Is the Scenery Trial Mode Disabled for some FSDT scenery ? **solved**

[grasshopper]

Encouraged by the help given me in this forum that has allowed me to finally register my serial numbers to re-activate my FSDT copies of Zurich, JFK and O'Hare, I decided to go the whole hog and buy ALL the other FSDT titles that I don't yet own.

I downloaded the installers for Geneva, Honolulu,  Hilo,  Las Vegas, Fort Lauderdale and Dallas Fort Worth airports, and there was no error message during those processes.  The above six titles now all appear in the FS9 Addon Manager, with the menu options for serial number registration appearing as expected, but I discovered that Fort Lauderdale is the ONLY scenery which starts up with a trial version of the FSDT scenery, when I place my R22 helicopter there.

All the other five FSDT sceneries are not yet active as trial versions when I locate my bird to each one in turn, meaning that I only still see the FS9 stock scenery in each case, EXCEPT in the case of Fort Lauderdale as I mentioned above.   I am writing to find out if my downloads can still be activated when I make payment later this week, despite there being no working trial version visible in five of the six scenery items listed above.  

I would rather not go through a repeat download of the scenery products, unless, of course, their unavailability as trial versions means that the downloads have been corrupted in some way, and will need to be repeated after my payment to FSDT is confirmed.  I would appreciate any clarification that can be offered.

Thanks again, from one very satisfied FSDT customer.  

[virtuali]

You are probably confusing the word "activation". "Active" means the scenery has an activation in your WINDOWS system. This doesn't have anything to do with the fact the scenery is "active" in FS9.

Being active or not in Windows doesn't have any relationship with the visibility of the scenery in FS9. To be visible in FS9, the scenery needs to be:

- Installed

- Added to the Scenery Library (which is done automatically be the installer)

When the scenery is installed and active in the Scenery Library, the ONE and ONLY difference if you have registered and activated your Serial Number, is that it will not disappear after 5-6 minutes of use. No other differences.

So, if you are not seeing the scenery, this doesn't have ANYTHING to do with your activation status in Windows. The one and only thing that can make the scenery not visible, not even for 5 minutes, is that you haven't installed it, or it's not added to the Scenery Library OR there's a problem with the Addon Manager not running (because of the antivirus), but in this case, there will be no Addon Manager menu either.

Of course, everything provided you are using the CURRENT versions of the sceneries. If unsure, download them again.

[grasshopper]

Thanks for the reply, Virtuali.  I will repeat the download of these items, and see if that solves it.

[grasshopper]

Ok Virtuali,  so now I have purchased the six FSDT scenery products - Honolulu,  Hilo, Geneva, Dallas FW,  Ft. Lauderdale, and Las Vegas.

 So far,  I have only been only able to activate Dallas FW and Ft. Lauderdale, BUT in both cases the FSDT scenery did NOT appear, even though the tabs for both products inside the FS9 Addon Manager show both products as being "active".

To enter the serial number in both of these instances, I first clicked the "reactivate" button of the Addon Manager, and entered the purchase serial number.  I stumbled my way to the "offline registration" page, where I copied  and pasted the longer code, into the spaces provided.   Can you see any mis-steps I may have taken to wind up with the products being shown as  "active" and registered, yet not yet visible ?

[virtuali]

So far,  I have only been only able to activate Dallas FW and Ft. Lauderdale, BUT in both cases the FSDT scenery did NOT appear, even though the tabs for both products inside the FS9 Addon Manager show both products as being "active".

You are STILL confusing the word "activation". "Active" means the scenery has an activation in your WINDOWS system. This doesn't have anything to do with the fact the scenery is visible in FS9.

Being active or not in Windows doesn't have any relationship with the visibility of the scenery in FS9. To be visible in FS9, the scenery needs to be:

- Installed

- Added to the Scenery Library (which is done automatically be the installer)

When the scenery is installed and active in the Scenery Library, the ONE and ONLY difference if you have registered and activated your Serial Number, is that it will not disappear after 5-6 minutes of use. No other differences.

So, if you are not seeing the scenery, this doesn't have ANYTHING to do with your activation status in Windows. The one and only thing that can make the scenery not visible, not even for 5 minutes, is that you haven't installed it, or it's not added to the Scenery Library OR there's a problem with the Addon Manager not running (because of the antivirus), but in this case, there will be no Addon Manager menu either.

So, please, for the 2nd time, STOP worrying about the activation!!! If the Addon Manager says the scenery is Active THEN IT IS ACTIVE!!! This means, you don't have to do ANYTHING to "reactivate", because it's ALREADY active

If you don't see the scenery, it means it's not active in the SCENERY LIBRARY. This it's done automatically by the scenery installer but, if your scenery.cfg had an syntax error or was corrupted, the installer will not be able to add the scenery automatically, but it WILL give you a warning about this.

Is the scenery visible in the scenery library ? Have you seen any warning about problems in the scenery.cfg during the installation ?

If it's not in the Scenery Library, you can try add it manually but, if you HAD warnings in the installation about the scenery.cfg, you will not see the scenery anyway, because the installation was aborted, and no files were copied.

[grasshopper]

Definite progress is under way here, Virtuali.   After a long downloading session with my very slow internet link, I have been able to get Dallas FW,  Ft. Lauderdale, Las Vegas and Geneva airports up and running.  
 
Took a low and slow R22 helicopter sight-seeing airport tour in each case, and I must say FSDT created a masterpiece with the Dallas Ft.Worth scenery.  The attention to minute detail, such as the clear visibility of cars in the lower decks of the car parking structures, is truly something to behold.  I can only imagine how many thousands of lines of code it must have taken to render such a massive and architecturally complex area in such sharp definition.   When dusk lights switch on, the visual effect is awesome.

Hopefully Honolulu and Hilo will come to life before the end of the day here.   I'm running a repeat download of Honolulu, since the first one vanished without any error message, before the page for serial number registration appeared.  Making sure I am around when the download wraps up this time.   All told, so far so good.

Keep the magic going FSDT.  You guys just earned another a lifetime customer here.


P.S      I'm getting some strange behavior with Honolulu and Hilo.   They both registered the purchase serial numbers without problems, and both scenery products show up in the FS9 addon manager with the "Register Serial" option greyed out, as it is with all the other four scenery products that do now work, BUT both Honolulu and Hilo are currently lost in the ether and not visible yet.   Will update after I try later again.

[grasshopper]

Hello Virtuali,  I just sent you an email about Hilo and Honolulu.   Hope to hear from you soon.

Update :   Hilo now works, but Honolulu does not yet show up despite being marked as "active" in the FS9 Addon Manager.

Would appreicate any help offered to clear this final hurdle.

[virtuali]

Update :   Hilo now works, but Honolulu does not yet show up despite being marked as "active" in the FS9 Addon Manager.

For the last time:

You are STILL confusing the word "activation". "Active" means the scenery has an activation in your WINDOWS system. This doesn't have anything to do with the fact the scenery is visible in FS9.

Being active or not in Windows doesn't have any relationship with the visibility of the scenery in FS9. To be visible in FS9, the scenery needs to be:

- Installed

- Added to the Scenery Library (which is done automatically be the installer)

When the scenery is installed and active in the Scenery Library, the ONE and ONLY difference if you have registered and activated your Serial Number, is that it will not disappear after 5-6 minutes of use. No other differences.

So, if you are not seeing the scenery, this doesn't have ANYTHING to do with your activation status in Windows, which is what the Addon Manager reports.

And beside, as explained (many times already), if you lose your Activation for any reason, the scenery WILL NOT DISAPPEAR!! It will run in Trial mode, for 5 minutes only.

The one and only thing that can make the scenery not visible, not even for 5 minutes, is that you haven't installed it, or it's not added to the Scenery Library OR there's a problem with the Addon Manager not running (because of the antivirus), but in this case, there will be no Addon Manager menu either.

So, please, for the 3rd time, STOP worrying about the activation!!! If the Addon Manager says the scenery is Active THEN IT IS ACTIVE!!! This means, you don't have to do ANYTHING to "reactivate", because it's ALREADY active

If you don't see the scenery, it means it's not active in the SCENERY LIBRARY. This it's done automatically by the scenery installer but, if your scenery.cfg had an syntax error or was corrupted, the installer will not be able to add the scenery automatically, but it WILL give you a warning about this.

Is the scenery visible in the scenery library ? Have you seen any warning about problems in the scenery.cfg during the installation ?

If it's not in the Scenery Library, you can try add it manually but, if you HAD warnings in the installation about the scenery.cfg, you will not see the scenery anyway, because the installation was aborted, and no files were copied.

Also, if your installers "disappear", then it's SURELY an antivirus fault. As explained in many other threads, when the antivirus mistakenly think there's a threat, the correct procedure is:


- Uninstall the scenery. Reply YES to the question "Do you want to remove the Addon Manager?"

- Turn the Antivirus OFF.

- Reinstall the scenery, don't launch FS9 yet.

- Configure your antivirus to exclude the following file from scanning:

\YourFS9Folder\MODULES\bglman.dll

- Turn the antivirus back ON, launch FS9.

[grasshopper]

Ok now I fully understand that a 5-minute duration,  fully-featured Trial Version of all FSDT sceneries is the default condition prior to purchase, after which the 5-minute time limitation is de-selected by the registration process.

My not getting even that 5-minute trial version means, as you point out, that the basic pre-purchase product download and installation went wrong at some point.  Since my anti-virus program did quarantine the hawaii.exe file, which brought Hilo to life when I restored it, I imagine the anti-virus may also have quarantined the Honolulu.exe file.  

Trouble is, I looked in the anti-virus list of quarantined files, and could not find one named anything close to Honolulu.exe.   If the installer for Honolulu .exe file goes by another name, please identify it so I can check my anti-virus quarantine list again, and restore the Honolulu.exe file if it is there under a more cryptic identity.

Oddly enough, the Hilo Airport scenery just materialized this morning when I started up FS9.  I restored that Hawaii.exe file yesterday and got no results, yet without any further guesswork or steps taken by me, FSDT Hilo suddenly just appeared on my screen.  I hope something similar occurs with the sole remaining item on my now complete FSDT collection - Honolulu Airoprt.

[virtuali]

There's no honolulu.exe file, the installer for PHNL FS9 is named phnl_fs9_setup.exe. It might be risky to retrieve it from the quarantine, since your antivirus might have tried "healing it", thus corrupting it.

It's best if you TURN OFF your antivirus BEFORE DOWNLOADING, download the installer again, and DO NOT turn the antivirus on, until you FINISH installing the scenery, and configure it to exclude the files in the FS9 folder.

No, having excluded the files from scanning in FS9, will not prevent you to having to turn the antivirus OFF during DOWNLOAD AND INSTALL because, even if the files in FS9 are now safe, the antivirus will probably still try to remove them when downloading and installing, since they are in the Windows temporary folder at that stage so please, do exactly follows:

- Uninstall the scenery. Reply YES to the question "Do you want to remove the Addon Manager?"

- Turn the Antivirus OFF.

- DOWNLOAD the installer again, don't turn the Antivirus on yet.

- Reinstall the scenery, don't launch FS9 yet. Don't turn the Antivirus on yet.

- Configure your antivirus to exclude the following file from scanning:

\YourFS9Folder\MODULES\bglman.dll

- Turn the antivirus back ON, launch FS9.

Also, be sure you are downloading the FULL installer, not the update.

[grasshopper]

I followed the above steps to the letter, Virtuali, and Honolulu worked like a charm with no sweat.   The detail of the airport and all its associated buildings and landscaping is just amazing.  My jaw dropped when I hovered the R22 at 600 feet above the terminals, with the time set at dusk, and the terminal and taxiway lights glowing beside a Pacific Ocean sunset.    FSDT Honolulu International Airport scenery is a living, breathing picture post-card from Aloha-land.

You guys have packed FSX-like resolution into an FS9 package, and now, I know I must upgrade to a faster, stutter-free computer, so I can download the FSX versions of the entire FSDT scenery collection, and go for that next level of resolution in FSX.  The two-for-one pricing offered by FSDT for both FS9 and FSX versions of their products is generous to say the least, for each version is a gem in its own right.  

Virtuali,  I thank you very much for the pointers that speedily identifed and solved every problem I encountered along the way.  Without your diagnoses, I'd still be here muttering to my computer about dormant FS9 scenery products, and the unfairness of life.  

Summoning my entire vocabulary in the Italian language,     Malto Gratsi  


  

[virtuali]

Glad you sorted it out at the end...

P.S.
It's "Molte grazie"

[grasshopper]

Much obliged, Umberto, and my spelling error is noted.