EFB missing navaids and fligh plan issue

[deancbrown]

Please add the msfs-2020 or msfs-2024 tag to your post, depending on which sim your post is about.

Flight: CYYJ DCT TUGUK DCT BOOTH DCT VIVEK DCT CYLW RNAV16Z via DATBO transition

Platform: XBOX Series X

Peripherals: Honeycomb Alpha/Bravo yoke/throttle quadrant, usb mouse, usb keyboard, XBOX controller

Current flight sim build: 1.6.34.0

When building a flight plan using the EFB in Free Flight mode causes some or all of the NAVAIDs to disappear from the EFB, making them non-selectable for addition to the flight plan.

Building a flight plan offline and then uploading the plan using the feature in the EFB does not properly load, if it loads at all.

Here’s a description of what is happeing:

Select Departure:

Select Arrival

Remove VFR departure and select Direct

VFR route is now gone and the approach waypoints for CYYJ RWY27 are still visible

Add departure waypoint TUGUK

Add waypoint BOOTH

At this point the track is visible in the EFB (image not captured)

Unable to find VIVEK, or any other waypoint in EFB despite them being available in the free flight world map, to add to flight plan.

NOTE: RNAV 16Z approach not displayed in this view - VFR flight plan route remains while building new route in EFB (this is a default behaviour)

No RNAV approach waypoints visible or selectable to CYLW RNAV16Z

At this point the flight plan was unusable in the EFB. I built the flight plan in the external MSFS planner app and tried to download it via EFB.

The EFB would get stuck at this point. I tried this process 3 times, the first 2 didn’t load anything, the last time loaded a partial flight plan but displayed an entirely different airport (CAD5).

I have experienced the EFB issues for the past 3 days (Starting March 19) in both 1.6.34.0 and Beta 1.7.11.0.

Today I spent 2 hours trying to get build the flight plan, from various airports and different aircraft, on both the current version and Beta builds of the simulator.

In previous beta builds, the beta forum permitted flight diary commentary rather than just bug reporting, so I am using this post as “bug and flight experience” diary.

The EFB issue that I am experiencing could be a bug, but it is being recreated in both builds so it seems as though there is a base code issue that is shared between platforms that extends the experience between the current working version and the beta.

This is just the most recent time where I have gone to set up a flight but have had to abandon the endeavour after a couple of hours trying to get the sim to work, in even the most rudimentary way.

I have ~1000 hours of in-the-seat time in both msfs 2020 and 2024 and have been a beta tester in both platforms so I am more that willing to accept some glitchy/buggy versions of code, but I am sure I have spent an additional 500 hours just trying to get the sim to work in a way that I can get something into the air. Today I have added another 2 hours to that total.

[CasualClick]

Two things that need confirmation:

1. When building the plan in the in-sim EFB, did you change the Flight Rules in the Details tab from VFR to IFR? Granted, what should have happened is if you attempted to select and Instrument approach (ILS, LOC, VOR, RNAV etc) for the Destination, you should have received a warning to change Flight Rules that gave you the options to “SWITCH TO IFR” or “KEEP VFR.”
2. That route string won’t really work for the RNAV approach. Even a standard route string which I used CYYJ N0360A040 TUGUK BOOTH VIVEK CYLW/DATBO.R16-Z doesn’t properly apply the RNAV approach. However, my plan inserts cleanly using the above Route String and then all I have to do is modify the Approach to RNAV16Z, apply that, then adjust for the DATBO transition, apply then Send to ATC + AVIONICS. All good at that point.

So I think this might be more of an issue with finagling the various EFB settings to ensure the Route String is ingested correctly.

For Yuks and Giggle as they say, I took the same Route String, plugged it into the Online Flight Planner. Still needed to adjust the Approach and Transition, but it accepted it and saved it as a Web Plan.

I called it up and it loaded correctly.

[deancbrown]

Thanks for your reply and your question.

Yes, I am aware of the VFR/IFR selection in the Flight Details page and selection of IFR/VFR (or not) has not presented an issue in any flight plan building exercises before March 19 in either 1.6.34.0 or beta 1.7.11.0.

Regardless of whether I select IFR from the flight details page, or not, all of the navaids should remain visible and selectable. This is not currently the case.

The reason for my post is the departure from expect behavior that is being exhibited by the EFB in MSFS2024. I first witnessed the change while I was using 1.7.11.0 and changed back to 1.6.34.0 so that I could just get a flight in, but the problem persists across both example. I have enrolled/un-enrolled, along with required XBOX full restarts to ensure the expected version is installed.

I haven’t deleted my rolling cache to see if that has any effect. The next step is uninstalling/reinstalling the simulator to see if the problem persists. I have done full reinstalls in the past for other issues (to no effect) only to have the issue “go away” on its own.