ANSWERED Bug found in airport installer (replaces PNW files with old versions)

[JimmiG]

So I'm re-installing everything after building a new system, and I had some problems.

 

After installing all my FTX airports and scenery, I had weird problems at some airports - these were all related to exclusions, flattens etc. I managed to fix my problems at Diamond Point/Olympic Field by re-installing FTX PNW, but this instead messed up S45 and 74S (bumps, flickering textures etc.).

 

So I went to find the root of the problem. I re-installed P3D from scratch (I don't know if this problem applies to FSX but I guess it does) and installed all landscape addons. Then I installed everything carefully, one airport at a time.

 

After these airports were installed without seeing any problems, I made a complete backup of the P3D folder:

2WA1

S45

74S

OS9

1S2

1WA6

3W5

 

At this point, WA45 looked good:

 

 

 

I then installed the rest:

CZST

KBVS

KCMW

KORS

PAKT

W52

WA56

WA79

OG39

2W3

KSFF

77S

 

Now my flatten problems at WA45 was back! One of the above airports messed it up. Unfortunately, I don't know which one, since I didn't check between each (I thought the problem was solved by starting again from scratch).

 

 

However, a WinDiff between the OrbX\FTX_NA\FTX_NA_PNW* folders of the backup with only the first 7 airports installed (and without flatten issues) and my now broken installation (with the second batch of airports above also installed) shows this:

As you can see, lots of files were replaced with older versions during the course of installing the second batch of airports. Some were actually replaced with newer versions.

 

I immediately suspected cvx_FTX_PNW_airfields_and_flattens_WA.BGL, so I copied the more recent version from my backup back to my now broken installation:

 

Voila! WA45 looked normal once again. As you can see, the correct file is from 2012-03-27. One of the airport installers in the "second batch" above, copied an older version from 2011-04-19 back into my FTX_NA_PNW06_CVX\Scenery folder. The same (or another) installer also replaced a number of other important PNW files with older versions.

 

These were all freshly downloaded installers from The Flightsim Store. I don't even know why the airport installers are touching the PNW base scenery folder. If they do, shouldn't that be included in the FTX Libraries or rolled into a PNW Service Pack, so you always have the latest version of the files, regardless of the order in which you install your FTX airports?

[Holger Sandmann]

Hi Jimmi,

 

good bit of sleuthing. We try to avoid altering core PNW files in any airport add-on packages for that very reason but in a few cases we couldn't provide an updated PNW service pack at the same time as an airport was ready to be released. There's a simple fix though: if any issues like yours appear, re-install the current region service pack over the top of your region and airport add-ons. For example, the "cvx_FTX_PNW_airfields_and_flattens_WA.BGL" you mention is included in PNW SP5 in its correct version.

 

Cheers, Holger

[JimmiG]

Unfortunately, I found the PNW SP5 was only available as an FSX installer, not as a native P3D installer. Re-installing the entire PNW package with SP5 integrated on top of all the airports etc, as I said, seemed to mess up some locations while fixing others.

 

My solution is to just keep the "pure" FTX PNW SP5 folders as a backup, and do a Windiff to find and replace any outdated files. I have now combined the most recent files from both folders above, and checked the majority of FTX airports I have installed. Everything looks fine now  I do wish this was documented better, though. Would have saved me one day of frustration and hair-pulling