Roy Warren

Talk about freeware. I watched a YouTube by PatroitSix and learned to make my own scenery. I built an airport across the street from my house complete with hangers, buildings, tower, parked planes and also a heliport in my back yard, and I'm no computer geek. The plus is they show up in MSFS2020 and I fly out of them daily. Not intended for Flightsim.to but for my own personal enjoyment. Roy

Ryan. Point me to the shorter trees mod. I couldn't find it in the Marketplace. Roy

The Host file is located at C:\Windows\System32\Drivers\etc It is just Host without an extension. Open with Notepad. Everything in it should be Commented out with zero bites in it. When Map Enhancement opens it places ip addresses for the different data bases you selected (Bing-latest), then the program goes to that address instead of the Asobo one. When you complete running flight simulator, press the STOP button in Map Enhancer. This will tell it to remove the IP addresses back to the original state. If not stopped next time flight simulator tries to open it will try to go to a site that it can't use, so you get the low bandwidth message. This is my take after going though a lot of problems with this addon. Roy

Yes. You are right. I had difficulties installing it because of Kaspersky virus protection wouldn't let it access the Host file. I guess it left the remnants in the Host file. Hitting the Stop removes the Map Enhancement ip addresses from the Host file, so they were still probably there. Thanks for pointing this out. Makes sense now. Roy

I believe it is Asobo's issue. I did not have Map Enhancement installed on my computer when this was happening. I installed Map Enhancement and selected Bing Latest, and the problem has not happened again. Map Enhancement uses different servers.

There are a lot of good things but this forum gives evidence that it's the "tweeking" factor. If you had to use the sim just like it came out of the box, you would soon tire of it. I personally, spend more time tweeking and with updatwes than I do flying,

I don't know if this applies to this thread or not but my problem on approach is when I switch from external to cockpit, and back and forth, the view is miles apart. In one the runway is off in the distance and the other you're right on it. Roy

Thank you. I had recently deleted Map Enhancement because I thought it was causing some problems I had. I just reinstalled it now and everything is working fine. I set it for Bing - latest. Thanks

Here lately I've been getting this message that says my bandwidth is too low and I am being switched to offline. I have been using this sim since it came out with no bandwidth problems and I know this is not the case. Is there anyway to prevent this from happening? Is there any way I can switch back to Online mode? I fly low and slow just to enjoy the scenery and discover new places. This takes away this enjoyment from me since the offline is about the same as FSX. It also won't let me use photogrammetry. Roy

You nailed it. The hosts file is only a place holder for Map Enhancer's ip addresses. As you say when you hit Stop it removes them. If you don't hit Stop they are still there when you open MSFS2020 and it's going there to get it's information which is not there so it hangs up. MSFS2020 doesn't need the hosts file because everything comes from their servers, but it checks the hosts file first and uses what is there. That's why when you look at the hosts file everything is commented out because nothing runs that needs it. This morning after I deleted everything to do with Map Enhancer I decided to delete those lines from the hosts file. They were gone because I had hit Stop the last time I ran the mod. I'm no computer geek but this is my take from my experiences this past week.

My view of Map Enhancement mod is that it is a great idea, but just poorly written code. Took me two weeks just to get it installed, then it screwed up my computer. Hopefully someone or Asobo will pick up on the idea and do it right.

I've had a couple yesterday and one more this morning. All after installing Map Enhancement. I'm in windows mode so I just hit the X and closed it. Started back up without Map Enhancement and everything is fine. No Safe mode prompts. Shutting down with Task Manager gets me the safe mode message. After finally getting Map Enhancement installed I had a message saying my computer doesn't meet minimum requirements, Started anyway and got 6 or 7 fpm and a slide show, Went to bed and this morning turned my Kaspersky back on and everything is back to normal. Will not use Map Enhancement although when it first came out a year or so ago I used it and had no problems. Not worth the fuss. Have to turn off Kaspersky Intrusion Prevention to even run it. Roy

I had tried that before but I guess I didn't get it turned off. So I got past the error screen now. Thanks so much.

I thought for sure that this would be the answer but it still won't load. I even rebooted the computer and checked to see it the .txt extension was eliminated and it has no extension. Before I haven changed mu Kaspersky virus protection to "allow: for everything to do with this mod, so I'm at a loss to see what the problem is.

Thank you. I'll try it. I see it has the ip addresses.

Just checked and it's hosts.

Not a silly question because there was no host file present. So I used instructions that I found on the internet to create a new one, It didn't work. There is nothing in it but comments marked #. So I copied the host file from my another computer and put it in mine but it still didn't work. I'm running Windows 11 and the other computer was Windows 10. Don't know if that mattered. If you will, check your host file and see if there are any ip addresses that are not commented out (#). Or better yet copy and paste your file here so I can try it. Thanks, Roy

Tried it and still not loading

I've been trying for a couple of weeks to get the Map Enhancement program to load with no success. Here is the error message I get : Apply hosts change failed Unable to patch hosts file. Please try: Run as administrator. Turn off your antivirus and restart your computer. Check if any tools inside your antivirus are protecting your system. Add this mod into white list. Please also visit FAQ page for more information. Error detail: Access to the path 'C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts' is denied. I have tried all the solutions listed above and also what various Google sites have recommended with no success. I use this mod when it first came out, but then they changed the version and the new one won't load. Please help if you can. Thanks

Thanks. I deleted the .txt extension when I created it. What I think I need is their ip address. Your file should have it.

Still not working. Still like to have a copy of a good Host file. I can type it in.

Did that and still not loading. Here is copy of Host file I created • • # Copyright (c) 1993-2006 Microsoft Corp. • # • # This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows. • # • # This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each • # entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should • # be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name. • # The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one # space. • # • # Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual • # lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol. • # • # For example: • # • # 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server • # 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com • # x client host • # localhost name resolution is handle within DNS itself. • # 127.0.0.1 localhost # ::1 localhost I'm running Windows 11. Can you post me a copy of your Host file? Roy

I had already been through this and created the host file. What I don't know is what to put here: # 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server # 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host # localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself. # 127.0.0.1 localhost # ::1 localhost So all I have is the file with all notations which start with #. Nothing for computer to read.

Been through all that and I created a file manually using the sample. I just don't know what info to add to the sample and also what extension to use.

Thanks for the link. My Host file is missing. The sample host file is there but not the host file. How can I get it?