Third Party Developers, PLEASE READ

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Please tag your post with #pc and/or #xbox.

Brief description of the issue:

When starting a flight, there is something that scans content that will be in effect during the flight, and if it encounters a conflict anywhere in the world, it crashes if near or on mods from Justsim, ORBX, DRZewiecki, and others.

After Sim Update 7 I kept crashing when attempting to take off from any airport around Chicago (I have the DRZewiecki Chicago Landmarks pack). I found a conflict that was reintroduced in a World Update update, and once that was removed, I could take off from KORD. However, with the conflict in place, I could take off from Chicago Executive and fly over Chicago no problem.

This week there is a Night Enhanced Lighting for Chicago. I decided to give that a try. Once again, I can not take off from KORD, but I can from Chicago Executive, and fly over Chicago at night with both mods running fine.

I am able to reproduce the CTD at will. There is some code that when you start a flight is scanning the content list, and when it encounters a conflict, it is crashing on XBox.

Build Version # when you first started experiencing this issue:

This started happening for me after Sim Update 7, and still happens with the beta build

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The Bugs & Issues category #bugs-and-issues is for default MSFS content only.
Topic moved into #third-party-addon-discussion:scenery-packs for community assistance.

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I posted this bug so it can be moved on. It was moved. I’ve been told it is up to third party developers to approach Asobo with the issue.

I have spent a lot of time tracking this down, diagnosing it, getting it so it is reproducible. It happens when Content Manager is being scanned to see what mods are in effect, and if there is a conflict during the read, it causes a CTD. Its not your code, it is the sim code, but I can’t post a bug for it. It’s up to you guys to approach Asobo with this. I’ve done all I can.

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@thbushman thanks for your testing :+1:

So you are saying if you remove the world update everything works fine?
Is it just that one airport in Chicago?

I will try flying out of there tomorrow, though I don’t have as many add ons as you do. But might as well see what I get. I do have some lighting enhancements for other cities

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It is KORD by FSDreamteam AND a default airport near Chicago. Which means it isn’t the third party addon itself, it is scanning for any content that would have to be applied. The conflict can be anywhere. I could install two of the same third party airports, or have a handcrafted one from a world update and a payware one. ANY conflict will cause a crash trying to take off near Chicago, and the conflicts can be anywhere in the world. Remove the conflict, and all is well.

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Ok, so I tried sending an email to DRZewiecki, but all I can do is register for the website then post. I have to use the current site password to prove I’m not a spam reboot, and my IPad doesn’t want to copy the whole 4 segment hexadecimal key. So I instead tried Orrbx, had to register for their site, but the verification email you have to use to verify your account has a bad token.

Trying to get developers attention so that THEY can submit a bug is not working out too well so far. I have useful information for the developers, reproducible steps, everything that you would want in a bug submission, yet I’m nit the person who can submit the bug, I have to get a third party to do it….

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This is me speaking as a MSFS user here and not with my moderator hat on.
I don’t have an xbox capable of running MSFS but that doesn’t necessarily invalidate the comment that I am about to make.

Since all addons for MSFS on the xbox are only available through the marketplace, I think MS do share some responsibility for this issue. It is my view that they should only be selling products on the marketplace, for xbox, that do not conflict with existing add ons.

If I were in this position I would be filing a ticket with zendesk making mention that it is my view MS share some responsibility here, given they are supposed to be validating compatibility of addons for sale in the marketplace. This is the option that I would select on Zendesk:

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It is possible that Zendesk will refer on to this website, for SDK issues:
https://devsupport.flightsimulator.com/index.html

If that occurred, I would post there with a screenshot of Zendesk’s response. It is my view that in addition to developers being made aware of this issue, MS/Asobo and the marketpace team need also to be aware that this can occur with items that they have approved for sale.

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It isn’t even about sharing responsibility. The CTD can be generated at either a payware airport or a default one. The addons which I can use to generate the conflict I can vary, so it is multiple 3rd parties. The addon itself has no effect. The conflict doesn’t even have to be in the same country as you are trying to spawn at. It clearly is at the moment you click Fly, the list in the Content Manager is being scanned to determine for this flight, what addons are in effect, and when a duplicate is found in the list, it crashes. This is clearly the sim code, not the 3rd party developers code. Especially since I can make this happen at a default airport. There is no sharing here, and it’s not about whose fault it is. I’ve narrowed the problem. Once in the hands of Asobo developers, they should be able to go “ahhh” and have a quick fix for it, since I have reproduce steps. But I cannot submit the bug with the current policies, it has to be a third party developer according to Microsoft. But which one? Me as a user trying to get a third party to take ownership of submitting a bug which is clearly in the sim code is beyond idiotic.

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Hi @tgbushman, please see the first question on this guide near the bottom:

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Does this not happen at sim launch rather than flight launch? (Or does the crash actually occur before you get to load a into a flight?)

Is it possible that the DRM encryption process itself breaks the mod?

Does anybody have this content from an external vendor which isn’t being scanned by Asobo/MS DRM validation routine and confirm that the add-on works as expected without CTD?
(In this case it’s very much an Asobo/MS issue and not the 3rd.party Dev and this issue should be moved out of this category)

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Hmmm, had my first CTD on Xbox with new Beta. Flew from Chicago KORD to Detroit Wayne County DWT and as I was on approach lost my displays, then after landing on taxi it was CTD. Weather in Chicago was sunny, light clouds. Detroit had fog.
I was flying the Citation CJ4

One other note that I just thought of. My only recent change was to turn on live traffic before this flight. I had it shut off since Beta update. Not sure if just a coincidence

Note: live weather is down/issues so that could play into this as well today

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Yes, at flight launch. It needs to determine if you are at a payware airport or not. Do you have Bijans season mod? Do you have Birds loaded. Basically when you hit Fly, it has to determine all the mods that you have in Content !anagee that will apply to your rendering. When a duplicate is encountered while loading that list, that is when a CTD happens.

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In my test case, I have DRZewiecki Chicago Landmarks loaded.

With all duplicates removed (see below images), I am able to launch a flight out of FSDreamteams KORD fine

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Install Asobos version of LEMD which is now a duplicate of LVFRs LEMD, CTD from the Fly button.

Remove Asobos LEMD, all is good again

Install Asobos EDDS which is a duplicate of Justsims EDDS, CTD at the Fly button

The same happens for duplicates from Simnord, ORBX, FSDreamteam, etc. The developer of the “duplicate” does not matter. The existence of a duplicate in Content Manager does

So you might say “it’s because you are flying out a payware airport”

So I repeat the process for KMDW Chicago Midway, which is a default airport. Same CTDs result

So now you may say, it’s a problem with Chicago itself. No, I can do it other places like London, but Chicago happens to work well for all these test cases

So now I try flying out of KPWK Chicago Executive (this is default still). I can fly. I can fly all around Chicago no problem at all.

So now I install the Chicsgo Enhanced night lighting mod by Dreamscenery. Can’t fly from KORD or KMDW. I can fly from KPWK, and fly around Chicsgo at night with the additional enhanced lighting, and it is truly spectacular.

So maker of the addon does not matter. This happens at payware and default airports. It is like I said, when attempting to read the Content Manager list to see what mods will be in effect for the flight, if a duplicate is encountered during the read, it results in a CTD. This is clearly a sim bug.

The bad thing is, we just had a sale of airports for Xmas and New Years. Lots of people bought airports during the sale, and all over Facebook people are saying “Don’t buy Justsim”, “Don’t buy ORBX”. It isn’t the developers faults. It’s a simple bug. But one that needs to be fixed.

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Interesting information. This could explain why I’ve been immune to all the CTDs people have been reporting. I’ve been removing duplicate airports as a matter of course since I installed my first third party airport. I had no idea it would cause this problem.

A simple solution would be to have a priority for duplicate elements. Like the last one loaded for example or an alphabetical list or something.

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Great job @tgbushman , hopefully the devs get eyes on this.

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A better solution would be better error reporting in MSFS, so both users, Devs & Asobo could determine exactly what is happening when there are these failures.

The 1st on to get such a failure, should be able to send an Error Log back to MS/Asobo, rather than everyone running around, Guessing what MAY have happened.

If a little company like that that produce XP11 can do it, surely MS/Asobo can as well ?

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why on earth would you have Asobo LEMD & LVFR LEMD installed at the same time?

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To generate the CTD. I originally had this problem after SIM update 7. I did the update, I did all the Asobo updates like the Junkers and world updates. The updates for the world updates did a full install this time, they did not respect previously made exclusions (I had removed the duplicates prior). I kept crashing for days until I found out exclusions I had previously already done were no longer excluded. So when I took care of them, my CTDs went away.

But the last month plenty of people have been experiencing what I did. So I have been testing finding 100% reproducible cases and narrowing down what exactly is the source of the crash. I have done that.

So no, the directions I gave were just so the developers can reproduce the problem to find the faulty code. I am not trying to have two versions of an airport at the same time. Although I do want to have Chicago Landmarks with Chicago Enhanced Night Lighting. The night lighting package just adds new light sources, but makes a huge difference.

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Because users purchase the third-party airport because they want a better one than the default, and they assume that it will simply replace the Asobo airport with no issues. A reasonable assumption.

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@tgbushman Thanks for the clear information.

In chats between the moderators we consider that this thread may actually be better suited, for the time being, in #community:marketplace as the issue seems as if it can only show itself on xbox when duplicate airports or overlapping scenery files are installed- which require a marketplace purchase.

I have also drawn attention to this issue, through private channels, in the hope that your feedback gets the attention it warrants.

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