ACTIVE Complete Reinstall - The ORBX Way

[jmorvay1971]

I want to preface this thread by stating that I have the current FTX Definitive Guide downloaded and have read it, which is a good read, so thanks to those involved with it.  Anyone who replies with "read the guide", well I read it and really doesn't apply to the questions I have below, so please bear with me.

 

First off, let me inform the community that I discovered a virus hidden in a utility that seems to be spoken about a lot, called DDU, Display Driver Uninstaller.  While troubleshooting some issues last week, I saw that someone had been using it and claimed it worked well for anyone who needed to do a clean and thorough uninstall of their graphics drivers to reinstall new ones.  I downloaded it and after starting up the install, I got a message in my antivirus that there may be one present so I cancelled the install.  Needless to say, the trojan virus got through and made a mess of my system.  After trying to delete the virus, every restart of my computer caused my antivirus to stop working and when it was restarted, the virus showed up elsewhere.  As a safeguard to protecting my data, I chose to reinstall the system, and now everything is back to square one.

 

I reinstalled P3D and have that established, but I have yet to start the long task of reinstalling my ORBX scenery.  Now, i am aware that later releases of scenery from ORBX, work well with FTX Central V2, while others wind up installing V1 and for the record, I have had errors appear during those installs in P3D.  From what I recall, everything still installed ok, but I am left thinking that perhaps there is a more efficient way of installing the scenery that will not cause any errors with P3D and will ensure that the scenery is where it needs to be.

 

I own the whole gambit of scenery, from Australia SP4, and European regions to the latest OpenLC NA Canada/Alaska.  I have a whole slew of airports, most of which have the new installers baked in for P3D v2, so that's good to go and of course, the latest P3D ORBX libraries.

 

What would you all suggest my best course of action in reinstalling all of this so that I can avoid any errors that may show up during the install, more specifically, errors associated with scenery.cfg files and FTX Central?

 

-Jim

[Alex Goff]

Hi Jim,

Up until the past year or two the "recommended order" was very important in not getting anything screwed up.

Fortunately we've put forth quite a bit of work cleaning installers up so it's not such an issue anymore. Each installer is very independent now provided you have all the latest.

But to answer your question with a general guideline, installing biggest to smallest is probably the best practice. Regions and Global items first, followed by airports. Group region installations together by geographic area and do a libraries install to get FTX Central V2. Having an installation of V1 is fine, its being slowly phased out but most users probably still have it laying around.

If any specific issues arise please post them so we can troubleshoot!

[jmorvay1971]

Hi Jim,

Up until the past year or two the "recommended order" was very important in not getting anything screwed up.

Fortunately we've put forth quite a bit of work cleaning installers up so it's not such an issue anymore. Each installer is very independent now provided you have all the latest.

But to answer your question with a general guideline, installing biggest to smallest is probably the best practice. Regions and Global items first, followed by airports. Group region installations together by geographic area and do a libraries install to get FTX Central V2. Having an installation of V1 is fine, its being slowly phased out but most users probably still have it laying around.

If any specific issues arise please post them so we can troubleshoot!

Alex,

 

Thank you very much for a most objective and intelligent explanation.  I was hoping I would hear from someone from the team to provide such an answer.  I DO know that this subject is rapidly becoming the proverbial horse beaten to death, but with what you stated about updated installers, it is evolving to be a better experience.

 

Now, considering what you stated, should I FIRST, go to the FSS and re-download all of my installers to ensure I have the latest of everything?  The reason I ask is that I have 16 airports that came from the 9.99 sale last year, compliments of FSS on DVD.  I know that a lot of them now have triple installers and after tracking them down in the store, i found I could download the digital versions for free, thus enabling the airports to be installed in P3D V2.  As for say, Australia SP4, can I install what I have and it will install without error in P3D V2?  I had initially thought about installing a region or OpenLC area first, in order to take advantage of the automatic install of FTX Central V2.

 

I too have heard that the V1 of FTXC is fine, but I know I got those scenery.cfg errors in the past.  Also, are you aware of an issue with FTXC2 when activating regions?  Prior to the mishap i had, Hwne I would change from FTX Global to North America, I would get  an access denied error for the backup.bat file in P3D...it only started to happen about a week ago and I thought it odd.  I think the regions still switched and activated without issue, but the error message threw me for a loop.

 

Anywho, thanks again Alex.

 

-Jim

[jmorvay1971]

Alex,

 

Just an update.  I began the reinstall last night, starting with Global, which didn't give me any errors with FTX Central, obviously because it was the first.  I then proceeded to install FTX Central V2 from the standalone installer and that installed just fine.  I installed OpenLC NA Canada/Alaska and that too worked fine, which actually called upon FTXC2 and I liked that.  Infact, after the OpenLC install, i opened FTXC2 and it told me about the updated libs which I allowed it to download and install (super smooth process, btw).  My troubles started with OpenLC Europe, which constantly called on FTXC v1, and I would get the scenery.cfg error for P3D (stated that it could not find it).  I continued with all areas of OpenLC Europe, all giving the same error.  I proceeded to Australia Sp4 and that too gave the same error.  I re-opened FTX Central V2 and it did show all of my content, so I can only assume that installed correctly?

 

I set FTXC2 to Oceana, performed a quick flight around YBBN and it appeared to have the ORBX scenery showing up.  I don't want to sound like a worrywart, but when I get those errors, I get concerned that the scenery isn't going where its supposed to and to be honest, it is hard to determine whether the scenery is showing up in sim.

 

-Jim

[Alex Goff]

Hi Jim,

Could you post a screenshot of the scenery.cfg error you're receiving?

[jmorvay1971]

Wish I could, but if it helps, this only occurs (because it has happened before with installing into a P3D environment) when installing older ORBX regions/OpenLC.  To summarize,  I received the error installing:

 

Australia SP4003

FTX Global 130

OpenLC EU 115

 

I didn't get any error installing OpenLC NA.  I haven't progressed to the other regions I own, which are England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland (North & South), and then there is PNW, SAK, NRM, NCA, CRM yet but will take care of those this evening, but if memory serves, i didn't have issues with those before either.

 

The error message has something to do with the Microsoft .NET Framework, informing me that it cannot read the scenery.cfg file located at....  Now, I checked to see if I had the dot net 4.0 installed and what I have is 4.5.2, which i figured would be sufficient.

 

Hope this helps.

 

-Jim 

I should also add that the error comes up at the very end of the install procedure, so I wind up clicking continue, noticing that FTX V1 opens but nothing is in the window, so I close it, and click the finish button of the install.

 

-Jim

[Alex Goff]

If you were having issues with the backup.bat file and scenery.cfg error now, that sounds like it could be a permissions issue. What directory is Prepar3D installed to? 

 

Also would you mind grabbing a diagnostic report? Here's how:

 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/101679-submitting-a-diagnostic-report-in-ftx-central-v2/

 

It should have the info on your scenery.cfg to see if it's located correctly and has all its entries correct.

[Ed Correia]

Those older installers still have FTXC1 bundled with them so that is why you are seeing the errors.

The advice is to ignore them as FTXC1 is unable to make any form of changes. All the files are installed and you need FTXC2 to handle the rest which is done when applying a region/group.

[jmorvay1971]

Thanks for the assist Ed.  I had JUST generated the diagnostic report that is now sent to you guys, per Alex's request.  The ID is ot31bf6b1b7d3c03b689dda0b95930cc4b, courtesy of FTX Central v2, which is awesome now.

 

-Jim

If you were having issues with the backup.bat file and scenery.cfg error now, that sounds like it could be a permissions issue. What directory is Prepar3D installed to? 

 

Also would you mind grabbing a diagnostic report? Here's how:

 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/101679-submitting-a-diagnostic-report-in-ftx-central-v2/

 

It should have the info on your scenery.cfg to see if it's located correctly and has all its entries correct.

I installed the scenery as the same drive as P3D which is not on the C: drive.  In fact, all sim related data goes to it's own drive...much safer that way.

 

-Jim