Fiddler Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 I have TE No_Cal installed and I want to change the roads to transparent, but Orbx Central shows that I own it but not installed - so I can't configure the roads. Quote Operating system: Simulator: Screenshot: Issue: Central Log B Price.txt Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 Hello, have you perhaps changed the file structure or moved it since you installed the product? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiddler Posted April 11, 2020 Author Share Posted April 11, 2020 Yes I did - I had to re-install X-Plane as it would not work properly, and in the process decided to move some scenery around for better performance and disk capacity. The weird thing is that the other libraries that were in the same original and new location are fine. Washington, Oregon are fine in terms of Orbx Central, NoCal not. I now have those libraries in the custom scenery folder in my x-Plane 11 folder. Orbx Central configuration shows the correct location for the two, and knows they are not inside a Library. I can't see a way to update the location for NoCal in Orbx Central. The whole library, install locations thing is very non-intuitive, and I suspect the term library is being used in multiple ways which is very confusing. I'm an IT guy, and have been using Orbx products for a while, and this seems overly complex. There also doesn't seem to be a single-source location for documentation on how all of this works, how to maintain scenery pack locations etc.The info that comes with each scenery pack has nothing on any of this. It's not a great use of my time to spend 30 minutes looking through 40 different Google links to try to piece together how this works. If you know of a good piece of documentation I can refer to to answer my questions please let me know. I'd rather do it myself and not have to bug you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted April 11, 2020 Share Posted April 11, 2020 Hello, it seems to me that there are two choices: Orbx Central can be made to either install products into the X Plane 11 Custom Scenery folder or into an Orbx Central Library, outside the X Plane folder altogether. Whichever choice is made, Orbx Central must know where the files are in order to be able to manage them, so if they are moved, or in the case of the Orbx Central Library, the file structure is disturbed, it will not be able to see them any more. For this reason, once a product is installed by Orbx Central into the X Plane Custom Scenery folder, the only successful way to move it to an Orbx Central Library is to use Orbx Central itself, which then creates the new file structure that it can subsequently recognise. Instead of Google, you could read the Orbx Central User Guide, which while it does not go into intricate detail about how Orbx Central works, it does explain very clearly how to make it work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiddler Posted April 12, 2020 Author Share Posted April 12, 2020 Thanks Nick. I will read the documentation you mentioned. But if the two options you mentioned are the only ones, I'm going to have a problem. I have the scenery files in two different locations due to disk space limitations and performance issues and really don't have a great option to consolidate in one place. I bought new SSD capacity to help with this, assuming I could split files over multiple disks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiddler Posted April 12, 2020 Author Share Posted April 12, 2020 8 hours ago, Fiddler said: Thanks Nick. I will read the documentation you mentioned. But if the two options you mentioned are the only ones, I'm going to have a problem. I have the scenery files in two different locations due to disk space limitations and performance issues and really don't have a great option to consolidate in one place. I bought new SSD capacity to help with this, assuming I could split files over multiple disks. Sp I read the document, but not very much help. For instance, in the section for migrating existing packs to a library, it says you can do it, but then never explains how. So I did my best, which apparently isn't good enough. It looked to me like the doc said you could have multiple libraries. So what I have now are two libraries; one on the D: drive with the GB South TE pack previously created, and another in a C: drive folder, not X-Plane. I moved the WA OR CA TE files to the new one. the GB south remained in its existing library. I modified the config file and it all works well with X-Plane. Central recognizes the libraries and the byte count is correct for the contents. However in My Products list it shows all the products I own, but only shows the GB South as installed. Please advise how I can connect the installed scenery packs in the new library to Orbx Central. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 58 minutes ago, Fiddler said: For instance, in the section for migrating existing packs to a library, it says you can do it, but then never explains how. So I did my best, which apparently isn't good enough. Hello, Indeed it does not, perhaps they thought that this would be clear enough: 58 minutes ago, Fiddler said: It looked to me like the doc said you could have multiple libraries. So what I have now are two libraries; one on the D: drive with the GB South TE pack previously created, and another in a C: drive folder, not X-Plane. I moved the WA OR CA TE files to the new one. the GB south remained in its existing library. I modified the config file and it all works well with X-Plane. Central recognizes the libraries and the byte count is correct for the contents. However in My Products list it shows all the products I own, but only shows the GB South as installed. Please advise how I can connect the installed scenery packs in the new library to Orbx Central. You seem to have overlooked the advice here: 13 hours ago, Nick Cooper said: For this reason, once a product is installed by Orbx Central into the X Plane Custom Scenery folder, the only successful way to move it to an Orbx Central Library is to use Orbx Central itself, which then creates the new file structure that it can subsequently recognise. and gone your own way again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiddler Posted April 13, 2020 Author Share Posted April 13, 2020 On 4/12/2020 at 1:48 AM, Nick Cooper said: Hello, Indeed it does not, perhaps they thought that this would be clear enough: You seem to have overlooked the advice here: and gone your own way again. Hi Nick - Let's have a go at it....again. So Central didn't recognize it (or the other TE NA Packs) as installed, so i couldn't Migrate to Library as the image shows above. So that was not an option. So my question was really after manually downloading or moving is there a way to get Central to recognize that the Library it knows about has installed products in it and can identify those in the Central user interface. Central does recognize the library I created, and does recognize that there are files in there, it just doesn't identify them as Orbx scenery packs. Anyway at this point it looks like my only option is to delete all these files and Libraries and start from scratch downloading and installing with Central managing it all. That's ugly....oh well. Lesson learned the hard way. Thanks for your help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 14 minutes ago, Fiddler said: So my question was really after manually downloading or moving is there a way to get Central to recognize that the Library it knows about has installed products in it and can identify those in the Central user interface. Central does recognize the library I created, and does recognize that there are files in there, it just doesn't identify them as Orbx scenery packs. Manual intervention after an installation, whether into the Custom Scenery folder or into an external library is bound to disturb the file structure on which Orbx Central relies to identify and work with the files. I don't know of any other software that will continue to work after manual intervention in its file structure. Perhaps you do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiddler Posted April 14, 2020 Author Share Posted April 14, 2020 Hi Nick, lots of apps work if you move locations, as long as they don't depend on Windows registry or have internal hard coded paths etc. X-Plane, for instance, you can move it around anywhere you want and it will still work. It would be nice if Orbx had a tool to sync the packs with the Central app. The packs work fine in the sim wherever you put them. So you can move those at will with no problems with the sim as long as you manually maintain their locations in scenery.packs.ini, at least in X-Plane. So the issue is syncing up with Central. I would think if the sim can find them and work with them that Central could too - if it had a way of syncing. Maybe it's more complicated than I'm assuming - probably is! Anyway thanks and I'll not belabor this issue anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted April 14, 2020 Share Posted April 14, 2020 I wrote that very few, if any, apps work if you disturb their file structure, which is a very different thing to moving them around but with the file structure intact. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fiddler Posted April 15, 2020 Author Share Posted April 15, 2020 Hi Nick, I don't think of your scenery files as an application; they are a data source for an application, and in most systems you can move the data sources and just change the reference to those in a configuration process. Like what you can do with Xplane scenery files, for instance. You can move those around, including your scenery packs and associated files, and you just change the config file. Your Orbx Central is an application and the scenery packs are data. I've been a software engineer for 30 years and best practice is to not bind data and applications in the way you have. Thus my suggestion to have the ability within the Orbx Central app to connect packs/files to it through configuration. But it is what is - and I can just download again. My suggestion is meant to be helpful for future revisions. Thanks Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
petejohno Posted April 16, 2020 Share Posted April 16, 2020 I'm in the same boat as you Fiddler. Looks like I'm going to have to re-install just to get transparent roads. PITA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Cooper Posted April 17, 2020 Share Posted April 17, 2020 Hello, it is quite clear. Orbx Central installs files to a given location and if the customer decides to move those files from that location or decides that the customer's own version of the file structure is better than that installed by Orbx Central, then Orbx Central will no longer be able to find those files. It will therefore show them as not installed and until the original file structure is restored, it will continue to do so. Whether or not the customer thinks that this should not happen, it does. Manual interference with Orbx files has never been supported and it is not now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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