I have to say, this is starting to get me down.

Over the last few months I've clambered up the, admittedly pre-warned, steep learning curve: I've successfully battled with the installation; re-learned how to speak, what speed, what accent, what words; learned the unforgiving sequence of boot-up; learned what and when I have to run stuff as administrator.  And eventually got at least a month's worth of excellent ATC flying in.  Not willing to trust my memory, I did myself a boot-up sequence checklist that I follow religiously to ensure it actually works.

So all great.  However, due to time commitments, the past two weeks I have only been able to sneak a few short, non-ATC MSFS flights and so have not been using Pilot2ATC. 

So yesterday, I got out my checklist and booted up, using the same aircraft and airport as before...and got the dreaded "SIM Connection Error.  Aircraft Position Cannot be found, etc, etc" warning when I clicked the 'Connect' button.  When I clicked the 'OK' acknowledgement, the Connect box did turn green and it did let me File the flight plan but no frequencies or other info were available.  So I:

- tried different aircraft at different airports, all of which I had successfully used before...no change

- updated FSUIPC7 from 7.4.09 to 7.4.11, booting up as administrator only once the aircraft was ready to taxi with all radios on

- double checked I'm on the latest version of Pilot2ATC.  I believe I am (2.7.0.1 x64)

- rebooted the PC, Sim, etc, etc.  Checked all was live and streaming in the sim

 

 

I'm out of stuff to check and it still isn't working. It occurred to me that we have had a couple of small but mandatory MSFS updates over that period - are there any critical in-sim settings that may have switched back off or on?

Any other clues?  I'm close to abandoning this excellent addon along the lines of 'great, but simply too hard' so any and all decent suggestions from you learned folk will be very gratefully received.

Thanks in advance

So there you go.

Having tried unsuccessfully a number of times and over a few days, including this morning, I repeated my boot up sequence again just...and it's connected!

MSFS and Pilot2ATC move in mysterious ways!

If it starts playing up again, I'll repost -  but otherwise assume it has sorted itself somehow...

And so, just as a postscript, after two days of multiple trying, and repeating exactly the same steps already previously tried, I've just completed a faultless flight from EGPD to EGPH in the CRJ700 with faultless Pilot2ATC vectoring me in to a perfect landing.  Wonderful.

So - and based that my issues were over two days with numerous reboots, airports and aircraft - what would cause that?  Does Pilot2ATC run on its own server?  Could that link have been broken for a day or two.  Might that happen again?

 

Pilot2ATC runs on your PC and relies on FSUIPC7 to connect to MSFS.  Occasionally, MSFS makes changes that FSUIPC7 can't handle, which could cause P2A to not be able to connect.

Usually, the issue is that FSUIPC7 did not start correctly, or MSFS is not fully loaded and ready to fly.  Only then will it be transmitting the data needed by P2A through FSUIPC7.  The "Aircraft Position Not Found" error is almost always a situation where MSFS is not fully loading and transmitting data about your aircraft.

Since MSFS doesn't allow you to run it without doing their updates, you can't really stop from installing updates that have issues.

Dave

1 hour ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

Pilot2ATC runs on your PC and relies on FSUIPC7 to connect to MSFS.  Occasionally, MSFS makes changes that FSUIPC7 can't handle, which could cause P2A to not be able to connect.

Usually, the issue is that FSUIPC7 did not start correctly, or MSFS is not fully loaded and ready to fly.  Only then will it be transmitting the data needed by P2A through FSUIPC7.  The "Aircraft Position Not Found" error is almost always a situation where MSFS is not fully loading and transmitting data about your aircraft.

Since MSFS doesn't allow you to run it without doing their updates, you can't really stop from installing updates that have issues.

Dave

Thanks, Dave

Yes, I understand - and I'm back to square one.  Based on it working earlier, I tried it again, to give me a confidence boost, exactly replicating the previous sequence. 

And, you guessed it, won't connect again. 

I've shut down, rebooted numerous times, connected with ethernet directly to the router, etc, etc and it just gives the same error   Very frustrating and yet another evening completely wasted.

I'll try again tomorrow and if it's the same, abandon it until the next full release of MSFS goes live - though goodness knows what that will bring.

 

It's because the package is so good when it's all working that it makes is so frustrating when it isn't.

 

I have had similar experiences in the past.  One thing that fixed it was reinstalling FSUIPC7, making sure to check the option to Start MSFS from FSUIPC7.  Then start FSUIPC7 and let it start MSFS.  I don't know if you are doing it that way, but that does seem to make it work for me.

Dave

42 minutes ago, Dave-Pilot2ATC said:

I have had similar experiences in the past.  One thing that fixed it was reinstalling FSUIPC7, making sure to check the option to Start MSFS from FSUIPC7.  Then start FSUIPC7 and let it start MSFS.  I don't know if you are doing it that way, but that does seem to make it work for me.

Dave

Yes - I had uploaded the latest version of FSUIPC7 from scratch as part of my attempted fixes and also checked the option to start MSFS and have been starting MSFS with FSUIPC7 as you suggest.  Bit of a breakthrough in the last try - I realized that it had unchecked the 'Connect to MSFS' and so it was confirming that the sim was available but, of course, was not actually connected.  This doesn't explain why it stopped working in the first place as all those settings were correctly set back then.

But the good news is that I've finally got Pilot2ATC to connect properly and read me the ATIS again.  The bad news is that I then couldn't get Pilot2ATC to recognize my voice!  I'll try again in the morning when my voice doesn't sound so tired and frustrated! 🙂

 

 

Well, I reckon that Microsoft is determined that I shouldn't enjoy ATC in MSFS.

I think the reason that, after finally getting connection to Pilot2ATC last night with resetting the options in FSUIPC7 and then it not recognizing my voice, was that I've just found out that Windows had secretly, in the middle of my PC session, turned off Windows Speech Recognition for reasons entirely and only known to itself!

Talk about the Deep State!!    

I'm going to try once more this morning...

Edited April 20, 20242 yr by AJZip

OK - SORTED!!!! 

I've just had three faultless flights, in different aircraft at and to/from different airports and Pilot2ATC behaved impeccably. 

With @Dave-Pilot2ATC 's patient help, I have finally bottomed what has been causing all of the grief.  Along the way, I've also had my mind put at rest relating to some plans Microsoft have in the coming Windows 11 updates.

In brief, in case any other folks have had similar problems to me, this is what I have changed:

- I had misunderstood the term 'Speech Recognition' in the original setup notes.  I had taken that to be the 'Windows Speech Recognition' that comes with Windows 10/11. 

It is not:  the 'Speech Recognition' referred to in the Pilot2ATC setup is an internal derivation that acts independently of the Windows Speech Recognition software.  And with that misunderstanding, I had Windows Speech Recognition switched ON.  And it needs to be switched OFF.  With it switched off in the Windows settings (search Windows Speech Recognition once in settings) all of a sudden, as long as I said stuff clearly and at the right speed, Pilot2ATC responded EVERY time.

- Updating FSUIPC to the latest version (7.4.11) and booting that up first with the setting for it to boot up MSFS automatically sorted the 'Connect' failures with Pilot2ATC

 

And, folks, it's a wonderful add-on to a splendid Flight Sim

Thanks again for the help, folks.  It's VERY much appreciated. 

Edited April 20, 20242 yr by AJZip