After thoroughly messing up my MSFS2020 files, I find I have two Community folders:

1-C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\localcache\packages\Community and

2- C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\localstate\packages\Community

Are both of these Community files necessary, and if not, which is nesessary ?

Dave Hinson

The first one is the real one.  The second one does not exist on my system..

Edited December 10, 20232 yr by Bert Pieke

Not that Bert needs anyone to validate his answer, but I concur. The second one is not on my system either. Hopefully it's empty. 

First one empty, second has my files.

The reason I ask is that now when I add an aircraft to Community it does not appear in my aircraft selection window.

Dave

 

In my case the  folders locations that the op listed  i havnt  got  either   community folders  in them at all,  although i have  2  community  folders   the  first  one  is  empty   which is  located in  my  c:user/user/appdata/roaming/microsoft flight simulator/packages/community and  the other  one  which is  the  main  one is  located  on  where  i have  installed  my msfs  to  a different  drive  being  e  drive.   I  have  the  steam  version  i had  installed  it  to my third   drive is  probably  why  mine  version  of  community folders  is  different

 

 

Dave  you said  in  your  first  post you said  you messed up  your  msfs   files  which  points  to  the  cause  of  your  issues

Edited December 11, 20232 yr by pete_auau

In the C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\localcache folder there should be a file named "UserCfg.opt"

Open it in notepad and the last line should show the path to your Community folder. That is where MSFS expects it to be.
If the location is inconvenient you can change it to point to another location but make sure you move both the Official and Community folders to that location, otherwise MSFS wants to download all the content again.

Edited December 11, 20232 yr by orchestra_nl

2 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

In the C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\localcache folder there should be a file named "UserCfg.opt"

Open it in notepad and the last line should show the path to your Community folder. That is where MSFS expects it to be.
If the location is inconvenient you can change it to point to another location but make sure you move both the Official and Community folders to that location.

that  depends if he  has  steam  version or  the  store  version and  where  he  has  installed  msfs    since  in my  case  i got  the  steam  version havnt  got  that   file  location  at all ,,  so it  depends   on  where  you have  installed  msfs   which  is  mentioned  in  the  link  below

https://helpdesk.aerosoft.com/hc/en-gb/articles/5023507568925-How-to-locate-the-Community-folder-in-Microsoft-Flight-Simulator

12 hours ago, DaveH said:

2- C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\localstate\packages\Community

A Community folder inside the localstate\packages folder shouldn't exist.

The localstate\packages folder should contain individual sub-folders for all packages that uses a WASM module and will contain the module compiled .DLL and a "work" folder where each package WASM module can store data, since it's the only folder where WASM modules are allowed to write.

So, in a normal situation, you should have a folder inside the localstate\packages for each package in the Community that uses WASM, but not a "Community" main folder there.

For info, inside the sim there is also a way to find out what is currently used by the sim as the 'community folder'.

• Launch the sim
• Go into the general options, select the 'developers' tab on the right
• Enable 'developer mode', a menu will appear at the top of the sim's Window
• Click on the menu 'Tools -> Virtual file system'
• Expand the 'packages folders' entry
• Two button will be available to open the community folder and the official folder, so you will be able to check exactly what the sim is using

So if you have multiple folders that look very similar, this procedure might help you hopefully find the correct one no matter if you're using steam or the store version.

🍻

Edited December 11, 20232 yr by Bad_T

5 hours ago, orchestra_nl said:

In the C:\Users\David\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\localcache folder there should be a file named "UserCfg.opt"

Slight thread hijack, but I'm glad you posted that as I'd totally forgotten about it. After my unintentional duplicate install, I was unable to put anything in the Community folder and have it show up in-sim. Turns out it was looking in the wrong Community. And now I think I realise why I have side-by-side installations of MSFS: After an issue where some Windows apps went missing and couldn't be re-installed, I ended up having to create a new User account. I assume that's why the next time I fired up MSFS, it wanted to install the full sim even when I pointed it to the correct location for the original! Pointing to the correct Community folder, the test add-on showed up and worked.

So, I think the best bet for me is to log back into the old User account, uninstall MSFS and see if everything is cleared up. If not, I'll just uninstall the new version too, delete any leftover Community folders if I find any, and go through the entire 18 hours process of another fresh install. I suppose the worst that could happen is my Logbook and controller profiles get deleted from the cloud (hopefully not) and I have to go through the tiresome process of creating them again, but I can live with that.

1 hour ago, 109Sqn said:

and go through the entire 18 hours process of another fresh install

If you can keep a copy of your MSFS folder (the one where the Official and Community folder is in), you can point to it during installation and you will just have to download the core files. That's 1-2 GB's at most.
If you really want to start from scratch you can also select another empty folder and the entire sim will be redownloaded.

14 minutes ago, orchestra_nl said:

If you can keep a copy of your MSFS folder (the one where the Official and Community folder is in), you can point to it during installation and you will just have to download the core files. That's 1-2 GB's at most.
If you really want to start from scratch you can also select another empty folder and the entire sim will be redownloaded.

Yeah, thanks. New development though: The reason I'd created a new User Account was that MS Store and a couple other apps had disappeared and I couldn't get them back. But I just went back into the original User Account and opened up the Xbox app - it told me I needed to install MS Store and did so successfully!😁 So I launched MSFS (still in the original User Account) and it wanted to download only SU14, not the whole sim.😊 It's downloading at a regular 33mbs on my 38mbs connection. I'll let that finish and see if everything is ok. Then I have to decide what to do about the install on the new User Account. If I opt to uninstall MSFS, I'm hooping it will remove the new installation since that was created on the new account. But yes, I will backup the MSFS folder first.

The update took about 35 minutes and all the MS/Asobo add-on aircraft I own are now there. The only odd thing is that 10 of the World Updates are shown as owned but are needing installed.😶 And the DC-3 and that Halo gunship thing have updates. But my Profile, Controllers and Logbook are all as they should be. So I'll do all those updates, check a few things can be loaded up from AddonsLinker and then backup the MSFS folder before trying to delete the new install.

 

Although I'm tempted just to do a fresh install anyway...🤔😁