Pete Dowson

You can add logic to FSUIPC using Lua plug-ins, activated either by external evens like buttons and so on, or internal ones. However, I don't think that is relevant to this problem: Surely the problem there is that the throttle should simply do what it is told. The "input sensors" are irrelevant as their values aren't being used (or shouldn't be). I don't understand. The throttle axis is normally disregarded by FS in any case when the autothrottle is armed. What makes you think it isn't? Are you sure your motor is not simply reacting to all the silly little throttle changes the FS A/T makes? What you probably really need is a partial smoothing action on the throttle read-outs. Regards Pete

There's are several "instructor station" packages which provide quite a lot of scope for these, and more of course. When it gets down to really technical failures you probably need to make them aircraft-specific. The Lua plug-ins facility in FSUIPC provides a good opportunity to add a multitude of failure types, too, used with the FSUIPC offset lists. My son lives near A Guardia, just north of Portugal. (He used to live in the middle of Madrid). Whilst this time I think we probably spent more time in Portugal, in fact, than Spain, as the bigger shops and more economical eating establishments are "over the border". We also visited the Port houses in Porto (we fly via Porto for convenience), and the National Park to the North East of Porto. We spent a week walking in the Picos da Europa a few years ago, travelling from Madrid and stopping en route for wine-tasting in the Duero district. Regards Pete

No. I've never found a way of changing any of the performance or graphics aspects in-flight. Sorry. Pete

Known? strange, then, that no one has written to me about it. If this aircraft uses FSUIPC and has run into a problem with later versions, someone should talk to me about it. There is no way I'm ever going to be able to buy and test all add-ons for FS for every new release of FSUIPC! Did the person who determined this ever state why? It sounds like a possible bug in the Captain Sim add-on: maybe they are not clearing the flag they must be setting in FSUIPC which tells it to disconnect controls. FSUIPC has a 10-12 second timeout on updates to that flag in case of bad or hung apps. If this is all it is I'm sure it is something they can fix quickly enough. I'm not aware of any difference between version 4.323 and later versions which would change these things, though, unless it worked by fluke before because of some older FSUIPC bug now fixed. I really would need more information to help. Why has no one who knows what they are talking about contacted me? Regards Pete

Actually, thanks for trying to help here, Jim, but if you only want to run applications on a Networked PC, and don't want to use any of the User Facilities in FSUIPC, then you only need a WideFS registration, not an FSUIPC one too. Regards Pete

Well, FSUIPC4 agrees with Joyview (but FSUIPC numbering starts from 0 instead of 1) -- the 4 devices it found where 0,1,4,5. All the others errored, same as in Joyview. So, the mystery deepens. FSUIPC4 sees the devices but NEVER (?) sees any axis values change? You ARE waggling the levers aren't you? FSUIPC ignores the first 10 or 20 readings to avoid bad "wake-up" values.. Then it only sees changes. Maybe you could post your FSUIPC4.INI file here, please. I may need to add some more logging, to see what happens after those " Trying: "HKLM\..." lines. Regards Pete

The PMDG aircraft have their own autopilots which aren't related to the default FS autopilot used by most other aircraft. You have to use the shortcuts provided by PMDG. Regards Pete

If the screen goes black, this is always due to video driver problems. Try setting FS into Window mode, instead of full screen, first. If the registration screen appears ready but then appears frozen then that is due to another add-on, usually Actigate.DLL, which is somehow interacting with the keyboard. Check for other add-in DLLs in the FS Modules folder and temporarily remove them before loading FS. Regards Pete

Hmm. Interesting. Does this mean the LJ45 is only suitable for really smooth runways? Or does it has some special mechanism for preventing pressure changes on the gear whilst accelerating for take-off inadvertently triggering the land-detection spoiler activation? Or does it activate in some other way? Erthat makes no sense -- FSUIPC is no way involved in operating the spoiler for either a GoFlight device or Shift+/. Can you explain how you arrive at this conclusion? And especially why do you think different versions of FSUIPC4 may be involved? FS9, not FSX which you just mentioned? If you have an aircraft model for FS9 which allows this without immediately deploying, you shouldn't have any problem, surely? Otherwise, how do you suggest it be done? Regards Pete

You don't need to do anything with Lua if you are a programmer and creating your own application. You can use whatever language you like (Lua included). You can create and edit FLT files in your program, and load them into FS using the facilities at offset 3F00 & following. FSUIPC version 4.50, the current release, works on all versions of FSX and ESP. Regards Pete

This is almost always caused by another add-in module in the FS modules folder which is hooking the keyboard and hanging because it is in an unexpected place. The main culprit is usually Actigate.DLL, though it only seems to do this on some systems (I've never been able to reproduce it here). Check your Modules folder for any non-FS modules that may be loading, Actigate.DLL especially. You may need to move them out temporarily to get passed this problem. Regards Pete

Version 4.4 is out of date and not supported. But FSUIPC doesn't touch anything you've not asked it to ... Since by default (i.e. with a default freshly-generated INI file), FSUIPC4 is doing anything except whatever may be asked of it by other programs (its main function in life being an interface for other programs and add-ons), it must be something else you have running or installed which uses FSUIPC when it is there and not when you don't. FSUIPC is used by large numbers of LevelD 767 users without any such problems, which would obviously be a killer if not avoidable, so I think it really must be something you've set or installed on your PC. Regards Pete

Right click on the DLL and check the signature. If that says it is okay it most certainly is not infected or tampered with in any way. Note that in the new versions of FSUIPC the signature is changed to SimFlight instead of Peter L Dowson (because sadly none of the Certificate Authorities will now sell licenses to individuals, only companies! :-( ). Regards Pete

Neither FSUIPC nor WideFS care about file sharing access -- they don't use it. No, it was the Protocol. If you had to explicitly set the Server name or address then probably the broadcasting isn't working (workgroup names different, probably). When you tell it which server to connect to you need to tell it what protocol to use as well, because otherwise it only gets told by the broadcasts. Regards Pete

Why not use the same INI file from your old PC then? No idea why. There are two examples for this on Page 35 -- one most certainly designed for FS2004 -- but both including PAN_UP/DOWN etc controls. If FS is ignoring these then there's something wrong with your FS installation. More likely you've got some of the assignments wrong. Try enabling Event logging in the FSUIPC Logging options, then operate your hat, and check the FSUIPC LOG file to see what it reports. Regards Pete

I only just have time for this one reply before leavingI'm away now till the 24th. What about Joyview? Does that also show the axes? -- That's also important, because Joyview relies on the Joystick ID being intact. Re-installing FSX is well known by now to be rather fraught. It seems to cause more problems than it solves. Are you sure that SimConnect is all working okay? Check the FSUIPC4.LOG file, and its Install Log, see if there are any problems reported. Though I cannot think of anything that SimConnect could do to interfere with FSUIPC's DirectInput access. [EDIT] Final ideas before I disappear: 1) The DirectInput scanning in FSUIPC4 is repeated every time you re-enter the FSUIPC4 options, so try exiting and re-entering a few times, see if it can "re-discover" them. 2) There's some DirectX debugging options still in FSUIPC4. You can enable these as follows: Before running FSX, edit the FSUIPC4.INI file. Add these two lines to the [General] section (or replace them if there already): Debug=Please LogExtras=x200000 Run FSX, try the Axis assignments again, then look at the FSUIPC4.LOG file. Sorry, but I won't be around to help further till Friday 24th. Regards Pete

If you go to the Buttons & Switches tab, in FSUIPC options, or the Keys tab, you will see an ordinary Windows-type dialogue button which you can use to reload all those types of assignments (relevant to the Tab). Because macro files and Lua files might be implicated in such assignments, those are reloaded too. I'm amazed that you've got as far as developing Lua programs for FSUIPC, but have never had cause to change some edited assignment in the INI file and used the reload button to reload it!? Lua provides ways for you to do all that via the Debug library. A basic use of the debug library is made in the supplied ipcDebug.lua file. I'm not going to start messing about inside the Lua code itself to add more than what they provide, which looks certainly most adequate. Combine that with the Logging facilities and you should be well away. Lua doesn't provide a step-by-step trace or inspection capability, you have to build what you want into your program I think. What does that mean? There are no such libraries, at least as such -- the routines you call via ipc. are just more elaborate and thread-safe entries to the same routines in FSUIPC which can be called by C/C++ programs. They are intrinsic parts of FSUIPC. There's no way there's anything more to "give away" than already published in the sources in the FSUIPC SDK!! And they cannot possibly actually do anything outside of FSUIPC! I think all you need to do is make a file called ipc.lua and include in it dummy functions with all the names in. They don't need to do anything. You then have to add require "ipc" I think this uses the built-in "loadlib" function, which I've not tested. But it should work okay. it's Lua code, not mine. BTW according to the "Programming in Lua" book it is good practice to do this for any libraries you require even if you know they are effectively built-in or pre-loaded. Pete

XP's Program Files folder is just another folder, no privileges needed. Pete

No, that is incorrect. The Lua file scan is performed every time you press one of the "Reload" buttons on the Buttons, Keys, or Axes tabs. The same applies to Macro files. I've developed lots of Lua programs for my own cockpit and i've never had to reload FS. At present i wouldn't even know how to start on that (would you?), and I don't want to undertake unnecessary work. BTW if you are using FSUIPC4 you can use the FSUIPC4 Log Console window to view the results of loading your Lua programs in real time -- without the Lua logging option, of course (that only works on files). Regards Pete

In Vista, all "Program files" folders are protected against user alteration. Because FS9 is not Vista-aware, and does need to write to its own folders, Vista actually puts its files elsewhere and what you see, in Program Files, are mere aliasses, not the real files, and even if you could alter them it wouldn't affect the originals. There are only two ways around this that I know of -- either reinstall FS9 someplace else (C:\FS9 is nice and short), or start Windows Explorer by right-clicking it and selecting "run as administrator", which should give it enough privileges for you to see the real files and edit them. Quite honestly, you'll experience far fewer problems in the future with assorted add-ons if you reinstall FS9 outside the than accursed area. Pete

Well the error messages provided by the compiler are, as far as I know, the same as the ones put into the FSUIPC log (or the Lua program's own log, if you enable Lua logging in FSUIPC options) when FSUIPC's built-in Lua compiler tries to load the programs, so I don't think you achieve anything extra. Do let me know if I'm wrong though, and perhaps i might have to work out a way of providing dummy libraries. Regards Pete

It isn't detecting any DirectInput joysticks, then, or it cannot find a valid joystick number assignment to go with them. Please try using the attached utilities to see what can be detected. The JoyView one uses the Windows "joy" API (same as FSUIPC4 does for buttons) whilst DIView uses DirectInput (used by FSX for everything, but by FSUIPC4 only for axis assignment).. Does FSX see the axes? If not then it could be that your joystick drivers aren't 64-bit compatible. If FSX has no problems then I can only think that the Registry entries, the ones which relate the DirectInput identity of a joystick to its "joystick ID" number, are corrupted. Why did you re-install FSX by the way? It isn't normally advisable -- seems to create more problems than it solves. Or was this a Windows upgrade? If so, then maybe something went wrong with the joystick installs? BTW I'm away from tomorrow (Wednesday 15th) until Friday 24th, so apologies if I disappear before this is resolved. Regards Pete DIView.zip joyview.zip

I doubt that is is in any way related to the library. Do you have any other working FSUIPC applications? It may be the signature. Since 3.7 or so all my modules have been code-signed, for security against virus and other attacks. Right click on the DLL and look at the signature -- see if it says it is valid or ok. You could also check the FSUIPC.LOG file (in the modules folder) -- that would tell you too. If you check the User Guide it explains this and what to do. Otherwise it may be some registration problem. try removing the FSUIPC.KEY file. if it then works, it's either a bad registration or the system date is incorrect. Regards Pete

It cannot be 541A, which is part of this: 5418 4 MCP/FCU Knobs/Selectors S00-31 (Read/Write) Anyway, it's all really pretty much self evident. All offsets are accessible via the Offset controls in the drop-down assignments. There are Offset Byte, Word and Dword controls -- Byte = length 1 (8 bits), Word = length 2 (16 bits), Dword = length 4 (32 bits). If you are only changing one bit then Byte would be sufficient. The operations you can do are Set (to set a value -- changing the whole n bits), Setbits (to set one or more bits), Clrbits (to clear one or more bits) and Togglebits (to toggle one or more bits). There are also Inc and Dec and cyclic variants but you don't need any of those for sure. These are all listed in the dropdowns with meaningful names. You need the bits values -- bit 0 = value 1, bit 1 = value 2etc (just 2 x 2 x 2, n times). Basic arithmetic. Add them together for multiple bits. This becomes the parameter. Whether you want to set, clear or toggle depends on how the PM action works -- you need to refer to their documentation. Pete

All of the Lua libraries supported in FSUIPC -- both the standard ones and the ones I've added -- are built into FSUIPC and preloaded into your Lua process before it is executed. There's no need to refer to them anywhere else/ Pete