How to exit Devmode without changing anything

[jgarnold]

This has me completely baffled.
If I open my project in Devmode and and make some changes to just try out somethings but do NOT save scenery and exit the project the next time I open that project I get an error and the ONLY way I can get around it is to restore my backup of the project and open the restored project.
I am currently trying out RECTANGLE with terraforming and trying to learn how to use profile. I add the rectangle, change some of the 'parameters' and then not being happy with the results I just want to exit without the changes.
Once I make some changes such as remove of polygon or add a rectangle and then exit and do NOT save scenery I get this error the next time I open the project. It seems that Devmode is writing changes to some files even though I do not save scenery.

Thank goodness I make backups of my project before opening it!

Is this normal? How do I prevent it happening?

 

[Anthony31]

Package builder works from the saved files. If you make changes and then build the package MSFS is going to automatically save those changes before it runs the builder.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks but I did NOT do a BUILD either.
All I did was -
Load project
BUILD
LOAD IN EDITOR
Select rectangle as the Object
click on Add (ie add a rectangle)
'ticked' terraform
add Profile
made a number of changes to the rectangle and profile
decided I did not want to retain anything
exit the project and reply NO to 'do you want to save changes'
The only BUILD i did was before I did a LOAD IN EDITOR and add an object (rectangle)

 

[=rk=]

I am having the same issue right now, I had a bogus texture added by MCX and now the compiler insists it is missing.

Attached compiler command is not compatible with previously attached commands

I had thought a work around was to rename the project, but that's not working for me. Another solution is to simply provide whatever is requested, in your case it would be the

but in my case it would be an unnecessary COMP texture, or I could just rename the model, search "unknown" in the Scenery Editor and use the properties pane to replace the unknown with the newly named model.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks Rick. For my sake I am glad someone else is also having issues.
Thank goodness I have the peace of mind to always keep a backup of every project.

I therefore recommend most highly that all readers of this ALWAYS makes a backup of a project.

Thinking about it later (Rick) I am not sure if my thumbnail.jpg was actually missing and wondered at the time if some .xml file got incorrectly written to causing it to look in the wrong place for the thumbnail (sorry I don't know all the inner workings of a project to be any clearer). Maybe I should try amnd reproduct the error and then compare the current project (folders and also sub folders and files) with the backup.
ALSO regarding your problem (and once again I don't know enough about the inner workings) but I thought I remembered a long time agao I had a certain problem and it was recommended that I delete certain folders and let (in my case using Airport Design Editor) rebuild the dleted folders. I just noticed that one of the 'TMP' folders for my projects contains a lot of folders of 'models' I don't use anymore in my project but they still exist in one or more sub folders.

 

[Anthony31]

Try looking at the [your project name].xml.

It should be in the PackageDefinitions folder.

You are looking for <AssetGroup Name="ContentInfo"> which points to PackageDefinitions\[your project name]\ContentInfo\

        <AssetGroup Name="ContentInfo">
            <Type>Copy</Type>
            <Flags>
                <FSXCompatibility>false</FSXCompatibility>
            </Flags>
            <AssetDir>PackageDefinitions\antsairplanes-winjeel\ContentInfo\</AssetDir>
            <OutputDir>ContentInfo\antsairplanes-winjeel\</OutputDir>
        </AssetGroup>

The only that folder contains is a thumbnail.jpg which is 412x170 pixels in size (MSFS can be fussy about thumbnail sizes).

To be honest I don't know if MSFS even uses that thumbnail anymore as a while ago they revamped all the thumbnail formats so they go in the MarketplaceData folder and are defined with the Marketplace.json in that folder.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks Anthony for pointing out where to look. I will check that out when I get around to reproducing the error.

To be honest I don't know if MSFS even uses that thumbnail anymore as a while ago they revamped all the thumbnail formats so they go in the MarketplaceData folder and are defined with the Marketplace.json in that folder.

Interesting

 

[jgarnold]

OK I have eventually reproduced this problem (of so called missing thumbnail) -

Open project
Build project (0 errors)
Load project into editor
Make some changes eg add some terraforming rectangles (this may not be necessary but it is what I did)
Decide to start again - WITHOUT doing a build or save
Project > CLOSE
Project > OPEN
select same project
Build project - VOILA the error suggesting that the thumbnail is missing.

And just to ensure this really happens
exit MSFS
start MSFS
Open project
Build project - error of missing thumbnail

So it would seem that by merely closing the project something is writing to/updating the project.
On checking the Thumbnail.jpg still exists in the Contentinfo folder HOWEVER the 'my project name'.xml file has been overwritten and looks quite different from the original (see attached)

Why would I do this I can almost hearing you ask? Because after trying some modifications and getting confused where I am up to I want to restart the modifications from scratch and don't want to shut down MSFS and have to wait for it to reload and then select departure airport etc.

Anyone care to try this and report back?

 

[=rk=]

There is a "delay" in error reporting, in that the first version of any build, won't have anything missing, because it is the first build. You do not have to save this, or build this, for it to be registered as "the first build." Anything after that will be compared against the previous build and if there are missing elements that you did not delete within DevMode, those will be reported missing. Regardless whether you have added a thumbnail, the software is compelled to search for the thumbnail and in its absence report in missing. If you want to break the cycle, you will have to use a new, unique name for every first build.

 

[jgarnold]

Hi Rick
Not sure if I understand what you mean. I am working on an existing project wanting to add something.

Also when I open my existing project should I NOT do a build even though I now that since I last worked on the project I did a build without errors. I always do a build on opening an existing project regardless to ensure it is 'clean', that I something has changed since the last time I was using devmode on that project as I see in numerous tutorial videos.

Maybe a better question would be -

When editing an existing project in Devmode and wanting to restart (using the original project) ie. disregard any polygons modified or added

Is the only method to exit devmode ie close all windows opened in devmode and then OPEN the project again
OR do I have to
exit MSFS completely and restart MSFS and then open the project (in devmode)?

What then is the CLOSE (project) menu selection for, what is it supposed to do? I assumed that it would close the project without doing any file updates

 

[=rk=]

When editing an existing project in Devmode and wanting to restart (using the original project) ie. disregard any polygons modified or added

Is the only method to exit devmode ie close all windows opened in devmode and then OPEN the project again
OR do I have to
exit MSFS completely and restart MSFS and then open the project (in devmode)?

I don't know what to tell you, I save DevMode sessions and I don't leave the sim running while I do other work, it makes my fans run faster and I have a dog - and I already cleaned that video card once, so, maybe you just leave the sim running like a screensaver, that would be cool.

What then is the CLOSE (project) menu selection for, what is it supposed to do? I assumed that it would close the project without doing any file updates

I do not close packages, probably because I do not work on more that one at a time, so saving is adequate. Maybe ask GaryGPT.

 

[jgarnold]

Thanks Rick

Maybe ask GaryGPT.

I will check with Gary.


I rarely is ever leave MSFS and devmode 'open' which I am doing other work.

I don't like MSFS running long either as my video card fans really crank up however
when I am trying to work out how to achieve something like sloping ground and add terraforming polygons and rectangles, can't seem to get their 'parameters' correct and start to get confused as to what I have already done and so decide to start the whole process again using the project as it was before I added those changes I want to start with the project as it was before I started adding those polygons etc. I can start to get confused as to what I have already added when I have rectangles etc ' on top of each other' as the screen gets 'cluttered' with polygons, rectangles etc.

In the past I simply exited MSFS selecting NO to the prompt do you want to save (as I do NOT want to save what I was doing) then starting MSFS again and then opening the (original) project and starting to add polygons again.

I was just looking for a faster way of doing that ie restarting from the original project without having to exit MSFS and start MSFS again. And so maybe I should keep doing that and wasting a few minutes while everything restarts although I must say that since the last MSFS upgrade it seems to start faster than it did before

Do you ever open an existing project, enter some 'changes' (maybe even just to change the valuie of a parameter) and then decide you don't want to save those changes but want to start again to edit the project as it was originally?

 

[=rk=]

I close without saving all the time. Occasionally I forget to save and even more occasionally, the "do you want to save before closing" dialog appears after I have clicked the red "x."

 

[jgarnold]

I contacted GaryGB privately and when asked how he would close a project before opening another would use the (project) CLOSE and BUT he considers that use of the (project) CLOSE may not do what one would expect it to and maybe leave cached data hanging around and picked up during the next BUILD.

I did notice that when I do use CLOSE and then (re)OPEN the same project and do a build (as I always do after opening any project) the 'project'.xml file in the PackageDefinitions is written to and looks quite different to what that file (in all my projects) looks like (in layout). If I do a save project is gets written as expected.

For safety sake I will now always close MSFS and restart it before (re)OPEN the project.
Pity CLOSE does not do what I expect it to as it would save time. Once again while I am experimenting with terraforming polygons and rectangles and aprons there are times when I get confused as to what I have been doing and where I am up to and so to ensure I don't stuff up the original project I just want to exit the project and reOPEN it. That is why I tried the CLOSE (and get the missing thumbnail file).

 

[GaryGB]

Maybe ask GaryGPT.

GaryGB

< 'Duke of URL' ...but not the author of "ChatGPT" >

 

[jgarnold]

Oops I though it was a typo from Rick, sorry.

 

[GaryGB]

GaryGB

< 'Duke of URL' ...but not the author of "ChatGPT" >

GaryGB

 

[=rk=]

OMG, it was supposed to be "GaryGB!"
GaryGBT?

 

[jgarnold]

I am gob smacked

 

[alanzo2012]

Hi jgarnold

First i want to tell you that you are not the only one experiencing that issue exposed here !

I use almost the same working methodology as your. ''Open'' ''Save scenery'' ''Close'' ''Open'' sometime no saving ''Close'' ''Open'' and so on …

I never had any issue working like that before , but since SU12 once you CLOSE the project ,trouble begin right here. It become impossible to add new scenery objects, they simply don't appear anymore ! (in my case coming from BLENDER Exporter) (SDK Sample used : ''Simple Scenery'')

I do have try all kind of testing to be sure i was not crazy and i finaly realized that i was probably not one ;-)

I hope that this problem will be recognized soon enough to be corrected soon.

I like your idea of being super protective with our time-consuming projects , copy copy !