So, wanted to delete the F22 Raptor from the directory, as it's not a very good model and didn't need an abundance of hangar queens residing in my HDD. I stared P3D a few times after installing all addons for now, without a hiccup. I then got the following message:
"Vehicle initialization has failed for: F-22 Raptor - 525th Fighter Squadron. You will now be placed in visualization only mode."
Hello
I see your sorted now.
This specific error In your case by deleting the default Raptor would Indeed give you this Issue as the simobjects.cfg file would be trying to call this plane and not getting a response as you had deleted it from the root folder. By running a repair on the
Prepar3D v4 Content (Control Panel) or the
Install_Content.msi this action would and did return the default Raptor for you.
If you had (for example) deleted the default Raptor and not understanding what you had done, then you tried to manually edit the simobjetcs.cfg file only to realize that repairing the Content componont does in fact return the default Raptor again, At this stage you would have to undo the edit you made to the simobjects.cfg file or you would have the same error again only this time the situation would be visa vera, A raptor in place but a wrong simobjects.cfg entry. You could also just delete this file and let Prepar3D generate a default file when launched next, Once of course the default Raptor was back in the root folder.
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For other folks reading this......
With Prepar3D v3, Mostly the "Visualization mode error" was caused by either a corrupt simobjects.cfg or a corrupt VehicleFavorites.xml file. The simobjects.cfg file can of course be manually repaired if you know how but really its just simpler and quicker to delete this generated file and launch Prepar3D and test. The VehicleFavorites.xml file is not there by default and will only generate when you save your first vehicle, this file can also cause this error and can be repaired by deleting it and Launch Prepar3D and test
With the release of Prepar3D v4 this is also the same but some Users reported a similar error "No preview" on the Scenario page when Installing non compatible Add On's into the core Prepar3D v4 folder, Some users resolved this by repairing the Content component, others resolved by uninstalling and reinstalling the Content
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On the basis that it is just a corrupt simobjects.cfg or a corrupt VehicleFavorites.xml file here is a
Short Video of repairing this error in motion
Also if you look at the Video description and click
SHOW MORE, You will see details on how to locate these files quickly
