if the airport has lots of VGDS.

- It the GSX custom airport profile has Walk-in gates, their length will affect the maximum number of objects.

This is what you can do from GSX but, again, since the maximum simobject limit is global, if OTHER add-ons are contributing to it, you must act on them too, using whatever tools THEY offer you to keep the Simobject number under control, for example AI injection density, if AI uses ground services or not ( an option in FS Traffic ).

 

Quote

If it's not something we can fix, then the product does not work with the sim in its current state which I'm perfectly willing to blame Asobo for, but it should be pulled from sale until it can once again work

Of course it's something you can fix, by acting on ALL products that CONTRIBUTE to reaching the max Simobject limit, using whatever means they offer to achieve that result.

And no, of course it's wrong saying GSX should be "pulled from sale" until the problem is fixed because:

- The problem doesn't happen with just GSX on a default scenery, since it will never try to generate more objects that it's legally allowed according to the SDK.

- Nobody ever even noticed there was a max Simobject limit until AFTER a couple of popular AI Injection products came out, in the end of 2022, which was months AFTER GSX came out. Because, of course, it's very difficult to surpass the limit with JUST GSX, you need to combine add-ons together.

- By your own reasoning, FS Traffic should also be "pulled from sales", because it CAN help you reaching the limit as well. This is obviously wrong, since FS Traffic, like GSX, has ITS OWN means to keep the number of objects under control, and you are supposed to learn using them, instead of saying the product should never been sold.

This is just an example but, in general, every add-on that adds Simobjects ( even airports: Jetways are Simobjects, for example ) should hypothetically offer users options to configure it to reduce it. GSX clearly has options, other add-ons have them, it's up to you to learn about them.

 

To all profile builders: did the latest GSX update (choose between a Bus/Walk-In separately for Boarding and Deboarding) mess up your exisiting profiles with walk ins too?

On the topic of Customer Service, I much prefer the blunt and insightful responses from Umberto over having a less educated but polite CS rep. Umberto knows what he's talking about and has experiences that aid in troubleshooting.

Just in case this thread gave FSDT any ideas, there are some of us not in favor of a kinder CS rep.

Also, on the topic of simobject limits, does anyone know if the limit is coded somewhere a mod can fix? Is it a set value in a single line of code that an addon dev can find and correct? Waiting for Asobo to do it is akin to waiting for the heat death of the cosmos...

On 9/9/2023 at 5:47 PM, BWBriscoe said:

I can’t use GSX to its full potential because of the number of objects it creates and when I fly to another airport, buildings, traffic etc doesn’t appear as we’ve got to the object limit. 
 

I don’t use it for boarding or unloading, don’t use it for vehicles, I practically only use it for pushback otherwise the rest of my flight is affected. 

Try disabling extra ground clutter in the GSX options. That fixed it for me, I haven't had that issue since that option was added.

Edited September 17, 20232 yr by Tuskin38

On 9/17/2023 at 3:04 PM, WestAir said:

On the topic of Customer Service, I much prefer the blunt and insightful responses from Umberto over having a less educated but polite CS rep. Umberto knows what he's talking about and has experiences that aid in troubleshooting.

Just in case this thread gave FSDT any ideas, there are some of us not in favor of a kinder CS rep.

Also, on the topic of simobject limits, does anyone know if the limit is coded somewhere a mod can fix? Is it a set value in a single line of code that an addon dev can find and correct? Waiting for Asobo to do it is akin to waiting for the heat death of the cosmos...

Well there is sound object limit too watch a lot of AI traffic mess up your aircraft sounds 😉