XPOI doesn't work, no menu entry "Couatl-powered products"

[schmiko]

I have bought PHNL a few mont before and it worked beautiful. Last Friday I bought XPOI, ZurichX, Geneva, JFK and Hawaiian Airports Volume 1. Every Installation seems to work normal, the Addon Manger shows for every of that Addons "Product ACTIVE".

But after XPOI install in FSX, the menu entry "Add-Ons" shows only a menue entry "Addon Manager", no "Couatl-powered products".

My exe.xml shows a normal entry for that I think:

  <Launch.Addon>
    <Name>Couatl</Name>
    <Disabled>False</Disabled>
    <ManualLoad>False</ManualLoad>
    <Path>fsdreamteam\couatl\couatl.exe</Path>
  </Launch.Addon>

My directory structure:
 Verzeichnis von D:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\fsdreamteam

18.12.2010  08:56    <DIR>          .
18.12.2010  08:56    <DIR>          ..
18.12.2010  00:50    <DIR>          couatl
11.08.2009  13:34         1,323,451 FSdt_install_guide.pdf
17.12.2010  21:47    <DIR>          Hawaii1
18.12.2010  00:50    <DIR>          JFK
18.12.2010  00:49    <DIR>          LSGG
17.12.2010  21:47    <DIR>          PHLI
18.12.2010  00:07    <DIR>          PHNL
17.12.2010  21:47    <DIR>          PHTO
17.12.2010  21:52    <DIR>          ZurichX
               1 Datei(en),      1,323,451 Bytes

The was an error message in FSX for starting Couatl and the Couatl error log shows many entries with:
couatl v2.0 (build 2077)
panic log started on Sat Dec 18 08:14:45 2010
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "couatl\XPOI\__init__.py", line 156, in updatePoiSets
  File "couatl\XPOI\poiManager.py", line 115, in updatePoiSet
  File "couatl\XPOI\poiManager.py", line 73, in performQuery
  File "couatl\XPOI\queryGeonames.py", line 46, in queryGeonames
AssertionError

I have tried this:
- deinstalled XPOI and any airport
- answered the question for deinstalling Couatl and Addon with yes
- I have also deleted the Couatl directory in fsdreamteam directory
- restarted FSX without any of that addons
- Then I installed all airports again, but not the XPOI addon
- I installed the stand alone addon installer
- restarted FSX, every airport is working normal, menu entries "addon manager" and "Couatl-powered products" are visible
- stopped FSX
- Installed XPOI, no error message
- started FSX, getting an error about Couatl
- started a flight and really the menu entry "Couatl-powered products" doesn't exist AND no airport addon is working any longer
- restarted FSX with no positive result
- restarted PC and FSX no result

Some information about my system:
- Windows 7 64bit
- UAC disabled
- Working with admin rights
- FSX with accelaration pack (SP1+SP2 included)
- FSX installed on D:
- Intel QuadCore 4*2,8 GHz
- 8 GB Ram
- 2 TB Hardisk with Raid 1+0
- ATI 5850 with 1 GB Ram

I have no more ideas at the moment, any suggestions?

Greetings Joerg

[virtuali]

Strange as it might sound, your error doesn't have anything to do with XPOI itself.

Or, more precisely, it's XPOI that has having a problem, which is not depending by itself, but rather from the external geonames.org server, as if the server replied with an invalid answer or corrupted file, because this message here:

File "couatl\XPOI\queryGeonames.py", line 46, in queryGeonames
AssertionError

Should appear only if the geonames.org server has returned an invalid reply. Perhaps there's a problem with one of their servers, try this:

Open with Notepad the following file:

%APPDATA%\Virtuali\Xpoi.ini

search the line that contains this:

geoNameServers = ws5.geonames.org ws2.geonames.org ws.geonames.org

and change it to this:

geoNameServers = ws.geonames.org

Save the file, restart FSX and see if it works.

[schmiko]

Thank you for the fast replay.

There is NO file Xpoi.ini at my appdata-directory "C:\Users\Joerg\AppData\Roaming\Virtuali", only the files couatl.err and KeyMapping.ini.  Possibly thats because XPOI was never successfully started before on my system?

I tried that 3 urls directly in my browser and there seems to be a DNS problem with ws5.geonames.org, only ws2.geonames.org and ws2.geonames.org are working. So I think your solution is right, but I need an example for that ini-file to manually creating it.

Next question : Is it possible to change the initializing process of the couatl-addon? It would be better if this process could also start without any addon working. At the moment I couldn't use ANY of the FSDreamTeam airports if there is an error in one addon, in this case XPOI.

Greetings Jörg 

[virtuali]

There is NO file Xpoi.ini at my appdata-directory "C:\Users\Joerg\AppData\Roaming\Virtuali", only the files couatl.err and KeyMapping.ini.  Possibly thats because XPOI was never successfully started before on my system?

It's not a problem, the file is created only if you *change* a setting, otherwise it will use internal defaults. Now, I think maybe the problem is the internal default is to access first the geonames server is having problems right now.

Try to create a new Xpoi.ini file, and put this inside:


[featureClasses]
H = 1 1 GULF STM LK RF CNL SPNG
L = 1 1 PRT PRK
P = 1 1 PPLA LCTY PPL
S = 0 1 LTHSE OILT BDG CH SCH CSTL PP PAL RUIN RECG FRM AIRP DAM HSP CMTY ANS RSTN TOWR PO MLWND
U = 1 1
T = 1 1 BCH MT HLL ISL CAPE PLN
V = 1 1 FRST

[settings]
titlesDistance = 100
enableFacilities = 0
inexactPois = 2
whichFacilities = 63
geoNameServers = ws.geonames.org
enableWikipedia = 0
enableGeonames = 1
floatingFacilities = 1
wikiLanguage = en

[schmiko]

ok, now it works, thank you for help. But is it possible to change the initializing process of the couatl-addon? I think it would be better if this process could also start with an error for one addon, because with this error I couldn't use ANY of the FSDreamTeam airports.

Greetings Jörg   

[virtuali]

ok, now it works, thank you for help. But is it possible to change the initializing process of the couatl-addon? I think it would be better if this process could also start with an error for one addon, because with this error I couldn't use ANY of the FSDreamTeam airports.

It's quite difficult to explain why it's not so easy doing that. It's related to how the various tasks launched by the Python interpreter are scheduled and how exceptions in Python are handled, but the fact is, if an addon runs into a panic situation, we can't just skip it.

There's a workaround: once you identified which addon has a problem, it would be enough to remove its folder, and it will be skipped on load. They are all in the fsdreamteam\Couatl folder, and each folder contains an addon. So, in case of XPOI, if you want to disable it, just remove the fsdreamteam\Couatl\XPOI folder, and the next load it will be skipped without any adverse consequences.