Author Topic: What a mess my god!  (Read 3206 times)

SN737

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What a mess my god!
« on: April 14, 2023, 11:01:05 pm »
Another update and another pain in the butt, with latest update, if jetways are already connected and you request boarding, they disconnect, on every airport (pmdg 737). No matter if I initially connected them through the CDU or by gsx menu. Ah, BTW, there are no longer pax boarding!

virtuali

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #1 on: April 15, 2023, 01:44:56 am »
Here's a video showing:

- Jetways don't disconnect if they are already connected when you request boarding

- Passengers works normally


SN737

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #2 on: April 15, 2023, 02:04:29 am »
mine disconnects. They didn't with previous from latest update. All airports I tried they disconnect.

virtuali

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #3 on: April 15, 2023, 02:21:35 am »
mine disconnects. They didn't with previous from latest update. All airports I tried they disconnect.

And the reason I posted this video was precisely to show:

- I took your report seriously, and spent time to replicate it.

- The jetways works fine.

- Passengers works perfectly fine.

So, now we clarified the update is perfectly fine and the real situation is not what your very misleading and, frankly, slightly offensive subject would lead to believe, we might *start* troubleshooting why it's happening to you, and nobody else.

With "the latest update" ( not really the latest, but a few updates ago ), we added many more checks to be sure the jetway is fine before displaying passengers because, I hope everybody would agree than, rather than showing passengers in the air because there was a problem with getting the jetway data, it would be best to not show any passengers at all. At least this is what most users asked for.

So, the missing passengers might be an indication of the problem, so they are in fact the same problem, and it's GSX getting bad data about Jeways from Simconnect, and now more correctly identifying the case, and stop passengers from showing.

Bad data can come for a number of reasons:

- The scenery has a problem, like a missing jetway (scenery trying to use a jetway model that is not available), but you said it happens "everywhere", so this seems to be unlikely.

- You are using a 3rd party scenery, but you haven't disabled the GSX Jetway replacement file for it, as you always should with any non-default airport. This creates a conflict which results in getting bad data about jetways and their association with a parking. I'm not obviously saying I'm sure you did this, but precisely since I cannot possibly know, I need to list this case as possible too.

- Simconnect is just being broken by having reached the maximum number of objects allowed in the scene, after which it starts to returns erratic results and bad data. This is usually caused by too much AI traffic, especially with AI Injection, and way more easily at large airports.

In all these situations were GSX is getting bad data about Jetways from Simconnect, it will fail to detect their connected/disconnected status, resulting in disconnections when they shouldn't, and the (correct) new behavior of disabling passengers because of that.

All of this assumes you are using the Navdata API in GSX, which is by default but, it can optionally turned off by re-enabling the legacy airport cache method in the Couatl_MSFS.INI file. Again, I'm adding this for completion.

All of these cases would be noticeable in the diagnostic log, posted after the situation happened, ZIPPED and ATTACHED to a post.


SN737

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2023, 04:59:56 pm »
Man, don't know what you did with latest days updates but it's not working and it was before. Today I uninstalled everything from gsx and universal installer, deleted virtuali folders, addon manager folder. Rebooted pc, installed universal installer again, installed gsx again (from scratch obviously) rebooted pc and it's not working. Jetway is behaving as I described, removing itself when calling for boarding and not removing when it should at pushback and still no pax visible, just the sound of them walking through the jetway and welcoming of crew. This is with the latest universal installer 1.0.90, gsx 2.5.1, API ticked, all 3rd party  jetways excluded, use SU10 Navadata API ticked. Don't have much energy to waste in troubleshooting, i rather enjoy the weekend flying frankly.

SN737

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2023, 05:15:08 pm »
Profiles is the issue, when I removed my airport profile all worked as before. So there's the  issue, somehow the updates screwed something because I didn't touch my .ini profile before nor after updating gsx

SN737

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #6 on: April 15, 2023, 05:32:37 pm »
To further help someone that went through the same as me. If you remove the afcad_path = "(whatever your path to your airport)". You'll have jetways an pax working again as before this latest days updates.

virtuali

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #7 on: April 15, 2023, 06:28:58 pm »
To further help someone that went through the same as me. If you remove the afcad_path = "(whatever your path to your airport)". You'll have jetways an pax working again as before this latest days updates.

The afcad_path path line is completely ignored if the Navdata API is enabled, which is now default.

It will matter again ( not the path, but the name of the .BGL ), if the Navdata API has been explicitly disabled, by setting "useAirportCache=1" in the Couatl_MSFS.INI

Ursli80

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #8 on: April 17, 2023, 10:25:25 pm »
Hello everyone,

i would like to get in touch here as soon as possible.  I haven't had GSX for long and haven't been able to test it much.

But the fact that when you click boarding and then retract the gate and then nothing works has happened to me quite often (actually almost always) at LSZH (Asobo). 

Likewise in LSGG Addon (Redwing) also (never) Pax are displayed during boarding. 

If I haven't tested yours with the latest GSX update 2.5.0.

Best regards
Urs
Translator
MSFS2020
Prosim737

sw34669

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #9 on: April 18, 2023, 06:12:17 pm »
Of course, how mad of us to suggest anything else when we see an issue right after uodate I mean in the history of the world that just doesnt happen

as per OP I notice exactly the same, all the airports I use were ok until that last update now if I attach gateway and then later select boarding it disconnects the jetway and gets in a state it wont reconnect sp couselesstil needs restarting.

Never cease to amaze me with immediate user gaslighting sped the time finding and fixing the issues and not 9 page replies as to why you cant code around MSFS like other developers do !
« Last Edit: April 21, 2023, 11:22:03 am by virtuali »

Anders Bermann

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #10 on: April 20, 2023, 06:03:03 pm »
I've been experiencing the same issues. Jetway doesn't react and/or disconnecting, when requesting boarding. No reaction, when selecting push-back etc.
Deleting the AFCAD-line in the .ini file, seems to have resolved the issue.

Thanks.
Best regards, Anders

virtuali

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Jetway disconnects
« Reply #11 on: April 21, 2023, 11:33:06 am »
Deleting the AFCAD-line in the .ini file, seems to have resolved the issue

The afcad_path line is completely ignored if Navdata is enabled.

The only possible reason I can think of this would make a difference, if if that line contained strange characters which would make the whole .INI file illegal, but in that case it would be ignored entirely, so GSX would work there in default mode, as if had no profile.

Without a profile, you might have parked in a different position than the one planned in the profile, which might cause the jetway not to operate from there, that's the only possible reason I can think of about jetway not connecting depending on the profile in use ( or no profile at all ).

And remember, the very well known bug of jetways appearing to be Disconnected, even if they really aren't, which is a visual LOD issue that doesn't have anything to do with GSX, has been known over a year and happens even with default airports with default jetways without GSX installed, is still there:

https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/questions/9771/some-longstanding-jetways-issues.html

Quoting the last post, 6 days ago, from another scenery developer:

Quote
The problem with randomly disconnected jetway links also has been reported by many users in my CYOW. It is random and not everyone experiences this. Some people see it when departing, others when arriving, some when taxiing. So it does seem to be connected to LODs. I only use default jetways. This is a very serious issue and it's a jarring immersion breaker for users, while I cannot help in any way to people who paid money for my product.

He's referencing to links ( the static part before the tunnels ), but it happens just the same with the main jetway.

adidanuleasa

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #12 on: April 29, 2023, 07:06:57 pm »
To further help someone that went through the same as me. If you remove the afcad_path = "(whatever your path to your airport)". You'll have jetways an pax working again as before this latest days updates.

The afcad_path path line is completely ignored if the Navdata API is enabled, which is now default.

It will matter again ( not the path, but the name of the .BGL ), if the Navdata API has been explicitly disabled, by setting "useAirportCache=1" in the Couatl_MSFS.INI

Like everyone else, I have the same error here. Only works in most airports since the latest WU patch when ini set to 1. The real questions are: why not allow the option for navdata to be unselected so that now when I install a new airport, i open your installer, exclude 3rd party, you set it back to 0, I navigate to roaming folders, change to 1 and only after use GSX.

User experience is not great. Leave the options editable if they really are options.


And by the way, the guy was exuberant in his complaint but your disdain and dismissiveness towards user complaints is quite legendary in the community. That could use work, too. Lets stop blaming others.

virtuali

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Re: What a mess my god!
« Reply #13 on: May 01, 2023, 01:30:19 pm »
Like everyone else, I have the same error here. Only works in most airports since the latest WU patch when ini set to 1.

And again, that's precisely the reason why I took time to test the report, trying to reproduce the problem, and make a video showing it doesn't happen here. That clearly proves every report, even the most "exuberant" ( which is a way to say it was rude but no, users are never rude, aren't they ? ), is taken seriously and it's being investigated on.

Fact that, according to your report, is fixed when GSX is not using the Navdata, might indicate a problem with the data obtained from the Navdata API, which can be due to many reasons:

- You might have a scenery conflict. When GSX is using the Navdata, is inheriting every scenery conflict which before might have not, because it only reads one .BGL at a time, so it might have been able to recognize conflicts on its own. Now, with Navdata, if you have two conflicting sceneries, GSX will get all the data, good and bad, because it no longer knows where it's coming from. It's your responsibility to be sure you don't have conflicts, but that would be true regardless if GSX is used or not: you don't want conflicting scenery in any case!

- A scenery conflict might be introduced by simply forgetting to Disable the GSX Jetway replacements for an airport you have a 3rd party add-on, something you should always do. If you use MOSTLY 3rd party add-on, you might consider Disabling all GSX Jetway replacements at once, so you won't have to remember to exclude a new one when you install a new airport.

- Simconnect might just started to behave erratically, due to the simulator having reached the maximum number of Simobject allowed in a scenery ( officially documented to be 1000 ). When this happens, Simconnect either starts to respond with bad data, or not at all, and since GSX depends on Simconnect entirely from almost everything it does, if it's getting bad data or not at all from an airport because Simconnect started to act out, it will affect GSX and there's just nothing we can do about it, other than hoping Asobo will raise the object limit.

As discussed several times, the easiest way to reach the limit is to use AI traffic, especially with AI Injection. But it IS possible to reach it even without it, if the airport is detailed enough.

What you CAN do from GSX to mitigate the problem ( not fixing it, only Asobo can really fix it, by allowing more than 1000 Simobject in a scene ), is:

- Disable the "Ground Clutter" option in GSX. This will only be effective for default airports that had their jetways replaced by GSX.

- Lower the Passenger Density slider in GSX. This will reduce the number of passengers visible at any given time, which will affect the overall number of Simobjects in a scene.

But the most effective way to deal with the Simobject limit, is reducing the AI Density. If the AI traffic product has an option to disable Ground Services for AI, that's the most effective way, because each AI could generate extra 5-6 objects as ground services so, 100 AI airplanes could add 500-600 Simbojects and, if you add the airport objects, and the Jetways, it's very easy to surpass the max Simobject limit.

Quote
The real questions are: why not allow the option for navdata to be unselected so that now when I install a new airport, i open your installer, exclude 3rd party, you set it back to 0, I navigate to roaming folders, change to 1 and only after use GSX.

Because while these specific problems are less common, by disabling the Navdata, you can be SURE you'll add an entire new class of problems, which plagued GSX in previous versions, which users could easily mistakenly assume to be GSX "bugs", when in fact it was the very lack of data that couldn't be obtained in any other way. This is what will happen if you Disable the Navdata:

- GSX won't work with Marketplace airports and Asobo Premium Handcrafted airports anymore, because their .BGL are encrypted, and the only way to obtain data about the airport, is the Navdata.

- GSX won't be able to reliably identify jetways anymore, because the Navdata provided with crucial information about their location and their status, which will be lacking without it, resulting in issues like floating passengers, because the jetway wasn't correctly associated to the parking spot and there's no way to know if it even docked, all info supplied only with the SU12 Navdata.

Since the normal user doesn't have any idea about these issues, we must be sure the Navdata is not Disabled unintentionally. And those Disabling intentionally, should know what other problems they'll run into if they do, that's why the option is only accessible from the .INI and it's reset back to default with the updater, because IT IS the best choice to keep it on.
« Last Edit: May 01, 2023, 01:32:13 pm by virtuali »