New aircraft SimObject not insertable until sim restart

Version: SU 15 - 1.37.19.0

Frequency: Once

Severity: High

Context: Content manager install & dev project affected

Bug description:

Aircraft, added into VFS after sim launch, can not be inserted by SimConnect (WASM at least). It may be not a big deal for dev project, but we just released new AirshowAssistant update with aerial refueling tankers included as AI aircraft simobjects - they does not appear on user request until sim restart. It even worse for Xbox users as MSFS need to be removed from Quick Resume list to perform actual restart.

I believe that SimConnect liveries list is not being updated at the event of adding new aircraft during content manager install or dev project load.

Repro steps:

  1. create/load aircraft dev project, livery name “WASM TEST AIRCRAFT”
  2. run SimConnect_AICreateNonATCAircraft by WASM code with this title
  3. log returns exception similar to “not found aircraft title”
  4. copy project into Community, start the sim, load project
  5. run SimConnect_AICreateNonATCAircraft by WASM code with this title,
  6. aircraft appears
1 Like

+1

I ran into this issue in functional testing for my trains addon. To help users I added a note to the product page saying a sim restart is required to complete the installation.

Are you saying that the user installs the package, and it doesn’t work until they restart the sim?

This has always been true, for all packages. It’s well known that after any installation of a package, the sim should be restarted. MSFS isn’t very good at initializing SimObjects upon installation without a restart.

Does your product require the user to install the package every time they use it, in the middle of a session? Or is this just a one time issue the first time the user installs the package, after which there’s no issue?

And, yes, they broke the livery update upon changes a long time ago. I used to develop liveries by loading them, check it, make a change to the livery files and save the file, switch liveries in the same aircraft, switch back, and it would show the changes. Now I have to change aircraft, sometimes a couple of times to clear the cache, then go back to the plane and the livery, and it will show the changes. I think the change in action happened around SU5 or so, I forget.

So you confirm issue but saying nothing wrong with it?
Customers purchase and install some add-on in Marketplace and expect it will work straight away, without restart, and that is how add-ons installation should work.

I don’t know that I say there’s “nothing wrong with it”. It just is what it is. Why fight it? Why not just restart FS and not worry about the issue?

as a paid developer I have to fight for the best experience of my customers

1 Like