Author Topic: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX  (Read 4749 times)

selcal77

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 14
KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« on: March 28, 2018, 08:50:02 pm »
Hi there,

I'm sorry if this problem has been posted before, but it's really driving me insane so I'm keen to find a solution to it. It seems every time I load a flight at LAX, the scenery only partly loads when the flight starts. The jetways appear, but none of the buildings or surrounding scenery does. The answer I've come across before is to reinstall the addon manager, but why is this necessary so often? Why do I have to keep doing this over and over again, and what is causing the scenery to fail to load like this?

I've also had regular problems with GSX not working either, which is resolved by uninstalling and reinstalling the addon manager. This is very frustrating - I'd be really grateful if someone could explain what is going on here, and why the constant reinstall of addon manager is necessary.

Many thanks,

selcal77

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 50643
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2018, 11:46:32 am »
The answer I've come across before is to reinstall the addon manager, but why is this necessary so often? Why do I have to keep doing this over and over again, and what is causing the scenery to fail to load like this?

The Addon Manager installer reset some wrong compatibility settings you might have in your registry, which might either be set by some other non Windwows 7/8/10 compliant addons, or by Windows itself, because it has detected you are running some other non Windwows 7/8/10 addons together with the sim.

That's one possible reason why you think it's required to reinstall the Addon Manager: because the installer always reset those settings, which is basically running the sim as default, with no Compatibility modes enabled.

selcal77

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 14
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #2 on: March 30, 2018, 02:04:01 am »
Well, it's not because I think it's necessary to reinstall the add-on manager - that's the advice I have found online, and on your forums, for resolving these issues.

On this occasion it was necessary to reinstall the scenery itself in order to get it to load properly in the sim. This has been the case on many occasions. I think my point is that I don't understand why, once a scenery is installed, should it be necessary to regularly reinstall it (or Addon manager, or both), in order to use it.

I have scenery from other developers which, once installed, works perfectly without intervention. But this is because their developer does not use an intermediary licence checking module within the sim. They do their licence checking when the product is installed, and then that is it. As far as I can see this system works perfectly well for them, why not for FSDreamteam?

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 50643
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #3 on: March 30, 2018, 12:59:49 pm »
On this occasion it was necessary to reinstall the scenery itself in order to get it to load properly in the sim. This has been the case on many occasions. I think my point is that I don't understand why, once a scenery is installed, should it be necessary to regularly reinstall it (or Addon manager, or both), in order to use it.

I thought I already explained this: it's NOT necessary to reinstall the scenery regularly! You THINK it is, but that's just because the installer is probably restoring such wrong compatibility settings for the sim, which something else has wrongly set, or that Window itself was tricked into setting them, because of some other addons.

Sometimes, Windows changes some compatibility settings in the registry, simply because an app has crashed in a certain way.

Note that, our Live Updater also resets the same settings so, it might not be required to reinstall the scenery, and just running the Live Updater might fix some problems as well, without reinstalling.

And of course, the usual suggestion of excluding the Addon Manager folder from scanning in the antivirus settings, is always valid, since another possible reason for this, is your antivirus removing some of our files, because it mistakenly assumed it was dangerous, which is obviously a false positive caused by an antivirus bug, because all our software is digitally signed with a specific standard signature (in addition to our own), which is supposed to help the antivirus NOT to catch false positive, yet sometimes they still do, which is why it's best to exclude the folder from scanning.

Quote
I have scenery from other developers which, once installed, works perfectly without intervention. But this is because their developer does not use an intermediary licence checking module within the sim. They do their licence checking when the product is installed, and then that is it. As far as I can see this system works perfectly well for them, why not for FSDreamteam?

The licensing system doesn't have anything to do with this. It's just that our sceneries require a *software* to run, and NOT just because of licensing requirements, but because the software does a lot of things that cannot normally be made, explained here:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php/topic,16776.msg118919.html#msg118919

and it would still be required, even if we used NO licensing system at all.

The licensing system is NOT what makes the software at risk of not running, it's just that, as any other Windows software out there, it can be affected by misconfigurations and OS issues, and the fact it's not a "stand-alone" software, but it must run in an environment where several other software will run at the same time (other addon modules and airplane gauges), makes it easier to suffer from conflicts.

So, it's exactly like a 3rd party airplane or utility that requires FSUIPC: if you have any kind of problems with it, all the software depending on it will stop working.

selcal77

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 14
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #4 on: March 30, 2018, 02:33:18 pm »
Ok - well clearly I've got the wrong end of the stick. I'd certainly be happy if I didn't have to reinstall things so often. In future I will follow your suggestion and run the live updater.

And I understand what you're saying about your scenery needing software to run, although this does seem to make it vulnerable to system changes. My experience in using the sim is that FSDreamteam sceneries and GSX are the only add-ons that I regularly have issues with, and it seems like a constant balancing act to keep them all working at the same time.

Nevertheless, LAX appears to be working ok for the moment, so I'll enjoy that while it lasts. And next time it breaks, I'll try the live updater.

Thanks for your advice,

selcal77

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 50643
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #5 on: March 30, 2018, 09:37:26 pm »
My experience in using the sim is that FSDreamteam sceneries and GSX are the only add-ons that I regularly have issues with

You forgot to say "of the ones I tried" because, if you read forums, you can see that each and every Flight sim addon CAN have lots of issues, depending on the system.

Quote
Nevertheless, LAX appears to be working ok for the moment, so I'll enjoy that while it lasts. And next time it breaks, I'll try the live updater.

If it happens again, it would be useful to know if just the Live Updater could fix it.

If it could, it would confirm my suspicion that it was some wrong registry compatibility key (there are some settings you cannot see unless you dig into the registry), so the cause was something else, either another defective addon, or Windows panicking about the sim crashing, and trying to fix it for you, by setting a compatibility setting, which made things worse instead.

selcal77

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 14
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #6 on: March 31, 2018, 05:43:48 pm »
I have hundreds of sceneries from a range of different developers, and I've been using the FSX platform since 2006. I'm not saying other sceneries don't have issues - that would obviously be ludicrous. What I am saying is that FSDreamteam's products are the only ones on my system with which I have regular/repeated problems. I don't wish to be critical, and I appreciate your help, but I'm sure you will understand how frustrating it is to arrive at one of your airports after a long flight, only to find that half of it's not appearing, for no apparent reason, AGAIN. Perhaps I should just run the couatl updater every time I use FSX, just to be sure I'm not going to arrive at a barren airport.

I will try the couatl updater next time it happens, and let you know how I get on.

Thanks for your help.


virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 50643
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #7 on: March 31, 2018, 06:07:55 pm »
What I am saying is that FSDreamteam's products are the only ones on my system with which I have regular/repeated problems.

You should always try to understand the reason why something's happening.

If the reason was the wrong compatibility settings in the sim that reset themselves for some reason, the proper approach should be understanding what causing this problem, and I assure you it's surely some kind of addon not entirely compliant with the latest Windows standards.

If the issue didn't existed, we wouldn't care to program the Live Updater or the installer to reset the compatibility flags to their proper value (it's because we know it happens, and we are NOT the cause), but this is giving you the impression our sceneries "need to be reinstalled regularly", when in fact, our installer is only fixing some other mess caused by something else.

Try not to confuse the cause with the effect here.

selcal77

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 14
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #8 on: April 02, 2018, 01:21:04 am »
A slightly condescending response, but I'm sure you didn't intend that :) Of course I would always seek to understand the reason why something is happening. In my quest to do so, I have reached out to you, as the developer of the scenery with which I am experiencing the problem.

You've suggested that in fact, running the live updater may be enough to correct some incompatibility issues that are causing problems with your scenery. That was helpful, and I will be happy to try that next time it becomes an issue.

I know it's not helpful to compare your products with those of others, as everyone has different ways of doing things. As a user rather than a developer, I can only comment on my experience of using different products, and the problems I encounter - I don't have the benefit of experience with coding scenery functions. All I am saying is that I can fly to any one of a particular developer's airports at any time, and know that unless I have installed any other product in that vicinity, their airport will display correctly every time, without fail. And so far, in 12 years this seems to be despite whatever other add-ons I may have installed in the meantime which may or may not have windows compliance issues. This seemingly is not the case with FSDreamteam products, unless I happen to know how each and every product I install might affect compatibility flags, or whether it is fully compliant with Windows standards (what does that even mean, exactly?).

That said, FSDreamteam has their own way of doing things, and I like your scenery a lot (when it works) :)   


virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 50643
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX scenery only partly loading in FSX
« Reply #9 on: April 02, 2018, 11:51:17 am »
And so far, in 12 years this seems to be despite whatever other add-ons I may have installed in the meantime which may or may not have windows compliance issues. This seemingly is not the case with FSDreamteam products, unless I happen to know how each and every product I install might affect compatibility flags, or whether it is fully compliant with Windows standards (what does that even mean, exactly?).

There are A LOT of addons that don't respect the current Windows compliance (not this are very "new", since they came out in 2006, with Vista) and those are:

- All the ones that try to write user or preference files in their own installation folder, instead of using %APPDATA% or %PROGRAMDATA% folders, and there are plenty, otherwise your %APPDATA%/%PROGRAMDATA% folders should be full by folders belonging to flight sim addons, instead of just our own and few others, which is the current situation...

- All the ones that requires Admin permissions to run.

- All the ones whose developers suggest NOT to install the sim into the default C:\Program Files folders.

- All the ones that launch the simulator themselves, because their *own* compatibility settings will be inherited by the sim, which might not be always correct (it usually isn't)

In addition to that, if the sim crashes, for ANY reason, Windows itself might change the Compatibility settings of  the sim, because it assumed it was required because of the crash. And it does it by setting a very obscure registry key, not by openly change what you can see in the Compatibility tab of the file.

I'm basing this explanation because is the only ones compatible with your own report: which is that you must reinstall our products regularly. Since we clearly haven't made the software to work like that, the only possible explanation left are some registry settings which were wrongly set, either by some other app, or by Windows itself, which our installer restores.

And, just to be clear: the installer or the Live Update don't set any strange or unusual or FSDT-specificy setting: they just RESTORE them as they are SUPPOSED to be, putting everything back to default.