Landing KORD at night, no lights

[virtuali]

Am I supposed to have an "add-on.xml" file in this directory?

No, the add-on.xml is normally located in the Documents folder, and the installer will create a correct one, no need to change anything. Please don't refer to older posts which might have been made obsolete by subsequent updates.

[Daniel Baker]

Am I supposed to have an "add-on.xml" file in this directory?

Please don't refer to older posts which might have been made obsolete by subsequent updates.

You aren't kidding. So I tried to start again by uninstalling and reinstalling the scenery, and now I get this:



How do I start over again an reinstall the scenery from the start?

[virtuali]

You aren't kidding. So I tried to start again by uninstalling and reinstalling the scenery, and now I get this:

It seems you have an altitude problem caused by another product, most likely something from OrbX ? Be sure FSDT KORD stays on an higher layer in the Scenery Library, which should be the default if you installed it last but, if you use a 3rd party manager for the add-on.xml, it might have changed the priority, so you need to be sure the airports are always on top of everything else.

Are you sure you haven't disabled the scenery in the Options->Addons menu ? Are you possibly using a 3rd party manager for add-on.xml files, that has disabled the scenery ?

How do I start over again an reinstall the scenery from the start?

Just run the installer but, if you (or another product) has disabled the scenery from the Options->Addons menu, it won't be re-enabled by running the installer, since it's assumed it was disabled for some reason. You must re-enable it manually.

About the add-on.xml, is created by the scenery installer in the correct folder, which Documents\Prepar3d Vxx Addons

[Daniel Baker]

So it was disabled (no check in box) but I couldn't re-enable the add-on: each time I clicked on it and hit okay, I'd go back and it was unchecked again.

Then I pulled the KORDv2 folder out of the P3Dv5 Addons folder, started up P3D, then quit again.  Then I put the folder back in the add-on folder and it came... and this time with the default dynamic lighting!  Not sure what that tells us about what was wrong?



All I have left from Orbx (removed everything else for performance issues) were the libraries - ObjectFlow and Libraries, which I disabled.  I'll check if re-enabling kills KORD (the lighting, scenery or both)

[virtuali]

So it was disabled (no check in box) but I couldn't re-enable the add-on: each time I clicked on it and hit okay, I'd go back and it was unchecked again.

That's not normal, it seems something else blocked the file.

Then I pulled the KORDv2 folder out of the P3Dv5 Addons folder, started up P3D, then quit again.  Then I put the folder back in the add-on folder and it came... and this time with the default dynamic lighting!  Not sure what that tells us about what was wrong?

This confirms it. Something must have blocked access to the add-on.xml ( are you *sure* you never used a 3rd party add-on manager ? ), but now you removed it and copied it back, it got correct permissions again and, of course, everything started to work again.

[Daniel Baker]

No, I've never purposefully used a 3rd party add-on manager - unless you count things like the FSLabs Control Center or other similar product installers?


There is something wrong with my add-ons process though.  I realize that when I click to disable or enable an add-on, it actually selects another add-on. And it's not consistent, either, so you're just randomly disabling or enabling different add-ons.  It's quite a mess, and it might be identified in this thread?

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/599533-issue-with-%E2%80%9Cadd-ons%E2%80%9D-prepar3d-v5/

[virtuali]

The thread there had some suggestions you can try, for example to check the add-ons.cfg file. The poster just didn't mention there are TWO possible locations for it:

%APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\add-ons.cfg
%PROGRAMDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\add-ons.cfg

The Options->Add-ons menu acts on these two files. Maybe one of them is corrupted, missing or has permission problems.

BIG WARNING

These files, like most P3D4/5 .CFG files, are encoded in full UNICODE, with 16 bits per characters ( not UTF-8 or ANSI or ASCII! ) and a BOM ( Byte Order Mark ), which means it's EXTREMELY easy to corrupt them, if you open the files with an editor that doesn't fully support UNICODE and the BOM.

You might even be easily mislead they are "corrupted" ( because you see "Chinese" characters ), when in fact they are not, because this is how they'll look like when opened with a text editor that doesn't support Unicode. And, if by any chance, you *save* them back with the wrong editor, you HAVE corrupted them.

This can possibly be caused by some product rogue installer, one that tries to be smart and acts on the add-on.cfg file themselves, instead of using the standard P3D install routines, that will allow to activate an add-on without touching those files, letting the simulator doing this. Which is what our installers do, of course, but we can't exclude a 3rd party installer that doesn't fully support Unicode and tried to access these, might have corrupted, not taking care of the encoding. I'm 100% sure there ARE some 3rd party installers (I've seen it) that, trying to be even smarter (and failing), CHANGE the encoding back to UTF-8 or ANSI, which will likely confuse the next installation or a sim update, only because they didn't want the hassle of dealing with proper Unicode...we skipped the problem altogether by letting the sim doing all the work.

Note that, it's quite safe to REMOVE those files, if you suspect they have been corrupted. The sim will re-create them again on the next start, provided your add-ons installed their add-on.xml in the suggested location ( Documents\Prepar3D v5 add-ons ), which will trigger what is called "AUTO-DISCOVERY", that is the sim asking to enable again an add-on for which an add-on.xml is found there, even if it was removed from the add-on.cfg, or there was no add-on.cfg to begin with.

This will work only for those add-ons ( ours, of course, are made like this ) that put their add-on.xml in the Documents folder. Those add-ons that don't put it there, will have to be manually re-enabled from the options-add-ons menu.