MSFS: key assignments (including 3rd-party Hot Keys) not working (FSUIPC7)

[John Dowson]

There seems to be an issue that can prevent key presses being received by FSUIPC7 from MSFS that will stop both key assignments and 3rd-party hot-key assignment from working.

If you have an issue with key assignments or hot-key assignments (from 3rd party add-ons) not working, then please first check/verify if key presses are being received by FSUIPC7. To do this, activate logging for Buttons & Keys (Log -> Buttons & Keys), open the FSUIPC7 logging console (Log -> Open Console), give the keyboard focus back to MSFS (i.e. click on the MSFS window) and then press any key. In the logging window, you should see the key press/release events logged, such as the following:

Quote

   240312 EV_KEYDOWN received: 0x4B (K)
   240312 KEYDOWN: VK=75, Waiting=0, Repeat=N, lParam=0 (0x0), Shifts=0
   240312 .. KeyDown received from FS but not programmed 
   240406 EV_KEYUP received: 0x4B (K)
   240406 KEYUP: VK=75, Waiting=0, Shifts=0, lparam=0 (0x0)
   240406 .. KeyUp received from FS but not programmed

If you do not see any key presses logged, then key presses are not being received by FSUIPC7 from MSFS.

** NB: you should have an aircraft loaded and ready-to-fly when testing for key presses, as they are not requested until the first aircraft is loaded and ready-to-fly **

To correct for this, you can perform one of the following operations:
  1. Disconnect from MSFS (MSFS -> Disconnect) and then re-connect (MSFS -> Connect), or
  2. Exit FSUIPC7 and restart

This seems to be caused by a timing issue, when the SimConnect calls made to request the key presses are accepted (i.e. no errors produced) but are not acted upon. To correct for this, you can try increasing the delay from when MSFS is detected by FSUIPC7 to when it tries to connect. To do this, you need to increase the value of the DetectToConnectDelayAuto ini parameter, located in the [General] section of your FSUIPC7.ini file.  Locate this parameter and increase its value by 5 (seconds) and try again (i.e. restart MSFS, let MSFS start FSUIPC7 and then test for key presses as shown above). If you get the same issue then repeat, i.e. increase the DetectToConnectDelayAuto ini parameter by 5 and try again.

Once you have determined the correct value for the DetectToConnectDelayAuto ini parameter, you can then set/update the StartUpTuningDoneVersion ini parameter to -1:
     StartUpTuningDoneVersion=-1

This will prevent FSUIPC7 from further automatic tuning of this parameter,