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OMDB - Error glitch report


MJKERR

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I have spent all of today testing OMDB on my replacement computer
Started with 50% at 07:00, then 100% at 07:00, and now up to 100% at 12:00 as this appears to be the busy time for arrivals 

I have my first glitch, affecting two aircraft
I have searched the forum, but nothing specific has helped to explain this

UAE 871 (highlighted in the screenshot)
12:09 DXB - KWI
77L/H
Gate A10

However when I send the command to approve Pushback nothing happens
Equally, I cannot actually see what the aircraft is doing as it is out of sight (unlike those very near to the tower which i can easily watch)

As a result, the following aircraft will not vacate the runway as the stand is already occupied
UAE545
MAA - DXB 12:10
77W/H
Gate A10

Please advise

200627-01.jpg

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I suspect this is more to do with the Real Traffic schedule
I have now found another issue, discussed in a more recent reply

As a result I will compile a stands spreadsheet like I did for Tower 2011 EGLL, and that will then confirm if there is a conflict

It might take me a while to correct this, but I have already looked at the file structure and it is quite similar
I am working on Sunday, so probably some time next week!
I have five days free...

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11 hours ago, mjkerr said:

I suspect this is more to do with the Real Traffic schedule

As I said, it's both. You'll find many dropped/delayed flights and it's due to the way the game engine assigns gates. This issue has been openly discussed for over 3 years.

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1 hour ago, crbascott said:

As I said, it's both. You'll find many dropped/delayed flights and it's due to the way the game engine assigns gates. This issue has been openly discussed for over 3 years.

So the same issue of stand blocking exists, just like it does in Tower 2011 EGLL (where an aircraft arrives then blocks the stand for several hours, whereas in real life it would be moved to a remote stand)

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I have now had this next one more than three times, issue affecting
Stand C32

Any aircraft here accepts commands but does not move
Equally, if there is an aircraft on 
Stand C33 is appears to be blocked

Deleting the aircraft on 
Stand C32
is the only method at the moment to resolve this

Please advise

200702-01.jpg

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On 6/28/2020 at 11:21 AM, crbascott said:

As I said, it's both. You'll find many dropped/delayed flights and it's due to the way the game engine assigns gates. This issue has been openly discussed for over 3 years.

I found numerous errors in the Real Traffic schedule
Duplicate aircraft was the biggest issue, and existed in Tower 2011 EGLL as well
I even ended up with some in my own, but have now corrected all of them

I have not had a duplicate aircraft on the same gate, yet
However, I am continually having an error with any aircraft attempting to pushback from 
Stand C32

Where is the best place to make a report?

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1 minute ago, mjkerr said:

I found numerous errors in the Real Traffic schedule
Duplicate aircraft was the biggest issue, and existed in Tower 2011 EGLL as well
I even ended up with some in my own, but have now corrected all of them

I have not had a duplicate aircraft on the same gate, yet
However, I am continually having an error with any aircraft attempting to pushback from 
Stand C32

Where is the best place to make a report?

By making these posts, you've reported it. Now whether FeelThere or Nyerges Design decide to act on your reports, that's a whole other question/conversation.

What exactly do you mean by "duplicate aircraft"?

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15 minutes ago, crbascott said:

What exactly do you mean by "duplicate aircraft"?

I found several of these in the Real Traffic schedule
They are identical flights, separated by just a few minutes
They have different flight numbers but are clearly the same flight
As a result
In the case of arrivals one aircraft arrives and departs, the other does not
In the case of departures one aircraft arrives and departs, the other blocks the gate from the commencement of the game until it departs
Here are three examples, but I found several more

AMD, DXB, 320, 6E,   73, 01:56, 12:00, 1, 6E
AMD, DXB, 320, 6E,   71, 01:43, 12:00, 1, 6E

IKA, DXB, 340, W5,   63, 09:31, 12:00, 1, W5
IKA, DXB, 340, W5,   61, 09:15, 12:00, 1, W5

MCT, DXB, 20N, OV,  247, 10:11, 12:00, 1, OV
MCT, DXB, 20N, OV,  243, 09:46, 12:00, 1, OV

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2 hours ago, mjkerr said:

I found several of these in the Real Traffic schedule
They are identical flights, separated by just a few minutes
They have different flight numbers but are clearly the same flight
As a result
In the case of arrivals one aircraft arrives and departs, the other does not
In the case of departures one aircraft arrives and departs, the other blocks the gate from the commencement of the game until it departs
Here are three examples, but I found several more

AMD, DXB, 320, 6E,   73, 01:56, 12:00, 1, 6E
AMD, DXB, 320, 6E,   71, 01:43, 12:00, 1, 6E

IKA, DXB, 340, W5,   63, 09:31, 12:00, 1, W5
IKA, DXB, 340, W5,   61, 09:15, 12:00, 1, W5

MCT, DXB, 20N, OV,  247, 10:11, 12:00, 1, OV
MCT, DXB, 20N, OV,  243, 09:46, 12:00, 1, OV

OK - the term duplicate aircraft was very confusing. It appears you are talking "duplicate flights" which makes a little more sense.

They are clearly the same origination and destination , but that doesn't necessarily make them duplicates. Who knows what kind of delays were happening on the day the schedule was pulled (probably an actual day of flights from FlightAware). The fact that the flight numbers are different, indicates something unusual is going on - either in realty or just in the data.

And regarding your results, what you are really seeing are the gate availability issues I've mentioned previously. These issues are more likely to occur when you run a full schedule (versus a snippet). The fact that these "duplicate flights" are involved is just a nature of the beast. More than likely if you change the origination airport on one flight for each pair you have above (no longer making them "duplicates"), you'll see similar results. The schedule doesn't cause "gate blocking", flights are dropped/delayed based on the game engine logic. 

If you'd like to share a log file (...\Tower!3D Pro\tower3d_Data\output_log,txt) from a session where the above scenarios occur I'll be more than happy to analyse it and provide feedback on what is specifically going on. 

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4 hours ago, mjkerr said:

I have now had this next one more than three times, issue affecting
Stand C32

Any aircraft here accepts commands but does not move
Equally, if there is an aircraft on 
Stand C33 is appears to be blocked

Deleting the aircraft on 
Stand C32
is the only method at the moment to resolve this

Please advise

200702-01.jpg

Please provide a log file for this issue. Please confirm if you are using Real Traffic schedules or also custom schedules. 

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8 hours ago, mjkerr said:

I have now had this one three times

UAE824
Given commands
Taxi to Terminal
Taxi to Terminal via K
Both acknowledged by aircraft but no further action takes place
Results in UAE824 having to be deleted

Looking at the log, the game engine never successfully completed calculating a route to the terminal - this is unusual. Typically it calculates a route or the log indicated unable to calculate route. This didn't happen in the case of UAE824. I did notice that you issued a TAXI TO TERMINAL command prior to receiving the successful landing message. I don't know if this triggered the issue, but just thought I'd mention it. 

Here is some more info worth noting. As I have shared with you this game engine has gate availability issues. According to the schedule you used, UAE824 was scheduled to arrive (actually, appear on the DBRITE) at 06:50. Due to gate availability issues,  UAE824 didn't actually appear on the DBRITE until 06:59:34. When you ended your session at 07:10, there were 6 flights (FDB344, FDB446, FDB754, FDB730, FDB1706, FDB174) that were in a virtual holding pattern (no free terminal error) due to a lack of gates. 

Also, from a custom scheduling perspective here's a little tip. The game engine does not handle duplicate arrival times. You should space arrivals, if possible, at least a minute apart. In the case of this schedule, there are 7 flights scheduled to arrive (as mentioned before, appear on the DBRITE) at 06:50. This obviously won't happen and having duplicate arrivals time automatically causes delays. Here's what happened to those 7 flights that were scheduled for 06:50:
UAE377 - appeared on DBRITE at 06:50:06 
UAE824 - delayed until 06:59
UAE533 - delayed until 06:58
FDB754 - delayed, never spawned
FDB446 - delayed, never spawned 
FDB344 - delayed, never spawned
FDB174 - delayed, never spawned.

I think gate availability was a bigger factor on these delays, but even if gates were available these flights would definitely have been delayed. Looks like everything is happening at the 5 minute marks (:00, :05, :10, :15, etc.) in the schedule. For better realism and playability, the times should be a little bit more creative.

I also noticed flight OMA613 (a departure at 23:15) does not have an airplane type. This could potentially cause loading issues for certain playing times.

Since I don't make custom schedules anymore 🙂 I'd recommend checking out @battlehawk77's schedules to either play or emulate.  

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2 hours ago, crbascott said:

notice that you issued a TAXI TO TERMINAL command prior to receiving the successful landing message. I don't know if this triggered the issue, but just thought I'd mention it.

I will keep an eye on this, not been able to notice if it has a direct effect

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2 hours ago, crbascott said:

The game engine does not handle duplicate arrival times. You should space arrivals, if possible, at least a minute apart. In the case of this schedule, there are 7 flights scheduled to arrive (as mentioned before, appear on the DBRITE) at 06:50

I have tried varies times throughout the schedule, usually the first 15 to 20 minutes
Any I am expecting have appeared
Any missing I have been highlighting, and will resolve later (same as what I did with Tower 2011 EGLL)

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2 hours ago, crbascott said:

 Looks like everything is happening at the 5 minute marks (:00, :05, :10, :15, etc.) in the schedule. For better realism and playability, the times should be a little bit more creative.

As discussed elsewhere, I am using real world timetables (summer 2019 and summer 2021)
For the last hour I completed 07:00 to 08:00, and some arrivals were not completed due to no gate and so in effect arrived late
I have factored this in

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2 hours ago, crbascott said:

 I also noticed flight OMA613 (a departure at 23:15) does not have an airplane type. This could potentially cause loading issues for certain playing times.

Well spotted
My spreadsheet is supposed to highlight missing entries with a red background
However it would appear when there is only one left it stops!
Examining all the WY flights I had not processed the departures aircraft assigned, E75 was still present!
Both issues have now been corrected

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12 hours ago, mjkerr said:

As discussed elsewhere, I am using real world timetables (summer 2019 and summer 2021)
For the last hour I completed 07:00 to 08:00, and some arrivals were not completed due to no gate and so in effect arrived late
I have factored this in

Yep, that's why I eventually moved from using scheduled flights as is to editing the scheduled flight times to using actual flights. With everything on the 5's there's a flurry of activity then you sit and wait until the next 5 minute interval. I prefer a more steady flow, but obviously to each their own. As a fan of realism, I like using actual flights because it is a reflection of what really happened. That's also why I was the first to provide 7 daily schedules  and snippets- which, thankfully, @battlehawk77 is carrying the torch on. One day schedules don't really reflect the true flow/personality of an airport.  And snippets help lessen the dropped flights and delays due to way the game engine loads a full schedule. But unfortunately right now due to to COVID-19, traffic volumes don't allow for great custom scheduling 

And, just like arrivals, the 5's impact departures too. The game engine can't handle departures (pushback requests) with the same time, so it will delay each subsequent departure/pushback around 14 seconds. Again, using the log file and schedule you provided, there are four departures scheduled at 06:55 (UAE805, UAE819, ESC9961, KQA305),  This is when the pushback requests occurred:
UAE805 - 06:55:06
UAE819 - 06:55:20
ESC9961 - 06:55:34
KQA305 - 06:55:48.

As you can see, you get four pushback requests on top of each other and then you have to sit around and wait until 07:00 for the next "wave". I personally would edit the schedule to have a 06:55, 06:56, 06:57, and 06:58 departure for a steady flow and somewhat more realistic play. Again, this is my preference and it takes work but I feel it is worth it. The less I leave up to a game engine I don't necessarily trust, the better in my opinion. 

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57 minutes ago, crbascott said:

That's also why I was the first to provide 7 daily schedules
One day schedules don't really reflect the true flow/personality of an airport.

My first Tower 3D Pro schedule is based on a Monday first month after a new timetable

My previous Tower 2011 EGLL timetable was based on a Wednesday / Thursday
The main problem with EGLL were there were many international flights that varied by day
However, I have only seen a few (so far) with OMDB
If I see more then I can easily amend the Monday schedule to reflect another day
This will be easier next month when the majority of the Summer 2021 timetables are activated

I think I have made relatively good progress in just over one week into Tower 3D Pro, given I have been unable to use Tower 2011 since about October 2019 (9 month), so a little rusty

All points taken into consideration, and will most likely be used as I refine and finalise

Also, I stumbled across a topic about Restarter Airplanes
This is something I will also come back to soon
On the plus side, my schedules are created in XLS format Spreadsheet, then converted to TXT, so will be easy to edit as required

Today I am working on just the EK flights, Terminals 1, 2, Apron C and Apron G
I have 15 aircraft (30 flights) that are showing blocked (no gate available) in my spreadsheet
Assuming the same as Tower 2011 EGLL this is due to long turnaround times, where in reality the aircraft would be taken off stand
However, I had assumed Apron C was used for this
Again, something I will need to come back to as there are more than likely duplicate aircraft as a result on using the two timeables, ie some overlap with some destinations now removed

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