Once again I am unable to find the method to update the program to the latest version 1.30.12.0. Can someone please tell me why the programmers have to change the methods. I am currently running version 1.29.30.0 on a desktop computer with Microsoft Windows 10, non-steam.
Go to the Xbox app and check MSFS for updates 
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Open the Windows Store and ensure everything is up to date. Specifically, the Xbox app and Gaming services).
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Open the Xbox app (log in if you aren’t already) and click on the standard edition of MSFS (regardless of what edition you actually have).
The main MSFS app will update. Once that finishes, launch MSFS (if it hasn’t started automatically) and this will prompt you for the main part of the update.
Remember to rename or move your community folder before you start the update. After all updates are completed rename the folder back to its original name (or move it back if you copied it out)
I don’t ever move my community folder. Seems to update just fine for me.
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Thats good for you, but the instructions say to rename / move / etc, so just sticking with the party line
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To add some additional information about this, we have noticed that a very large number of problems people encounter in the sim upon updating to a new version are caused by 3rd Party addons. It is for this reason that we recommend moving/emptying your Community folder before posting to the forums that the update is broken/causing your sim to crash/etc. when the real culprit is quite likely a mod you have installed. It is generally perfectly safe to update MSFS without moving/renaming your Community folder, but if you do experience issues, then your first troubleshooting step should be to disable your mods.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
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Yeah, I take the view that MS/Asobo must have a rough idea of how the sim works, so I listen to what they say.
But they’d changed the advice when I last looked; now they say to empty the Community folder after restarting the sim if you have problems. They used to say do it before updating.
It’s still a good practice to empty your Community folder before an update (especially if your personal MSFS installation has been prone to problems), but it has never been required. I personally do not empty mine when installing a new update, but it would definitely be the first thing I did if I had any issues with the sim.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
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Another reason to rename/move your community folder is that if you start the sim after the update without the community folder, quit, move your community folder back again, and restart the sim, there’s a good chance the content.xml file will be updated and reordered and can fix corruptions that tend to grow in that file sometimes.
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The instructions say to rename the community folder if you have issues after updating.
By implication, that means if you don’t have issues, don’t rename it. I don’t, so I don’t.
Following the instructions, not gold plating them.
It’s never said to empty / move / rename the community folder before updating. Ever. Not from Microsoft. This is something that was perpetuated by folks in the community. The official stance all the way back to SU2 (where this recommendation first appeared) stated:
This has been reworded a bit since, but still says the same essentially that it did back then.
Meaning, if you experience performance or stability issues after updating the sim, empty the community folder and relaunch. That way you eliminate stuff in the community folder being the cause of an issue. The updater doesn’t care what’s in your community folder. The sim hasn’t even looked at your community folder at this point. That only gets scanned and loaded after the update is complete and the sim starts loading assets for your addons.
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The exact guidance we used alongside the recent release of AAU1 was the following:
If you are playing on PC, outdated packages in your community folder may have an unexpected impact on the title’s performance and behavior. If you suffer from stability issues or long loading times, move your community package(s) to another folder before relaunching the title. Click here to learn how to update your version safely.
Thanks,
MSFS Team
2 Likes
Hey, you be you. I was just explaining why I and others do it in case you weren’t aware of the reasons…
Please stop blamming the addons systematically because that is not the reason for the updating errors. The first thing which does not work is the live updating itself and that has been like that for almost a year now. The patching method is updating the game launcher first (via Steam. Xbox or MS Store) and in that process the addons are not involved at all. MS Store had several issues with that not so much time ago, getting stuck at downloading or not detecting your game as onwned. So Xbox-MS Store integration was broken, to start with, forcing users to mandatory update game via the Xbox app to bypass that error on MS side. Xbox app is on the other hand an app that we don´t need at all to run game.
After that launcher updating is done the Official folder contents are updated by the new launcher upon launch. Official content is never installed in the Community folder, so having content there does not affect the patching of Official folder. Issues with third party content can appear after the patching is done and game continues to launch and starts loading all existing addons, but never before that.
However game client still has issues to update official content alone even on a vanilla installation without addons. Many official content addons had broken dependencies or incorrect versions in the past (like the Australia WU last year that required a version of one airplane addon which was not existing yet). On the other hand the checking for updates never ending loop is not yet fixed and that can result in game not to be able to pass the updating loop and therefore not launching at all. As a funny fact the error, which is reproduced randomly, never reproduces when there are outages on the online services. In those cases the game always launches in one go without any issues. So, addons are not the guilty part in that case either, just the online checks client is performing with the servers. Even more, running game offline is able to bypass the checking loop error as well, so again addons have no impact at all.
Cheers
4 Likes
thanks XR219. I ended up uninstalling my MSFS. I am now trying to download/reinstall MSFS. I can not get your procedures to work. In the XBOX app, I click on MY LIBRARY, then MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR 40th Anniversary, and I get a MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR Requires 157 GB disk space’…with an green INSTALL button. After clicking on the INSTALL button I get “ERROR 0% VIEW PROGRESS.”
Now that’s got me stumped. Have you got any Windows store updates pending?
no. when I try to reinstall through the store I get error, something happened on our end. and that is it.
As a general principle, when things go wrong, it’s best to think fast and act slow.
Only make one change at a time, otherwise you won’t know what made a difference and what didn’t.
Uninstalling the sim was not a specially smart move.
Chances are that the issue is something to do with either your Xbox account or with write permissions on your computer. But that’s just my guess.