Forced erroneous reinstallations and deleted content

Bug Reporting Hub Install, Performance & Graphics
1

When starting the sim yesterday, I was notified of an update. Instead of an update, it re-installed the entire sim which took many hours and cost me a lot of data. I’ve flown two complete flights since then. Now again today, it is trying to force me to reinstall the entire sim AND it has deleted the contents of my Community folder. This is frustrating. These forced updates need to be fixed or the ability to opt-out should be included.

Edit: I’m posting my response from the support team for everyone else:

When launching Microsoft Flight Simulator, the launcher will search for the packages installed on the machine and offer to download recent updates. If the launcher cannot find the packages anymore, it will offer to download the entirety of the mandatory content.

The launcher might not find the packages when:

  • The packages installation folder was moved without updating the path of the installed packages
  • The connection to Xbox live needs to be refreshed
  • Offline mode is activated or the data cap has been reached

To avoid redownloading the mandatory packages after moving the packages installation folder, make sure to update the UserCfg.opt file that you can find at the following location by default: C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache

  • Open the UserCFG.opt file with Notepad
  • Scroll down to the bottom of the page
  • Update the following line to point to the correct package installation folder: InstalledPackagesPath “C:\Users\YourUsername\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages”
  • Save and close the file.

If you didn’t move the packages and/or the path is correctly set up, do the following:

A) Depending on how you launch the sim, log out and log back in to the Microsoft Store app, your Steam account, or the Xbox app. As always, make sure to sign in with the Microsoft account used to purchase Microsoft Flight Simulator/subscribe to Game Pass.

B) Sign out and sign back in again to refresh the connection to your Xbox Live account in-game.

  1. Click your username in the top right of the main menu.

  2. Click “Sign out”

  3. Close Microsoft Flight Simulator

  4. Relaunch Microsoft Flight Simulator

  5. Log back into your Xbox live account

B) Turned Online Functionality OFF and ON again.

  • Step 1: Go to Options > General > Data
  • Step 2: Toggle Online Functionality OFF
  • Step 3: Click on Apply & Save
  • Step 4: Toggle Online Functionality ON
  • Step 5: Click on Apply & Save

It is also possible that you have reached your data cap limit. Simply increase or remove the data limitation. You can remove of increase the data limit from that screen.

Note: The data cap will reset at the date you have set up—by default, it should be on the first day of every month, unless you have selected a different day—but we are aware of an issue where the data cap doesn’t always refresh.

This issue will be fixed in a patch soon. Thank you for your patience while we’re working on this issue.

We remain at your disposal for any further assistance.

Kind regards,
Microsoft Flight Simulator Support Team

2

Exact same thing has happened to me twice in 24 hours, exactly as you have described here. One thing I’m not sure if you noticed, but for me I saw the windows store trying to “Install” that 1gb update and the progress bar kept looping from “pending” to “completed” over and over.

3

To prevent having to redownload all the game content files I always change the default installation path within the sim to another folder on my hard drive, e.g. c:\msfs.

If I ever have to reinstall the sim then this saves me having to redownload any of the in game content as this folder should not be deleted by uninstalling MSFS but would (in theory) have to be done manually.

The first time I run MSFS after a reinstall I point to this folder at the initial step and then the sim detects all the downloaded content as there, and usually just proceeds to the main menu without having to download anything (unless there is a genuine update of ingame content required).

It is also possible to move the downloaded content folder after installation, from C:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\Packages to another folder of your choice.

If manually doing this it is also necessary to edit the last line of UserCfg.opt found in C:\Users\Your User Nmeme\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache to point to this new directory. The UserCfg.opt file can be edited with a normal text editor.

I also keep a backup of my c:\msfs on another drive as a belt and braces approach. A full reinstall of the sim, due to my internet speeds, would take me over 16 hours and having had to do that once I was determined to find a way to never have to endure it again.

The directory structure above works for the MS Store version of MSFS. I have to confess I am not up to speed on how steam handles such a process.

4

Mine is always the other way around, to prevent having to redownload all the game content files, I make sure the installation path stays at default. But maybe it’s because I’m on Steam version which is generally having the exact same path compared to windows store version which the default path has that “hash key” as a folder name which can change.

5

MODERATOR EDIT: The following 23 posts were merged into this topic.

Hi all!
I haven’t got “any” problem of my sim since today. I dont know why, but when i have try open the sim it say me to update it. So i go to MS Store and there was an update. After a 1.65 GIB Update i am currently reinstall evrythings.

Screenshot (2705)
Screenshot (2705)1920×1080 178 KB

Does somebody know what the problem is!? Also my community folder has been deleted. I have a lot things on it and so im crying about that :sob: :sob: :disappointed_relieved: :scream: :sweat:. Any ideas will be apretisage! Many thanks in advance,

sincerely
Filippo

1 Like
6

Try Restarting your PC, if that doesn’t work then sign out and sign in your Microsoft account (If you bought it on the Microsoft store).

7

And.. avoid going to the store yourself, leaving the MSFS on. The store should start from within MSFS.. then it will download 1Gb in the store, then click PLAY. When starting MSFS, it should proceed downloading.

8

It sounds like the update in the store didn’t find the location where the original was. So you might end up with two installations? User account problem? The original moved to another drive?

Are you sure the old one is deleted?

9

Hey man thanks for the answer! Alredy done that, but as you can see form my C Disk i have 353Gb free and before this reinstall was very full and the free space was about 700MB… Very weird!

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Possible, but i never change my disk…

Nope, this is where i always have the sim install in C Disk

Yep, because i saved the path in the quick access see picture above.

10

Well that’s bizarre.

But if it’s really gone I guess you have no choice but to reinstall. I have no idea why that happened. Usually it requires a user clicking on ‘reset’ or ‘repair’ (and I’m not even sure if it then deletes the whole folder structure).

11

Point the installation to where it’s currently installed and it won’t reinstall.

12

Is it installed via Steam? If so, did you ask it to verify the integrity of local files? Because it’s a known issue that doing so will unfortunately delete the entire MSFS install.

13

same here. initial 1.65GB then, 90GB install out of nowhere… I installed the DC6 yesterday, that’s all…

14

Hi, easy to say, quite impossible to do… When it sayd me to update he remove evrythis his own. So the update was the actual MSFS base instalation. Theres no file in the folder called Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe

Nope, MSFS STORE EDITION

Cool to Know that am not the only one experience this

15

yes, also MS Store version. I just wanted to start MSFS, then it said a new version needs to be installed, pointed to the store, downloaded the 1.65 GB.
Thereafter i rebooted, I thought maybe it would stop that procedure. But after launching again it checked for update and started the 90 GB download.

16

most likely we get the SIM Update 5 incl. all the new xbox goddies…

1 Like
17

Are you part of the beta testing? Did you join the preview in the Xbox insider hub?

18

yes, back then for sim update 4

19

Same, although my community remained nothing deleted. Yet doesn’t appear in game I had to download everything from the content manager. Also my GB was 510 available down to 366. Could be the beta :man_shrugging:t2:

20

I’m also part of the beta maybe it’s the new performance beta testing