Hi everyone, legitimate question here.
Why don’t they fix bugs faster?
What is taking so long?
I mean I have various bugs that are still there and shouldn’t.
IN EXEMPLE. The baron com frequency knob (above the dot) only goes down (even if you turn the knob the other way).
I mean, it’s a simulator right?
In my opinion, if we don’t have realistic planes, we end up with bing maps that even looks a bit more realistic when you think about it.
So why, why are we 1 year later with so many very low level bugs?
2 Likes
As a developer, both as someone who develops web applications & websites, and someone who is on the G36 Improvement Project I can wholeheartedly say it is not as simple as you may think.
The sim is now a year old, and I can only imagine how many bugs they have in their internal management tool. The simple answer is there is a finite amount of resource (both people & time) to go to bug fixing.
Any software that has the complexity that MSFS has, will have bugs; coupled with the fact they are using part of FSX’s code and refactoring, and using some really groundbreaking technology stacks to deliver the sim and you have the perfect storm.
Each bug listed will be triaged much like a hospital and major game breaking bugs will be addressed faster than smaller bugs such as the frequency knob. Even though it might be a smaller fix and take less time it is less important and as such gets less dev time.
Couple this with the fact a lot of bugs will be computer and connection speed dependant and nearly impossible to reproduce by the devs. They first have to reproduce it, then work out why it’s broken, then fix.
Take these two nearly identical segments of code that I was working on the other day for a SQL query. One will work, one won’t. In this case it comes down to a single missing comma which could take hours and hours to find. When some files are 1000’s and 1000’s of lines long it is really easy to understand where some of these fall into the code.
public function createSeatrial($formData) {
$this->db->query('INSERT INTO seatrials (seatrial_vesselName, seatrial_activity, seatrial_length, seatrial_buildYear, seatrial_maxCrew, seatrial_maxPax, seatrial_vhfLicence, seatrial_opLimits, seatrial_from, seatrial_to, seatrial_departDate, seatrial_master, seatrial_dp, seatrial_backupDp, seatrial_owner, seatrial_ownerPermision, seatrial_ownerPermisionDate, seatrial_notes)
VALUES (:vesselName, :activity, :vesselLength, :vesselBuildYear, :vesselMaxCrew, :vesselMaxPax, :vhfLicence, :opLimit, :from, :to, :departureDate, :master, :dp, :backupDp, :owner, :permisionType, :ownerDate, :notes)');
public function createSeatrial($formData) {
$this->db->query('INSERT INTO seatrials (seatrial_vesselName, seatrial_activity, seatrial_length, seatrial_buildYear, seatrial_maxCrew, seatrial_maxPax, seatrial_vhfLicence, seatrial_opLimits, seatrial_from, seatrial_to, seatrial_departDate, seatrial_master seatrial_dp, seatrial_backupDp, seatrial_owner, seatrial_ownerPermision, seatrial_ownerPermisionDate, seatrial_notes)
VALUES (:vesselName, :activity, :vesselLength, :vesselBuildYear, :vesselMaxCrew, :vesselMaxPax, :vhfLicence, :opLimit, :from, :to, :departureDate, :master, :dp, :backupDp, :owner, :permisionType, :ownerDate, :notes)');
The devs are doing their best and in the last Q & A they mentioned perhaps using a complete sim update just dedicated to fixing bugs.
It will get there, we just have to be patient.
43 Likes
FYI - this is an issue with the G1000 in the sim, not just the Baron. Any plane wiht the G1000 suffers the same issue. It’s on the list of fixes in SU6, which should be coming next week if all goes well.
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How nice to see a sensible question and sensible answers on this forum for a change.
Just to avoid adding the first non-sensible response -》 they did say in the q&a they are considering making SU8 a bug fix release only with no new features so they have time to fix all those lower priority bugs that have been languishing.
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Are you kidding me ? They are doing their best … Unless we have a forum spokesperson that works with the programmers, we cannot attest to that. They should have been concentrating on existing BUGS from the moment MSFS was released for purchase. Hopefully, they will start working the existing bugs for real !
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Apart from the same developers building a sim heralded as a great success and selling millions of copies and churning out updates 3-4 times faster than the competition…yep right - clearly they are just loafing about 
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Whatever you think, the team are professionals, they are doing it as their job. Why would they not be doing their best? Just because they are not fixing your bug or perhaps at the speed you want it, does not mean they are not all working hard and dedicated to making the sim the best it can be.
It may not align with your view of how it should be or mine, however they have been concentrating on bugs throughout, hence the updates and fixes, alongside improvements to the sim.
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Like I said: Unless we have a forum spokesperson that works with the programmers, we do not know.
I do understand there is some ‘demand/ressources’ ratio to keep in mind.
But why would they not simply acknowledge low level bugs and maybe take some ressources to fix things before adding more work that will potentially have more bugs to fix later?
When I look at the msfs ‘roadmap’
All I see is
'Feedback Snapshot
SDK Update
3rd Party Update ’
This makes no sense to me and probably to all of those out there that have some small bugs to rage about.
My flight school still makes us work with xplane and they are FAR from even thinking about msfs.
In my opinion, the way the Devs are working is going to cost them.
But again that’s just an opinion.
I’m not sure why you need a ‘spokesperson’ who works with the programmers to know that they are working hard and doing their best. If at work, you sit around all day and do nothing and your performance is no good do you think you’ll carry on working for that company? I think you can take it as read that they are all working pretty hard.
Not only because it is a job but because they are all passionate about the project they are on. You can see this from the dev Q & A live streams. It doesn’t need a spokesperson to tell us.
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Sure, some fixes should be easy, like having your list of last-used airports show on the World Map screen. I say it should be easy because it used to work, which means they know how to do it. But who knows what broke it? Change ‘X’ might have been what broke it, and now we all want Change ‘X’ to stay, so now they have to figure out how to give us the list of airports without breaking Change ‘X’.
And while some fixes like the last-used airport list should be easy, fixes like those regarding weather, live traffic, plane dynamics, and others are much more difficult and are probably tied to other fixes. I was a programmer in my past life, and I can tell you that in my years when I fixed bugs, sometimes I couldn’t release my fix until other fixes were released first because my code was dependent upon theirs. And when I went to see my buddies on the other side of the office, I’d be asked repeatedly why I haven’t fixed that bug yet. Yeah, it got old.
I’m no MSAsobo apologist, but I’m sure they’re not sitting back eating crepes and laughing about how their bug-ridden code is frustrating their users.
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I think he really meant that msfs has not been an example of transparency.
Which I do agree upon
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I like your answer haha, gives another perspective and a good hope.
The hope it will all unscramble one day 
I think the roadmap is one area in desperate need of change. Currently they take the zen-desk reports and export those into an internal only tracker.
To be fair they could indeed be better at feedback where they are with bug reports. Even a massive list would help I think.
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I can totally relate to that!
The coders journey…
- Fix A
- Break B, C, D
- Fix B
- Quite catastrophically break D
- Refactor A, B, C, D
- Start at 1
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Well said!!
The truth is that we are all beta testers, this game was far from finished for the public when it was released, and still is.
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They probably depleted the production budget and there was an executive decision from someone at Microsoft to release this “as is” to start bringing in the revenue. Then there was the race to port this over to XBox and hopefully now they can start getting this thing fixed over the next several months. I don’t want to see any world updates until majority of the bugs are addressed, some of which are over a year old. The entire ATC/IFR functionality is a total farce and needs to be addressed.
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Rather, I think there was an appointment (like with the X start) and it was ordered to go out with it, no matter what the condition.
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I don’t doubt that the devs are working on bugs. However, Top Gun, Reno Air Races, Ju-52, and world updates make for pretty promotions that sell more copies of the title; bug fixes do not and this is what those who prepare budgets for the dev team look at…
1 Like