Well turns out based on it’s current path used by FS24 I am able to place content in the second Community and it appears in the game. I will investigate resetting the path. Thanks!
After dancing around for a bit I am able to predictably define the location of a Community folder that the sim will look at. It appears MS/Asobo have changed folder hierarchy somewhat in SU1. Yes if you rename the Community folder in the Package directory, FS will create another Community folder under Package, and then duplicate the Community, Official2020, Official2024, and StreamedPackages therein. BUT… Now that I understand the playing field a bit better, the original issue remains. I am pointed at the Community folder with content, but the content is disabled. Ugh!!
Could you provide the path that is set in your My Library/Settings and the path of your Community folder in your Windows Explorer ?
They are both the same. C:\Users*****\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Limitless_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages\Community
At this point I am curious why the original Community files are disabled, but I was able to transfer copies of certain files to the newly created second Community folder and they appear active. Still tinkering with it.
The path in your My Library/Settings should not have the Community at the end. It should be like that:
C:\Users*****\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Limitless_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages
Then your addons should be in the 1st and unique Community folder inside the Packages one.
Yes I understand that. I have tested it various ways and can predict the result now. I will now work with what I have. Thanks again.
Great !, so you confirm your issue has been fixed right ?. If so, could you please mark one of the posts that helped you as the solution ?
I would say this one from @AncientDisc6642 that explained the logic with the Community folder path/creation: Community Folder Content Missing - #18 by AncientDisc6642
There was no meeting of minds here, so I expect that the OP will claim that they found the solution themself.
The original issue is still there. I can set the path so that the main Community folder is as should be (as before) but the contents are Disabled by MS with no resolution yet. The discussion of Community location caused various test’s that yielded a way to define a location that would provide usable 3rd party products. Just have to copy them over. That will work for the moment. Still testing… Thanks for all comments.
Maybe just test with 1 addon in your community folder and see if it shows “Disabled” state.
I also noticed some blocked addons - I had an issue with an airport that was in the Community folder, but for some reason, default buildings were showing up instead. I was wondering why, since it had worked fine before.
I figured out that the cause was that it was disabled in My Library. Interestingly, it wasn’t blocked in the content.xml file, so I thought it might be a bug. I selected the airport, clicked Enable, saved the changes, and exited MSFS 2024.
Then, I deleted the content.xml file, as it might have been corrupted. After that, I launched MSFS 2024 again, and the airport that wasn’t working before started working without any issues.
So another test could be to delete your Content.xml file (make a backup) as suggested by @TenPatrol. It will be re-created upon sim restart.
Location:
C:/Users/XXX/AppData/Local/Packages/Microsoft.Limitless_8wekyb3d8bbwe/LocalCache/Content.xml
I have noticed something with my last test. File Encryption. The original Community folder for FS2024 was filled will files that were copied over from FS2020. To do that I zipped the 2020 files then extracted to the new 2024 location. During that process there is an alert regarding loosing the encryption if you proceed. File extracted and worked fine until SU1. Just now I zipped and moved a file from original 2024 Community folder to the 2024 Community/Community folder, where the new test files had been located and worked fine. No encryption alert. Didn’t show in sim. Deleted that and copied from the FS2020 Community folder. Received alert. Extracted fine. Shows in sim. Getting ready to go fly. Thought… I bet I could replace the Disabled files with copies from their FS2020 location and they would work. Possibly all this is due to an SU1 file encryption protocal.??
I don’t know about encryption so cannot advise about that. To make things easier and not take space on my C drive, I moved my Community folder to another drive so no encryption matter there.
Most of the file permission, file access and encryption problems encountered are the direct result of the labyrinthine paths to Windows protected folders set by a default installation.
There is no need at all to follow the default choices and installing the simulator and all of its content outside any Windows protected folders is perfectly possible on first installation and even if that step is missed, it can all be done later.
F:\FS2024 is an excellent choice, as is mine of M:\XboxGames, but even if there is only one drive, something like C:\MSFS 2024 is infinitely preferable to
C:\Users\your user name\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.Limitless_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages
which won’t even fit on one line in this forum and of which Windows is fiercely protective.
So in a nutshell, encrypted files you moved from 2020 to your 2024 community folder were not displaying in your 2024 Marketplace library?
Exactly…well said. I have the sim installed on D:\MSFS 2024. Makes life so much easier and much easier to find things. It’s also a good idea to use a path other than the default path if beta testing.