Change Content Manager behavior with "Updates are available to download" notification

This was originally reported as a Sim Update 10 bug report. However, it was determined that it was not a bug and that it was working as designed. With permission, I have moved this into Wishlist and changed this to a feature request. (I also apologize in advance: This Wishlist topic is way too long, but you need the background in order to understand the problem. Jump to the proposed solution here.)


Background:

Some items in the Content Manager come as a bundle: for example, world updates. A world update can consist of photogrammetry, landing challenges, discovery flights, handcrafted airports, and so on. Each one of these things can be installed or uninstalled individually. Say, for example, you don’t want to have the landing challenges, or you already own a custom version of one of the handcrafted airports, you can uninstall them.

Example:

“World Update: United Kingdom” comes with airports, landing challenges, procedural buildings, and photogrammetry. I installed some things but not others. Notice the three dots on the right side:

If you click the three dots, the entry will expand and you will see everything that comes with that world update. As you can see, below, I uninstalled the landing challenges:



The problem:

If you partially install one of the world updates, as I did, and then an update for one of the installed components becomes available, you will get a Content Manager notification that updates are available:

Update Available

However, if you go into Content Manager and install everything that’s available, you can still wind up in a situation where you’re still notified that updates are available (upper-right corner), and Content Manager simultaneously says that there are zero updates available (lower-left corner), which makes no sense:



Root cause:

The reason for this is that updates are available for the à la carte items inside my partially-installed world updates, hence the notification. However, Content Manager is in “bundle mode”, meaning that this box at the top is selected: Bundle Mode. If I click the List Mode button right next to it, then all of the partial updates become available and the “Update Available” number in the lower-left corner becomes non-zero and starts making sense again:

This has been determined to be working as designed. However, it is not a great user experience. If you don’t know about that List Mode button, you are led to believe that there are no updates and you may never install those world updates. Let’s say that you are experiencing CTDs at an airport and one of those updates fixes your CTDs. You might never get that fix if you don’t know about that List Mode button.

The request and proposed solution:

The request is to fix this so that this discrepancy doesn’t show up in Content Manager.

As a software professional, I have been trained that end users should never “solution” the problem, themselves, because they do not have visibility into all of the possible considerations. So I will offer a “proposed solution”, however anything that solves that request is acceptable enough to close this feature request.

My proposal is that when you see this message and click the blue “Go To Content Manager” button,

Update Available

that it automatically brings you to Content Manager with List Mode already turned on: List Mode enabled. You would see this page where all of your updates are clearly visible:

That´s a variation of the bloody “checking for updates” issue upon game launch. Game does not complete the loop properly, even after launch is terminated. Voted, and if I could vote 1000 times more I would do it :rofl: :sweat_smile:

Cheers

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

No. I’ve started MSFS several times and never had this issue after the expected initial download/startup.

Provide extra information to complete the original description of the issue:

The only known differences are: not using DX12 nor DLSS.

Are you using DX12?

No

Are you using DLSS?

No

If relevant, provide additional screenshots/video:

Not sure this is a bug—just bad UI. Expand the packages in the content manager and you will see the items that need updates.

4 Likes

^^^ This

It’s a UI problem. Unless you select the expanded view over the package view for some reason some updates aren’t visible.

1 Like

Thanks for everyone’s help!
I now see the root cause. I do believe that this bug predated Sim Update 10, so I will have to find an older bug to merge this into, later today.

(Would love some help finding an earlier bug report to merge this into. @JetWash1023 , do you know a bug report where this was reported earlier?)

But @mjchernis , this is a bug, even if a UI bug.

1 Like

Perhaps, I was being kind about it not being a bug… :-).

That said, I don’t remember this happening prior to SU10.

If updates are available when expanding the package view in the content manager then I wouldn’t really consider this a bug, nor bad UI either really. Might it be confusing, yes perhaps, and I’d consider that a slight design flaw.

I agree, I think it’s been around for a good while.

Although I think I may have seen it mentioned on a post within a thread (although I may well be wrong), I don’t recall ever having seen it in it’s own thread.

HTH

@HethrMasn The problem is that in what I call the ‘package view’ it often shows zero updates. If you select the expanded view suddenly they are there. If that isn’t a bug I don’t know what is! :wink:

It shows zero updates because the package that needs updating is not shown in the current view, until you expand it. It’s working correctly imo. That’s not to say the design couldn’t be improved.

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No, it’s not that. If you to the screen where it shows everything in package view ‘Updates’ shows (0). On the same screen however, if you select expanded view suddenly the updates appear.

I would suggest that irrespective of the packages on the screen, available updates should always show when you click on updates. Whether it’s a bug or a terrible bit of UI design (I happen to think it’s both) it needs addressing, although I appreciate it’s nothing to do with SU10.

That’s what it looks like to me, judging by the screenshot in the OP.

Now, if clicking on “Go to content manager” in the notification doesn’t show any updates, you have another bit of confusing design.

My bad, I’d not seen that screenshot.

So the issue as I see it is that if you then click on the expanded view box then suddenly the updates appear.

Somethings is definitely not right with it. You’re also right to say that if you click on the notification of updates nothing happens, and it doesn’t take you to the Content Manager which, in my opinion, it should.

Imagine there’s an update to 1 hand-made Microsoft/Asobo airport or landing challenge that was included in World Update 10. The default content manager view shows the entire World Update 10 content as one item, whereas the expanded view shows all the individual packages included within that world update. Rather than saying there’s an update to the entire World Update 10, the content manager shows an update to the airport package only, which is only shown in expanded view.

Yeah, which seems wrong to me. If there is an update to anything, the updates tab should show (1), and clicking on that tab should then show you what the update is and give you the option to action it.

I think we’re broadly in agreement, just maybe differ on whether it’s poor design, a bug or both!

1 Like

Indeed. The reason I don’t think it’s a bug per se, is because in default view, there’s no package to update. If it showed (1) on the left and you clicked on it, the list on the right would be empty, (unless it automatically switched you to expanded view). It’s a design flaw imo.

1 Like

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

Yes

Are you using Developer Mode or made changes in it?

No

PC specs and/or peripheral set up if relevant:

Shouldn’t be relevant, but here:
CPU: i9-9900 @ 4.7GHz all core
64 GB RAM @ 3733 MT/s
GeForce RTX 3090 (factory overclocked: MSI Suprim X)
2 TB SSD
Windows 10 Pro latest

Are you using DX12?

Yes

Are you using DLSS?

Yes

Are you using the multi monitor feature?

No

All of my world updates say “partially installed” because I installed them in expanded view (only the packages I wanted).

Thanks!
I asked the other moderators, and nobody can find a bug report for this. It sounds very familiar, but even a search on the exact message (“Updates are available to download in the Content Manager”) yields nothing, even though the message has not changed from previous releases.

So, for the time being, I am going to leave this in the SU10 beta category. I did update the steps to reproduce this, though.

2 Likes

This has happened through all updates since I started removing/installing only the items I wanted, right back around WU1. Definitely not a new thing. It honestly has never bothered me (it’s one extra click to expand the view) and makes sense as to why it happens. This is how I’ve always interpreted what’s going on:
In the grouped view, if the whole package group doesn’t need updating, as it’s seen as ‘one item’, it won’t see any updates. - Expanding to see everything in an itemised list, it can now see each individual item that has an update available (which were ‘hidden’ within a group before).

I’ve never thought of this as a bug. There could definitely be improvement, though.
A possible solution:
When clicking “Go To Content Manager” within the notification, it always opens it viewing the itemised list / expanded. (While keeping it as it is now only when opening Content Manager from the Main Menu.)

1 Like