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KBOS Bug (Arrivals not spawning) Video & Logfile included


CardaNL

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Hello Feelthere,

Last couple of days I'm having problems with KBOS. I'm using the official Steam Tower!3D Pro (unmodded) and Nyerges Real Traffic. Arriving planes will NOT spawn sometimes for 15 minutes and all of them create the error ***** close cross incoming range in the log file.

I have made a video to show you what is happening and ofcourse I have uploaded the log file with it so you can check it out yourself. Someone else on youtube I watched playing Boston had exact the same problem (Ian Southern, he is also playing an unmodded game with the Nyerges schedule) and I will also post a link to his video. I don't know him but I noticed that bug in his playthrough as well.

 

Link to my video showing what is happening (in this case ... NOT happening). Video is still processing by Youtube at this moment. This is an unmodded game. What you see are tons of OBS tricks to make it look like it does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e6hyMkId5Q

Link to the game created log file:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1PG3_GlUhHDdGJ4Tmg0MWo0RVU/view?usp=sharing

 

Youtube link to someone else playing the same schedule and encountering the same problem (Ian Southern):

watch?v=JAJtwpikq1s

 

I also talked with someone in the Tower!3D Discord group who did some testing and he noticed the same problem as we do. Not gonna mention his name, if he wants, he can make a post in this thread later to confirm this.

 

Please Feelthere, get this problem fixed asap. At the moment playing like this is actually not much fun,

CardaNL

 

Edited: There are also a couple of "No empty terminal availables" in the log file. Those I totally accept. Also tried playing this airport with a custom scenario where terminals were not a problem and planes kept reporting the ***** close cross incoming range for 15 minutes. If you want, I can replay this Nyerges schedule and delete all airplanes from the schedule before 16:45 and after 17:15 so the "no free terminal" error won't occur. You'll then see the log file full with the "***** close cross incoming range" on these arrivals.

 

Edited by CardaNL
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Hello again,

As mentioned on the end of my 1st post... to avoid a couple of the "no free terminal" errors (which are totally fine), I deleted all the planes before 16:45 and after 17:15 in the same unmodded Nyerges schedule.

Again, the problem occured, however a couple of minutes later.

 

Video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjsFKmRUOVQ

Logfile:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1PG3_GlUhHDZHpzalN5WFh4aWs/view?usp=sharing

 

Hope this helps as well,

CardaNL

 

Edited: I've been thinking: If you have watched both videos.... problems started when having those KAP arrivals. Could it be they 'occupy' their assigned runway when spawned until they are landed because they are using CNA (very slow airplanes)? I did divert them to runway 14 but they sill make runway 22 not spawn a thing, except other CNA planes which are as slow.

Next try: Gonna change the airplanes from KAP into A321. Not realistic but I wonder if that will solve this problem. Going to  use the unmodified complete Nyerges schedule for that.

Edited by CardaNL
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Last post. I'm not gonna spam this forum over and over.

As mentioned in my previous post, I have modified the unmodified Nyerges schedule. I changed the 3 KAP airplanes who were going to arrive between 16:46 and 17:15 from using CNA airplanes into A321 airplanes. And it seemed  Boston arriving planes are not giving me any problem at all. So does it have to do  something with the CNA planes used in Nyerges schedule (and my own custom schedules)?

Video with no problems on arrivals anymore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1u1hy7ur1w

Logfile:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1PG3_GlUhHDOHJOT2JoSnBEVkU/view?usp=sharing

 

CardaNL

Edited: I was cheering too soon. Still having problems with Nyerges after some more testing even if the KAP's are using A321's. I'm at a total loss here. Too many cross errors in the log file. I give up...

Edited by CardaNL
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This is the link to my play through.  I didn't think much about it at the start but did say that it was quiet.  Thanks to Carda for possibly spotting the issue.  It really does need looking at as we spend quite a bit of money to play this game.  Don't get me wrong I love it, but it's still quite expensive!

 

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Following up on this issue.

I played a multiplayer session today at KBOS and we experienced very low arrival traffic. We started the session at 16:00 and operated in NW flow (Arrivals - 33L, 32, & 27; Departures - 33L & 27). Very fun scenario when there was traffic. At the end of the two hourish session we had completed 52 departures and only 35 arrivals. The real traffic file has 66 departures and 70 arrivals scheduled for this time period.

There are many reasons for arrivals not to spawn, but the close cross incoming range message seems to be a new ?issue? that has only really been noticed at KBOS. In our session, this issue caused 21 arrivals to be delayed and 29 arrivals to never show up. 

Are the crossing runways at KBOS causing this issue? Is there something we can do from a scheduling/configuration standpoint to experience the expected traffic volumes?

I've attached the log file from our session if it helps. Thanks for looking into this.

Craig

output_log.zip

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I was playing a session last night for about 3 hours and I did not see a large drop off of incoming flights.  I have the traffic set to 85% and have real traffic/color from NYD.  One difference that I had was I only had 27 open for landings.  I would divert props (Cape air) and some small jets to 32 (i.e. enter final runway 32).  I had only 12 "Close Cross incoming range" errors in an over 3 hours of game play.  There are well over 100 of these errors in cbrascott's file.  I wonder if its due to the lower traffic setting or just one open runway or both of these settings?  

As a note it would be nice that we could specify specific aircraft sizes that would land of specific runways.  We could set props and small jests for 32, super large jets (777) for 15L and all other sizes to 27.  TRACON should be doing the work to put the aircraft on the appropriate runway not the airport tower.  I was getting medium jets on 32, props on 33L which does not make sense.  Also I was annoyed when a CRJ landed on runway 27 and immediately exited the runway onto taxiway C right into a long line of jets.  No plane in real life would exit there seeing a line of jets.  A plane should check to see if the next segment is clear before entering and if its not clear radio the tower/ground.  Maybe these enhancements could be added to the next version of Tower!3D Pro.

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Vic,

 

I can say that it also occurs with KLAS.  I was using the modified schedule from ATCControl-Joe between 1700 and 1930.  I had 30+ close cross warning.  The interesting thing was the GA aircraft continued to spawn but the airline filight stopped.  I also had some other odd issues with the play that dropped my framerate down to 1FPS.  I end up deleting the problem aircraft that caused the issue: VRD1913.  Not sure why this occurred.  Since this i a non-supported schedule I will have to dig in further.

output_log.txt

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1 hour ago, VenturaGuy101 said:

Vic,

 

I can say that it also occurs with KLAS.  I was using the modified schedule from ATCControl-Joe between 1700 and 1930.  I had 30+ close cross warning.  The interesting thing was the GA aircraft continued to spawn but the airline filight stopped.  I also had some other odd issues with the play that dropped my framerate down to 1FPS.  I end up deleting the problem aircraft that caused the issue: VRD1913.  Not sure why this occurred.  Since this i a non-supported schedule I will have to dig in further.

output_log.txt

That's what happened on Boston with me as well. Airlines just got crossing errors (didn't spawn) but GA traffic kept spawning like there was no problem. When my framerate drops to 1FPS, a plane is calculating a route and cannot find a solution. Next time it happens to you, look for an airplane who didn't solve a route towards his destination via the route you told him to. If you find him, try giving him another route. Once that new route has been calculated, the framerate should go back to normal.

 

Enjoy Towering,

Carda

 

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Well this confirms that there are still some path calculating issues at KLAS.  The plane that I suspect that caused the issue was pushing back from Terminal 3 E Gates and onto C6 near the junction of C2.  There is also a black hole where C3 and C5 come together on the north side of the D Gates where a plane pushes back but that is the last that you ever hear from them. They are stuck there forever.  So I hope #FeelThere will also do a SP for KLAS.  But this is a secondary issue to the disappearing traffic issue which I wanted to confirm for Vic since he had a suspected that it also should occur with KLAS.  ATControl-Joe's schedules ramps up the GA traffic in a real airline flight schedule so the GA traffic was spawning every couple of minutes.  It just really stood out to me compared to no airlines coming arriving.

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I made another video and saved the log (to test if the 2.0 version has solved the problem). When I started to make this video, there was no official announcement about the update on this board yet... It's gonna be posted in this thread after it has been processed by youtube. Sorry to say but 15 minutes of arrivals NOT spawning and getting them delayed to a later time isn't really fun. Some airplanes get delayed I understand when the gates are full or when their spawning time is too close to another airplane using the same runway.... but this is a problem that needs to be fixed sir. Delays are realistic and part of the sim but please fix this problem which keeps continueing for too many minutes in one row on KBOS from the sim (as shown in the video below).

 

Logfile: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1PG3_GlUhHDZk52UEV2Y21idmM/view?usp=sharing

Youtube Video link: watch?v=5LbISPuvGlA

 

Edited: I'm glad this problem doesn't occur on KLAX and KATL. Personally for me Boston in this state feels like a waste of my money (personal opinion)

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On 10/27/2017 at 8:51 AM, FeelThere said:

Craig,

 

We checked your log and we have a few questions;
How did you measure how many planes you got per hour?

Also I can confirm if one plane can't land due to the crossing runway restriction it will be sent to "hold" so it will show up later according to the code.

 

Vic

Vic, I am providing more details of our KBOS MP session in the attached spreadsheet.

Overall totals: 87 arrivals in the Real Traffic schedule, 39 arrived (only 12 arrived as scheduled), 48 were held.

The session was 132 minutes. The following stats focus on the first half of the session which theoretically would allow all planes to land assuming a max delay of 60 minutes. 31 of 51 arrivals were activated. Only 8 flights arrived as scheduled (26% of the arrivals activated/spawned, only 16% of the overall total). Of the 23 arrivals that were delayed and eventually landed, over half of them were delayed over an hour. 20 arrivals were never spawned and, obviously, were delayed at least an hour. 

In the spreadsheet, I categorized the held flights/delays. They are categorized by the initial cause of the delay. At later points, the sim usually tries to re-spawn the flight. The flight can be delayed by the same or different reason at those later points.  Due to the delays there were 3 gaps of 8 minutes or more where there were no arrivals, the longest gap being 22+ minutes.  

I see several issues causing arrival delays:
Problem: No free terminal - the sim has complex logic to determine how gates are occupied and since it loads 6 hours of flights gate availability can be sparse. 
Solution: If you only plan to run an hour or two, slim down the schedule file to include only the time period you need (plus maybe some padding to if you want/need to make the airport look more full). In the case of KAP however, gates are very limited. These and other terminals/gates other may need to be looked at by FeelThere.

Problem: Close cross incoming range - With multiple 20 nm finals that are shared by aircraft of all types, the sim has implemented complex logic to avoid collisions on crossing runways.  
Solution: TBD. Without knowing what the basic rules are, I don't know what the user community can do. However, it is apparent that this is an issue at all airports that have crossing runways. For now, I'd suggest we keep submitting logs assuming the developers are open to tweaking their logic.

Problem:  Duplicate arrival time - This is a limitation when the sim engine processes the schedule. A duplicate arrival time will at a minimum cause one of the flights to be delayed. As a result, the maximum number of arrivals in an hour is 60 assuming the schedule is built strategically with this issue in mind.
Solution: For larger airports like KATL, there is not a solution to get realistic arrival volumes. For other airports, it is best to edit the arrivals times to avoid duplicates. Additionally with the sim enforcing 5nm separation, 2 minute spacing between arrivals on the same runway is recommended. 

Problem: Unknown reason - The log doesn't indicate an error or message but the flight is delayed.   
Solution: I personally think these are related to separation. See, the above for recommendations.

In all the above cases, the sim engine holds flights until it determines they can arrive. Optimal solution? Maybe, maybe not. Hopefully alternatives can be brainstormed/discussed, but more than than likely this is a next version conversation.. 

So, what about this version? I'm not giving up on the close cross incoming range issue yet. 

I plan to run this session and only include 15:00-18:59 in the schedule to see how much of the free terminal issue is eliminated. Eliminating some of the noise might help us better understand the close cross incoming range issue better.
The close cross incoming range error occurs in different scenarios, I've even seen it when only one arriving runway is active. So, I will keep trying to figure this darn thing out because I am very concerned how it is impacting what should be some very fun airports.

Craig

KBOS_1600_Summary.xlsx

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I think I'm starting to understand the close cross incoming range error. It's all about the Tower engine enforcing 5nm separation. As a result from a scheduling standpoint, that means arrivals need 2 minute spacing to ensure adequate separation.  

What this means from a capacity standpoint in Tower is that the maximum number of arrivals in an hour for single runway airports and crossing runway airports is 30. For airports with parallel runways, we can have a maximum of 60 arrivals if the schedule is built so that the arrivals spawn on alternating runway every two minutes.  

If anyone sees the arrival capacity being different, I'd love to hear it. 

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Interesting that the GA aircraft still spawn but we can go a while without any airlines spawning.  This was happening long before I landed 30 aircraft.  There is something that the Tower engine is seeing that an aircraft cannot spawn due to the crossing runway being used.  Try using ATControl-Joe's KLAS schedule and you see that GA does not appear to be affected.

I also noticed that it occurs more often when the slider is at 100% and less cross errors occur if you drop the slider to 90%.  This should be a reduction in 10% aircraft but it appears the cross errors drop off by more than 10%.

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Vic,
Here is an example of the close cross incoming range (CCIR) error occurring at KPHL. I chose a start time of 15:00 because it was a slow hour and the schedule only included this one hour to eliminate any noise. I used runways 27R & 35 for arrivals and 27L & 35 for departures. In eyeballing the schedule, I expected 3 of the arrivals to be impacted by CCIR and didn't think I'd run into any other issues. By the end of the session, there were 5 flights delayed by CCIR, 1 for no free terminal, and 3 for unknown reasons. So, in summary 9 out of 22 arrivals were delayed.

The first CCIR is a little confusing. This arrival had 2 minutes spacing from the previous arrival. I sure didn't expect an issue here. So, maybe the logic involves more than just 5nm separation for crossing runways.The no free terminal was surprising because of just the one hour of flights. How could a gate not be available?

The last flight didn't arrive until 16:31, so it took 90 minutes to get all 22 arrivals in. And the last arrival was 17 minutes after the previous arrival. Why such a long gap? As a result, I'm intrigued by the "hold/delay" logic. Once a flight is held it definitely impacts the rest of the schedule. And the held flights seem to to popup randomly (instead of FIFO) with the delays being inconsistent/random.

Attached is a spreadsheet with details and the log. 

Thanks,
Craig

kphl_schedule_15.xlsx

output_log_kphl.txt

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I think we are on the right track :) We also try to implement a new rendering method that we learned on our un-announced project. As you can see the airplane textures are much cleaner now. If we can add that it will be part of the SP too.

For the record I launched the game at 16:00 and please note the number of arrivals...

Vic

 

image.thumb.png.b80f977a93c10bd00a2e285f25ab14ab.png

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