WideFS Registration Bug

[westes]

Pete, I am having a strange registration problem with WideFS. For about six months now, after about 5 to 30 minutes of flight inside FS2004, WideFS pops up a modal dialog that says "unable to start WideFS server" or words to that effect. In the registration dialog in FS2004, it is showing WideFS as not registered, but the registration activation buttons are all locked out!! I did pay the registration fee. I did activate the registration code. For many months, WideFS server started normally and was able to talk to WideFS clients.

I have been upgrading the FSUIPC and WideFS components together every month, but now that I am in this weird mode the upgrades seem to do nothing to change the condition.

How do I recover?

[Pete Dowson]

Pete, I am having a strange registration problem with WideFS. For about six months now, after about 5 to 30 minutes of flight inside FS2004, WideFS pops up a modal dialog that says "unable to start WideFS server" or words to that effect.

For six months? Did you not think it worth reporting till now? My eyesight problems make it much more difficult for me to deal with such things now, whereas maybe I could have attended to it any time in the last six months!

In the registration dialog in FS2004, it is showing WideFS as not registered, but the registration activation buttons are all locked out!! I did pay the registration fee. I did activate the registration code. For many months, WideFS server started normally and was able to talk to WideFS clients.

For "many months"? With FS2004? Then 6 months not?

I need WideServer and FSUIPC Logs, and your FSUIPC.KEY file. Please don't post them here. ZIP them and email them to me at petedowson@btconnect.com. I will deal with them when I can, but I'm afraid it may not be so quickly at present.

Regards,

Pete

[westes]

Pete, I thought it very worth reporting, but as I told you recently I have been locked out of the SimFlight Forums, and no one would respond to any of many e-mails asking to reset my password. Finally, about 45 days ago, you interceded with them on my behalf and they re-issued the password. I finally got around to doing this, sorry.

Yes, I installed WideFS almost as soon as you released the FSUIPC for FS2004, and I have used it successfully since then up until the time I see this weird lockout of WideFS.

I am sending the requested files now.

[Pete Dowson]

Yes, I installed WideFS almost as soon as you released the FSUIPC for FS2004, and I have used it successfully since then up until the time I see this weird lockout of WideFS.

Okay. So we need to identify what changed at that time. Can you recall what you might have installed or changed?

From the logs I see that the aircraft you are using is accessing FSUIPC in an incorrect (illegal) way. I'm wondering if that was something you installed about that time?

BTW, I just noticed that you said:

In the registration dialog in FS2004, it is showing WideFS as not registered , but the registration activation buttons are all locked out!!

... but HOW do you see from the dialogue that WideFS is not registered? There's no such message for that in the dialogue -- the button is enabled if it is not registered, it is disabled if it is registered -- so it sounds like the dialogue shows it correctly registered, as do the FSUIPC and WideServer Log files you sent.

Unfortunately, however, you seem to have loaded FS and closed it 22 seconds later, so although WideServer is running okay and awaiting clients, it never gets any before you terminate things. And I see you are using FSUIPC 3.21. Please recheck with the current one, 3.22, as released about five weeks ago.

Thanks,

Pete

[westes]

Not sure what changed when this broke. My guess is that I installed some add-on aircraft, but I have no idea which one, when, or what it installed.

I noticed data size read errors in my widefs client log file, and I am sending this to you by e-mail.

I just upgraded to the latest FSUIPC as well, before producing that log file.

Regarding WideFS not being registered, maybe I am just inferring something wrong here. In the area where you register WideFS on the FSUIPC About dialog, there is some text that warns about "You must register WideFS...." I'm guessing that this is static text and you simply never bother to change it after registration. If so, my apologies for misunderstanding it.

The WideFS client is 6.221 as well, and it says it is "connected". The application on the client machine using FSUIPC is Project Magenta's pmTCAS.

Note that what I am typically seeing is the WideFS client claims to connect, no data is passed, and after 5 to 20 minutes out of nowhere the WideFS server gives the modal dialog about how it is not able to start.

[Pete Dowson]

I noticed data size read errors in my widefs client log file, and I am sending this to you by e-mail.

You can't get any data to have errors in unless WideFS is registered okay, so this is getting weirdly away from your original report.

Regarding WideFS not being registered If so, my apologies for misunderstanding it.

If WideFS is registered, the button beneath that text is disabled and the text on it reads "WideFS is registered". Isn't that clear enough? Sorry, but I don't think I've had any other misunderstandings like that.

Your report said this:

after about 5 to 30 minutes of flight inside FS2004, WideFS pops up a modal dialog that says "unable to start WideFS server" or words to that effect.

and it is surely this that we were out to resolve?

Note that what I am typically seeing is the WideFS client claims to connect, no data is passed, and after 5 to 20 minutes out of nowhere the WideFS server gives the modal dialog about how it is not able to start.

Can I see what this modal dialogue looks like, please? And at least I need the WideServer LOG file showing this part, because that is where the relevant error message will be. You've not shown me that yet.

Looking at the Client log you did send, it seems that the connection is timing out all the time, every 10-12 seconds. I can't tell why without the Server log, and even then it may be difficult, but it certainly looks like either your have a network problem, or the FS PC is unable to give WideServer enough time to process messages.

Have you been making any changes to the WideServer or WideClient INI files? If so I'd recommend to retest with the defaults (plus of course the ServerName addition at the WideClient end).

Regards,

Pete