It has been a few months since I last used RC, but I always used to be able to use RC along with ActiveSky, Flight Deck Companion and FSHotSeatFX simultaneously. The only problem was that I had to load HotSeat after FDC or FDC would tell me there were not enough hotkeys available.I have been doing a lot of VFR flying recently and just decided to use RC again the other day. The problem is that all the programs seem to load OK, but when I press the keys to contact clearance or ground, I usually get no sound. I repeated the experiment, loading only RC and FS9 and still had problems. Sometimes the clearance sound files will play and tell me to contact ground, but the ground files never play. Sometimes, even clearance doesn't play.Unfortunately, all of the above files have been updated since the last time RC worked. FS9 has been patched. I have the latest versiions of FSUIPC and Adv Display. I have the latest build of RC along with an update for FDC and Active Sky. I say this only to point out that I don't know when things went bad. As I said, even with just RC and FS running I still cannot get these to work.I have checked the file count in the Winwood directory and all seems to match what I am supposed to have.My FS has so many addons that I do not want to start from scratch with it. I suppose that I have to reinstall RC and see if that helps, but I was hoping (long shot) that you might have some insight as to why I am having problems with these sounds playing. (I have also followed suggestions you made to another person about checking the sound slider levels and moving the mouse to see if FS has lost focus. No improvement.)Bill Huntsman

tell me what build number you are running. hover over rcv31.exe, and it will show 3.10.0.xxxxi need to know the xxxxalso tell me how many files are in winwood0, 1, 2, 3, ... 12jd

Hi Bill,The symptoms you describe point to either missing controller files or Flight Sim is losing focus. What are you running in the background besides your flight sim programs?It helps us to analyse your problem if you tell us what specific versions you are running. Here is what you should have:RCv3.1 build 2272FSUIPC v3.411Adv Display 2.13File counts in Winwood are as follows:Winwood0 and 1 - 1028Winwood2 - 13 - 1134Are you flying with an MS default plane or using a 3rd party aircraft? Just moving the mouse around on the screen will not fix the lost focus problem. You need to position the cursor anywhere except on top of adv display and click the left mouse button. Is Adventure Display advancing to the next screen when you contact ground or freezing?Let's start simple and remove some variables until we get sound going again. First thing to do is check you file counts and make sure they match what I listed above. Next verify the program versions. For now lets use Flight Sim and RC only. Leave Active Sky, FDC and FSHotSeatFX out of the mix. We will add them back one at a time when the sound starts working with FS and RC. Also use one of the MS default planes.

Hi Rick,RC is version 2272. FSUIPC = 3.411 AdvDisp = 2.13File counts: 0 (1029), 1 (1030), 2-4 (1135), 5 (1136), 6-10 (1135), 11-13 (1134)Although I was using the MAAM DC-3 aircraft, I tried using the default Seattle flight and default aircraft. I turned off Quick time, Lighting Download and Image Transfer from the start tray, leaving only ZoneAlarm, Norton AV, Creative Sound Control and Mouse running. (These have never caused problems.) There are many processes running still, but no other applications.I still had the same results. Although AdvDisp shows the keys to press to contact ATIS (I had previously changed them from Ctrl-Shift-1 to Ctrl-1 long before I had problems)when I press Ctrl-1 the radio frequency does not change and no ATIS sound is heard most of the time. On one test, after repeatedly pressing and holding down these keys I did get ATIS to kick in, but still could not use Ctrl-2 to contact ground. However, I don't believe that the keyboard is the problem. It almost seems as if the system is not responsive 99% of the time, but if I happen to be lucky enough to press the key at the right time, I will get through.I have recently downloaded FSAutoStart, but haven't implemented it yet. I suppose I can try using it to turn off as many of the processes as I can to see if that helps.

Hi Rick,Using FSAutoStart to shut down most services didn't help. However, I tried using Ctrl-Shift-K to turn everything over to Otto. Then RC cycled through ATIS, Ground and Tower just fine along with chatter files. If, at any point, I took control from Otto, I was unable to go to the next step. I almost sounds as if something has hijacked certain hotkeys, but no unusual applications are running. I even checked the hotkey assignments in FS and deleted items for Ctrl-1 through Ctrl-0, but still no luck.

Try changing all keys in your RC keyboard definition to Control Shift.

I could swear that I tried this during my own troubleshooting before posting the first time, and that it didn't work then. However, this time it works. I have now tried adding back the other programs. RC continues to work until the last program FSHotSeatFX and then it stops. I used to be able to run all of these, but apparently I can't anymore. If I have to do without this last program, I'll live with it. Too many of these programs define hotkeys that I don't use and I think I am reaching the limit. Oh, well. Thanks a lot for your help. I'm glad to have RC back again.

you have to restart fs, after changing the rc key definitions.can you not turn off key assignments in these other programs? rc can't function without these keys being defined.i can't remember if you said you used flight deck companion. there was a bug in an earlier version of the current release, which misbehaved when assigning keys. you might want to check for a later version of that program, if you use itjd

I did restart FS after changin RC keys, but I was probably trying to run all the programs and thus I saw no change.I am using the latest version of Flight Deck Companion (1.6).I don't seem to be able to delete hotkey assignments in any of these addons that I use. I don't use the various MP3 hotkeys in FSHotSeatFX, so I tried setting them all to the same hotkey (spacebar) which is the only one that will not be sent to FS, but still no change. After further testing, it seems that FSHotSeat is causing the problem. RC works until I load FSHotSeatFX. After that Ctrl-Shift-1 and Ctrl-Shift-2 don't work, although Otto does. This seems strange because HotSeat does not have any hot keys assigned to those two combinations. And, as I said previously, I used to be able to use this program as long as I loaded it last. I only use it because the external sounds are so much better with it, but if I have to leave it off I'd much rather do that than not use RC.Where does the hotkey limit come from? I didn't even know about it until I started getting messages from FlightDeckCompanion when I would try to load it and would get a message that there were not enough hotkeys available. Is it a limit set by FS or FSUIPC? I assume there is no way to go in and increase this limit.

56 hot key slots are available. i use a fair portion of them. it is a fsuipc limit.i can ask peter if he can make it bigger.

To delete the FSHotSeat hot key assignments, do the following:In the FSHSpilots folder open the Pilot_0.ini file with a text editor and place a semi-colon (;) before [HotKeys] section.Hope this helps,Sandy

Thanks for the information. I did this and I also found out on through FSHotSeatFX support that I need to start that program before RC. The combination of these two seems to have solved the problem. It looks like I can fly with all of my addons now.