Chris Trotter Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Hi there, Last week I installed a pile of Orbx add-ons via FTX Central (base, vector, trees, north america, 3 pacific northwest packs, one airport), and since then very few free flights or missions will load at all - they get to 24% of Loading Terrain Data and hang - no error messages. I did a few searches of the forum, but couldn't find any matches to our issues. They were installed over top of an updated but 'stock' FSX Acceleration pack (no updates). The few missions/free flights I've found that work load relatively quickly (<30s), and once you're in things run just fine, even on maximum graphics settings. It seems like something hangs silently. I discovered after all this that I hadn't yet installed the Orbx Libraries, so I did so via FTX Central. After running that, the initial load was a bit slower, but it then hung at 26%. I waited another 5-6 minutes, no change. Edit: Oh, here's some stuff I've already tried: Disabled antivirus Running FSX as admin Ensured all FTX Central stuff downloaded and installed Reduced graphics settings to lowest possible Some info on the system: Win7 x64 SP1, i7 4930k, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 780, 256GB SSD (whole system is about 2-3 years old - no other purpose but FSX) Saitek pedals/yoke/throttle quadrant/panels/trim/etc 3x27" 1080p 5760x1080 resolution, the Nvidia software is presenting it as a single monitor (this has been working great for the last 2-3 years No add-ons at all, just FSX Acceleration Pack with the available updates Any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Hello, welcome to the forums. Have you tried just waiting a little longer to see if it will eventually load? If you have live virus checking active and you haven't excluded anything it can take a very long time to load. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 Hi Nick, thanks for the quick reply. I've completely disabled the antivirus (was just Windows Defender, anyways) - real time scanning is off. We did try waiting - Sitka Approach is our benchmark "this should work" mission, and we let it sit for 25m with no change. If I try, for example, the Switzerland mission, it loads up no problem, so I am guessing this has something to do with North America (being that all the updates focused on that). If there are no other suggestions, I'll probably try removing everything, then adding them one at a time, see which one breaks it. Do you know of any error logging that FSX generates that might shed light? Or is there a debug console or something to show more detail on "what's actually loading"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Hello, You might check your scenery.cfg entries. If you use the Insertion Point tool on the FTX Central settings page, set the FTX icon just below your lowest other scenery and the OLC icon just below that. Click on Save. It's worth a try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 Trying that out now, thanks. There's a huge list of stuff, FS9 entry was the last, so picked that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 No, you need to place the FTX icon either at the top, or just below the lowest of any other non-Orbx addon scenery you might have added. I would hope that Fs9 scenery is the lowest entry of all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 That refused to let me even load FSX at all, so changed it to 'Africa' (looks like the last big FSX scenery thing). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Please change it to "at the top of the scenery library" and OLC just underneath. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 Another free flight that was working, yet in North America, was Friday Harbor. We got the Orbx pack for Friday Harbor, and things still load...so very curious. Although thinking that the Orbx stuff really needs to be on top of that scenery picker thing...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 Yeah, scenery thing didn't make any difference here. What are the suggested next steps? Having a broken FSX install using paid add-ons is kinda frustrating - hopefully you guys can help get us back up and running. Let me know! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Hello, Please replace your scenery.cfg file with the attached default one, then run FSX and make sure that it loads quickly and completely. Then close FSX and run FTX Central. Wait until you see "activating Orbx scenery" appear and disappear at the lower left. Using the Insertion Point tool, make sure you have placed the FTX icon at the top, the OLC icon underneath it and clicked on Save. Then try FSX again. If that doesn't work, before you try to load FSX, untick all your scenery addons in the in-game scenery library. Then add them back in, one by one until it will not load, if you still have the error, come back. Scenery.CFG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raton_Col Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 48 minutes ago, Nick Cooper said: Hello, Please replace your scenery.cfg file with the attached default one, then run FSX and make sure that it loads quickly and completely. Then close FSX and run FTX Central. Wait until you see "activating Orbx scenery" appear and disappear at the lower left. Using the Insertion Point tool, make sure you have placed the FTX icon at the top, the OLC icon underneath it and clicked on Save. Then try FSX again. If that doesn't work, before you try to load FSX, untick all your scenery addons in the in-game scenery library. Then add them back in, one by one until it will not load, if you still have the error, come back. Scenery.CFG Just following your thread, I have exactly the same issue, but at 6% ! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 Raton_Col, the 6% thing I saw a lot in my searches, the usual answer was "wait longer". Most folk with that were not running SSD disks. Nick, no luck, issue persists. I will try going through and removing one-by-one. Seems strange that a factory install of FSX would have issues, though. Do you have any guidance on what constitutes 'the best' platform for a successful Orbx add-on installation? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raton_Col Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 6 minutes ago, Chris Trotter said: Raton_Col, the 6% thing I saw a lot in my searches, the usual answer was "wait longer". Most folk with that were not running SSD disks. Nick, no luck, issue persists. I will try going through and removing one-by-one. Seems strange that a factory install of FSX would have issues, though. Do you have any guidance on what constitutes 'the best' platform for a successful Orbx add-on installation? thanks Chris.. I did tried the whole night, and did not move a single digit. I have a good PC. I tired the scenery.cfg fiile, and followed insertion Point suggestion, and It worked, but still scenery is not what I was expecting. will do more sim and get back here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 Ok so I am still having the issue after unchecking all orbx entries - is that the same as uninstalling/reverting? Perhaps there is a graphics setting it doesn't like...have to get it back to working state... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 22, 2017 Share Posted July 22, 2017 Hi, Just a shot in the dark, but have you run the "Force Migration" option in FTXC3? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 24, 2017 Author Share Posted July 24, 2017 Hi Doug, yeah, I ran that too, to see if it'd help. It did not. Suspect this will come down to wiping and starting fresh. For clarity - we had zero add-ons of any sort installed prior to installing via FTX3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 24, 2017 Share Posted July 24, 2017 Then try and delete the entire "Scenery Indexes" folder located in C:\Program Data\Microsoft\FSX\, and the Shader folders located in C:\Users\(your username)\AppData\Local/Microsoft\ FSX\Shader10 and Shader folder....FSX will rebuild them new on startup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 24, 2017 Author Share Posted July 24, 2017 Will give that a shot this week and let you know, thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 25, 2017 Author Share Posted July 25, 2017 Tried this no luck. "Sitka Approach" still hangs at 26%. Any other ideas before we start from scratch? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 Did more testing of missions. These ones don't work, not sure what the correlation is... San Juan Island Sitka Fluor Power Game Park Amazon Trek Tokyo Transport Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 What aircraft are you using for these? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 Those are missions, just the default missions, default aircraft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Sorry, dumb question....I never try the missions...forgot lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 Haha, no worries. Just seems silly that a default install would break like this - for the money involved, anyways. Could someone from Orbx post up some official recommended next steps? Is there an order to the install process? A specific version the FSX install should be at? Perhaps we're missing MS updates? Is there a Troubleshooting FAQ I missed somewhere? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Hello, This problem has nothing to do with money and the products in themselves are not the cause. I understand that you are frustrated because you cannot make them work. I have every FTX product installed into FSX Gold and although, like Doug, I have never flown a mission in almost 10 years, I can tell you that the missions load in exactly the same way as free flight choices. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Chris, How much free space is on that 256GB SSD? If it is too full, it will bog everything down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 Nick, just looking for some troubleshooting help to go with the money spent. One of the reasons we chose Orbx was that they were supported products, and presumably would be easy to get going. I can't be the only person to have had issues with Orbx add-ons, presumably, so there should be some basic steps for me to follow to get it going (or at least highlight root cause). So, how can we troubleshoot this? It'd be wonderful to not spend many many hours starting from scratch on the wild assumption that a fresh install would fix this. Doug, plenty of free space (100GB+) - this is a dedicated sim pc. Not used for internet browsing/other apps at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Please attach your scenery.cfg file. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 Will do later today - but it's the one you provided earlier in this thread, and has only been touched by FTX central. The order we've left it at was 'orbx at the top, followed by the rest of the default FSX scenery items'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Thanks. Do I understand correctly that it is only the missions that do not load or are you not able to load the flight simulator at all? Also, I see you wrote this earlier, Quote Ok so I am still having the issue after unchecking all orbx entries - is that the same as uninstalling/reverting? Perhaps there is a graphics setting it doesn't like...have to get it back to working state... did you ever resolve it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 At present, the missions listed earlier do not work, and free flights in some locations don't work. FSX itself starts fine, and the missions/free flights that work do so just fine. Friday Harbour free flight (which we have the Orbx airport pack for) loads fine, although is a little choppy now (probably just slow CPU/graphics). Before we installed the Orbx add-ons we had zero issues. I am not sure what unchecking entries in the scenery list does (behind the scenes). Could you confirm that it's (essentially) the same as fully uninstalling Orbx? If there are other Orbx pieces besides that (and I'd assume there are - since the install requires a backup location), then the only way to test is by removing Orbx entirely. I'm going to pick up the PC today to expedite this troubleshooting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 26, 2017 Share Posted July 26, 2017 Have we tried deleting the fsx.cfg and letting FSX build a new one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 26, 2017 Author Share Posted July 26, 2017 That hasn't been suggested yet, no. I can give it a shot. I haven't had a chance to search for it yet, but I wonder if there is some idea as to what's happening during 'Loading Terrain Data...'. Might help focus the troubleshooting. Haha, or maybe everything happens during that... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 27, 2017 Author Share Posted July 27, 2017 Ok, so removing fsx.cfg and letting it rebuild didn't fix the issue. As another troubleshooting measure, I reduced resolution to a single monitor. It hung at 31% this time on loading Sitka Approach, so no real change. (guessing lower res = less scenery calc time?) Nick, attached is the current scenery.cfg. scenery.cfg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 Chris That attached scenery.cfg has no Orbx products in it.....it is a default FSX scenery.cfg....have you run FTXC3 since installing it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 27, 2017 Author Share Posted July 27, 2017 Probably because I unchecked all the Orbx stuff during troubleshooting. Do you know if unchecking is the same as uninstalling? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 Unchecking in the scenery library will tell the sim it is uninstalled and the sim will behave as tho it is uninstalled, but it will still show in the scenery.cfg...the only change in the scenery.cfg will be the "Active" field will be =FALSE instead of TRUE. So we have just confirmed that Orbx products are not causing your load failure issues, because they still exist with the default scenery.cfg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Trotter Posted July 27, 2017 Author Share Posted July 27, 2017 Ok, re-ran FTX, did the 'save' to put it at the top of the scenery list, and ran that migration, just in case. Same behaviour, although got to 33% this time. Ok, so let's go with "something magically broke", what's the correct order for a clean install of FSX? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Sawatzky Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 Here is the best method. http://support.precisionmanuals.com/kb/a87/how-to-uninstall-and-reinstall-fsx.aspx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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