Pete Dowson

Some extra checking was included in the interim update for 4.10 -- try the 4.104 version available in the FSX downloads announcement above. Was FSUIPC actually loaded? Please look for the FSUIPC4.LOG file. The log is always the first thing to check. Regards Pete

Are you sure it uses FSUIPC? Pete

According to Microsoft, these errors, along with the "inactive" log entries in the SimConnect log file, definitely point to a firewall or anti-virus or some other security program blocking or severely slowing the TCP/IP link between SimConnect and FSX. So, please can you answer these questions: 1. Were you running FSX + FSUIPC before applying the SP1 update? If so have you changed anything else? 2. What anti-virus, firewall and other security software are you using, please? We need this information to determine whether something has changed in this area with SP1, and also to add to the list of problem programs whichever ones you are using. Then, I can only suggest reviewing your firewall and anti-virus settings, or even trying uninstall, test, re-install, test. Maybe even there are known solutions for the programs you are using. Let us know what they are. Regards Pete

Nope, no change; still can't see axis numbers in the assignemnts tab even with FS controls enabled or disabled. That wasn't the question. With axes assigned via FS, can you see things change in the Calibrations tab? FSUIPC3 doesn't run with FSX so it cannot use Simconnect, so it cannot log Simconnect reads. That line comes about either as a result of a "LogSimC= ..." line in the INI file, or 0BB6 being Monitored on the right-hand side of the Logging options page. There's also a new LogExtras value (1024) which logs Aileron and Elevator offsets, added specifically to track down another user's Helo Trim problem (which turned out to be not a problem). That will probably disappear next interim update, maybe to be replaced by a similar option to find out why the old joystick interface is working on your system but I can't get anything from DirectInput. Regards Pete

They don't anyway on the calibrations tab. What about, then, in the calibration tab? The axis assignment method used in FSUIPC4 differs in one major respect to that in FSUIPC3 -- FSUIPC4 uses DirectInput, part of DirectX, whereas FSUIPC3 uses the old Windows joystick API throughout. FSUIPC4 does still use the old joystick API for buttons. Can you assign joystick buttons in FSUIPC4? (not Goflight ones, which are different). Anyway, since the DirectInput operations into Windows made by FSUIPC4 are independent of FS, it is rather hard to see how installing SP1 has changed anything. Similarly there's been no changes in FSUIPC4 in that area -- I am using direct assignments via FSUIPC4 quite happily. But then I'm not using Vista Ultimate. Ah .. but I do have a Vista Home Premium installation of FSX+SP1. I'll just try that ... [LATER] No, that was okay too. It's rather puzzling, but I think the area to look at is more likely to be DirectX than FSX or SimConnect. Let me know some more details (calibration okay if FSX has the assignments, button assignments okay), and I'll see what extra logging we can use to narrow down the problem. Unfortunately I am away from Thursday for a week, so there may be a delay. Incidentally, it is not necessary to run as Administrator, or with UAC off, for normal flying. The Run As Administrator bit is only needed for Registration. Regards Pete

Rightodd that I never had a problem like it before. Still, it is fixed now. Good. thanks -- though of course still remove the last character if it is '\'. ;-). I recognised what it was doing because my installer has suffered in the same way, in the early days! ;-) Pete

Phew. Thanksyou had me worried. Anyway, I did find and fix that little bug, though it wouldn't have affected what you're doing. Regards Pete

I don't think it was anything specific that FSCopilot was doing, but something strange about the timing or presense of the SimConnect response AFTER SP1 install -- but only when FSCopilot was also installed. After issuing the SimConnect_Open, I issue a CallDispatch and expect a response telling me it is okay and the version numbers of FS and SimConnect. That never arrived, but only in this odd circumstance. I have changed the PFC startup code (which is in FSUIPC) to use the same method as FSUIPC does -- via Messages to a Message window, and that seems to work consistently now. Whilst I have your attention I should point out the difficulty I had installing FSCopilot 1.7oh. It's okay, I see you have replied in the other (correct) thread. Regards Pete

The log seems to show something rather different to what you describe, but perhaps it's a matter of interpretation. It shows the Helo Trim (0BBE) and the Elevator Axis (0BB2) being EXACTLY THE SAME all the time, as if they are the same axis! How are you setting the trim? I tested using NUM keys 1 and 7 for all trim changes. I'm afraid i didn't ask you to log all axes -- but something is really very very strange as shown in the log. The log seems to show no time whatsoever with "neutralised trim". Instead the trim = elevator setting all the way, as if the elevator axis was always zero (centred) and you are using trim exclusively. More information needed. I cannot reproduce anything like that here (and the FSUIPC code hasn't changed, of course). Maybe I need to set up my joystick input exactly like you. I assume you are using the default Bell helo? If not, what? Pete

No. Don't do that. If you uninstall the SDK the SP1A SDK installer will tell you it can't install because you haven't got the original. It checks that you have the original installed, THEN it does the uninstall and installs the new one. Pete

Something is seriously wrong with either the FSX SimConnect installation, or a security ptrogram (firewall or antivirus or similar) is interfering. I notice you had 4.10 installed before 4.103. Was that the same? Has it been the same since you installed SP1? These error returns -- especially a different one from SP1's SimConnect and from the original release SimConnect -- should mean something, so I'll ask Microsoft. But meanwhile you should send all this information to tell_fs@microsoft.com, along with as much information about your system as possible, especially security type add-on programs. If you had it all working with FSX before you applied SP1 then something must have gone wrong during the install. When you say you tried everything from the "stickies", did you include repairing SimConnect as listed in the FSX Help Announcement? It may be that you need to do that again, but this time delete BOTH of the WinSxS SimConnect folders -- there will be one for 60905 and one for 61242. Then run the FSX repair from the DVD, then uninstall SP1 and re-install it. That's the only way i know until we get better guidance from MS. Regards Pete

Well, if it is a connection problem with SimConnect then FSUIPC would surely be suffering much more, as it is 99.9% dependent on SimConnect. If its logs show no problems, and its facilities are all working (assuming you are using FSUIPC 4.10 or later, of course, not a pre-SP1 version), then it would seem to point more towards the GoFlight DLLs using something which has changed in SP1. In fact it was a set of symptoms similar to those you are getting with GoFlight which made FSUIPC 4.09 and earlier mostly useless once SP1 was installed. Quite a few add-on makers are having to make revisions for SP1. Regards Pete

So Panda was in a mess, not SimConnect? How odd. Anyway, go flying now and have fun! Pete

Ah, yes. For the 15 user configurations. You had me worried there. The FSUIPC thing isn't like this at all. FSUIPC's aircraft specific sections are complete calibrations, the works. Many possible lines per aircraft. The PFC system limits you to 15 different configurations at max. Each assignment is only one line in the INI file. I'd not call that extravagant, and it certainly won't slow the program's actions down at all. In fact it is probably faster than doing pattern patching on substrings and so on, as in FSUIPC.

Did I implement aircraft-specific assignments in PFC too? I don't remember that? I thought it was mostly based on changing quadrants. Sorry, I'd have to read the documentation for that. Does it say you can? Regards Pete

I don't know how the GoFlight drivers are coded, but maybe they need updating for SP1. I really don't know, sorry. I don't use GoFlight. Not according to other experts it doesn't, though an uninstall and reinstall of SP1 itself won't take long and can't do any harm. I am still waiting for a definitive answer to repairing FSX+SP1 so I can update my "FSX Help" announcement accordingly. Regards Pete

Okay .... I managed to find and install FSCopilot 1.7 -- what a task though. Please see below! The non-appearance of the PFC menu entry seems to be due to FSUIPC not seeing the response to then Simconnect_Open call it makes for PFC. I'm not sure why, but I have devised a work-around and tested it here. Please look for FSUIPC4 interim version 4.104 in the FSX Downloads announcement later tonight. Meanwhile, please check my report below and forward it for me. Regards Pete =========================== PROBLEM WITH FSCOPILOT INSTALLER My FSX folder is G:\FSX. It tried to install FSCopilot.dll into "G:\FS\Modules", which of course failed as there's no folder "G:\FS". I see it is still in Beta, so maybe it will be fixed -- but perhaps you could notify the author if you are Beta testing it. I suspect it is getting the install path from the Registry, and expecting it to end with a "" -- which in fact is entirely optional, and depends upon how FSX was installed. He's assuming that this \ is there and overwriting the "X" instead. Worse, the installer doesn't check for an error when it tries to create G:\FS\Modules\FSCopilot.dll, so it fails silently with no sign of FSCopilot.dll anywhere. Luckily the same DLL was also installed into FS9, which did have the '\', so I copied it over.

This afternoon I did done some tests on the helo trim facility, and I have found a bug, but it doesn't seem to fit your observations. Not only that but this is an original bug -- it was in the FSUIPC4 from the moment the Helo trim option was included. I can only think that some time differences with SP1 has made it become more of a problem than it was before. The bug is that when the trimmed value for the axis was computed (whilst the elevator axis value was "en route" via my Calibrations to FS as an "axis event"), the code was also writing the value back to the FSUIPC axis offsets but with the sign reversed! Now, I can't see why this could do any harm to anything except programs designed to manipulate axes via the FSUIPC offsets. It should definitely not interfere with the values actually used by FSX otherwise. I cannot reproduce the symptoms you describe at all, no matter what I do. But maybe the bug I have fixed will also fix your problemmaybe. The fix will be in interim version 4.104 which I'll provide via the FSX Downloads announcement tonight. There's another fix in it too -- for the PFC menu when FSCopilot is being used. If you still get the problem, please do some logging of it, using 4.104, as follows: Add: Debug=Please LogExtras=1024 to the [General] section of FSUIPC4.INI. Load FSX, go to FSUIPC4's Logging page, and set monitoring, to the normal log, of offsets 0BB2 and 0BBE, both as type S16. Thanks, Pete

Yes, good. You could also follow the suggestion in my installation instructions and say that you always trust software signed by me (Peter L Dowson), and then it won't ask your permission again. But FSUIPC doesn't get a chance to run -- FSUIPC uses SimConnect, part of FSX, to talk to FSX. SimConnect uses TCP/IP, an Internet protocol. Your virus checker is hooking into the TCP/IP part of windows and crashing FSX. As I keep telling you, the software is FSX. It is called "FSX.EXE". That is the only process involved in all of this. SimConnect is part of the FSX.EXE process and loads FSUIPC as a DLL into the FSX process. I really don't know how many ways there are of telling you the exact same thing! You don't seem to read what I write! :-( Pete

Phew! Thank goodness for that! Thanks for letting me know! Regards Pete

FSUIPC is not a "process" so it cannot know anything about FSUIPC. What is crashing is SimConnect, which is loading and talking to FSUIPC via TCP/IP. All this is part of FSX -- the process is called FSX.EXE, nothing to do with FSUIPC. There is no way FSUIPC needs any "permission". It doesn't use anything which needs permission, and in any case it is not running because your "Panda" program is preventing FSX from running it! Please do read things more carefully. I'm sure you are continuing to misunderstand this. Pete

What exactly says "non-aircraft"? My code does check for and accept SIMCONNECT_SIMOBJECT_TYPE_AIRCRAFT and SIMCONNECT_SIMOBJECT_TYPE_HELICOPTER so if they aren't getting through to me with those checks they must somehow be provided as something else. The only other types listed are: SIMCONNECT_SIMOBJECT_TYPE_BOAT SIMCONNECT_SIMOBJECT_TYPE_GROUND and I eliminate those for obvious reasons. It'll be the user object ID. I've no idea what is going on there -- I've made no changes at all. Maybe MS have included a new bug -- or they've added some sort of "autotrim" mechanism? I'll have a look when I can, but it'll be in about two weeks' time -- I've got a load on here then I'm off for a week. I have made a note to check into it. Meanwhile if you can collect any more specific data it may be useful. Regards Pete

When you right-click on any program icon or short cut the menu should certainly include a "Run as administrator" option -- unless perhaps you are not even an administrator when you logged on? I don't know about that case, but on WinXP you had to log off and log back on again using the admin account. Obviously if your Vista is not the English language version it will say something dfferent. There's a lot of things you are prevented from doing on Vista unless you can be an administrator on occasion! Regards Pete

There is no minimum for WideClient. As long as the machine supports Windows 98 or later and is networking okay. The need for any power, memory, and so on is for whatever programs you want to run on top. Regards Pete

I've not heard of that one. but I do know that FSX (Simconnect in particular) doesn't get on very well with several virus and firewall programs. Even when they don't actually crash it they slow it down or make it fail in some other way. I use Norton. its antivirus seems okay, and both its firewall and the default Windows XP firewall are okay. But Norton isn't cheap and it is a bit on the 'heavy' side (lots of it). You are forgetting, FSUIPC4 isn't even getting to run! The problem you have is actually stopping SimConnect from running properly -- it is SimConnect which is crashing. SimConnect is part of FSX, so the actual program you need to give full permissions to is FSX.EXE. Please, send a full report of your problems, including the full name and version of the "Panada" program, to Microsoft at tell_fs@microsoft.com, so they can add it to their list of security programs to either deal with or warn folks about. Then, if you want to carry on, if you cannot find a way around it I can only suggest not using that program, at least not when you want to use FSX. Regards Pete