answered Help Needed to "Catch Up" in Updates

[MZee1960]

Hi Guys,

 

Over the past couple of years I have not had very much time for the virtual flight sim world as I would have liked ... thanks to real life obligations.  The time I got, I always chose to 'fly' and explore new areas as opposed to load and install updates, thinking I could always install the updates 'later' .  I was all excited when the release of P3DV4 64bit was announced and opted then to devote a lot of my limited free sim time to planning my next system build for this platform. Now I have things pretty well finalized for my new build and am only waiting for some of the add on developers to fully come up to speed with P3DV4 before I pull the trigger for the jump to 64bit.  I am hoping this will happen in the first quarter of 2018 sometime.

 

In the meantime, with a bit more free time in my future and over the holidays,  I would like to fully update my Orbx software installs in my current FSX SP1&2. 

I have set up my account at OrbxDirect store and transferred all of my FSS purchases there already.

 

I now need some step by step guidance in how to update my FTX Central to the current version and also any of my Orbx scenery with any available updates, including Orbxlibs.

All of my scenery is from Orbx. My only non-Orbx products are :  some aircraft,  REX Essentials/OD,  UT2,  and A2A's AccuFeel .  

 

Here's where I currently stand with Orbx product versions  : 

 

 

Any help with how to proceed to update everything will be very much appreciated.

Thank-you, in advance.

 

Milan.......

 

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Hi Milan

 

The below topic is probably a good place to start. 

 

 

Cheers

 

Doug

[MZee1960]

Hi Doug,

 

Yes, I will review again this material - lots of it I am aware already,  but just a bit confused re all of the Orbxlibs I missed downloading - hopefully they are cumulative and the latest version contains the previous updates as well ?

 

I guess what you're saying is :

 

1) Log in to OrbxDirect

2) Click 'get FTX Central' - this should update mine from V2 to whatever the latest version is.

3) Open and let the new updated FTX Central do it's thing,  gather all the updates for my products,  and then just follow the prompts in the order of appearance to install these updates.  ?

 

YES ?  

 

This seems too easy for me, especially as I remember all the steps and issues when the "unified lclookup" update ocurred which was the next Orbxlibs after my current version.  I guess I just don't want to mess anything up by using the wrong approach, or updating in the wrong order, or letting the update process run the entire course only to find out I should have manually intervened somewhere to check all is good before proceeding to the 'next step'  etc... I know I have a Vector update which is apparently quite big and read somewhere it's better to install it 'manually' , than via FTX Central etc.

 

Just wanted to confirm my 3 step plan is the right approach before I start,  hence the reason for my post here.

 

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Hi Milan

 

Yes, your 3 point plan is correct, FTXC3 will alert you to what needs updating and a blue notification will appear above the settings button to alert you to any Orbx Libs updates, it is that easy.

 

There is a couple of additional goodies to attend to at first, which I have listed below.

 

Ensure the Orbx Libs are installed and up to date. (is there a blue notification above the settings button in FTXC3?) You no longer have to worry about installing Orbx Libs last after every product install, only when it shows you a blue notification.

Ensure all of your 3rd party addons are at the top of your scenery library and above your FTX entries.

Then in FTX Central 3 Insertion points, move "FTX entries should be inserted below"  just below your last 3rd party addon.

Then move the "openLC entries should be inserted below"  just below your FTX entries. and click "Save".

Then run the "Force Migration" option.

Finally Click on the "Clear Temp" button.

 

 

[MZee1960]

Hi Doug,

 

I had some free time today to continue with this, so I downloaded the new FTX Central V3.

I opened it, logged in (and out, once info loaded) and immediately got this screen shown below : 

(which I ignored for now, knowing there are other updates to probably do first ?)

See here is where I get confused - is it now more important to update the scenery addons, or do the migration first ?  I do recall that one of the next Orbxlibs after my version had the 'migration tool' - then I heard of some 'issues' from people who 'migrated' and then a 'fix' to these issues was provided in the next version of Orbxlibs. It was at this point I opted to 'wait it out' - and unfortunately due to lack of free time for simming, I kept postponing doing any updates, until now.

 

Here's how the 'rest' of my FTX Central V3 looks like (FTX Global shows 5 updates; NA shows 4 updates)  :

 

Here's the  'library insertion points'  section  (bottom, middle and top views)  :

 

... and the 'settings' section  (I have nothing checked here) :

 

1) Do the library insertion points look OK to you ? 

     I only have Orbx products as addon scenery. I haven't touched this 'insertion point sequence' in years, hence I didn't make any changes here today.

2) So now I guess I would click on the 'blue notification' above the 'settings' and update Orbxlibs ?

    or should I now reload FTX Central, log in,  and follow the instructions on the first screen which pops up regarding doing the 'migration' ? 

    There is a  'force re-migration'  in settings but that one is greyed out - I presume that one has a different use - perhaps used for troubleshooting ?

 

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Hi Milan

 

Everything looks great! I would do the migration process next, this is now a harmless process that will only affect older products, then next and after you click on the blue Orbx libs notification and install the Libraries the greyed out “Forced Migration” button will turn blue and can then be used harmlessly at any other time if need be. You can also confirm proper migration by going to your P3D/Orbx/Trouble Shooter folder and running the “MigrationTroubleShooter.exe”

 

Then I would go ahead and do all your product updates.

 

Cheers

 

Doug

[MZee1960]

Hi Doug,

 

Thank-you, for your prompt reply.

I hopefully will have more free time next week to update things further,  hopefully completely.

At that time, I guess I will just open up FTX Central V3 and click the  'run unified migration'  key on the first page which appears, as shown above.

I presume that the time this migration takes depends on 'how much' scenery you have installed,  but I will do it on a day when I don't feel rushed.

 

Thank-you, for all your help so far.

 

Cheers,

Milan .........

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Sounds good Milan! The unified migration usually only takes a few moments and you should be good to go.

 

Cheers

 

Doug

[MZee1960]

Hi Doug,

 

Just finished updating everything and all runs great !

 

In the past couple of days,  I got quite a few of those g3d.dll fatal errors esp. when flying in PNW Region. So frequent that I could not fly from KSEA to CYVR anymore. So, I finally had enough and opted to download latest version of FSUIPC - and all of these CTD's just stopped.  Sure enough, when looking at the FSUIPC event log in the Modules folder, there are several references on each of my PNW flights to g3d.dll faulting modules being trapped and sim crash prevented. Who knew something as simple as this would work so well ? 

 

I'm glad that now my FSX is back to running smooth and up to date, without any crashes (so far) .

 

Thank-you for your help in getting me up to speed.

 

Cheers,

Milan ....  

[Doug Sawatzky]

Good to hear Milan, your're welcome. 

 

[MZee1960]

Hi Doug,

 

One more question, if I may. 

 

What is the simplest way of obtaining 'updated backup copies'  of already purchased Orbx scenery,  now that all have been updated via FTXC V3 ? . 

 

I realize your OrbxDirect Account now serves as the 'cloud' for all these files, should you wish to re-install them on, say, a brand new build computer but now running P3DV4 instead of FSX.

I just would like to keep copies on an external hard drive as I do with all of my other addons.

 

Thanks,

Milan ..

 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Hi Milan

 

You would need to do a manual download from your Orbx Direct account and save the compressed files in storage, but be sure to put them individually in separate named folders as you download them, because the .zip cryptic file name will not be recognizable to you in the future as to which product it is. Then you can use the methods in the below links to use these manual downloads as you wish.

 

Also, when you install new products from scratch through FTXC3, you can use the save copy options.

 

 

I would highly recommend the use of a download manager (to help avoid corrupt downloads) for the below manual methods.  Browser extension download managers do not work for this. Below is a good free DL manager.

 

https://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/127395-manual-download-of-products/

 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/125435-how-to-install-from-an-orbx-direct-downloaded-zip-file/

 

Cheers

 Doug

[MZee1960]

Thanks, Doug, for the reply and pointers.

 

I use FlashGet 3.7 as my DL Manager, and always worked 100% with Orbx in the past,  but I will look into the one you recommended as well.

 

Cheers,

Milan ..