FSUIPC & FSACARS flight log reporting

[HB-HFK]

Hello Pete,

 

I am a staff member of Air Geneva (www.airgeneva.org) a long-standing Swiss Virtual Airline based in Geneva.

 

We use the antiquated FSACARS utility for gathering flight data and sending flight logs to our server where the data is then processed by our in-house system and our website updated (pilot accounts / statistics, etc.)

 

Yesterday, 25th December 2013 at around 17:00 - 17:30 local time, FSACARS stopped working altogether at the same moment for all users in flight at that moment. I was able to send the last completed flight log at 16:46.

 

FSACARS starts / connects normally to FS but stops recording any data after removal of parking brakes and then crashes (actually, it closes down).

 

Although this could be an issue on our side we feel the sudden and collective nature of the problem we encountered may have something to do with FSUIPC.  

 

We are aware of the signature key security issues earlier this year that required installing a new temporary version for both FS9 and FSX, followed by definitive versions, latest in September for FS9 and a few days ago for FSX.

 

I was still using the temporary version (FSX) so I installed the newest version 4.927a but it doesn't make any difference.

 

Before we start searching on our side, can you please kindly tell me if something was activated on your side yesterday which might explain the sudden malfunction of our FSACARS. If so, is there anything you might be able to do or recommend to fix our problem? 

 

Thank you for your help.

 

Kevin 

 

 

[HB-HFK]

Hello again Pete,

 

Just a quick update to let you know that the problem seems to have been solved by itself. Since early this afternoon flights have resumed normally and FSACARS seems to be working like a charm.

 

However, the problem never happened before (in over 10 years of using FSACARS) and I would still greatly appreciate if you could give us your precious feedback on this matter to help us get some sort of perspective on what happened over the last 24 hours.

 

Many thanks in advance,

 

Best Regards,

 

Kevin

[Pete Dowson]

Just a quick update to let you know that the problem seems to have been solved by itself. Since early this afternoon flights have resumed normally and FSACARS seems to be working like a charm.

 

However, the problem never happened before (in over 10 years of using FSACARS) and I would still greatly appreciate if you could give us your precious feedback on this matter to help us get some sort of perspective on what happened over the last 24 hours.

 

I think the answer is fairly obvious from your first post:

 

FSACARS stopped working altogether at the same moment for all users in flight at that moment.

 

There is absolutely no way anything on each users systems can do that. It must be the Server.

 

FSUIPC gets the blame for many things, but magically affecting numerous user's systems simultaneously is a first! ;-)

 

Pete

[HB-HFK]

Yes, that makes sense,indeed. It's reassuring to know. I'll pass on the message and we'll check with the server provider.

 

Thank you for your quick answer.

 

Kevin