Hey guys! Has anybody worked with the Google Earth Decoder Tool and the Decoder Optimisation Tools by “Thalixte” you can find on reddit and flightsim.to?
I just started working with them and have a lot of fun creating scenerys with the 3D data by Google. But I often have problems with that annoying “unknown” error thing going on in the SDK. I really read all the comments on reddit and flightsim.to and sometimes I get things working. My most used way fixing the unknown error was by deleting gltfs in my project file. But that does not work always. My newest problem is: I create a scenery with the Decoder Tool and optimise it with the Thalixte tool. I opened it up and it worked. But when I open it a second time I get the unknown thing again…
Has anybody the same problem and could help me in the best case?
Thanks guys!!
Hi, I have the exact same problem, scenery tiles are imported as unknown. I’ve tried all imaginable ways to solve, but to no avail. Maybe the latest FS iterations include internal changes that remove the Decoder’s compatibility…
And then, the Google Earth Decoder author seems to have vanished for months - probably kidnapped or silenced by the Google owners 
Hi there guys. Why not just use Earth2MSFS tool to create the sceneries you want. You dont have to create any folder it already creates the modelLib and texture folders for you. You just have to create the project folder the way you would like to. And you can even edit the scenery using blender and then export to MSFS. You just have to move the texture files where your 3d files are to open them in Blender… maybe He vanished because of this program since you can edit the the colors before you even download them 
Sometimes you may get unknown error if you dont rename the project from simplescenery to something you like
He vanished because of this program since you can edit the the colors before you even download them
Haha, very likely so 
Would you mind pointing me to where I can download Earth2MSFS or find info about it? Almost every Google search I do to find it brings up some Russian phishing site…
Thank you very much 
I have emailed you the tutorial and download links thinking that you’ve sent me a direct email whwn I saw in my inbox 
I came across a YouTube tutorial about this program by a channel called; Flying Theston.
The guy explains how to “easily” place Google data in to your Flight Simulator 2020.
In the mean time, it only sort of works. I think that the SDK and that “Release” program where you get the imagery data from is in fact a load of rubbish. It only works once, such as placing scenery into the simulator and then it suddenly fails with plenty of “unknown” data. So all in all, it is a total load of rubbish. That’s the only thing I can say about it. It’s a bit disappointing to say the least as it doesn’t work properly, or if not at all, it’s waste of space and utter time.
Apparently, this is part of the problem. You are still going to get the “unknown” error. I think that the SDK system for developers is a waste of time as well as the Google Maps decoder. Why these two software exists is beyond me, as they are both totally useless.
I mean you are correct that SDK is kind of buggy most of the times but earth2msfs works perfectly for me. Just put the texture files in to the same folder as gltf files and load the lods in to Blender perfectly then edit . Finally export it with the help of blender2msfs add on . Build your package , Vaila
Could I also get the tutorial?
Hm, how did you manage to load the lods files into blender? I use earthdecoder long time, but I never managed to get the files into blender to crop them. Would be amazing if you could give me a hint of your workflow. Thank you.
First of all, hi everybody.
The google earth Decoder tool is the same tool as Earth2MSFS. I suggest that, if necessary, you edit the tiles in Blender before using my optimisation tools. For the UNKNOWN error, there can be many reasons: the most common one is that there is a scenery object in the xml scene file, but not all the related files for it (gltf, bin and texture files).
Then, when you load a google earth Decoder scenery in the SDK, it has to be built once in order not to have unknown tiles appearing, even if those tiles are correct. That’s why i added an automatic buiding feature in my tools.
Also, consider deleting the package from the Community folder when you plan to edit it in the SDK, because it acts like some kind of cache, and can conflict with your current modifications.
At last, i already implemented some cleaning features in my optimization tools, in order to reduce the unknown tiles issues.
Good luck everyone for your sceneries !
I also had a lot of cases where this “unknown” issue occured.
What helped me, was using a copy of the “simplescenery” folder from the MSFS SDK as destination for the Earth2MSFS import and not changing the name of the folder until the project is ready for copying into the community folder.
Every time, I tried to open a scenery (created with MSFS2Earth Decoder) again in MSFS Developer mode with a different name as “simplescenery”, I got “unknown” errors when opening it in the scenery editor.
I just tried it out.
I imported an already build scenery again in MSFS SDK.
The name of the created folder in “packages” was renamed by me before.
And voila, all scenery file were not loaded because of the “unknown” issue.
I changed the name again to the one that had been created automatically in the beginning: “mycompany-scenery-simple”
I imported it again and all scenery files are shown correctly.
So it seems more important, that the folder name the packages folder is not renamed.
i will give it a try tomorrow, i have tried it for hours yesterday and it didnt work. That would be great if your solution would fix my problem. But they should really update the sdk. It is so buggy…
Unfortunately I am unable to confirm your trick. I am working on a scenery which won‘t compile because of the unknowns, and opening it in the original sample folder structure does not make a difference. So it might work sometimes but is not failproof, alas.
Another workaround I have seen work sometimes is to try different LODs. If it does not accept 16-20, you might try 17-19 or any other combination…
Hope this problem gets sorted out with the upcoming SDK overhauls.
my problem is that download does not get over 32
from 5000
Has anyone found a solution to this? I have tried everything listed here and other means but still cannot get around the “unknown” issue.