flyingdrill Posted July 27, 2019 Share Posted July 27, 2019 I just discovered Orbx Central, as I wanted to update the library to 1.6.3 on my iMac. No problem installing it (after I found out about it in a round about way - not well shown on main website!), and it updated the Library perfectly. So, I thought I'd do the update to TE GB South, which is now at 1.1.1 - but my Orthos are on a different drive, which is "seen" using an alias. So, does this new Orbx Central see the location of the Orthos? As I started the update, I saw to my horror that it seems to be downloading 26GB!!!! For a minor update? I stopped after 2GB, and am asking whether this can possibly be correct. I would think very many of us are using external drives to hold these TE sceneries (well, at least the orthos. The other directories are much smaller and can be left on the main drive where XP11 resides), so does Central read the fact that much of the scenery to be updated is not quite where it expects? If not, the older method works much easier - download the few updated files and merge them! I must admit that it appeared to scan 32,400 files first - but surely Orbx does not expect us to download 26GB of files for a minor update......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted July 27, 2019 Share Posted July 27, 2019 Hello, you need to ask this question of the Orbx Central developers, so I have moved the topic for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchell Williamson Posted July 27, 2019 Share Posted July 27, 2019 Hi! If the TE GB South Orthos alias has the same name, Central should treat it like any other folder and detect the files normally. I believe the TrueEarth 1.1.0 update is only ~3gb, and the 1.1.1 update is much smaller - though I'll need to double check these. Can you please attach your central.log file? It'll help us troubleshoot this issue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted July 27, 2019 Author Share Posted July 27, 2019 Sure. Note that I stopped the download for TE GB S update after more than 2GB had downloaded. I updated my airports easily later. I'll wait till you see the log before having another go at both TE S and Central (which I hadn't tried to update today). central.log Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchell Williamson Posted July 29, 2019 Share Posted July 29, 2019 Thanks for the log. This appears to be two issues in one: Due to the Orthos folder being symlinked, it doesn't handle writing to that directory properly when extracting files. Due to the manual nature of the cross-platform install zips, there isn't a file which indicates to Central what files have been converted. Therefore, Central will try to install and convert those files. We're having discussions within our team about how we can mitigate this issue. I can send you the files that will mitigate this issue straight away, however I do not have access to them right now so I'll get back to you later today with them. I'll also let you know if we identify a workaround in Central. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted July 29, 2019 Author Share Posted July 29, 2019 Thanks for that. I was pretty positive that a 26GB download for an update was somewhat unlikely - and I was guessing that it was also going to need to be extracted in the long process that is used for the first installation! I was also skeptical about the symlink, but am glad that the log showed that my skepticism wasn't unfounded I look forward to receiving the files whenever you can get them to me, and humbly suggest that the "old" method of updating for these True Earth sceneries is a better option. Rather than giving yourselves a headache on this particular problem, I'm sure we are all happy to unzip an update file, and merge the new bits where required. Updating the airports, however, with Central is a piece of cake. That worked a treat for me - but my airports were in my main Custom Scenery directory, not found with an alias to another drive.... I appreciate all your efforts on our behalf. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchell Williamson Posted July 30, 2019 Share Posted July 30, 2019 We hope to get to the stage where TrueEarth is also a piece of cake Try putting this file into your X-Plane 11/Custom Scenery/Orbx_A_GB_South_TrueEarth_Custom folder. convert.json It should be in the same folder as these other files (though some are FTX Central 3/Windows specific so they likely won't be there for you) This should convince Central that your ortho has already been converted. We're investigating ways we can automate this so that other people won't run into the same issues you're experiencing. You may still need to download some new files if they are out of date, but this should prevent the massive amount of ortho being downloaded and converted. If that works for TrueEarth GB South, I'll send you over the other convert.json files for the other regions (or let you know when the update is out that automates it, depending on if we can get it done today). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted July 30, 2019 Author Share Posted July 30, 2019 Hello Mitchell, I downloaded your convert.json file, which looked the same size as one that Central had already placed in the Custom folder yesterday, before I aborted the installation. Anyway, I downloaded and installed Central 0.20.7 just now, replacing my earlier version. I put the "new" json file in place, and started the update. It scanned 32400 files, did another process involving 370+ files (I think it was!), then the progress bar advanced about halfway in, and the program then commenced to download 26.16GB again............A note said it had extracted 0/28022 files. Also it had already dealt with 11874/11880 files. These are exactly the same values as I saw yesterday. Maybe the program decides it does not actually need to download the full 26GB, and stops, but I had already downloaded almost 1GB without any indication that this would indeed happen. I aborted the installation again. Here's the new log file and a json file from the application support bit of my library. central.log central.json Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted July 31, 2019 Author Share Posted July 31, 2019 While this problem is sorted, please can we just have a cross-platform zip file for us to upgrade TE_GB_South to 1.1.1 from 1.1...? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted August 1, 2019 Author Share Posted August 1, 2019 Hi Mitchell, Any developments on this? I asked in the XP11 forum for a cross-platform zip, but was promptly referred back to you......... I did "GB central" using the update zip file - so easy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchell Williamson Posted August 2, 2019 Share Posted August 2, 2019 Hi! It has been a busy week so I apologize I couldn't get back to you sooner. In my testing having the ortho folder be a symlink worked okay and everything was picked up by Central correctly. I'm not sure what exactly about your particular setup is tripping up Central, but it seems to be causing issues throughout the whole install process. It may be due to the type of alias you're using for the ortho folder. You can try removing that alias and creating a new symbolic link using the ln -s command. If that doesn't resolve it, I'm not sure if there is anything else we can do on the software side of things. There are some potential workarounds though, both will need a library setup with Central on your other drive: If you have the space, copy the Orthos folder back to Custom Scenery and let Central try to update it. You can then use 'Migrate to Library' within Central to migrate the entire product to an Orbx Library on your other drive. Or, you can create the product within your library manually which is more error-prone. In your library folder, create a xp11 folder if it doesn't exist already. Inside that, create a TrueEarth Great Britain South folder. Inside that, create a Custom Scenery Folder. Copy all the TrueEarth GB South folders inside that as they'd normally appear in the X-Plane 11 Custom Scenery folder. Press Install within Central and it should detect that the files are already there. The 1.1.1 update is about 2 GB, so you should expect at least that amount of downloading to occur. I'll need to check on our end if we can get another cross-platform update for 1.1.1. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted August 2, 2019 Author Share Posted August 2, 2019 OK. I'll try the symbolic link some time over the weekend. I do have room for the orthos on my main drive, so I'd try that method if the symlink method fails. BTW, the alias I am using is the standard "alias" created in Finder. It is fine running things in XP11, but I can understand what you mean for Central. Finally, if the team could give us the cross-platform update, it would be nice, as it saves a lot of fiddling around. I'll let you know how I got on when I'm done! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted August 3, 2019 Author Share Posted August 3, 2019 Hi Mitchell, Symbolic link created to the orthos (only) as the other two directories reside in the main X-Plane 11 Custom Scenery directory. I decided to completely delete Central, and every reference to it in libraries, etc., then reinstalled latest version. Logged in and started the 1.1.1 update. Great, I thought. It now only wants to download 3.32 GB (Not 26.1!) and extract 275 files. It also seemed to have a very few files to convert out of 11800, as I remember it. So, it downloaded the 3.32GB, extracted the 275 files, the download record said it was at 100%, and the progress bar was at the end. I thought that would be it, but no - sadly not. The message above the progress bar said it was now downloading and installing, and the only message was about converting files, which started up, surpassed the target figure, and was rising and rising..... The CPU was very hot, the fan was screaming at 2800 rpm plus, the download message on the left was at 104% and I had reached almost 14000 files converted (so a few 1000 over what it was aiming for...). This is crazy. I'm not going to wreck my processor, circuit boards and fan in an expensive iMac for what should be a minor update. This had been running for around a half an hour I suspect, and I just shut it down. I implore you - give us a cross-platform zip! A quick merge, no conversions. No lengthy unnecessary heating up of the computer. What I don't get is that it updated my airports so painlessly and perfectly. I really don't want to copy all the files across to the main hard drive and have the program do the same thing, because the symbolic link does what you want and expect it to - or does it? Does this update change the orthos and, if not, why is it doing what it's doing? Enjoy the weekend :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BerndBAngert Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 On 7/27/2019 at 2:43 PM, Nick Cooper said: Hello, you need to ask this question of the Orbx Central developers, so I have moved the topic for you. On 7/27/2019 at 2:29 PM, flyingdrill said: I just discovered Orbx Central, as I wanted to update the library to 1.6.3 on my iMac. No problem installing it (after I found out about it in a round about way - not well shown on main website!), and it updated the Library perfectly. So, I thought I'd do the update to TE GB South, which is now at 1.1.1 - but my Orthos are on a different drive, which is "seen" using an alias. So, does this new Orbx Central see the location of the Orthos? As I started the update, I saw to my horror that it seems to be downloading 26GB!!!! For a minor update? I stopped after 2GB, and am asking whether this can possibly be correct. I would think very many of us are using external drives to hold these TE sceneries (well, at least the orthos. The other directories are much smaller and can be left on the main drive where XP11 resides), so does Central read the fact that much of the scenery to be updated is not quite where it expects? If not, the older method works much easier - download the few updated files and merge them! I must admit that it appeared to scan 32,400 files first - but surely Orbx does not expect us to download 26GB of files for a minor update......... Hello, I need help. I loaded True Earth on my Mac. The folder that the APP has set up is called XP11. In the folder is now: Orbx Libraries and the folder: TrueEarth Great Britain Central. How do I connect these folders to my simulator now: X-Plane 11? Or should I load a copy of my simulator into the folder? Thanks for your help. Greatings Bernd Powerhoch3@me.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Hello, answered in your other post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted August 5, 2019 Author Share Posted August 5, 2019 I have to say, Nick, that I am a little disappointed that I had no joy with the update to 1.1.1. Surely, the Orbx programmers of the TE scenery (rather than the Central programming team) could provide me with a simple update zip file......... Or, am I the only Mac user who has had this problem? Mitchell's suggestions were not successful, and I am getting a bit tired of restoring large directories, which may possibly have been compromised in the unsuccessful update attempts. I admit that I haven't copied the orthos to my main drive, but I suspect that there would be several others keeping these sceneries on external drives, so they could be in the same boat. Earlier updates don't seem to update the orthos anyway, both in South and Central. As I noted above, I would prefer not to fry my iMac just to do this update - and I have no idea what this minor update addresses anyway, to be honest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted August 5, 2019 Share Posted August 5, 2019 Hello, I regret that you have not achieved what you wanted yet. We are in the hands of the Orbx central developers, I don't have access to either how Orbx Central works or to the file repository where your manual download might be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchell Williamson Posted August 6, 2019 Share Posted August 6, 2019 Hi, 1.1.1 does have Ortho updates included within it, so some conversion will have to take place, although it shouldn't be any more than around 10 files that require conversion. There may be some others who are encountering this issue at the moment now that we're out of open beta, so hopefully after we aggregate some data and find the common issue, we can identify what may be causing it. On 8/3/2019 at 10:46 PM, flyingdrill said: The message above the progress bar said it was now downloading and installing, and the only message was about converting files, which started up, surpassed the target figure, and was rising and rising..... It shouldn't be doing this, although I'll need to see your central.log file to identify what could be causing that. I'll discuss this with the team today and perform some more testing on possible causes. We'll then be able to decide what actions we can take to get this issue resolved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mitchell Williamson Posted August 6, 2019 Share Posted August 6, 2019 PM sent with further details. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted August 6, 2019 Author Share Posted August 6, 2019 Nick, Mitchell kindly sent me an update zip file, so that's great. I've thanked him by PM. I'm still not too sure as to why we have to start using libraries for scenery, when I can easily see what I've got, with no complications, by looking in my Custom Scenery directory under X-Plane 11. I must admit that I haven't really looked into this properly, yet, but it appears that Central wants me to do this library stuff on a Mac, as well as the Windows users. Editing scenery_packs.ini is easy. What is the purpose of doing this, and is there any reason why we can't put our Orbx sceneries where we want? I have noted that there are already several users expressing frustration with using Central. I really can't understand why Orbx needs to make such a song and dance about buying and installing scenery in X-Plane. Everybody else is happy to sell us a file, which we expand and pop into Custom Scenery. I can see that the True Earth setup is a trifle more long-winded, but even that was do-able, but time consuming as far as the orthos' extractions were concerned. Maybe I just haven't looked at it properly, and maybe I can ignore the library idea........ Sorry about an old boy's rant, but I am a crusty old b----r who often doesn't see the point in re-inventing the wheel, just because you can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted August 6, 2019 Share Posted August 6, 2019 Hello, I am pleased to read that Mitchell has given you the files that you wanted. As I understand it and as I read from very many X Plane 11 users that were new to Orbx, there are large numbers of X Plane 11 users who choose to install X Plane 11 onto a drive, usually an SDD, that is far too small to accommodate it, sometimes in the belief that it will make X Plane 11 work better and sometimes simply because they had so many thousands of GB of "ortho" that their chosen drive was too small, however large it was. This may or may not be the majority but a great deal of noise was made by them on this and other forums. In response to this, the developers of Orbx Central have made a utility that allows customers to install the Orbx files wherever they want except the Custom Scenery folder. I asked the same question as you during the development and was told that there would be no provision for continuing to install new products straight into the Custom Scenery folder. It appears that this now the case. I did find a workaround that does let me use the Custom Scenery folder but then the files are linked from a folder inside the Custom Scenery folder to the folder itself, which seems a bit pointless. I do think that once the concept of having all the Orbx product files in one place is accepted, then this relatively minor change in the file structure will soon become accepted. As an aside, in the case of P3D v4, the clamour to take the files out of the P3D v4 root folder included Lockheed Martin themselves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted August 6, 2019 Author Share Posted August 6, 2019 OK...... Anyway, I suppose there would be no reason why I (or anyone) can't move the Orbx scenery back into "Custom Scenery" under XP11 (after Central has installed it wherever), adjust scenery_packs.ini and off you go. After all, that's where Laminar expects to find it, and it works that way. Symbolic links, aliases, shortcuts or whatever to other folders are just added minor complications, but many of us were used to those. I hope that the programmers haven't put in lines of code that prevent us from using the scenery when moved to "Custom Scenery". Surely not.......? Or, is that what you found in your workaround? As always, thanks for your prompt and informative replies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted August 6, 2019 Share Posted August 6, 2019 No, moving the files back into the Custom Scenery folder will work just as well in X Plane 11 as the links, except of course that Orbx Central will not see them there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flyingdrill Posted August 6, 2019 Author Share Posted August 6, 2019 Got it. I suppose you are right, that if you want to see and install updates, this is how it's going to be. There are worse things in life Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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