KPAE Paine Field MSFS

[John Burgess]

Thanks so much for your continued help Martin, especially at this time of year!
I'll have another go at seeing if I can find what the difference is and let you know if I have any success.
All the best,
John

[John Burgess]

Okay, don't ask me why but I got KPAE to load.
I did a fresh install using the ORBX installer. Left all options enabled.
Deleted all my scenery index files, my rolling cache and my content.xml.
Backed up our layout.json and manifest.json files and replaced them with the ones you kindly provided.
Result - KPAE loaded successfully in FS2024 (even if it did take about 5 minutes).

I'll see if I can narrow it down a bit further.
Probably no help but I've tried to attach the layout and manifest.json files from our installer.
Again many thanks for your help Martin.
All the best, John

ORBX KPAE files.zip

[Martin_Starski]

Thanks John for taking care and doing some testing - maybe step by step we will find a clue.

I will discuss it more with our team after a New Year's break (so after 6.01.2025). All the best for the upcoming 2025!

[John Burgess]

Hi Martin.
Might as well report what I've found in case it gives some clues.
A couple of our customers have tried using your layout.json file and it worked for them too.
Most significantl for yourselves is that we are finding that we can change options and the scenery still loads okay.
It seems to be having the factory interior enabled which is causing quite long loading times for some of us.
I get that at KRNT as well.
I tried seeing if I could find out what was making the difference between our layout.json files but can't pin it down.

If I replace the entries for the 'scenery/Paine Field Airport MSFS/texture/' directory in our file with the ones from your file things work so it seems to be something to do with those entries.
I checked for differences and, as far as I can tell, there are quite a number of differences in the sizes and dates but the same files are being referenced (with the odd change from a capital to a lower case letter).
Our texture folder contains 2482 files and has a size of 3,590,516,461 bytes - identical to the one in FS2020.

If I find anything else I'll let you know.

One last thing - a similar problem seems to be occurring at KBFI.
If you get the chance I'd appreciate a look at your layout.json file for that airport as well.

Thanks again for your assistance - have a good New Year.

John

[John Burgess]

Sorry, forget about KBFI.
I saw a couple of reports but checked and it seems to load fine.
All the best,
John

[Kuba Pa]

Hi John

Our tests have shown that the same problem is with EPWA, EPWR and Seattle Landmarks.

These are json files to KBFI:

[John Burgess]

Hi John

Our tests have shown that the same problem is with EPWA, EPWR and Seattle Landmarks.

These are json files to KBFI:

Hi there.
Thanks for the KBFI file - as mentioned above I checked again and found that our (ORBX) installation was actually working fine anyway.
What may be of interest to you is that I'm finding no problems loading flights in FS2024 at EPWA (v1.1.0), EPWR (v1.1.0) and Seattle Landmarks (v1.3.0) using the layout.json files installed by ORBX central.
If these are of any help I attach them below.
The FS2020 and FS2024 versions of these sceneries seem identical.

For some reason which is far from obvious ,however, our installer for EPWA puts in a second layout.json file which is used with the 'nostatic' option.
It doesn't seem necessary to do this but when using that file the scenery fails to load. As far as I can tell the same files are referenced but with some differences with date and size entries.
Anyway I've attached the version which works.

As mentioned previously when using the layout.json file Martin supplied for KPAE I'm finding no issues even after changing options.

One final bit of weirdness.
We confirmed the report that at KMDW when selecting the nostatic option in our install all the buildings disappeared.
I found that changing the layout.json entry for the KMDW_PLC.bgl file from this
"path": "scenery/KMDW_PLC.bgl",
"size": 314599,
"date": 133263682216339485
to this
"path": "scenery/KMDW_PLC.bgl",
"size": 315979,
"date": 133263682216339485
solved the problem.

If anyone can explain what's going on I'd love to know!
None of these problems occurred in FS2020.

All the best,

John

ORBX layout.zip

[Martin_Starski]

"Enigmatic mystery"... almost like MSFS 2024
Thanks for all your tests and sharing - with your support and our team, I hope we can find a specific cause.

[Kuba Pa]

I think we found a solution. For each installer option there must also be a corresponding layout.json file, otherwise the scenery will not start or will be incomplete.
Thanks John

I Try ty make this files and send You

[John Burgess]

I think we found a solution. For each installer option there must also be a corresponding layout.json file, otherwise the scenery will not start or will be incomplete.
Thanks John

I Try ty make this files and send You

Hi there.

I'm still working through the sceneries but am finding that, so far, I can find a single 'layout.json' file which will work for every option.
Orbx Central enables or disables files to change the options without needing a re-install, maybe that's the difference.
I've found that EPKK was suffering the same problem as KMDW (no buildings when the nostatic option was chosen) .
I think I've solved it - pretty much the same fix as I used for KMDW.
Definitely seems there are differences in the way FS2024 is handling the layout.json file.

If they are any use I attach the files which seem to work with both the static and nonstatic options at KMDW and EPKK.

All the best,

John

KMDW - EPKK.zip

[Kuba Pa]

Nostatic versions have a different PLC, which has a different size, so in layout are defferences. I did a test for EPWA and managed to replace only these 2 files EPWA_PLC.bgl and layout.json and the airport started without problems.

[John Burgess]

Nostatic versions have a different PLC, which has a different size, so in layout are defferences. I did a test for EPWA and managed to replace only these 2 files EPWA_PLC.bgl and layout.json and the airport started without problems.

I found the same was happening at KEWR where there are also two alternative PLC files, one to do with a 'cartayna' option.
What I've found in these situations is that if I edit the layout.json file so the entry for the PLC file has the size of the larger of the two alternatives it seems to work for both.
In the case of KEWR our (ORBX) original layout.json had this entry
"path": "scenery/KEWR_PLC.bgl",
"size": 744861,
"date": 133182337960258912
When I changed to the 'Cartayna' option the buildings disappeared.
I edited the entry to this.
"path": "scenery/KEWR_PLC.bgl",
"size": 747573,
"date": 133182337960258912
and now I can change between both options and they work fine.
I'll attach the Layout.json I'm now using in KEWR to this message.

As mentioned before I seem to have a layout.json file which works for both PLC options at EPWA and attached it to a previous message.

I've now tested all of your sceneries which we have available for FS2024 on ORBX and, apart from the ones I've already mentioned, they seem to be working okay already.
For the ones that weren't I now seem to have layout.json files which work whichever options are enabled. I'm not needing to use a different layout.json for a different option in any scenery.

All the best,

John

KEWR - ORBX.zip

[Giffdev]

I see a handful of folks here troubleshooting (yay!) but is there any fix for us regular customers to get KPAE (or KRNT, KSEA, etc.) working properly?

[Martin_Starski]

Wr're working on this topic.

[Giffdev]

Any updates here? I've purchased this through orbx and the MS store and neither version works in MSFS 2024