Comanche strobe light not working in P3Dv3

[Paul K]

Get the stuff we discussed on PM sorted and I think once you run the updater after installing your new 182 and update the v3 of the cherokee you should be good.

thanks,
Lewis

I've done just that, Lewis, with mixed results I'm afraid. In each case, I've re-downloaded the current P3D-licensed models from my account, selected P3Dv3 in the installer, installed them, run them, and then run updater 10_03_15 which found and updated all four models.

Comanche - no strobes flashing, but a very slight flicker on the ammeter when operating the strobe switch
Cherokee - strobes working okay
C-172 - strobes working okay
C-182 - no strobes flashing, but ammeter drops very slightly, and continues to twitch a little while the strobe switch is set to 'on'.

So, two out of four at the moment.

[lonewulf47]

...So, two out of four at the moment.

Paul,

that's pretty strange, indeed. It looks to me as if there are two different effects in use, one of which does not properly show on your graphics system/card/driver. But honestly, I'm unable to give any hint on that. That's the techies business, I'm afraid... Just for the sake of us all: what Graphics Card do you run? Maybe this could give some indication? I personally run NVIDIA on all my sytems.

[Lewis - A2A]

Hello Paul,

my v3's all over the place after the release, let me flatten and start over to test things again here to see if I can get it repeatable.

thanks,
Lewis

[Paul K]

...So, two out of four at the moment.

Paul,

that's pretty strange, indeed. It looks to me as if there are two different effects in use, one of which does not properly show on your graphics system/card/driver. But honestly, I'm unable to give any hint on that. That's the techies business, I'm afraid... Just for the sake of us all: what Graphics Card do you run? Maybe this could give some indication? I personally run NVIDIA on all my sytems.

Oskar, many thanks for your thoughts. My graphics card is a very recently purchased Nvidia GTX 970, with driver 355.82. That aside, I understand that it's impossible to investigate a problem if you yourself can't replicate it. No doubt it will be resolved in the fullness of time.

Hello Paul,

my v3's all over the place after the release, let me flatten and start over to test things again here to see if I can get it repeatable.

thanks,
Lewis

Okay Lewis, thanks for that. I bet this is going to be something simple. I'll have another look at it tomorrow, and see if there is a settings or options permutation that I've overlooked.


Oskar, Lewis..thanks for the assistance so far.

[Paul K]

Well, another day, and more checking and testing. Here's what I've done so far this morning:

1 ) A minor graphics driver update was available, 355.82 to 355.98, so thats been done. Graphics card is an Nvidia GTX 970, just to reiterate.
2 ) Set Nvidia Inspector to default settings ( in effect, turned it off )
3 ) Re-installed the simconnect.msi in ESPv1, FSX-RTM, FSX-SP1 and FSX-SP2-XPACK
4 ) In the sim, checked lens flare
5 ) Checked HDR lighting on and off
6 ) Checked the 'Pilot controls lights' setting on and off
7 ) Checked FSUIPC to see if Extend Battery Life was the issue - on or off, it makes no difference to those strobes that do work, and those that don't.
8 ) tried a full overhaul in the aircrafts maintenance hangar
9 ) I compared the aircraft.cfgs of those aircraft that work ( Cherokee and C172 ) with those that don't ( Comanche and C182 ) - nothing noticeable

Just by way of a query; when running the simconnect.msi, this comes up, and then disappears, and thats it - nothing else. Is there supposed to be something else come up, saying simconnect was successfully installed ? I think that happened first time I ran one of them, but not since then. I just get this, and it disappears at about the moment you see the green ribbon - roughly 70% along



So that's it - I'm stuck.

[Paul K]

Second session of the morning:

1 ) Downloaded a new Comanche zip from my A2A account
2 ) Uninstalled the Comanche from P3Dv3 using Windows Control Panel, and then deleted the remaining folders in the P3Dv3 directory.
3 ) Ran CCleaner registry cleaner - nothing found
4 ) Installed the new Comanche in P3Dv2.5

Everything is okay in v2.5. The Comanche's strobes work as expected, and so I didn't bother running the updater .

5 ) Uninstalled the Comanche from P3Dv2.5, again using control panel, again deleting the remaining folders, and again running Ccleaner registry cleaner, all as per 2 ) and 3 ) above
6 ) Installed the Comanche into P3Dv3 ( as usual, I ran the installer as administrator - I always do that, so that's not the problem ).
7 ) Ran P3Dv3 - Comanche's strobes not working
8 ) Ran the A2A updater 10_03_15, it found the Comanche, and updated it from v1 to v2.161

Still no strobes.

So, everything is fine in P3Dv2.5, but not in P3Dv3. Clearly its a P3Dv3 related issue, so what could possibly be affecting the Comanche and C182, but not the Cherokee and C172 ?

[Paul K]

And I've tried disabling FSUIPC, by temporarily renaming FSUIPC4.dll in the Modules folder, but again no difference to the planes that work and those that don't.

[lonewulf47]

...Still no strobes.
So, everything is fine in P3Dv2.5, but not in P3Dv3. Clearly its a P3Dv3 related issue, so what could possibly be affecting the Comanche and C182, but not the Cherokee and C172 ?

Paul,

that still looks like a mystery to me. I just went through a full trial with different lighting options in P3D V3 for all four models. I see the strobes on all four GA models. What I noticed however is, that to my eyes it seems that the Cherokee/C172 strobes do not use the same effect than the Comanche/C182. While the Cherokee/C172 do more like a "blinking" (relatively long flashes), the Comanche/C182 are much closer to real flashing (very short blinks). So my assumption is that it must have to do with the used effects. This is something however where the devs must step in. It's far beyond my knowledge.

[Lewis - A2A]

Ok Paul, got it repeatable here now on my desktop system and will look into it with the team.

thanks,
Lewis

[lonewulf47]

Ok Paul, got it repeatable here now on my desktop system and will look into it with the team.

Thanks God...

[Paul K]

Ok Paul, got it repeatable here now on my desktop system and will look into it with the team.

Thanks God...

My thoughts exactly, Oskar.

Lewis, thanks very much for that.

A request: can you both check the functioning of the external light switches ( nav lights, strobes, beacon etc ) in the default P3Dv3 Maule, and compare what you find ? I think there's something odd going on there that might help point to our problem.

[lonewulf47]

A request: can you both check the functioning of the external light switches ( nav lights, strobes, beacon etc ) in the default P3Dv3 Maule, and compare what you find ? I think there's something odd going on there that might help point to our problem.

Paul,

I wouldn't give too much on this behaviour, as the Maule is one of the poorly modelled default A/C of both FSX and P3D. Im my install indeed there are only external lights (Nav and Strobe, no Anticollision Beacon at all), if you switch the Landing Light ON. Every other external light switch is meaningless. It's simply connected to the General Light Command CTRL-L. In any case another largely simplified behaviour on a default A/C's lights, I agree.

[Paul K]

A request: can you both check the functioning of the external light switches ( nav lights, strobes, beacon etc ) in the default P3Dv3 Maule, and compare what you find ? I think there's something odd going on there that might help point to our problem.

Paul,

I wouldn't give too much on this behaviour, as the Maule is one of the poorly modelled default A/C of both FSX and P3D. Im my install indeed there are only external lights (Nav and Strobe, no Anticollision Beacon at all), if you switch the Landing Light ON. Every other external light switch is meaningless. It's simply connected to the General Light Command CTRL-L. In any case another largely simplified behaviour on a default A/C's lights, I agree.

Ah, I see, Oskar. I wasn't sure if there was a problem, and whether that might relate to the A2A strobe issue. It can be discounted then. Thank you.

[Froglegs05]

I have the same problem, no stobe light. Amp meter shows slight draw when switch is turned on.

[J Patrick]

Same on my end; I just installed my new Comanche 250 and no belly strobe. Everything else works flawlessly.

Thanks

Patrice