FSX Gauge does not load

[eric_marciano]

Eric,

Are you sure that the aircraft tree structure in which you are making the changes, is actually loaded ??
I.e. : are all the TITLE= definitions in ALL aircraft.cfg files that FSX can find in the SImObject paths, are unique ??

Eg. if you make a copy of an entire aircraft folder structure in the SimObjects\Airplanes\ folder (meaning that the TITLE= defs in found aircraft.cfg files is not unique), FSX just loads the aircraft in the first folder tree it finds.
So the aircraft tree structure that you are making file edits in (in aircraft.cfg other then TITLE= defs, panel.cfg, etc) may not be used at all.

Rob

PS:
Same with reloading a saved flight.
To locate aircraft files, FSX tries to find an aircraft.cfg with the same TITLE= as defined in the .FLT file.
If it finds one, it uses that aircraft.cfg and all files in the aircraft folder structure of that aircraft.cfg.
So if there is another aircraft.cfg with the same TITLE= definition (in the aircraft tree structure you make edits in) this other tree structure is never used.

You are right, the aircraft title is used by FSX as the only unique identifier. I made a search on "Boeing737-800", which is the model name (found in the line: sim=Boeing737-800), I should have searched on the title. But as far as I remember, FSX displays a warning when he finds several aircraft that have the same title and I didn't see such warning. I will test this.

 

[PhantomTweak]

Follow up ……..
I just tried this potential "TITLE= duplicate" problem in FSX_Accell myself.
I know that in FS9 this problem existed (I had it myself once) , but when I try this in FSX-Accell (not sure about other FSX versions) FS warns me about dupliclate definitions upon FS load.
So this may not be the problem after all ….

Rob

Just so you know, FSX:SE functions just as your FSX Accel, Rob.
I don't know if this matters or not, but I just thought you'd like to know how another version works...

Good luck!

Pat☺

 

[eric_marciano]

Follow up ……..
I just tried this potential "TITLE= duplicate" problem in FSX_Accell myself.
I know that in FS9 this problem existed (I had it myself once) , but when I try this in FSX-Accell (not sure about other FSX versions) FS warns me about dupliclate definitions upon FS load.
So this may not be the problem after all ….

Rob

I replied too quickly to your previous thread... You are right, that's what I was remembering because it already happened to me: FSX warns when it finds duplicate titles. So unfortunately this is not the explanation...

 

[eric_marciano]

Just so you know, FSX:SE functions just as your FSX Accel, Rob.
I don't know if this matters or not, but I just thought you'd like to know how another version works...

Good luck!

Pat☺

I confirm, I also use FSX-SE

 

[eric_marciano]

BTW, my story is not totally exact. In fact, I first checked the panel.cfg of the B738 and the VC definition was not there (allthe [VCockpit] sections had been removed). Then I launched FSX, it started with the default flight (ultra-light at Friday Harbor), I selected the B738 and when it loaded, the VC was visible with all the gauges operational.
Conclusion: FSX does not keep a "local" version of the file that ignores any modification, but FSX takes another panel file into account when starting.

I may have an explanation for this that I can't test now because I am at work. Here it is:
As a developer, I often create DLL gauges. When a gauge (DLL) is used in a panel that is currently loaded, it is locked and Visual Studio cannot generate it again. Before having Windows 10, I sometimes tried to rename a gauge DLL to see if it was locked or not. If locked, the Explorer would tell me renaming is impossible.
Since I have Windows 10, renaming a locked DLL is possible !! For example, you can rename mygauge.dll into mygauge.bak even if mygauge is used in a panel curently used in FSX. In this case, it seems Windows considers mygauge.bak is the new DLL name and uses this until you delete mygauge.bak. So if you regenerate mygauge.dll, any change is ignored because FSX load mygauge.bak instead, because of the renaming.
Maybe the same thing happened with the B738 panel.cfg. If the panel.cfg was in used (locked) when my friend ran the Panel Updater to update this file, the Panel Updater first creates a backup copy "panel.bak", just in case. If panel.cfg was locked at this time, panel.bak becomes the new "real" panel file used by FSX. If so, any change in the panel.cfg is ignored because panel.bak is used instead.
Yesterday I saw panel.bak was still there. Instead of removing it, I moved it to a "trash" folder that I created. It didn't change anything.

I don't really think this is the explanation because a panel.cfg file (a text file in fact) is usually not locked like a DLL is. What do you think?

 

[ddawson]

Check the aircraft.cfg file. Make sure the panel.cfg file you are editing is the one being used for the aircraft being loaded.

 

[eric_marciano]

Check the aircraft.cfg file. Make sure the panel.cfg file you are editing is the one being used for the aircraft being loaded.

This i sthe first thing I checked. I mean I checked the panel line in the fltsim section of aircraft.cfg. As I read this:
panel=
I understood the panel related to the aircraft was in the "panel" folder. Anyway, there was no other panel folder named like "panel.XXX", it was the only one.

My friend sent me an email saying he fully re-installed FSX and my EasyFMC product still doesn't work. It seems the problem is still there on a fresh FSX installation. This is weird...
I asked him if he has some security software installed and if he has administrator rights, I'm waiting for his answer.

For information, I saw a flight simulation association some years ago. They had several PCs on which FS was installed (FS2004 at this time) and they had an interesting software that restored an image of the disk each time the PC is booted. It means that if a member would come, use FS and accidently destroy all the files, it had no consequence, everything was restored just by rebooting the PC.
I thought that my friend may have the same kind of software to limit the risk of corrupting/erasing configuration files, but even the use of a similar software wouldn't explain the problem I see here.

 

[PhantomTweak]

Wondering:
Do you reload the aircraft after making changes by going to the aircraft menu selection at the top of the screen, or something like that? If you do, or even if you use the Reload User Aircraft key combo, you need to ensure that ALL AI items are turned OFF before you do so. The AI Commercial Aircraft, GA Aircraft, Ships, Road Traffic, ALL of it.
If you don't, many times the sim may not, usually DOES NOT, re-load all the files, like .DLL's, .gau, .cfg, etc etc. That's ANY kind of AI items. Ships, planes, Airport Traffic, all of it. It will keep some files in the memory, some not. It's somewhat random.
Either that, or you need to shut down and then restart the sim completely to reload the test aircraft, which is time consuming and somewhat more complicated than necessary.

I don't know if this has any bearing on the trouble, but maybe...?
Pat☺

 

[eric_marciano]

Thank you Pat, I didn't think about this. Indeed, when I change anything in a cfg file, I reload the aircraft using the pull down menu Select > Aircraft.
I will do another remote control session tonight (Paris time) with a clean FSX install. I will be careful about the traffic, will set everything to 0, because AI Traffic uses the B738. Unfortunately, I don't think it will help... I say this because 1) I already did this on my system when I created a new panel for the B738 and everything worked perfect reloading the aircraft this way and 2) last time I tried on my friend's machine, the panel.cfg was edited (VC sections removed) before FSX was launched, and the VC was there in the aircraft. Unbelievable... but true.

To everyone, I appreciate your help in providing me many ideas, including some I didn't think about. Even if my EasyFMC product is not in cause, my curiosity pushes me in understanding and solving this strange problem.

 

[rcbarend]

2) last time I tried on my friend's machine, the panel.cfg was edited (VC sections removed) before FSX was launched, and the VC was there in the aircraft. Unbelievable... but true.

Maybe stating the obvious, but removing the whole Vcockpit01 section in the panel.cfg of the default B737_800, does NOT remove the VC !!
It only disables the gauges defined in that VCockpit01 section, which are not ALL gauges in the VC (several AP switches and LandingGear-lever are part of the .mdl, and are not gauges).

And another thing that may put you on the right track:
You say " (VC sections removed). Is that a typo ? Because the panel.cfg of the default FSX B737_800 only contains ONE VC section (Vcockpit01).
That is: in FSX-Acceleration. But I doubt this is different in any FSX version (RTM, SP1, SP2, Accel or SteamEdition)

So again: are you indeed editting the correct panel.cfg (and is it saved ?) you are actually loading ???
TIP: remove a gauge from the Window00 2D panel, and see if that disappears.

Probably not relevant, but still: which FSX version does your friend use ??

Rob

 

[PhantomTweak]

In the aircraft.cfg, does the [fltsim.X] section that points to the plane you're loading, also point to the panel folder you're changing?
IE: Say the texture you're using looks like this:

[fltsim.3]
title=Boeing 737-800 Paint5
sim=Boeing737-800
model=
panel=changed
sound=
texture=5
kb_checklists=Boeing737-800_check
kb_reference=Boeing737-800_ref
atc_id=N737T
atc_airline=Pacifica
atc_flight_number=
ui_manufacturer="Boeing"
ui_type="737-800"
ui_variation="Pacifica Airlines"
ui_typerole="Commercial Airliner"
ui_createdby="Microsoft Corporation"
description="One should hardly be surprised that the world's most prolific manufacturer of commercial aircraft is also the producer of the world's most popular jetliner. The 737 became the best-selling commercial jetliner worldwide when orders for it hit 1,831 in June 1987 (surpassing Boeing's own 727 as the previous champ). However, it wasn't always that way\s in the first few years of production, there were so few orders that Boeing considered canceling the program. They didn't, and the airplane has more than proven itself in over three decades of service."

Notice the PANEL= line. This is just an example. Let's say you're working on the panel.cfg in the folder Panel. Notice the PANEL= line points to a different panel folder, which would look like this: Panel.changed .
What I'm trying to say is, are you loading the texture with the correct panel folder being pointed to? Should you be working on the panel.cfg in the folder panel.changed ?

Just a thought I had. I get so few anymore...
Pat☺

 

[eric_marciano]

Maybe stating the obvious, but removing the whole Vcockpit01 section in the panel.cfg of the default B737_800, does NOT remove the VC !!
It only disables the gauges defined in that VCockpit01 section, which are not ALL gauges in the VC (several AP switches and LandingGear-lever are part of the .mdl, and are not gauges).

And another thing that may put you on the right track:
You say " (VC sections removed). Is that a typo ? Because the panel.cfg of the default FSX B737_800 only contains ONE VC section (Vcockpit01).
That is: in FSX-Acceleration. But I doubt this is different in any FSX version (RTM, SP1, SP2, Accel or SteamEdition)

So again: are you indeed editting the correct panel.cfg (and is it saved ?) you are actually loading ???
TIP: remove a gauge from the Window00 2D panel, and see if that disappears.

Probably not relevant, but still: which FSX version does your friend use ??

Rob

Hi Rob,

Yes, I use some "shortcuts" when I write on this forum, but I know what I am doing
I know that removing the [VCockpit] section (or sections) in the panel.cfg does not remove the VC, it removes the gauges in the VC. My goal is not to remove the VC, my goal is to cause a major visible change that allows me to see immediately in the modification of the panel.cfg is taken into account by FSX. In addition, I sometimes write on this forum when I don't have FSX in front of me, some things are written from my memory, so I confirm the FSX B738 has only 1 VCockpit section that was removed during my tests.
FYI, I did the same test on my system and it worked perfect. Removing the B738 [VCockpit] section was immediately visible in 3D cockpit mode because I had transparent holes at the PFD and ND places. This proved that any change in the panel.cfg was taken into account as soon as I reload the aircraft in FSX. This is what I wanted to see.
Read my following post if you wish, I will explain how I am 100% sure the panel.cfg I was editing was the one used by FSX.
My friend uses FSX-SE, like I do.

 

[eric_marciano]

Hello Guys,

I am not asking for any help now, I just want to tell you the end of the story. I made another remote control session yesterday and still couldn't find any explanation, I was turning crazy...

Initial conditions:
- FSX-SE clean new install. Only FSUIPC and my EasyFMC Mobile add-on installed on top of FSX-SE installation.
- I provided my friend a small software I wrote that uses FSUIPC to indicate the FS location and information about the currently loaded aircraft: title, atc flight number, atc tail number, atc airline.
- UAC set to the lowest level (less secure, but less potential problems)
- All traffic set to 0% in FSX settings.

Test conditions:
- Each modification of aircraft.cfg/panel.cfg was made when FSX was stopped
- The text editor was closed each time a modification was mde
- FSX was restarted each time to see the effect of any change

Tests:

1) I checked the registry to make sure the install path in the registry was the path I was using to run FSX. I also created a desktop shortcut myself to be 100% sure the FSX I was launching was the right one. Anyway, there was no other...

2) I did my usual test: remove the [VCockpit] section (Yes Rob, no s, there is only 1 ) from panel.cfg and launch FSX.
First bad surprise, even if the [VCockpit] section was removed, all the VC gauges were there, alive and operational.

3) Frustrated, I changed the aircraft.cfg.
From memory, the [fltsim.0] aircraft title is "Boeing 737-800 Paint1" and it is "Boeing 737-800 Paint2" for the second variant [fltsim.1]. I changed the second variant title to "Boeing 737-800 Paint1" to intentionally cause a dupliate title error in FSX. I restarted FSX and... no error message.
Not only I had no error message, but I selected the second variant in FSX, my utility was showing the aircraft title: Boeing 737-800 Paint2
Where could FSX find this?!? FSX was using an aircraft that didn't exist any more !!!
I pushed the test by searching in SimObjects and all subfolders for any file that contains "Boeing 737-800 Paint2", I didn't find any !!
I started to believe the text editor I was using was saving the modified files at the wrong place, so I checked the file date and opened aircraft.cfg with Notepad, everything was ok.

4) The only test that worked was when I renamed the "panel" folder into "panel.eric", then I changed the panel line in aircraft.cfg from "panel=" to "panel=eric".
This time, the VCockpit gauge removal finally appeared, but this worked only once. Any subsequent change to the panel.cfg file was ignored.

5) My friend moved the Texture.3 to texture.6 to a trash folder. When restarting FSX, the variants that were using these textures were not listed any more. This shows FSX ignores the aircraft.cfg modifications but doe not ignore the presence of texture files. I don't know what it means...

6) After I gave up and stopped any test, I asked my friend to do the same test with fs9. He reinstalled fs9, made a change in a panel.cfg, and same thing happened: the change was ignored.

The PC behaves as if there was a big disk caching that uses the files in cache instead of using the ones on disk. Any change on the file on disk is ignored (as if it was read from the cache instead) until a folder structure change occurs. I know we probably all use disk caching, but when a file is written, the cache is updated. Even if it was a possible explanation, how to explain the file appears correctly modified in the text editor and not in FSX.

After all these test, I really have no explanation. My friend plans to totally reformat his PC and reinstall a fresh Windows 10. I couldn't help him more...

Eric

 

[DragonflightDesign]

Eric - everything you describe in the section above points to the operating system being locked down so that any changes to any file are immediately backed out and rewritten by the virtualStore. When the new O/S install is complete, make sure that your friend is logged in as administrator and that UAC is turned off completely and stays off (re-check it and re-check it). Make sure that FS is not installed in the default folder(i.e. in \program Files (x86)) and is not installed in the root of C: drive (c:\fs will do). Secondly, when running the FS installer, right-click | Run as administrator.

There are times when I see this problem at work, usually in a high-security environment such as a bank or a pharmaceuticals company.

 

[rcbarend]

Any change on the file on disk is ignored (as if it was read from the cache instead) until a folder structure change occurs. I know we probably all use disk caching, but when a file is written, the cache is updated. Even if it was a possible explanation, how to explain the file appears correctly modified in the text editor and not in FSX.

Yes, it would be hard to explain why FSX still uses the .cfg file from the Windows memory cache instead of the changed one on disk.
But still, you can easily prove it isn't related to memory cache, by making the edit, reboot the PC (which clears the memory) , then check the cfg file again if the changes still exits and then run FSX again.

 

[eric_marciano]

Eric - everything you describe in the section above points to the operating system being locked down so that any changes to any file are immediately backed out and rewritten by the virtualStore. When the new O/S install is complete, make sure that your friend is logged in as administrator and that UAC is turned off completely and stays off (re-check it and re-check it). Make sure that FS is not installed in the default folder(i.e. in \program Files (x86)) and is not installed in the root of C: drive (c:\fs will do). Secondly, when running the FS installer, right-click | Run as administrator.

There are times when I see this problem at work, usually in a high-security environment such as a bank or a pharmaceuticals company.

The files may be locked, but I am sure they are not re-written by the vistual store because when i re-open them with the text editor, I see the modifications I have done.
I confirm my friend is administrator and I confirm UAC is at the lowest posible level, I checked this myself.
FSX-SE is installed in C:\steam\... and not in Program Files.

 

[eric_marciano]

Guys,

Look at what I found today: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tutorials/windows-alternate-data-streams/

If you don't want to read it all, you can just do the following test, you will be amazed:
- Open a command prompt and navigate to a temporary directory
- Type the command: notepad test.txt:hidden.txt
- Notepad will open, saying this file does not exist and suggesting you to create it, click Yes to create it
- Enter some content, such as "This is the official original file content"
- Save and exit Notepad
- Now open a file explorer (or enter the dir command) and see the "test.txt" file size, it is NULL !!
- In the file explorer, double click test.txt (or use the command: notepad test.txt)
- The file is empty, which is normal because its size is 0.
Now you can enter some text, such as "This is the content I modify"
- Save and exit Notepad
- Now test.txt has a non-zero size, normal. And if you edit this file with Notepad, everything works fine, you can do what you want and each time you open this file, you will see the modifications you have made.
- Now come back to the command prompt and type: notepad test.txt:hidden.txt
What a surprise !! You see the original content and not the content you have modified.

Can you imagine if FSX-SE reads panel.cfg:anyHiddenFile?
It means I would edit what I want, any modification would be ignored.
May that be an explanation?

 

[eric_marciano]

My friends,

If you want to have some fun, have a look at the small software I have just developed
You can download it here: http://emarciano.free.fr/files/ADS_Tester.exe

Put it in a temporary directory. The first time you run it, no data is available, so you have to enter a first and last name and press "Enter Data".

It closes after creating "Eric.cfg" in the same folder, a data file that contains this information, something like:

[PersonData]
FirstName=John
LastName=Doe

If you run it again, data is available in Eric.cfg, it will display the information found in that file. The information cannot be modified anymore:

Now the funny part:
Open "Eric.cfg" with a text editor and change the information in it, for example:

And run my software again, you will have a small surprise
Does it remind you something?

Eric

 

[eric_marciano]

I forgot to tell you something if you want to have the full explanation: open a command prompt and type this: notepad Eric.cfg:hidden.cfg
Funny, isn't it?

 

[ddawson]

So I guess the question is, is your friend using a Mac now, or did he simply use one in the past, having since migrated his FS install over to a new machine.
What happens if you try another aircraft (other than the MD-90 or the 738?)