FSX Scenery Problem - Advice or Ideas?

[BendyFlyer]

I had been doing a RTW flight until I got to Karachi in Pakistan. There I discovered that Karachi airport basically did not exist. The problem manifests itself as the area where the airport should be is showing as a grass area only and the menu selection for the airport shows no airport features but a main runway and only one, even if there are three. This is for it seems all default airports in this area. I first thought it was a CC scenery for Calcutta and then Karachi but the objects and location for these addons display and in their correct positions.

It seems that no matter where I go in this area FSX will not display basic AFCAD information such as runways or taxiways or associated textures for stock (default) or add on airports. The surrounding area is fine with autogen etc displaying ok. Only the airports have this problem. I should add that no ATC is available either for this area in terms of towers etc., either. Navaids etc are showing in map display and seem to be fine (seem to be) but I have no idea why AFCAD data will not show.

I have made no scenery changes such as mesh or LC or addons in this area at any time so it is not an addon issue or conflict. All other world airports etc display and work ok as well so it is not a general textures corruption issue. I can see no evident file permission issues for relevant folders either.

I have tracked this down via the SDK grid reference to most likely being AREA 0802 in FSX as that grid overlays this area where these airports all are, it seems that something has gone missing or is badly corrupted here which is causing the problems. I had a look at the FSX installation disks unfortunately the CABs are not put together in such a way that I can find 0802 copy it and replace it to see if that is the problem.

As I have never done any flying in this area I never noticed this problem until doing this series of flight. Overflying the areas shows no major anomalies it is only the airports that are not working or showing, with the exception of the objects for the CC airports, Karachi and Calcutta.

I have no idea how to fix this as a repair reinstallation of FSX from the disks would be a major headache and require a major rebuild.

Would it be possible for some kind simmer to copy the files in AREA 0802 and zip them up so I can just install this area again and see it is indeed this issue. I can think of no other reason.

Anyway any input or ideas would be appreciated.

I have also posted this at CalClassic.

 

[scotth6]

Hi,

I just checked this out using ADE and the file you should be looking at for the AFCAD of Karachi in particular (OPKC, Jinnah Int) is APX65230.bgl.

Have a look in FSX\scenery\0802\scenery for this file to see if it is in fact missing or not.

Cheers,

 

[MrZippy]

I just did a start up at OPKC in the early evening hours. It looks like a decent sized airport with several runways, buildings, and terminals. I'll include a screenshot. Did you, by any chance, uncheck any major areas in your scenery library hoping to make your FSX run faster?

OPKC

 

[BendyFlyer]

Thanks. Um no base or major FSX areas are unchecked, I have read about this being done but never done it myself. The only other thing that makes this happen as far as I can find out is if the airport elevation or there is an error in the terrain elevation which is incorrect. I replaced the files kindly sent to me and rechecked the elevations etc to no avail, the problem remains.

It seems there is an anomaly in my FSX world at this point which I cannot fix or resolve. What has me stumped is that I have made no changes to this part of FSX at any time and wonder how long this problem has been there (probably from day 1) and why here and only here. (Tells you how often I have visited this part of FSX VR world). There are no weird texture problems or black spots etc but the airports will not list in the FSX menu as having anything but a single runway, no parking, no gates, the menu listing just shows - a main runway and nothing else. Selecting that gives you a point on where the airport should be but nothing else. You can use the slew control and move the aircraft to where airport objects are but no taxiways, or runways show and the ATC dialogue box shows no services of any sort available, just a blank as well. However FSX indexes stuff, it seems it will not do so correctly for this area but does so for every other of the thousands of airports in default FSX. After all there are no terrain anomalies evident and overflying everything show as it should normally but nothing but nothing will show up within the boundaries of the few airport areas and they are all in geographical Pakistan.

I should also add that I keep all my addon scenery separated from the main FSX scenery directory structure in separate scenery directories and hence can check quickly for duplicates, errors etc, this works fine for everywhere else.

Guess I will just have to give Pakistan a miss from now on but knowing the problem is there is going to irritate the hell out of me. Curiously I had the same problem very early on for Singapore as well never could get the default airport to appear (that I resolved by installing an add on which did display but as for the FSX stock airport, nope it has always been a no show.

 

[lazarus]

Oh, yeah...karachi. Sorry about that. I lost a couple of SkyBolts, they were sort of headed thata direction. I think they may have been hot. Umm...about fifteen megaton...

 

[MrZippy]

Just curious to see what your Karachi Airport looks like from an overhead view like I showed. Can you post a screenshot?

 

[BendyFlyer]

Will do as soon as I can. Just doing the MS Repair thing to see if that corrects or fixes anything. Learnt the hard way over time to keep copies of all the stuff that changes with add this add that etc so once it has replaced a lot of the base files I can just plug the addons critical config files etc., back in. Just takes time. In the meantime done all the usual hardware stuff, disk checks, defrag. etc. and even cleaned out the tower boards and fans to make sure it has not been a cooling issue as well (we are in the middle of a diabolical drought with daytime temps in the high 30C's and low 40C's as well).

It would seem more than a couple of skybolts was lobbed into Pakistan,LOL. Funny thing is; something really unusual used to happen when I was flying for real, give me the aeroplane and something will pop up or happen nobody else has seen, luck of the draw, (in OZ I think it is called being a SH** magnet).

 

[BendyFlyer]

For consideration a couple of screenshots of the problem. No solution it seems, except avoid Pakistan. Ha that is not hard.

 

[Bjoern]

Both (default) Jinnah and Masroor display fine for me in FSX:SE.

If this is a global problem,check that the default scenery is active and that no add-on scenery (even global stuff like ORBX) is messing with it or the terrain.cfg (controls the layering of airport backgrounds).

 

[Desert Rat]

Bendyflyer,

if your showing a pic of the same airport as mr. Zippy you seem to have an extra smaller airport that he does not have, could this be addon scenery that is causing your problem?

TTFN
Jamie

 

[BendyFlyer]

Both (default) Jinnah and Masroor display fine for me in FSX:SE.

If this is a global problem,check that the default scenery is active and that no add-on scenery (even global stuff like ORBX) is messing with it or the terrain.cfg (controls the layering of airport backgrounds).

Bjoern have done that and I put in a new terrain.cfg just in case (the original) and rebuilt the scenery.cfg. The issue only occurs in scenery area 0802 and the adjacent areas all work properly and display properly. I guess what is perplexing is that these airports just disappear as far as FSX is concerned and not even the runways are listed let alone shown. ATC services also are missing for these places as well, it ls like it treats them as vacant space with no airport etc at all. Yet the navaids are there. I rebuilt and repaired FSX problem still continues. But as it is confined just to this area I am not going to worry about it anymore for the time being. Not sure how you could turn ORBX global off to test that for one area and one area only, I will go and ask them see if they have any ideas.

 

[Bjoern]

If it's an isolated occurrence, then I figure ORBX won't be the cause.

Check the file creation dates in the 0802 folder. I think APX...bgl contains the airport data. If it's (much) more recent than the other files, something must've modified (and broken it).

 

[BendyFlyer]

Thanks Bjoern, checked the files they all have the same date/time stamp on them, although they were changed some time in January but I cannot think why this is the case, do not recall making any changes other than ORBX updates. I think I mentioned I did a FSX repair with no change either. Weird.

 

[BendyFlyer]

Bendyflyer,

if your showing a pic of the same airport as mr. Zippy you seem to have an extra smaller airport that he does not have, could this be addon scenery that is causing your problem?

TTFN
Jamie

Thanks Jamie, no the only addon I have done in the area was Karachi about a week ago, which was a CC file. No other users reported any problem at CC with this scenery. I get the terminals etc but no airport to go with it. Deselecting this scenery did nothing to fix the problem either.

 

[fsafranek]

Doing an RTW. A long enough runway and fuel. What more do you need?