I have never been one to keep a logbook in a sim. Just did it for fun. But now…
FS seems to automatically maintain a logbook for me, which pops up after I shut the engine down after a flight…sometimes.
And sometimes not. I’ve come to be disappointed when FS doesn’t pop up a logbook entry at the end of my flight. What did I do wrong I ask myself. Was my landing not greasy enough? Did I park in the right place?
So my question is…what parameters trigger a logbook entry? Is it finishing a flight plan? Proper ATC comms? Gentle landings? Correct parking? A combination of those and more?
The logbook problem started appearing after the very first patch, not patch 3. The bug is listed as such in the bug section of the forum because that’s when the person who posted it noticed it and I presume thought it came along with patch 3. But I can quite assure you that logging worked perfectly from launch until the first patch came out and has only worked sporadically since.
Weirdly enough I started getting the popup two flights ago. Never had it before. When parked at the gate I would just ESC and go to menu. Sometimes it would log the flight, sometimes not, but now it seems it works when I shut down the engines.
It’s very sporadic for me. I know how to shut down the planes I fly properly. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
I flew 5 flights today so far.
The first 2 were in the Longitude. Both got registered fully without issue.
Next was a Cessna 172. Didn’t get the popup at the end. No trace of the flight in my log book.
Next 2 flights were with the Mooney and SR22. Parked and shut down both planes correctly at the end, having fully done a parking spot to parking spot flight. No popup to end my flight. Both flights recorded, but failed to register the landing and records “vicinity of” in the logbook.
That insinuates that results are reproducible with particular planes when they’re not. I can fly multiple flights with the same plane and gets roughly the same outcome I had flying random planes. Maybe it will work correctly, maybe it only gets partially logged, maybe not at all.
And I’m unable to reproduce it. I can fly the same plane over and over and the results seem just as random as if I switched planes. I know how to shut down the planes I fly (mostly the C172 G1000, Carenado C182, Mooney, & TBM). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s most definitely not that I’m not shutting down correctly.
The logbook needs a complete rework. I personally enjoy having it and would quickly spend my money on an addon logbook if available.
The logbook will work 100%, but only if you do as it’s wrongly wired for. I’ll explain.
You must use default sim ATC (even if you use another ATC and have it’s sound off). I use Pilot2ATC but if I want my logbook to show my departure airport, I have to still go through the motions of getting taxi clearance and then T/O from tower.
Same with landing. You must contact the airport, even just traffic if that’s all it has.
If one does that each time I have proven through many flights that only then it will log the T/O and Landing. Only then. I have only still had an occasional issue if I ask for clearance and then miss the last “Cleared to land” call back.
Again though, this is not how the logbook should be programmed to work in my opinion. 3rd party ATC programs are one thing, but they’re partnered with Vatsim, so if you don’t press the keys to talk with default ATC, you won’t always get it registered.
Lastly, the landing is important to note because if you’re only seeing the logbook entry screen after shutting down then only then did you do it correctly (well, correctly meaning what the log book is expecting). Ground must give you clearance and you must part where they told you or at the very least another spot that is seen as reasonable. I only say that last part because in my extremely thorough testing I have parked without asking ground, but only because it only had GA parking and I probably got the “guess” right of where it wanted engine shut down. Everything I said is true and very easy to verify for anyone.
Enjoy! Hopefully they’ll fix it soon. I love foreflight but need to redo my subscription. I wasn’t aware the simlink had even been updated yet to work with MSFS. That’s good news!
I do mostly IFR flights. I follow every instruction the in-game ATC gives me to the letter. This includes all in-air and taxi instructions. And of course, I can be marshalled in to a correct parking spot where my parking job is good. Yet, it only works some of the time.
It’s annoying because I logged just over 100 hours of flight time in the first 2 weeks after launch. Since that first patch was released, I’ve only logged another 88 hours. Yet, Steam tells me I’ve been in game for 422 hours. And if I’m in game, it’s not idling. I’m actively flying.
That might be a steam issue since I could easily go live right now and show anyone any flight work if I do as described. I have hundreds of steam games but bought MSFS direct. That’s interesting.
Until learning this and verbose testing (spreadsheet and all) I too was losing tons of logged time. I bought Pilot2ATC a hundred hours of flying ago and after at least 70 hours of IFR conditions I could not for the life of me figure out why my IFR achievement was stuck at 52hrs. I figured it was how long one flew simply in IFR/IMC conditions… Very sad to see I have to go through the ancient default ATC to get it (ancient in comparison to P2A I mean).
The logbook really needs to simply see where one took off from and where they land. This isn’t like it’s something that the FAA will use and the written word of aviation and most of us are going to fly true to what it’s meant for. They shouldn’t over complicate it like they have. Seems like something is different though due to steam. Not sure. If they simplify it though as FSX was I bet it isn’t an issue anymore.
I’m not relying on Steam for accurate air time. I’m just saying that I got the game on launch day. In the first 2 weeks, I got the achievement for 100 hours of flight time. The log was correctly displaying my flights. I recall Steam telling me I’d been in game 110 hours at the time.
In the 6 weeks after that first patch, I’ve logged only 88 hours of flight time, despite flying several hours every day. It doesn’t make sense that I gathered 100 hours in the first 2 weeks, then only 88 in the following 6 weeks despite flying more.
I understand what you’re saying, but what I’m saying is at some point from my observations I noticed that I no long am getting hours unless my flight is in the logbook. In other words, I currently have about 180hrs on my profile. I should have about 300+. As much as I wish the logbook was working correctly what drove me to try and figure out what was happening was the missing hours. No idea when the issue happened for me (after patch or from the beginning) because I just assumed it was because I wasn’t using the ATC menu any more. Now, even though I rather not use the default ATC, I still go through the options because if I don’t I stop getting credit for my time.
What steam says you have “in game” has nothing to do with anything (as you know). I always hated how it did that because it would show me in some games for hundreds of hours and if I posted a review it made me seem more experienced with the game which was not wanted. I would fall asleep and it would say I was in game the whole time, haha. Obviously steam is only seeing people in a particular Direct X window (game) and starting a timer until the process ends, but again, you know that. I do see your point though being that it shows you for an insane amount of time being in the sim and you aren’t just looking at the pretty icons during that time. The only way I was able to get it to see all my time now is to always report with the default ATC.
I just remembered another MAJOR thing. IF you are flying for 45hrs straight (or however long) and you lose internet connectivity, you often won’t see a single second of your flight. This happens to me on the weekend when my roommates kids are here eating up the bandwidth. Very annoying because I just remembered they’ll be here tomorrow and I planned a long flight which I will most likely not see a single credited minute for.
There are multiple threads on this issue. As such i’m closing this one as we try to keep one bug per topic, so we can get a good overview on votes for this issue. However I won’t merge this topic into the existing one, as we will lose all the votes from this topic. Please use and vote on this topic so we can get a good overview on this issue.
