PMDG's new B747-400 and FSUIPC5

[stopnicki]

Hello:

I just want to post here, an issue that has been reported in the B747-400 v3 forum of PMDG, and that I experienced myself.

After downloading and installing the new version of the B747-400, compatible with P3Dv4, it would load without cockpit screens, no landing gear, no response to joysticks and several other issues.

Somebody disabled the newly installed FSUIPC5 ("original version", not the ..01) and the B747-400 worked fine.

I disabled FSUIPC5, and this also solved the PMDG B747-400 for me (and apparently several others)

I, and others, left a help ticket with PMDG's Technical folks and I am hopeful they will connect with Pete and will soon find the reason for, and a solution to, this issue.

I post so that others who might be experiencing this, are aware.

Regards,

Roberto

[Galager]

Hi,

I have the same issue, 747 won't work if FSUIPC is running.

If I remove FSUIPC DLL from module folder, 747 works perfectly.

Looks like there is a glitch between FSUIPC and PMDG 747 somehow.

Jean-Pierre

[Pete Dowson]

15 minutes ago, stopnicki said:

Somebody disabled the newly installed FSUIPC5 ("original version", not the ..01) and the B747-400 worked fine.

I disabled FSUIPC5, and this also solved the PMDG B747-400 for me (and apparently several others)

Is all this with Registered FSUIPC's only, or either? Can you try with the FSUIPC5.KEY file moved out of the Modules folder (which renders it unregistered).

Pete

 

[stopnicki]

Hello Pete:

Removed the "...KEY"

And all worked!

Roberto

[stopnicki]

Please let me know how else I can assist.

Roberto

[stopnicki]

I am sorry to report that after shutting down P3Dv4 and later starting it again, with the unregistered FSUIPC5, resulted in the same problems with PMDG's B747-400.

I shut down P3Dv4, I disabled the FSUIPC.dll and restarted P3Dv4.

B747-400 is now working well.

Regards,

Roberto 

[Pete Dowson]

4 hours ago, stopnicki said:

Removed the "...KEY"

And all worked!

So, it is related to INI file settings or some other actions only happening when FSUIPC is registered? I hope PMDG can fix it -- I don't have their code source to doebug their aircraft.

3 hours ago, stopnicki said:

I am sorry to report that after shutting down P3Dv4 and later starting it again, with the unregistered FSUIPC5, resulted in the same problems with PMDG's B747-400.

Are you contradicting your previous post? If you removed the KEY file then you'd have to restart P3D4 in any case to do the previous test. So what's the difference?

Pete

 

[IfikratisK]

I just saw a thread in Avsim where Robert from PMDG was advising against FSUIPC because of "interferences", then I head here and see this topic. I have bought FSUIPC v5 on release and installed the  PMDG 747 v3 yesterday on P3D v4. My system is completely clean after format.

My PMDG 747 v3 is working fine, there are no issues with FSUIPC v5 registered. Maybe you should look somewhere else or its another conflict, but here everything works fine.

Edited June 4, 2017 by IfikratisK

[Pete Dowson]

17 minutes ago, IfikratisK said:

My PMDG 747 v3 is working fine, there are no issues with FSUIPC v5 registered. Maybe you should look somewhere else or its another conflict, but here everything works fine.

So it all runs fine on your system? Please send full details, including your system details, to PMDG. I doubt many are "complaining" that it all works fine! :-)

PMDG have sent me a v3 747 to test with, but when I load it, no matter whether FSUIPC is registered or not, or even installed, P3D4 hangs with a black screen, no menu, no progress bar, no nothing!

So as you said, something else must be going on!

Pete

 

[IfikratisK]

Hi Pete,

I am 100% positive. There should be another factor into play. My system is clean after format, Win10, no antivirus. Installed only P3D v4. FSUIPC5 registered and PMDG 747 QOTSII for v4 are working fine. The aircraft loads as expected, all screens are up an running normally. External model, gear, FMC, autopilot, everything is playing normally.  I already posted that on Avsim's thread. Hope this clears out soon. It should be a conflict for people who also have P3D v3 installed I suspect.

Edited June 4, 2017 by IfikratisK

[stopnicki]

Hi Pete:

I am not contradicting my first "no KEY" post.

I removed .KEY, as you suggested.

Shut P3Dv4. And upon restarting it, the B747-400 worked. I sent my first reporting email.

Shut P3Dv4 again. A second time.

Then restarted P3Dv4 and, the B747-400, did not work, showing the same issues as before. I then sent the second reporting email.

Since then, I "disabled" the FSUIPC.dll by renaming it (old_......) and the B747-400 has been working OK through a number of simulator (and computer) restarts.

The P3Dv3 version, that also re-installs automatically, has always run the B747-400 OK, every time, with the registered FSUIPC that I own for it.

I will happily try to help with testing any software that might help in diagnosing whatever is going on.

Regards,

Roberto

 

 

 

[jgoggi]

Same problem for me: I had the 747 for P3D v3 and FSUIPC 4. Then I bought P3D v4 and FSUIPC 5. As requested by PMDG, I uninstalled the v3 747, then installed both v3 and v4. When launching the 747 in v4 I get black screens and no landing gear. If I remove FSUIPC.dll, the airplane loads normally. 

[falconrae]

Same problem for me. 

I found that if I load the 747 then load the default aircraft and then load the 747 again (all in the same sim session), it resolves the problem, but not sure why?

[Joerg Alvermann]

7 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

PMDG have sent me a v3 747 to test with, but when I load it, no matter whether FSUIPC is registered or not, or even installed, P3D4 hangs with a black screen, no menu, no progress bar, no nothing!

 

Hi Pete,

that's probably** due to simconnect not able to initialize properly. I had the same behaviour on my system.
At my end it was only simconnect.cfg missing in ../AppData/Roaming/Lockheed Martin/Prepar3d v4 
I copied the one from v3 to solve this.

Joerg

** P.S.You should have a logfile in the PMDG/QOTS (don't have the exact name atm) subfolder within the P3Dv4 main folder  

[Pete Dowson]

7 hours ago, stopnicki said:

I am not contradicting my first "no KEY" post.

I removed .KEY, as you suggested.

Shut P3Dv4. And upon restarting it, the B747-400 worked. I sent my first reporting email.

Shut P3Dv4 again. A second time.

Then restarted P3Dv4 and, the B747-400, did not work, showing the same issues as before. I then sent the second reporting email.

The fact that it varies with no change other than a simple restart does indicate some other factor involved. See the message before yours for a user with no problems at all. And my case is the other extreme -- the 747 hangs P3D4 with a black screen no matter whether FSUIPC is installed or not!

1 hour ago, falconrae said:

I found that if I load the 747 then load the default aircraft and then load the 747 again (all in the same sim session), it resolves the problem, but not sure why?

Well, I can't even try that here as the 747 hangs P3D4 on first load.

31 minutes ago, Joerg Alvermann said:

that's probably** due to simconnect not able to initialize properly. I had the same behaviour on my system.
At my end it was only simconnect.cfg missing in ../AppData/Roaming/Lockheed Martin/Prepar3d v4 

But Simconnect.cfg is only ever used or needed for a Networked connection to SimConnect on the P3D PC. The file used locally is Simconnect.xml, butt the default settings for that are fine and suite all local applications and only needs modifying for remote use.

Everything else using SimConnect is running fine.

Anyway, it is obvious to me now that this is NOT the place for reports about PMDG problems -- they need to be posted to PMDG's Support as only they can do anything with them.

Pete

 

[jgoggi]

Couldn't it be that some default options in FSUIPC block the loading of the 747 systems?

[Pete Dowson]

Please, try adding the following to the FSUIPC5.INI file [General] section:

NoWeatherAtAll=Yes
ProvideAIdata=No

then see if the 747 is okay. These parameters eliminate two main requests from P3D.

For an unregistered FSUIPC5, which therefore does not scan joysticks or buttons, the only other part I can really eliminate as a test is the L:Var access into PNELS.DLL. I wil add another parameter for that and advise here, in this thread. But please try the above in any case.

Pete

 

[jgoggi]

Thanks Pete. Going to try tonight after I go back home from work. I hope someone else can test this now and report...

[Galager]

24 minutes ago, Pete Dowson said:

Please, try adding the following to the FSUIPC5.INI file [General] section:

NoWeatherAtAll=Yes
ProvideAIdata=No

then see if the 747 is okay. These parameters eliminate two main requests from P3D.

For an unregistered FSUIPC5, which therefore does not scan joysticks or buttons, the only other part I can really eliminate as a test is the L:Var access into PNELS.DLL. I wil add another parameter for that and advise here, in this thread. But please try the above in any case.

Pete

 

Hi Pete,

I just tried adding these 2 lines to the config file, same result, black screens and no landing gear.

It works for me on Win10x64 with FSUIPC5 and 747 but not on the Win7x64.

J-P

[Joerg Alvermann]

1 hour ago, Pete Dowson said:

But Simconnect.cfg is only ever used or needed for a Networked connection to SimConnect on the P3D PC. The file used locally is Simconnect.xml, butt the default settings for that are fine and suite all local applications and only needs modifying for remote use.

Everything else using SimConnect is running fine.

Anyway, it is obvious to me now that this is NOT the place for reports about PMDG problems -- they need to be posted to PMDG's Support as only they can do anything with them.

Pete

 

Of course, you're right. I meant simconnect.xml when I wrote simconnect.cfg.
In my case simconnect.xml was completely missing in C:\Users\...\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3d V4 when PMDG 747 was not loading at all in V4

Copying simconnect.xml from v3 solved it for me.

Joerg

[Pete Dowson]

Well, I've done some more tests here. This is on my Win7 development PC:

1. If I load up my normal default, a 738 at EGLL, then when I subsequently load the PMDG 747, it reults in a black screen solid hang in P3D4, needing Task Manager to terminate it.

 

2. If instead I select the 747 at the initial P3D4 menu, it loads okay, no problems detected AND it does this whether or not FSUIPC is installed or not, and unregistered or registered – and with no special eliminations needed.

 

3. With the 747 loaded as above, I selected an innocuous aircraft (Piper Club, as it happens), then the 747 again ... it loaded okay again.

 

4. So, I loaded my normal default 738 (the ProSim model, with no cockpit, as it happens).  THEN back to the 747 ....  again, all working!

 

Just to check whether something had changed in the 747 files by getting it fully loaded and working, I then did an extra test:

 

5. After all the above, If I close P3D4 the restart it and load up my normal default (the 738 at EGLL), then when I subsequently load the PMDG 747, it works – no hang in a black screen.

 

I don’t know what can be done with this information, but I’m seeing that it is all okay here providing it is first loaded once as the first selected aircraft. This seems to put something right so that it works fine on all subsequent loads.

 

Of course, the original symptom here is nothing like those reported by your other users – it was definitely a solid hang with a black screen.

 

[LATER]

Unfortunately, the result 5 above is inconsistent. It worked fine on two P3D4 restarts, but on the third, some time later, I got my usual black screen hang when changing from my normal aircraft to the 747.

 

Pete

[Pete Dowson]

1 hour ago, Galager said:

I just tried adding these 2 lines to the config file, same result, black screens and no landing gear.

It works for me on Win10x64 with FSUIPC5 and 747 but not on the Win7x64.

Interesting that Wi7 results are different -- something certainly to report to PMDg.

I've just found that the "NoWeatherAtAll" setting doesn't do anything in FSUIPC5. I'm fixing that, and also adding another:

NoPanelsAccess=Yes

which prevents FSUIPC accessing the P3D4 PANELS.DLL functions to read and write L:Vars. This action, along with Weather and AITraffic amounts to all the "extra" things,, on top of just waiting for SimConnect to supply data for the Offsets, that FSUIPC does, at least when not registered. When registered, of course, it also scans joysticks and keypresses.

Version 5.102 (which has some fixes too in the Joystick Scanning) will replace the full 5.10 installer later today. Please try that with both the two parameters mentioned above AND this new one for panels access.

Pete

 

[Cowhorns32]

Hi Pete!  Thanks for creating FSUIPC for P3D4 and continuing to support the community.  My FS Test Computer operating system in a Win7-64.  Installed P3Dv4 last week and amazed at what my lesser computer can do without OOM CTDs.  FSUIPC is an absolute must for me (FS Commander, Joystick controls, VAS monitoring "No Need Now LOL") so purchased a license and installed on my Test Computer as soon as it was released.  Was pulling my hair out trying to install 74 into P3D4 Saturday night.  Crossed out all of the differentials that could have been causing the black display screens and no gear (simconnect, anti-virus or firewall) to finally get it to work after removing FSUIPC from the modules folder. 

Whatever I can do to help test any remadies please let me know.  I will submit a ticket to PMDG about the problem if they are unaware (from my search on their AVSIM Forum I think they are most likely aware of most problems along with simmers personal ailments.)  Short of installing P3D4 on my main FS systems running Windows 10 (hopefully when all the kinks are worked out and have P3D3 running great) I would be happy to try anything out on my test computer since I am off today.

Thanks Again

Mark

[stopnicki]

Hello Pete:

Added the three parameters to the .INI file. Yesterday I had already changed to the "FSUIPC 5.101 TEST" version.

PMDG B747-400 is now working.

I have started and restarted the simulator several times, opening different versions of the B747-400 and everytime, it has worked.

But, it will only work if I first load a default (I use the Piper Cub) airplane.

(If I load the sim with the B747-400, it will not work at all, even if I next load a default and then try to reload the B747-400 in the same session)

I am also running Windows7 Pro (SP 1).

Regards,

Roberto

[Pete Dowson]

1 hour ago, stopnicki said:

Added the three parameters to the .INI file. Yesterday I had already changed to the "FSUIPC 5.101 TEST" version.

PMDG B747-400 is now working.

Great!

Now could you remove one of those at a time, so I can see which action of the three is causing PMDG grief, please?

1 hour ago, stopnicki said:

But, it will only work if I first load a default (I use the Piper Cub) airplane.

(If I load the sim with the B747-400, it will not work at all, even if I next load a default and then try to reload the B747-400 in the same session)

That's strange it is the ther way around here!

This seems to be reminiscent of similar PMDG loading problems in FSX in the past, unless my memory is failing me.

All your information will be useful to PMDG, so please don't forget to send the details to them too.

Thanks,
Pete