active XP11 not seeing Orbx Central Library

[NickThain]

Gudday All,

I recently consolidated my sim files and ORBX scenery in order to get everything on a 2TB Samsung T5 SSD. Using the Steam app I moved XP11 across, and that worked fine. Using ORBX Central, I migrated my XP11 airports and TE GB South to my new ORBX Central Library on the same SSD with no problems. Just now I took a flight in XP11 in GB South (Shoreham to be precise) and it's painfully clear I'm not seeing the TE GB Sth scenery. When I checked the Custom Scenery folder in XP11, there's no ORBX folders in there. Then I checked the scenry_packs.ini file in XP11 to make sure the ORBX scenery files were at the top, but there's also no mention of ORBX scenery there either.

• XP11 is located at H:\Steam Library\steamapps\common\X-Plane 11 (oh, and the SSD is formatted exFAT).
• The ORBX Central Library for XP11 is also on the H: SSD, at H:\Orbx Library\xp11, and I can clearly see all scenery folders in there.
  • Strangely, though, in ORBX Central the H:\Orbx Library (which is the Main Library) shows it's size as 0B, which is clearly incorrect..

 

Any ideas on why XP11 isn't seeing the ORBX scenery files? Does it have anything to do with the SSD being formatted exFAT instead of NTFS? I know that symlinks only work when the source is on an NTFS drive, but I wasn't sure if that was the cause of this.. If it is I'll happily settle in for some SSD formatting and sim/scenery reinstalling, but wanted to check first!

 

Thanks in advance all,

Nick :0)

 

[Jack Sawyer]

Hi Nick, welcome to the forum.

 

Try this and post back.

 

Orbx Central > Settings > Help > Sync Simulator

 

[NickThain]

Yep, tried that Jack!

Said successful, and ORB says it sees XP11 no problem, it's just XP11 that's not seeing the ORBX scenery and regions..

Thanks for the tip though!

 

Is the NTFS/exFAT thing an issue here?..

[Jack Sawyer]

Just now, NickThain said:

Yep, tried that Jack!

Said successful, and ORB says it sees XP11 no problem, it's just XP11 that's not seeing the ORBX scenery and regions..

Thanks for the tip though!

 

Is the NTFS/exFAT thing an issue here?..

I don't know Nick, that's a good question, I personally have never seen someone report this.  Can you try to go to NTFS?  I'll have a look at mine to see how it's formatted.

However, you will get this resolved, it's a weekend but trust me, it will be resolved.

[Jack Sawyer]

2 minutes ago, NickThain said:

Yep, tried that Jack!

Said successful, and ORB says it sees XP11 no problem, it's just XP11 that's not seeing the ORBX scenery and regions..

Thanks for the tip though!

 

Is the NTFS/exFAT thing an issue here?..

Yes, mine is NTFS, I'll bet a donut this is it. 

[Doug Sawatzky]

Hi Nick

 

Have you tried the settings/help/sync simulator option in Orbx Central?

[Nick Cooper]

4 hours ago, NickThain said:

Yep, tried that Jack!

Said successful, and ORB says it sees XP11 no problem, it's just XP11 that's not seeing the ORBX scenery and regions..

Thanks for the tip though!

 

Is the NTFS/exFAT thing an issue here?..

 

[NickThain]

Haha, nice one @Nick Cooper ;0).

Yep Doug, that was the first thing I tried mate 

 

@Doug Sawatzky / @Nick Cooper / @Ben McClintock et al,

With ORBX Central, how does it make the Central Libraries work, does it create symlinks in the regular scenery install locations within XP11, P3D and Aerofly FS2 and point them towards the actual ORBX Central Library location?

If so, would my having installed these 3 sims on an exFAT SSD mean that these symlinks might not be able to see the scenery folders? I only ask as earlier I tried to symlink my FSX ORBX folder, (using guidance from yourself, Nick, from an old forum post), from another exFAT SSD, and I discovered via an error message that mklink only allows symlinks to be created with the source being on an NTFS drive.

@Jack Sawyer I've not yet gone to NTFS, as that'll mean reformatting the SSD and reinstalling the sims and ORBX. I'm up for that if necessary, a painful lesson learned, but just wanted to check with the experts here before I resort to that .

 

Thanks all!

Nick 

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

yes it does indeed create symlinks in the regular scenery install locations within XP11, P3D

and Aerofly FS2 and point them towards the actual ORBX Central Library location?

 

Wikipedia has this to say.

 

Quote

 

An NTFS symbolic link (symlink) is a filesystem object in the NTFS filesystem that points to another filesystem object. The object being pointed to is called the target. Symbolic links should be transparent to users; the links appear as normal files or directories, and can be acted upon by the user or application in exactly the same manner. Symbolic links to directories or volumes, called junction points and mount points, were introduced with NTFS 3.0 that shipped with Windows 2000. From NTFS 3.1 onwards, symbolic links can be created for any kind of file system object. NTFS 3.1 was introduced together with Windows XP, but the functionality was not made available (through ntfs.sys) to user mode applications. Third-party filter drivers – such as Masatoshi Kimura's opensource senable driver – could however be installed to make the feature available in user mode as well. The ntfs.sys released with Windows Vista made the functionality available to user mode applications by default.

Windows symbolic links to files are distinct from Windows symbolic links to directories. Unlike an NTFS junction point, an NTFS 3.1 symbolic link can also point to a file or remote SMB network path. While NTFS junction points support only absolute paths on local drives, the NTFS symbolic links allow linking using relative paths. Additionally, the NTFS symbolic link implementation provides full support for cross-filesystem links. However, the functionality enabling cross-host symbolic links requires that the remote system also support them, which effectively limits their support to Windows Vista and later Windows operating systems.

An NTFS symbolic link is not the same as a Windows shortcut file, which is a regular file. The latter may be created on any filesystem (such as the earlier FAT32), may contain metadata (such as an icon to display when the shortcut is viewed in Windows Explorer), and is not transparent to applications.

 

 

It seems also that it is not necessarily the case that all your files will be lost.

https://www.howtogeek.com/58953/how-to-convert-a-hard-drive-or-flash-drive-from-fat32-to-ntfs-format/

[NickThain]

Thanks @Nick Cooper!

Talk about good news/bad news;

• Good news, my suspicions are true, and I now know why this is happening 
• Bad news, after trying to convert my exFAT SSD's to NTFS per the article you linked, "CONVERT is not available for EXFAT drives." 

I guess that trick only works for FAT32.. No problem, I'll settle in for some formatting and reinstalling this week. Worth the ass pain to have everything running smoothly. And it will probably fix the issue where my H: Library is showing up in ORBX Central as having 0MB.

 

Learned a few lessons here, I'll be airborne again in no time.

Thanks gents! MUCH appreciated 

[NickThain]

Quick follow up (in case anyone else has this issue in future they can see here the resolution for this problem):

• Re-formatted my 'source' 1TB SSD (D:) as NTFS,
• Re-installed P3D on NTFS D:,
• Using Steam App, moved Aerofly FS2 & XP11 from the ExFAT 2TB SSD (H:) to the NTFS D:,
• Flew each of the sims once so that ORBX Central could 'see' them,
• In ORBX Central, deleted the old ORBX Central Library, (H:) then added it to ORBX again,
• Saw 'ORBX' appear within the XP11 Custom Scenery folder, and the scenery_packs.ini was also populated with ORBX entries, 
• P3D detected all of the ORBX Regions and Airports. 

Remaining issues/questions:

• Under the ORBX Central Library Settings, the H: drive size no longer reads as '0', but after a day it's still showing the rotating 'thinking' icon, 
• I'm still not sure if Aerofly FS2 is correctly being sym-linked as I'm not sure where to check for the ORBX symlinks within the FS2 install folder,
  • Also, when I tried out the KCGX Airport, I pop into the sim airborne over KCGX, but it's a flat, ugly, pixelated mess, 
• Lastly, P3D runs well, unless I select an ORBX Region & Airport, where I'm presented with this message before P3D closes:
  • "This device (Radeon Pro Vega 56) stopped working for the following reason: DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG. DO you want to exit Prepar3D? Click Yes to Exit, No to disable rendering to this device, or Cancel to keep using this device (Prepar3D may crash)". 

So great progress overall, and thanks again for all your help, but can anyone can help me with any of these last 3 issues?

Thanks again!

Nick

[NickThain]

Quick Ping on my 3 questions above, can anyone provide any assistance or advice?:

1. Orbx Central Library size is still a spinning circle after several days and many restarts,
2. I'm still not seeing the ORBX airports in Aerofly FS2,
3. Still getting the "DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG" error  with P3D..

[Nick Cooper]

Hello,

is your library just H:\?

is Aerofly Steam or DVD?

3. is nothing to do with Orbx.

[NickThain]

Thanks @Nick Cooper:

• Yep, just H:\
• Aerofly is Steam
• Thanks kindly, I'll get my Google on  

[Nick Cooper]

1. Can you change your library location so that it has its own root folder please?

H:\Orbx Library or anything you might prefer.

 

2. Aerofly Orbx products should be installed into

steamapps\common\Aerofly FS 2 Flight Simulator AddOns\scenery

 

3. There are lots of topics on Avsim but not really any solutions.

It seems to have died down a bit now.

Perhaps you could try a driver update?

[NickThain]

1. It's actually already H:\Orbx Library (apologies if I didn't mention that earlier); I might try creating a new library folder and checking if that reports its size correctly,
2. Thanks so much for this Nick, been looking for that info for a while!, and
3. Great minds think alike; a driver update is my next planned trouble shooting step.

[NickThain]

OK, had some wins this morning thanks to @Nick Cooper, just wanted to include them here in case anyone else reads this in future:

• Couldn't find that 'AddOns' folder in my Steam Aerofly FS2, so I installed an ORBX Central Airport into the Sim folder directly to see if that would create the 'AddOns' folder.
  • It did .
• I then tried installing another Airport into the H:\ ORBX Central Library to see if a Symlink would be created in the 'AddOns' folder.
  • It did .
  • And ORBX KCGX/Chicago in Aerofly FS2 looks AMAZING.
• I also created another test H:\ ORBX Central Library and installed some Airports there to see if it would correctly display the library size after installing a few Airports.
  • It didn't .
  • It's also showing a spinning 'thinking' icon (see attached screenshot).
• My next step is to try creating another ORBX Central Library on the NTFS SSD to see if the exFAT format of the current SSD is causing it to not display the library size.

Will report back on that later.

Cheers all,

Nick