MSFS 2020 Bing Scenery and Photogrammetry are suddenly unavailable for all Chinese Windows simmers

[Diablohu]

ISSUE DESCRIPTION

Description of the issue:

The Bing Scenery and Photogrammetry for MSFS 2020 are suddenly unavailable for almost all Chinese Windows simmers, while other online functionalities, such as real-time traffic and multiplayer, are working fine. The online scenery worked at least 2 days ago, even before the AIRAC update was released today.

I have seen multiple reports in the Chinese flight sim community.

After further investigation, one Chinese simmer found that the online scenery can be fixed if the Non-Unicode Programs Language setting in the Windows system is set to Chinese (Singapore). That setting was originally set to Chinese (Simplified, China) in the Chinese version of the Windows system.

[PC Only] Did you remove all your community mods/add-ons? If yes, are you still experiencing the issue?

This issue is not related to any addon.

FREQUENCY OF ISSUE

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

Every time on sim load

REPRODUCTION STEPS

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

1. Set the Non-Unicode Programs Language setting in the Windows system to Chinese (Simplified, China)
2. Restart PC
3. Open MSFS 2020
4. Load in anywhere
5. See if the online scenery is working

YOUR SETTINGS

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

No

MEDIA

Please add a screenshot or video of the issue occurring.

Using the original Windows Setting

After changing the setting mentioned above

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For anyone who wants to contribute on this issue, Click on the button below to use this template:

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
•

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
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If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
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[Jummivana]

Thank you for the bug report.

We have created an internal ticket to see if our team already has this logged, and if not they will attempt to reproduce the issue and create a new bug report. This item is now marked as feedback-logged. If there is an existing bug report or one is created, we will move this thread to bug-logged.

[EricJeppesen]

Voted.

This all happened too suddenly. I received Windows 11 updates before this bug was discovered, but my friend reported that he had blocked Windows updates for nearly a month and this bug also occurred.
And I haven’t received any game updates recently, nor have I joined the beta program. So I have reason to suspect that it’s a problem with Microsoft’s servers.
I’ve tried using a VPN and even forcing a proxy using Proxifier, but it still doesn’t work.

Memories of the P3D days are sneaking up on me, so allow me to jokingly call this sim FSXv7.

[BragRocketeer97]

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
• Yes

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
• Even language setting is English, it still happens

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
Running on safe mode, third party issue is ruled out
All relative online functions are on.

Windows setting

bare and boring (seems offline) scenery around Tokyo

[Diablohu]

The issue is NOT related to System Language setting only related to Non-Unicode Programe Language setting which is buried in an ancient Control Panel menu.

[hrvFromSEU]

Still exists, even FS2024 starts to have issue loading the photogrammetry/satellite data.

[hrvFromSEU]

After setting the Non-Unicode Programe Language both 20 and 24 can load the satellite data normally again.

[FlyingNoodle932]

This problem is still not fixed in SU16! It affects the gaming experience very much! Changing the Non-Unicode Programs Language setting will cause other Windows problems and we don’t want to change it!

[yjch0216]

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
• YES
If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
•

[Mynamenamed]

Do you have the same issue if you follow the OP’s steps to reproduce it?
•
Yes
Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:
•
Same as the author

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:
•

[karmphaldaata]

I have a similar issue flying in China. Do note: I do not use Chinese language in MSFS and I am an English user. I think there is some problem with Chinese airports generating itself or chinese satellite images or data being blocked. Sim does not load in most of the chinese airports and you face infinite loading at one of the airports in China after clicking Fly on the menu, if it luckily loads, it freezes after sometime or if you are able to fly and reach near to your destination airport anywhere in China, it would freeze when the destination airport tries to populate (within 25nm). Faced this issue at default VHHH and default ZSPD even after clearing Scenery Indexes, Scenery Caches.