My Library menu items are almost unnavigable when selecting and enabling items in MSFS 2024 on XBox Series X

[SaintThomas7283]

My Library menu items are almost unnavigable when selecting and enabling items in MSFS 2024 on XBox Series X using a controller.

In order to replicate the issue.

1. When starting MSFS 2024 it recognizes any new add ons from MSFS 2020. So get something in the MSFS 2020 store then exit. Start MSFS 2024. There will be a new notification in your drop down list of notifications in the top right corner telling you that you have new items in your library. Click to folllow the notification to My Library.

2. In My Library, it will now list all the new items. Many are disabled. It’s easy to select them with Select All. Then, Click X to enable. So enable them.

3. Here is the problem. Now that the items are enabled, you are stuck and unable to navigate out of this one list of items in My Library to the point you might have to close the entire program. D-Pad does not work. The right joystick does not work. L3 and R3 do not work to get you out of the list of now streamed items. And the Back (B) button does not work. This happens everytime on XBox Series X. I have duplicated this many times when I get new add ons. Navigation in My Library with an Xbox controller is not functioning properly.

Temporary work around to leave the list without having to close Microsoft Flight Simulator until fixed:

Although nothing appears to work. Tap the left joystick 3 to 4 times down or possibly up until a list item is highlighted. Then, tap the left joystick 3 or 4 times up. Repeat. Gradually, you will be able to navigate up to the submenu. Then, tap the left joystick 3 or 4 times left and repeat until you get to Streamed, then All. Then, tap the left joystick 3 or 4 times up to get to My Library, then repeat left to get to Marketplace, the press the (A) button to return to Marketplace. You have been set free to use the (B) button now to continue to the Main Menu. You do not have to close Microsoft Flight Simulator down.

Request bug fix.

Menu functionality in My Library must be fixed for XBox controllers. It needs to be fixed and consistent. The D-Pad, left joystick, right joystick, R3 and L3, B, X and Y should all work in every menu and list. We should be able to go back one submenu at a time using the (B) button. We should be able to Click R3 to go up to the profile and notification options. Navigation with the D-Pad and Joysticks should be consistent throughout all menus which they are not on XBox. This was just one specific very repeatable example. It can be very difficult to navigate standard menus. And the (B) button should not always return you to the Main Menu when you least expect that to happen.

[Ploodovic]

I’m not getting the same result. Bought the Kodiak in 2020, and decided to follow your instructions here (nice write up btw, not everyone is so detailed). After enabling the aircraft, being presented with the “list” (in my case, it was just the one aircraft), I just pressed B to go back, and it took me straight back to the main menu. No workaround needed in my case, although a very small sample size of one. Normally, I use a mouse and keyboard, but for this I decided to use the controller the whole time, to see if the problem is specific to that.

Sometimes, when I’m in the menus, it’s as if there’s an invisible “layer on top” of where you actually are (difficult to explain really, and I’m not very technical), which locks you in there, so you can’t go back to the previous screen. I don’t know if that’s specifically a mouse problem, sounds like it’s occurring with controllers as well. Maybe it’s related to that?

I’ll do some tests later, to see if I can find some pattern, because it is quite annoying to not being able to navigate the menus freely.

[Ploodovic]

Okay, so I dug around the menus, for a bit, and here are my observations.

I normally use mouse & keyboard, for my Xbox, and it can sometimes be a bit frustrating navigating the menus. If you look at the screenshot below, the highlighted line, and the description to the right, is aligned with the mouse cursor. This is the correct behavior. Take notice, that the button in the bottom left says “back to categories”.

Now, if I move the mouse to the next line, notice how the highlight and the description, still show the previous line. Incorrect behavior.

If I move the mouse another line down, that line gets highlighted, along with its description. And so on. Every other line gets highlighted, and every other doesn’t.

Now, when I move my cursor away from the list to the left, from this highlighted line, notice in the bottom left corner, how it says “save and back”.

If I happen to move my cursor to the left, while on a line that isn’t highlighted, due to the incorrect behavior, notice bottom left now says “back to categories”, while the incorrect line is still highlighted.

Clicking this “back to categories” button does absolutely nothing. You literally can’t get out of the menu this way.

If, however, you instead hit the escape key, like it also says on the button, you will be taken out of this “soft lock”. Notice how focus is no longer on the menu list item, but instead on “Camera”, in the sub menu. Bottom left button now says “save and back”, and clicking it now works.

This behavior is, I guess, how they have chosen to design navigating the menus using a controller. Presumably, because there’s no cursor, like there is in 2020 (at least I’ve not found one). So if you’re using a controller, and you want to leave the settings menu, you first have to go back to the sub menu categories, using the B button.

Then you can save and exit the menu, with the same B button.

And here I was about to make my conclusion, that some bug when using a mouse, sometimes causes a bit of confusion and frustration. But, using the same interaction design, whether you have a cursor, or you don’t, isn’t the best in the first place. It could work, if it wasn’t buggy. However, if I have my cursor on the list, I have to hit the escape key twice, to leave the menu. Which doesn’t makes sense, in this context.

But there’s a twist…

Having taken all these screenshots, I went back one more time using the mouse, and now it’s completely different. As you see below, hovering above a list item, the bottom left corner button now says “save and back” instead of “back to categories”, like it previously did. (If it’s confusing, go back and look at the first screenshot, and compare.)

If I move the mouse to the next line, it now gets highlighted, unlike previously. It’s actually working as expected.

It’s as if it finally started to use a cursor logic behavior instead, whereas previously, it used a controller logic, even though I was using a mouse. Now I can’t trigger the old, buggy behavior again (not that I would want to, but for science). Maybe if I restart the sim? Was it because I connected a controller, and then switched to the mouse again, that fixed it? Whereas previously I used a mouse since I booted up the sim. More tests needed, I guess…

So, that was a long setup, for what could be the problem in this thread. My guess, is that something similar is happening with getting stuck in a menu list, using a controller. Now, I didn’t experience the same problem, when I enabled my 2020 purchase, but maybe it was because I only had the one item, and didn’t need to scroll through multiple lines. Maybe the focus then can end up on the “wrong” list item, leaving you stuck in a submenu. I don’t know or understand, but it feels related, given the similarities.