Build 2624 Airport List Turning Up Empty

[Gypsy Baron]

Paul,

Here is another shot in the dark. Delete the settings.xml file - should be auto created. Your file is a little different from the rest of us.

<settings>
<Units>
<Altitude>0</Altitude>
<Distance>0</Distance>
<Dimension>0</Dimension>
<Coords>0</Coords>
</Units>
<FsPath>C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X</FsPath>
<FsxCompilerPath>C:\Documents and Settings\Ron\My Documents\CDRWFiles\FS\FS 2006 SDK</FsxCompilerPath>
</settings>

I also do NOT have the following two files:

PureComponents.TreeViewV2.dll
SmartPropertyGrid.dll

Now this is VERY strange....I deleted the settings.xml, ran SDE and
pointed to the BGLComp location and the FSX location, changed and
saved the units data then exited.
I restarted SDE and the units data appeared as I had saved it
but the two file location windows reverted back to the default
SDE location!
I repeated the process several times with the same results.
SDE is not adding the file location data to the settings.xml
folder!

As to those two files you mention, those were in the previous
SDE installation that I have deleted and replaced with the
latest version and engine update.

I just can't imagine why I seem to be the only one having
problems at the moment.

Another question of how SDE works....

Last evening I opened an AFCAD file directly and added
a perimeter fence and 3 blast fences using SDE. The xml
code looked fine except the "profile=" entries were all 0's.

I had to find the correct GUID's ( I now know to look in the
extrusions.xml file ) and add them by hand. Then the compile
went fine and the new objects appeared at my modified airport.

Is this the correct operation of SDE, that one needs to
enter the GUID's by hand or should it find them automatically,
for those of you not having airport list scan problems?
( just wondering if there is a ralationship here )

Paul

 

[ronh]

Now this is VERY strange....I deleted the settings.xml, ran SDE and
pointed to the BGLComp location and the FSX location, changed and
saved the units data then exited.
I restarted SDE and the units data appeared as I had saved it
but the two file location windows reverted back to the default
SDE location!
I repeated the process several times with the same results.
SDE is not adding the file location data to the settings.xml
folder!

Well strange indeed, but I can confirm this - I move my settings.xml file to another directory. I started SDE - change the folder names. And then viewed the units. Closed SDE - restarted and yes folder names were back to defaults. Looks like you need to set paths first - then start/exit and then all is okay.

As for the extrusions - Don't think Jon has added a feature find this data from the extrusion.xml and material.xml files. So yes you may need to find these and edit maually.

 

[Gypsy Baron]

Well strange indeed, but I can confirm this - I move my settings.xml file to another directory. I started SDE - change the folder names. And then viewed the units. Closed SDE - restarted and yes folder names were back to defaults. Looks like you need to set paths first - then start/exit and then all is okay.

As for the extrusions - Don't think Jon has added a feature find this data from the extrusion.xml and material.xml files. So yes you may need to find these and edit maually.

Thanks Ron, I'll manually add the paths statements into my
setttings file. As to the extrusions profile=, I kind of thought
that was the case and isn't a problem now that I know where
to find the GUID's.
The one on-going problem I have is still the airport scan.
That's a complete mystery. I can confirm what Jon mentioned before
he took to tje high seas ( or calm lake...). I monitored
memory usage during a scan and it crept up in little
spurts from an initial 7MB above WinXP's usage, to
1.12 GB or so. I have 2.5GB of memory, although the
little memory usage utility I use only shows 2GB, ignoring
the extra 512K that seems to be used by the system.

So, even with a memory leak, the scan function doesn't
reach the end of my memory yet still returns an empty
list. The scan is obviously doing SOMETHING with all
that ram

Paul

 

[scruffyduck]

I restarted SDE and the units data appeared as I had saved it
but the two file location windows reverted back to the default
SDE location!

I repeated the process several times with the same results.
SDE is not adding the file location data to the settings.xml
folder!

Hi Paul

I don't see how that can happen unless your settings.xml is not in the same folder as TestApp.exe......

Another question of how SDE works....

Last evening I opened an AFCAD file directly and added
a perimeter fence and 3 blast fences using SDE. The xml
code looked fine except the "profile=" entries were all 0's.

I had to find the correct GUID's ( I now know to look in the
extrusions.xml file ) and add them by hand. Then the compile
went fine and the new objects appeared at my modified airport.

Is this the correct operation of SDE, that one needs to
enter the GUID's by hand or should it find them automatically,
for those of you not having airport list scan problems?
( just wondering if there is a ralationship here )

In the current build you need to add your own Guids by hand - later versions will have have a list for you. There is no relationship between the airport scan and anything else. The scan just searches folders, reads namelists and sticks the airport details into a database and tree.

 

[Gypsy Baron]

Hi Paul

I don't see how that can happen unless your settings.xml is not in the same folder as TestApp.exe......

-SNIP-

My settings.xml is, indeed, in the same folder as TestApp.exe.
I installed the latest revision and the engine patch into
a new folder and deleted my previous folder that contained
the old versions.

I don't know how this little glitch came about since after
the new installation, the settings.xml contained the
paths that I had set. It was only after changing the
"settings", "units" and saved that as per one of the
previous posts and finding that nothing changed, vis-a-vis
the airport scan, that I went on and deleted the settings.xml.
At this point it failed to save the paths I set.
The only thing that appears in my settings.xml now is
the units entries:

<settings>
<Units>
<Altitude>0</Altitude>
<Distance>0</Distance>
<Dimension>0</Dimension>
<Coords>0</Coords>
</Units>
</settings>

I seem to have a "black hole" of an installation here, Jon.

The only thing I can think of that might be part of these
issues is that my FSX install is not in the "default" path
and my SDE install is on a different partition from FSX.

I have BGLComp and the xsd in the SDE folder.

I have the latest, registered version of FSUIPC4 as well.
( 4.081 )

I can manually enter those paths in the settings.xml file
but the airport scan still eludes me.

Paul
]

EDIT: OK, I found out what I have to do to get the paths to save.
After setting the path I had to click "Validate now". That seems to work
for getting the paths saved. The units save fine just hitting "save".
Still no airport list entries. I created another install in the program files
directory that contains FSX but that didn't help. Here's my settings.xml now:
( I pointed it to another copy of BGLCOMP in this instance )

<settings>
<Units>
<Altitude>0</Altitude>
<Distance>0</Distance>
<Dimension>1</Dimension>
<Coords>0</Coords>
</Units>
<FsPath>K:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X</FsPath>
<FsxCompilerPath>I:\FSX Tools\AFCAD-Convert\fs92fsx\BGLCompX</FsxCompilerPath>
</settings>

 

[scruffyduck]

OK I can't see anything wrong with that.

I am thinking that there is something either in your Scenery Folder hierarchy, or in your Addon Scenery Hierarchy that is causing an error in the scanner.

Almost certainly something in your addon scenery set up

The scanner is not throwing an error, as such, but is just stopping and returning an empty list. I am going to create a version of the engine which should crash if there is a hidden error. I will post it in this thread shortly

 

[scruffyduck]

This may make you feel better Paul. I think I have just had the second report of this problem so you are not alone

 

[Eddie]

Hi all,

I believe I am the one with the problem that Jon referred to. I have been working on this problem for the past several hours with no positive results.

I even went so far as to completely remove the addon scenery folder and have followed everything in this thread.

Still a no go.

Ed

 

[scruffyduck]

Hi Ed and welcome to the forum.

 

[Eddie]

Hi Jon,

Thank you.

Now for my question. Does your program write either to the registry or another file? The reason why I ask is, I completely deleted your program and reinstalled. I had been working on some bgl files in the scenery folder. When I reinstalled and ran the program, it automatically went to the folder I had been working on.

Thanks,

Ed

 

[scruffyduck]

No it does not write to the registry. There may be some behavior in the dotNET framework that is reponsible for the behavior you mention. I have noticed it myself but it is nothing that I have specifically programmed

 

[Eddie]

Thanks for the reply.

I'll keep working on it.

Ed

 

[Eddie]

OK.

Just did another test with file monitor. The program is reading the correct files and when it gets to the end it tries to open oleaut32.dll. I checked and I don't have this dll. Will try to find one, install and try program. Will report back.

Ed

 

[Eddie]

Installed the dll, but still not writing the airport list.

Ed

 

[scruffyduck]

Thanks Ed

I am trying to put together a test version of the program that will report back on problems with the scan. Trouble is that I cannot get the scan not to work and nothing is turning up on the log that shows any problem

 

[Eddie]

Hi Jon,

If you want, you can email me the program and see what happens.

Ed

 

[scruffyduck]

Ed I will try and post a link to it later this evening. The log may tell us something



EDIT

OK this is hopefully a silly question Ed but you are using the latest engine build version 0.91 Build 2628?

This is an engine only update available from my site and fixes a problem with 2624 which did NOT show airports in the airport list

If the version you are using is reporting itself as 0.90 Build 2624 then you are using an out of date version with this bug as a known problem

 

[jvile]

I have not encountered any of these type problems and SDE continues to work and save settings properly.

I have noticed one unique behavior with programs that use dotnet frame 2.0 including FSX.

If you load a program that requires dotnet frame 2.0 and then install dotnet frame 2.0 you will not get favorible results in certain features of the program.

There is some sort of pecking order that dotnet frame 2.0 uses and must be installed FIRST before any program can be added and used correctly.

FSX also tells us this in the SDK documentation which says

Ensure that Microsoft ® .NET Framework Version 2.0 is installed. If it is not, uninstall the Flight Simulator X SDK, install the .NET Framework from the following link, then re-install the SDK:

I found out the hard way that if a FSX type utility is opened the first time (executed) and then says you must have dotnet framework 2.0 installed then you must

1. Remove the utility completely including the settings.XML
2. Install dotnet frame 2.0
3. Unzip the utility and execute it just as if it was the first time you ever opened it.
4. That also means you may have to uninstall dotnet Frame 2.0, uninstall FSX SDK's, delete the utilities and then install dotnet Frame v2.0 first. Now run SDK setup from the DVD and install the FSX utilities.

This includes utilities like SDE and TcalcX that do not add registry entries.



There is another small problem I had to resolve with FSX for certain utilities to be stable.

The FSX.exe file is looking for 2 dll files that were placed into the Windows\WinSXS folder when FSX was installed. On my system, dll's placed in the Windows\WinSXS folder do not get registered the same way when they are in the Windows\System32 folder.

These 2 dll's in the Windows\WinSXS folder that FSX added (including others) are

MSVCR80.dll
size 612kb
dated 9-23-2005 7:29AM

MSVCP80.dll
size 536kb
dated 9-23-2005 7:29AM

Do A Search to see where they are at!!!

I had to copy these 2 dll's into the Windows\System32\ folder from the Windows\WinSXS\ folder so FSX.exe finds them and becomes more stable. I was concerned that this would cause a share violation so I checked for any errors and Windows XP reported no problems. I also checked share violations with Norton and PCTools which are registered full programs on my computer.


Now if you decide to do this then you should go one step further and fix the SDK simconnect.dll.

There are 24 executable files in the SimConnect\SDK\Samples\ folder looking for simconnect.dll which is also placed by FSX into the Windows\WinSXS\ folder. DO NOT REMOVE the simconnect.dll from the Windows\WinSXS folder but copy it to the Windows\System32 folder just like the other 2 dll's above.

Again all test showed no violations with shared dll's and all 24 executable files stop looking for simconnect.dll.

dotnet Frame 2.0 was also reporting errors in conjunction with FSX\SDK's but stopped after coping simconnect.dll into Windows\Sys32 folder.

I reported these problems to FSX back in October/06 as per their e-mail site but never heard back from them or if the SP1 is addressing these issues.

 

[Eddie]

Jon,

That was the first thing I did yesterday was to update which, of course, didn't help.

We'll get it going yet.


Jim,

Thanks for posting.

I have had version 2 installed since I reinstalled xp last year. I will go through and check everything you mentioned and see if I can spot anything.

Thanks,

Ed

 

[jvile]

For those of us that only need dotnet frame v2.0 to run programs it is best to use the Windows Update program for this.

Windows update will find the correct version of dotnet Frame 2.0 for your version of Windows.

If you go to the home page of dotnet Frame you may accidently load the wrong version or just the SDK's and it will appear that dotnet frame is on your computer but it may not be the correct one.