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MSFS24 Gazillions of objects missing in the SDK since SU4 dropped.

CoolGunS

CoolGunS

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australia
Hi everyone, I have a lot of scenery, many of you may have already downloaded from Flightsim.To. I am CoolGunS , with over 150,000 downloads, so this is of some concern.

A lot of my scenery has suddenly gained unknown objects, and when loaded in the game, they are missing. At first I thought it was a conflict with a whole bunch of payware scenery I purchased over the recent Black Friday sales, but I just could not find the culprit. In the end I did the whole uninstall/reinstall of FS2024 which didn't solve it.

But! I have narrowed down the problem. SU4 definiteley broke the SDK objects, and many are missing. Just one example is my NLWW Hihifo Airport. Many objects vanished from that airport and most of them were referenced from the Oceania World Update. For one precise example, take this open passenger bus from the scenery.xml which is now an "unknown".

!--SceneryObject name: Unknown-->
<SceneryObject displayName="OCE_APT_NCAI_Open_air_Isuzu_passenger_bus" groupIndex="655" lat="-13.24088222474762" lon="-176.19544744607009" alt="0.00000000000000" pitch="0.000014" bank="-0.000014" heading="-179.999991" imageComplexity="VERY_SPARSE" altitudeIsAgl="TRUE" snapToGround="TRUE" snapToNormal="FALSE">
<LibraryObject name="{876294D6-D6C4-477D-945B-3BB161DEBBB6}" scale="0.800000"/>
</SceneryObject>

I checked My Library, and that WU was not disabled. I even downloaded it locally, but nup - the bugger had just vanished from the SDK completely, along with a whole lot of other shite from this and other scenery, Buildings, fuel bowsers, fences - the list is growing.

I spent the weekend fixing as much as I could, replacing sh1t with similar objects - I suppose I could re-upload some 40 airports but that is going to piss off a lot of followers having to download it all. I don't know if MS even know about what they've borked, or if anyone here has an inside track to their dev team to let them know? This is going to affect a LOT of freeware scenery out there.

Check your work, and try and find that object above, if you do I would be very interested in knowing.

-=CoolGunS=-
 
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Hey, That sounds like the GUID changed for those objects. If you are able to find the replacement objects in the SDK, you can find and replace the GUIDs in notepad++ in the scene xml file.

The worst case scenario is the objects were indeed removed completely from that library.

When you are in the scenery editor, in the objects panel, and you choose one NCAI, can you find this bus in the list?
 
going to piss off a lot of followers having to download it all.

They always have the choice to do it themselves or not download it again.

If you use default or third parties objects there is always the risk it get updated and the link is broken.
 
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MSFS SDK has a utility named BGLExplorer which may prove useful:

https://docs.flightsimulator.com/ht...htm?rhhlterm=bglexplorer&rhsearch=BglExplorer


Other utilities may also prove helpful to searching / indexing FS files for future use, and to see if old GUIDs still exist in old files.


I am not certain if ADE author scruffyduck's "DOF" has a function to find individual GUIDs that are not duplicated, but try this:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/duplicate-object-finder-1-0.23447/


I could not find Jon's original ZIP on Wayback Machine due to how he structured his prior website, so I attached the original ZIP.


[EDITED]

Another FS content search utility by Michael Heise "MHs_FS_Library_Scan_V11.zip" 'may' work with BGL's in MSFS:

https://library.avsim.net/file/102853-mhs-fs-library-scan-v1-1


An example use case scenario for FS2Kx scenery:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/identify-missing-libs.437757/


Note that Michael Heise cites a FS2Kx SDK utility "BGLScan" in his readme, for which his utility provides a greater feature set.


Regarding legacy SDK BGLScan:

https://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/using-bglscan-from-sdk.177014/





Additionally, Everything has a content search / indexing feature which 'may' be able to search BGLs and other files for GUIDs:

https://www.voidtools.com/

https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=9787

https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=9793


NOTE: Everything has its own search engine; content indexing requires Windows' SearchIndexer and SearchApp to be enabled.

FYI: I keep those apps / services disabled most of the time as they have been slowing down File Explorer horribly since early 2025.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us...-windows-da061c83-af6b-095c-0f7a-4dfecda4d15a


https://www.google.com/search?q=MS-...xuAdzwgcFMC4xLjHIBwiACAA&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

[END_EDIT]

GaryGB
 

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You should report this to https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/ so Asobo can look into it. Something similar happened in an earlier update when they took out textures from their texture libraries. Some addons referenced those textures, and the change ruined some addons. I think this is done to get rid of textures and models that are not being used by the Asobo or Microsoft airports. They might be doing this to tidy up the upload times.
 
I have also a bunch of freeware airport on flightsim.to. I noticed that a lot of bespoke airport objects that I picked sometimes have been renamed and now are - obviously - missing from my freeware.

It started in SU3, with a small number of object. Miramar tower was the first one I noticed. The tower is still there, but the object is now is several pieces and the naming convention has changed.

KFHR and Sedona (KSEZ) bespoked airport were the one I picked hangars object for my scenery. For example, all Sedona_xxx now are ksez____. I supposed it's new naming rule in effect. The GUI has certainly change as well.

Since then and some of my fellow users started noticing missing object, I have to update my freeware scenery. I take that as an opportunity to make updates and reflect real world update. For example for my Page (KPGA) airport that has main runway name changed and the 7/25 closed... And several hangar object missing. But most important, I think it's an opportunity for me to stop using these object - that I have no control on it - and replaced them with generic gen-hangarXXX object.

It's a huge job for me, as a real amateur airport designer, only doing this on my spare time but I think it's the rule that I implicitly applied by re-using existing object without having any control on it. The same philosophy I choose : not using library available for free (like the Emerald).
 
There's a misunderstanding among the decision makers at Asobo and Microsoft. Freeware developers often use 'default' objects and textures, and consider them as core elements. These decision makers don't, and they are getting rid of what they see as waste in the content.
Much like 2020, 2024 is basically a dynamic beta product. This unnecessary change in content increases the workload for small unpaid developers. Not everyone can whip up a reasonable hangar model in a few days in their spare time. Or texture it. And the project size increases enormously if we need to create custom models and textures. We all applaud Asobo's commitment to improving the sim by resolving problems. But this culling of elements in the sim is not solving anything. It is only creating problems. If they don't like a model, by all means change it. They appear to do this and give the object a new guid. But leave the old one in the library. It's not hurting anything. The cost is only a few microseconds of upload time. ...end of rant.
 
Has anyone found this object yet?

!--SceneryObject name: Unknown-->
<SceneryObject displayName="OCE_APT_NCAI_Open_air_Isuzu_passenger_bus" groupIndex="655" lat="-13.24088222474762" lon="-176.19544744607009" alt="0.00000000000000" pitch="0.000014" bank="-0.000014" heading="-179.999991" imageComplexity="VERY_SPARSE" altitudeIsAgl="TRUE" snapToGround="TRUE" snapToNormal="FALSE">
<LibraryObject name="{876294D6-D6C4-477D-945B-3BB161DEBBB6}" scale="0.800000"/>
</SceneryObject>

I loaded Asobo's NCAI and can't see it in there, I think it got replaced with a standard blue and white covered mini bus on the main apron.

A pic of the original object is attached, it is one of the original screenies I took when I uploaded the project to Flightsim.To.
Proof I am not crazy :)
Oh, now that I look more carefully - that luggage cart that it is towing went missing as well 0_o grrr

And on a sidenote, NOT impressed with NCAI airport at all! Sheesh, what a poor effort. I mean seriously. What sloppy, lazy work. Block hedges? They never heard of a vector placement using shrubs with a random setting?
OMG. Someone there hire me...
 

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CoolGunS said:
Yes, but only if it exists... which is what this post is all about - determining that asobo removed a lot of objects
Click to expand...
I am referring to the object that replaced the old object. If you get the new GUID, you can find and replace the old guid in your scene xml
 
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rhumbaflappy said:
You should report this to https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/ so Asobo can look into it. Something similar happened in an earlier update when they took out textures from their texture libraries. Some addons referenced those textures, and the change ruined some addons. I think this is done to get rid of textures and models that are not being used by the Asobo or Microsoft airports. They might be doing this to tidy up the upload times.
Click to expand...
In the case of the textures, they didn't get rid of them, they COPIED them into a new folder, while leaving MOST of the textures in the old location. The ones that were removed in the old location showed up as pink checkered roofs on the buildings. What is really telling that someone messed up is the fact that they moved components of the PBR texture set, not the whole set. So for example, only a COMP texture would be missing, which would trigger a pink material. You don't remove only one component of the PBR set if you are getting rid of that material, you remove all of them. In my case, this was a simple fix for my customers, just adding an extra path into 2 cfg files. When I raised this issue with MS/Asobo, they said they had good reasons for doing what they did, but I for the life of me can't see why they would move some, but not all of the textures, and leave other textures without their components and thus incomplete, if not unusable. Someone messed up on their side and they were white washing it.
 
So... as a systems developer rather than a scenery designer, if I've got this right, the only way to prevent Asobo from screwing up scenery from release to release is to create all your own textures? What if I propose heresy and suggest that you extract the default textures that you want to use, rename them (with a suitable acknowledgment prefix of course e.g. ms2024_xxxx) and include them in your package? Will Microsoft's lawyers come calling? Or is that absolutely forbidden somewhere in the SDK agreement?
 
DragonflightDesign said:
Will Microsoft's lawyers come calling?
Click to expand...
Maybe. And selling a package with someone else's textures is a copyright violation. By aliasing them in the texture.cfg, there is no violation. The sim itself is doing the work. As Misho writes above, somebody screwed up, and they aren't going to admit a mistake or fix the problem for either the textures or the models.
 
What is going on with Asobo? I utilized some people static people 3D models from the base game during after SU4 / SDK 1.5.7 development. Now, after the City update 13 (probably), they appear as "unknowns".

Have they ever acknowledged or apologized this kind behaviour? Is there any way to restore the unknowns?

Edit: I shall be more verbose by saying that the models started with "ini_ppl_". I can't find them from the scenery object list anymore.
 
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So interesting topic ! It might be safer to reference other contributors' assets (with their consent) so that it survives longer to official updates :p
 
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