LZMC and other sim airports METAR incorrect data (Military mostly)

[OMICO4146]

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue:

At airport LZMC are incorrect METAR data, causing wrong weather intervention to around places, like LZIB international airport. It is army airport and it hasn’t defined METAR, available now. It is expected that any other airport so doesn’t have METAR data due other restrictions (Army, not available now due real time reconstruction) will have wrong METAR data and affect wrongly around places, airports. From LZMC METAR is clear wrong date and time, as screenshot shows.

It is expected that also other Airports inside the sim have wrong METAR data, especially Military types, not only in Slovakia!

Pls vote every one…

Weather: as screenshots

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

How often does this occur for you (Example: Just once, every time on sim load, intermittently)?

Every time.

REPRODUCTION STEPS

Please list clear steps you took in order to help our test team reproduce the same issue:

1. start sim at LZMC or LZIB airport.

2. chceck LZMC METAR data, time and day is incorrect to actual. Wrong weather affects around places.

YOUR SETTINGS

If the issue still occurs with no mods and add-ons, please continue to report your issue. If not, please move this post to the User Support Hub.

What peripherals are you using:

[PC Only] Are you using Developer Mode or have you made any changes to it?

[PC, MSFS 2020 Only] Are you using DX11 or DX12?

[PC Only] What GPU (Graphics Card) do you use?

[PC Only] What other relevant PC specs can you share?

MEDIA

Please add a screenshot or video of the issue occurring.

Compare near LZIB for example, as standard intl airport.

[DementedCorn327]

Can replicate.
Spawning at LZMC with Live weather:

• In the EFB, a METAR exists for this ICAO but the day says “01” and today we are the “14”. This seems to be an outdated METAR from a past month ?. Maybe LZMC stopped publishing METARs and the last one stayed stuck somewhere ?
  
  

Windy.com does not have a METAR:

Meteoblue does not have a METAR (see red circle) :

No METAR exists in the web planner, only forecast:

[OMICO4146]

I’ve changed the name of Topic because as I expected, also LZSL has wrong METAR data, so it is expected so any other Airports inside the sim are affected, not only in Slovakia.

LZSL

LKCV Czech Republic

[DementedCorn327]

I have checked a couple of military air bases in France that exist into the sim. They are publishing an up to date METAR so no issue there.
Maybe the air bases you mentioned were publishing METARs at some point and stopped doing it. The last published one stayed stuck instead of being ignored ?.
Maybe issue is not just with military air bases but could also happen with any airport type that stop publishing METAR and remain active into the sim ?.
Just a guess…

[CharlieFox00]

LZMC and LZSL haven’t produced a METAR in over 6 weeks. That’s as far back as I can easily look. It’s possible they discontinued the service or are not longer transmitting data to the network. Maybe check with the local met office?

[DementedCorn327]

Thanks for checking. I would say METAR at LZMC is older than 6 weeks since reported temperatures were -4/-5 and with snow.

[OMICO4146]

@CharlieFox00

LZSL haven’t produced a METAR in over 6 weeks

As I said in different Topic, Sliac is under reconstruction for some quite long time so it is ok to me, I expect this out of service but why LZMC isn’t, I don’t know.

[OMICO4146]

There are some good reports on web,

I expect on more sites, question is what exactly Asobo use for data. Only as example, my first google question

https://metar-taf.com/metar/LZMC

or it use LZIB now? Can you confirm pls? aaaa yes, I see now that LZIB is included now. This site doesn’t support them.

Ok, here is Slovak meteorological site with good enough, also LZSL is ok.

METAR - SHMÚ

[DementedCorn327]

As per this site, LZMC data is based on LZIB Metar:

And into the sim it is stuck on an outdated LZMC Metar (I assume):

Unfortunately we don’t have a way to ask for technical details and in this case what’s the Metar source.

[OMICO4146]

No other users votes?

This issue can affect any airport with no METAR or service in case, not only military. This issue simply change weather on some places with incorrect depiction, votes are needed or confirms also so dev will take a look and will solve this..

[CharlieFox00]

I took all of the METARs from your link and tried pulling them through aviation weather center. All of them worked except the military ones (LZSL, LZMC, and LZPW). For whatever reason it seems those stations are no longer transmitting to the global METAR dataset, just to a local one.

What follows is somewhat speculative:

The sim pulls METARs from the global dataset, based on a list that includes every active station in the world. I do not know how often that list is updated in the world or sim (maybe with the navdata updates?).

If the stations in question were officially removed from the global list, but the sim has not updated that list since, then it will still be looking for them and perhaps defaulting to, or stuck on the last METAR from those stations. In this case, the sim would need to update the list.

However, if they were not officially removed from the global list but stopped sending data to it anyway, then likewise, the sim will still be looking for them and I’m guessing there’s not much the sim can do unless they manually manipulate the data, or somehow filter them out. I’m not sure either is desirable or even possible. In this case they’d probably need to either be officially removed from the official list by your country’s met office (and the sim would need to update the list) or start sending their data to it again.

[OMICO4146]

@CharlieFox00

In this case, the sim would need to update the list.

Yes but what then? Again, we are not here to speculate what steps devs/sim needs to do. We are here for reporting the issues what brake good and expected functionality of the sim, in this case so LZMC weather affects LZIB intl airport weather. Looks like devs don’t care or they looks like never expected this situation, what to do in case of station doesn’t report correct data, what is easy to read from METAR report string. And also I’ve reported Czech airport and expect other airports with no correct data in sim, also no military types.

[CharlieFox00]

What I’m trying to explain is that some scenarios may not be the sim’s problem at all. If it’s expecting automated data and not getting it, then it is what it is unless they decide to come up with a manual workaround. Or like I said, the sim needs to sanitize their database.

As I said, it may not be an actual bug - the system may be working as intended and there’s just a data gap. But figuring out the root cause will absolutely help drive a solution, whether you like it or not. I’ve given you a few avenues you can explore in your own country. Best case, they’d start transmitting the data to the global network again.

[OMICO4146]

Ok,

I expect no data in sim in this case as best, although I mentioned differently previously. So LZMC will have clear weather (not reporting) and no affecting wrongly other near stations, also not cakes/clear bubles as now are, they need it only turn off (not needed to put out from list as example???). It is maybe expected as good solution that near station (LZIB) will affect this no rep station (LZMC) and then it is better and quite correct weather there. In this actual chaotic solution, there is possible snow at summer. I think that it is more clear now what exactly issue I’ve reported. I understand to your opinion because I was also SW dev but to this sim I have still no so big hopes, also from first day of FS2020 where they have no clue or quite long time to understand that click on Std Baro button sets 1013HPa or equibablent InHg value. That says all in my opinion, some sim solutions are very hard to understand why they are functional as they are…

[DementedCorn327]

@OMICO4146

I expect no data in sim in this case as best, although I mentioned differently previously. So LZMC will have clear weather (not reporting)

I would say the logic in case of not having Metar information should be the same as everywhere else: weather depiction is based on the forecast model from Meteoblue (so not necessarily clear weather).

[OMICO4146]

To me,

from every start of flight, it looks to me like independed METAR and then forecast layer, I see first that LZMC wrong weather and after while forecast comes there. Ok…

[OMICO4146]

@DementedCorn327

Ok back to prtoblem!

I still believe that some one want manipulate or don’t understand my intention to report this issue initially.

Again pls, this issue started after SU5 release, as we already confirmed as dev some how did some solution about fog! The wrong METAR of LZMC is from date where there was January probably, temperature and snow shows that clearly, so this has nothing with stop service, it was working correctly also with wrong data looks like, I can confirm during SU4.

It is clear that they did wrong patch and did more bigger problem, as I’ve described on initial Topic! pls be kind to not change our minds, pls. I still believe that this is BUG! We have confirmed that this wrong METAR data depiction was solved with SU5!

Pls all, try we think again carefully, with my initial post and now this, what is really intention and problem pls. Thank you…

[CharlieFox00]

No manipulation intended - just trying to troubleshoot. Please don’t assign intent - I’m genuinely trying to help.

You say you were correctly seeing current METAR from these stations prior to SU5?

Or a better question - when was the last time you remember seeing them?

Every global METAR list I can access has no station info for LZMC or LZPW, which leads me to believe they’ve been removed (I’m still trying to figure out if/when that occurred). But, curiously, I do still see LZSL in the station list. However, LZSL seems to not have transmitted any data to the global network since 2021.

Now, perhaps the sim pulled these from a different source and maybe that was disrupted in a recent SU.

[OMICO4146]

@CharlieFox00

You say you were correctly seeing current METAR from these stations prior to SU5?

Or a better question - when was the last time you remember seeing them?

No, not like that. I said, on my one week during my Pass 1 week XBox (SU4) test, I didn’t observed this wrong LZMC intervention to LZIB weather, I did many flights starting from Bratislava. There was only real LZIB weather as from point of view at LZIB. Who knows, how sim has working during SU4. This is then simply clear, and as I’ve reported clearly after SU5 release the dark mass starting to show at LZIB and DementedCorn perfectly found that is from LZMC poor weather, nothing else. After more tests then I’ve found that wrong, maybe January data are there for LZMC, via wrong date/time string. Nothing special and quite very clear

To better maybe understand, pls look at my initial post about the issue, at my first post here link at bottom of post.

[DementedCorn327]

@CharlieFox00

You say you were correctly seeing current METAR from these stations prior to SU5?

I think Metar was wrong prior SU5 but since there was an issue in the Live version with missing fog (or visibility), even if Metar was wrong, visibility was always clear. Since they fixed it in SU5 (No fog?), the Metar issue for LZMC (and a couple of others airport) came to light.
Now they need to fix this issue with those stuck/outdated Metar.