I am having a problem with my Orbx scenery order moving around and not staying where it's supposed to.  When I set my insertion points in Orbx Central, I can go open the P3D Organizer tool, and it shows all my Orbx scenery in the correct order, but as soon as I click on the save button, the order of the Orbx entries goes all messed up.  Even if I try to manually change it back, it will just change again on it's own, to the wrong place in the order.  If I go back and reset my Central insertion points, it will do the same thing again.

Please, I would greatly appreciate some  help that anyone can provide to help me fix this problem.  I just want to be able to keep things in the proper order.

Thanks

From my point of view, those two logics probably fight each other. They obviously have different strategies as to how scenery items should be put in the correct sequence. Naturally, when P4AO rearranges the scenery order, the insertion points that the ORBX tool figured out change and are all wrong.

When you set insertion points in another tool, ORBX in this case, do not use P4AO in parallel. Choose one of the two and stick to that.

Edited August 23, 2025Aug 23 by Lorby_SI

5 minutes ago, Lorby_SI said:

From my point of view, those two logics probably fight each other. They obviously have different strategies as to how scenery items should be put in the correct sequence. Naturally, when P4AO rearranges the scenery order, the insertion points that the ORBX tool figured out change and are all wrong.

When you set insertion points in another tool, ORBX in this case, do not use P4AO in parallel. Choose one of the two and stick to that.

Well, I need to be able to use P4AO to be able to enable/disable different Orbx scenery packages and I also need to use P4AO to manage all of my other scenery.  If I can't use Central, then how do I use only P4AO to do everything?  From what I understand is that Orbx Central uses an XML to tell the Orbx scenery where to go, so how do I fix that?  I want to just be able to use P4AO.  I hate this stupid XML stuff that P3Dv5 uses, it's a huge pain in the rear end.  It was so much easier to manage scenery with just a scenery.cfg editor like in FSX.

8 hours ago, Zylx said:

Well, I need to be able to use P4AO to be able to enable/disable different Orbx scenery packages and I also need to use P4AO to manage all of my other scenery.  If I can't use Central, then how do I use only P4AO to do everything?  From what I understand is that Orbx Central uses an XML to tell the Orbx scenery where to go, so how do I fix that?  I want to just be able to use P4AO.  I hate this stupid XML stuff that P3Dv5 uses, it's a huge pain in the rear end.  It was so much easier to manage scenery with just a scenery.cfg editor like in FSX.

Sorry, no idea. Obviously those two tools don't like each other.

I have no idea how ORBX is setting its "Insertion Point", I don't remember ever using that. Fact of the matter is, that, by default, the XML config files don't contain any information about scenery order. It is P4AO that adds the necessary tags and forces the scenery order across the entire database. I can only imagine that ORBX is forcing certain layer values that it thinks are correct, but that ultimately don't represent the actual order in the entire scenery database when the other XMLs and the scenery.cfg are included. When P4AO then sorts the scenery items, before saving the database, their sequence changes. 

 

10 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

Sorry, no idea. Obviously those two tools don't like each other.

I have no idea how ORBX is setting its "Insertion Point", I don't remember ever using that. Fact of the matter is, that, by default, the XML config files don't contain any information about scenery order. It is P4AO that adds the necessary tags and forces the scenery order across the entire database. I can only imagine that ORBX is forcing certain layer values that it thinks are correct, but that ultimately don't represent the actual order in the entire scenery database when the other XMLs and the scenery.cfg are included. When P4AO then sorts the scenery items, before saving the database, their sequence changes. 

 

I notice in P4AO, that when I select multiple items and right click on them, there is an option called "move selected", and when I click on it, it will give me an option to move the selected items to the scenery.cfg file.  Would that work?  Then I could move the Orbx entries wherever I want, right?  Or would that cause problems?

Edit: Another thing I was thinking is, before I do a flight, open P4AO to enable/disable the scenery I need to, save and close it, then open Orbx Central and set the insertion points so that the Orbx scenery is in the order it's supposed to be, then start my flight.  Do you think that might work too?  As long as I don't open P4AO again and save, the Orbx scenery should stay in the correct order I think.

Edited August 24, 2025Aug 24 by Zylx

I don't have that problem, I've tested it yesterday. I have ORBX Central configured to use an external library. I can open P4AO, adjust the scenery order and save as many times I want - nothing is jumping around or changing position.

To cross check I opened Central again and closed it - again nothing changed. Central did not mess with the scenery order. Or I am missing a step, I don't know how I make it do that. From my point of view Central should not be changing scenery order at all. The insertion point is just a marker where it adds new scenery. This does not mean that it re-calculates scenery order, I've never seen it do that.

But truth is, it has been years since I looked at any of this. Back in the day I only used Central to install new scenery. The scenery order itself I managed in P4AO. Then again, my only goal was to make the scenery work, I never had the ambition to have it in a specifc "order".

 

 

Edited August 24, 2025Aug 24 by Lorby_SI

3 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

I don't have that problem, I've tested it yesterday. I have ORBX Central configured to use an external library. I can open P4AO, adjust the scenery order and save as many times I want - nothing is jumping around or changing position.

To cross check I opened Central again and closed it - again nothing changed. Central did not mess with the scenery order. Or I am missing a step, I don't know how I make it do that. From my point of view Central should not be changing scenery order at all. The insertion point is just a marker where it adds new scenery. This does not mean that it re-calculates scenery order, I've never seen it do that.

But truth is, it has been years since I looked at any of this. Back in the day I only used Central to install new scenery. The scenery order itself I managed in P4AO. Then again, my only goal was to make the scenery work, I never had the ambition to have it in a specifc "order".

 

 

If it doesn't do that for you, then I have no idea why it is happening to me, and I have no idea on how to fix it.  I even asked for help from Orbx support and they didn't know how to fix it either.  I guess I'm just stuck 😞 

Do you think maybe there is a problem with Central possibly?  Or, I was just thinking, I wonder if it is because I have my Orbx scenery installed into an Orbx Library folder instead of installing directly into P3D itself.  Could that possibly be causing this problem do you think?

Edited August 24, 2025Aug 24 by Zylx

1 hour ago, Zylx said:

Do you think maybe there is a problem with Central possibly?  Or, I was just thinking, I wonder if it is because I have my Orbx scenery installed into an Orbx Library folder instead of installing directly into P3D itself.  Could that possibly be causing this problem do you think?

See above, I also have it installed in a separate ORBX library.

2 hours ago, Zylx said:

If it doesn't do that for you, then I have no idea why it is happening to me

The question is, what are you doing with Central to have this outcome? Why use Central at all (except for install/update of course)?

On 8/24/2025 at 7:27 AM, Lorby_SI said:

The question is, what are you doing with Central to have this outcome? Why use Central at all (except for install/update of course)?

That's the only way I know how to use my Orbx scenery.  If I am using Orbx scenery, then how do I not use Central?  Everything for Orbx is done through Central automatically.  This is the way it's always been and is what I've been told by people at Orbx.

I'm not sure of any other way to do it.

Edited August 26, 2025Aug 26 by Zylx

8 hours ago, Zylx said:

That's the only way I know how to use my Orbx scenery.  If I am using Orbx scenery, then how do I not use Central?  Everything for Orbx is done through Central automatically.  This is the way it's always been and is what I've been told by people at Orbx.

I'm not sure of any other way to do it.

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand what you mean by "any other way to do it". What is "it"? 

I've only ever used Central for installing scenery. I wouldn't know what else to do with it. Once the scenery was installed, there was no need to use Central ever again. Unless I wanted to pull updates, but TMBK that didn't change scenery order.

22 hours ago, Lorby_SI said:

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand what you mean by "any other way to do it". What is "it"? 

I've only ever used Central for installing scenery. I wouldn't know what else to do with it. Once the scenery was installed, there was no need to use Central ever again. Unless I wanted to pull updates, but TMBK that didn't change scenery order.

What I mean is I know no other way of managing Orbx scenery.  There's only two things I use Central for, and that is to use the Sync to Simulator button when necessary (like when doing a reinstall of P3D), then choose insertion points.  That is what I've always been told to do by people that use Orbx scenery.  When I do this, and press the save button on P4AO, the order of the entries becomes all messed up. How or why it is interfering with P4AO, I do not understand.

Edit: I wouldn't use P4AO if I didn't have other scenery I need to use or switch on and off and I need to make sure those are in a good order as compared to the order of the Orbx scenery so that everything I own is in order.  I always did this with FSX using a different tool that's like P4AO but much simpler, and I never had a problem doing this with Orbx scenery or any other scenery so I'm so confused.

Edited August 28, 2025Aug 28 by Zylx

3 hours ago, Zylx said:

What I mean is I know no other way of managing Orbx scenery.  There's only two things I use Central for, and that is to use the Sync to Simulator button when necessary (like when doing a reinstall of P3D), then choose insertion points.  That is what I've always been told to do by people that use Orbx scenery.  When I do this, and press the save button on P4AO, the order of the entries becomes all messed up. How or why it is interfering with P4AO, I do not understand.

Sorry again, but I don't know what there is to "manage". I never had that requirement. I installed scenery with Central and occasionally I updated a scenery. I never once used "Sync to simulator" (whatever that is) and I didn't care about the insertion point either. Ultimately it is the sequence of the scenery components that matters, and I could easily manage that with P4AO. If I had to guess, it is probably that "sync" operation that causes this trouble. I don't know how it works, but there are three different strategies to force a certain sequence of addons in P3D - and when this "sync" uses a different one than P4AO then it stands to reason that the outcome is messed up. Looks like that is the most likely explanation.

In any case, P4AO is dead. If it is not compatible with what you are doing with Central, then I'm sorry - but there won't be any more development. I guess it is about time to retire all legacy Lorby simulator apps and remove the downloads, like I did with the payware.

Edited August 28, 2025Aug 28 by Lorby_SI

On 8/28/2025 at 4:24 AM, Lorby_SI said:

Sorry again, but I don't know what there is to "manage". I never had that requirement. I installed scenery with Central and occasionally I updated a scenery. I never once used "Sync to simulator" (whatever that is) and I didn't care about the insertion point either. Ultimately it is the sequence of the scenery components that matters, and I could easily manage that with P4AO. If I had to guess, it is probably that "sync" operation that causes this trouble. I don't know how it works, but there are three different strategies to force a certain sequence of addons in P3D - and when this "sync" uses a different one than P4AO then it stands to reason that the outcome is messed up. Looks like that is the most likely explanation.

In any case, P4AO is dead. If it is not compatible with what you are doing with Central, then I'm sorry - but there won't be any more development. I guess it is about time to retire all legacy Lorby simulator apps and remove the downloads, like I did with the payware.

Apologies for the late reply.  What I am doing with Central is nothing more than most people that use Orbx scenery do.  The Sync to Simulator option in Central is for having Central place all Orbx scenery in the correct order, or at least that is what it is supposed to do.  It is necessary in some cases to do when using Orbx scenery and is unavoidable in certain situations.  For example, if I reinstall P3D, this needs to be done to insert the Orbx scenery entries back into the scenery.cfg and addon xml.

Maybe you are right that it is interfering somehow, but I have no idea how to not make it interfere.  The insertion points could also be causing the problem too, but someone else told me a while back that if I don't enter insertion points, the Orbx entries will move around the order by themselves which is indeed what was happening before I even tried insertion points.

I am at a loss, nobody seems to understand this problem I am having.  I've asked about it on a forum before and I even contacted Orbx support, they didn't seem to understand what is causing the Orbx scenery entries to move around and get out of order.

I do appreciate you trying to help and I thank you for that.  I am not surprised you're no longer developing P4AO, it is the case with most P3D related software now days.  I do appreciate all of your software, all of the freeware, and I own some of your payware too, like the crop dusting and firefighting add-ons and I really enjoy them.

May I ask, do you have to remove the downloads for your P3D freeware?  Isn't there any way you can keep them available for people that still use it as legacy downloads?