Playtime gone missing [Packages out of date]

Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Wishlist
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810

Hi again @Jummivana.

I downloaded the latest update including World Update 4 and all related packages to see if it fixed any of the problems I referred to in my last post.

After installing the update:
(1) Again some of my settings had changed in the ‘ASSISTANCE’ menu - I have now changed them back to my preferred settings and it appears they have not changed since.

(2) My missing hours from when my logbook reset have still not returned (any hours logged since the logbook reset are still there (I have six hours, though it does say my “next level” is 600hrs) so evidently it knows I have previously achieved 500hrs+

(3) Re: the earlier ATC Azure voice problems - please completely ignore what I said. I think it was playing Azure voices the whole time after all. The pilot’s voice had changed (and didn’t sound as realistic to me) so I thought I was hearing the ‘Windows Offline’ voice for the pilot. It turns out that, when the sim changed some of my settings, it also changed the pilot/co-pilot avatars all to ‘DEFAULT’ in the MISC menu. Selecting ‘DEFAULT’ for the avatar causes an alternative pilot/co-pilot voice to be used for ATC communication.

However, I may have discovered a completely separate bug (see below)!

Other observations:
Changing ATC Text-To-Speech Mode Causes Brakes To Be Applied
After changing the Text-To-Speech setting while taxiing (I was toggling between Windows Offline and Azure) I observed that, if this setting is changed, when returning from the menu to the aircraft, the aircraft’s brakes are automatically applied despite me not pressing anything. Once the aircraft comes to a stop, pushing the brake pedals and releasing them releases the brake (you can also solve the issue by apply the parking brake, then releasing it again). This happened in the A320 FBW, however to make sure it wasn’t the add-on, I have tested this in the Asobo default/stock TBM Daher with the same result.

AI CONTROL 'Manage Radio Comms’
After changing the ATC voice settings, the AI Co-pilot wouldn’t respond to ATC, even though ‘Manage Radio Comms’ was selected. I know there is a long-standing well-known intermittent issue where the ‘Manage Radio Comms’ being delegated to the AI Co-Pilot sometimes doesn’t work when activated, but thought I’d mention it here.

It does seem as though this ‘packages’ error has caused quite a lot of issues, though most of them thankfully have been resolved, the missing log book entries being the main one.

If you need anything else (or need me to file a Zendesk) please let me know. In the meantime, I’ll leave it in your capable hands and await any feedback you may have on the issue :slight_smile:

1 Like
811

All in all - for you at least - a bit of a pig in a poke then!
I don’t know, what with the spurious message thing and stolen logbook data, this WU really has come
at a bad time!

It is indicative of a very sorry user experience to dread updates as badly as this.

812

While I haven’t been affected by this issue, hearing about it on today’s Q&A has made me take precautions for regular (daily) backups of the files. I thought this might be useful to post for others :slightly_smiling_face:

Using OneDrive, I have set the ‘wgs’ logbook & config folder to synchronise from my computer to the cloud. As well as a regular backup, this also gives version histories that I can turn to in case of issues going undetected for a few days.

If you don’t already have OneDrive running, which is part of Windows 10 by default, you should set up it up first using your Microsoft account. An internet search can likely help with that part, so I won’t cover it here.

You can’t choose any folder on your PC to backup to OneDrive, so you have to make a ‘symbolic link’ to the MSFS logbook data in your local OneDrive folder (like a redirection/shortcut). To do this:

  1. Open Command Prompt (Admin) (right-click Start button to see the option)

  2. Copy & paste the command below into the Command Prompt window, adjusting the file paths as needed (carefully replacing the three sections of all-caps with your username and folder name of choice.

  3. mklink /d “C:\Users\USERNAME\OneDrive\FOLDER\SystemAppData” “C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\SystemAppData”

That should be it. OneDrive will automatically sync the files on a regular basis from your PC to your Microsoft account’s cloud storage.

You could also do this with another service such as Google Drive or Dropbox and their corresponding PC applications, I’m sure.

813

Ah. Clearly I am not explaining myself properly.
Let me put it this way:

If the current wgs folder is COMPLETELY removed and the sim restarted, the sim generates a ‘new’ wgs folder, the contents of which are exactly the same as the previously removed one.

Not only does this NOT change the logbook [the whole point of this exercise], but it clearly
demonstrates that the wgs folder alone is not the source of any logbook backups!
This then being the case, periodically backing up the wgs folder would prove no defence
against data loss

Your thoughts.

2 Likes
814

Very disappointed that I have lost over 1,200 hours from my log book.

8 Likes
815

They seem to be innovating by releasing the heartbreaking bug 5 days before the update… I wonder if this will be the first “flawless” update.

By the way, I refuse to deploy a personal backup strategy to defend myself from a buggy game. This should be a game, not work.

4 Likes
816

Because they messed up something between the world updarte that is GOING to be released, the three files that have to be updated, and the beta test files.

In other words, someone put some of the beta test stuff live, but only enough of it to mess up our logbooks by crashing our systems and logging us out.

@BVG951 Yeah, it is a shame, I also am disappointed that 100 hours of mine never even got written lol.
So many flights have just never appeared in there.

Good job this isn’t real life, as I don’t want to have to spend another £8,000 just to get my 50 hours in again !!

817

So, my update just finished … YaaY !!!
Oh, hang on … my profile seems to have changed … Now it has COMPLETELY vanished …

profile completely empty lol
profile completely empty lol1906×982 181 KB

818

Try closing the sim and restarting. Your profile may come back.

1 Like
819

You can also check this post.

1 Like
820

Very disappointing. I am already 40 years old, but the interest from the accumulation of flight time was. Sad (

821

I just re-installed my P3D(to keep flying…) and it’s now at v5.1, extremely stable and smooth at very high settings, huge amount of payware installed. It was unplayable for me when v5 came out, then recently I found out that 90% of the loading issues are NVIDIA related, so I read up a bit more and found that it’s the latest drivers so I rolled back to a ‘recommended’ v461.92 and it fixed every issue I had. So It’s back to a large collection of Rotor craft, Sea Planes and Gliders for a while for me, even all the liveries all still work flawlessly. The trees are still awful, even with the best packs I could get, and only playable with OrbX terrain, vector, cityscapes and airports, but playable it is, and everything works like Asobo are trying to achieve. I will now wait as long as it takes for this ‘hours reset’ issue to be fixed before returning to a final-stage Beta APP. Hopefully it will be fixed in the ‘next world/sim update’ – now there’s a problem right there as anything game-breaking should never have to wait.

823

That WAS after a restart …and a reboot.

Your second post was the one … that Store update should have been done first, but somehow they messed it up and it didn’t announce itself.
I’m just going to let this last 4GB go on, as 6 update sequences have really tired me out.
Initial 17gb
Another 4GB WU4
Another 2GB of 6 extras
An extra 15 updates suddenly appearing for another 1.2GB
A Store 1.2GB
Another 4GB on start
And that’s not counting the 3 files that caused the “Outdated package” re-login error that wiped my logbook … or the hours trying to fly when it just kept pappearing even though I had updated …

Ah well, at least tomorrow I might be able to fly again :¬)

P.S. It’s a bit silly to not allow us to edit old posts in slow mode. Now I have to just make another new one to reply to the same person after waiting 15 mins … the whole point is to cut down on the number of posts, is it not?

824

I feel your pain… about both the update fiasco and the slow mode editing. I had the same issue trying to reply to you.

1 Like
825

FWIW, I watched the “packages out of date” issue circle the network starting in Europe, and 72 hours later impacting me. Maybe malware.

826

I think it is more simple, there was some software pushed thorough (possibly for the 300 beta testers) that got pushed into everyones sims. That then caused some files to update in the background, without waiting for the sim/game to be off. They were not “critical”, but they needed a later version of the sim (the one being beta tested by The 300), so they forced a restart, which would have forced the MS Store update to 1.15.7.0

Unfortunately, we didn’t need that store update, and then we couldn’t get the 1.15.7 update, so it kept looping and failing. Eventually, someone stopped it from affecting us, unless we turned off internet connection and turned it back on.

Then, today (Tue), the update went out to all of us.
Unfortunately, the MS Store update DID NOT ANNOUNCE itself, possibly due to the fix put in over the weekend to stop it announcing itself and crashing our sims.
I suspect a few people are not aware there is a Microsoft Store update needing to be put on before they update the sim and get the WU4.

I have also let Zendesk know … they need to get a message out to everyone to tell them to make sure they check their MS Store for that update. Steam users will probably be alright.

827

I think you may have hit the nail on the head! :+1:

828

Because despite them all claiming to be avid flight sim fans who read this forum every day because the feedback it provides is soooo important to them, the truth is this forum is not important at all. A big thread like this with 800 replies, 300 votes and users losing their data goes unnoticed because they are focussed on other things.

8 Likes
829

Alternatively, this is social media, and people should report things like broken software and issues with the sim/game on zendesk, but instead they rely on these forums getting read.

Any issues, no matter how small, should be reported there — even little glitches in scenery.
That is where it matters.

830

Reported it to Zen Desk … not just the forums…