A desperate last try regarding Airport Development Editor

After a reinstall of FS9 am trying to get the ADE .BGL compiled files back to work to no avail, after many, many attempts. These files add ILS to many airports.

I have all the project files, which worked well, saved on CD. Am following the instructions that they have to be in a scenery subfolder located in a scenery area folder that is active in the Scenery Library. This active folder is higher than the default scenery. After each try have rebuilt the database in FSNavigator and FSCommander.

Have read in their support forum that after some attempts the files are locked and allow no additional modification - and I have reinstalled from the CD backup for further attempts.

I am not really sure about the .AD2 project files and am assuming that they do not need to be installed along with the .BGL, but have also tried both ways.

About to give up on this highly desired project and obsessed by the fact that they DID WORK in the recent past, thought I would try this last call for help - and not being really sure that this is the proper forum for this attempt.

Any assistance and guidance on this problem of mine will be very much appreciated.

Thanks,

If any of these are ORBX airports, they do not follow the normal scenery priorities (they have a separate program that places the objects each time you start FS).

The AD2 files do not need to be installed in an active scenery folder, only the BGL files.

Please post screenshots of your Scenery Library showing the relevant scenery layer(s), the folders that contain the BGL files (showing their path on the hard drive), and the inside of that scenery subfolder. Or at least write all that down in a post.

Also, copy the relevant scenery.cfg entry and paste it into a post.

Thank you very much for your willingness to help.

These files are not ORBX and I am glad over your confirmaation that the AD2 files are not involved (which is the position here).

Hoping that I may respond adequately to your questions:

SCENERY LIBRARY - Addon Scenery with ILS = 1 - Addon Scenery = 2 - Propeller Objects = 3 ... Areas 4 to 37 are the Default FS9 Areas ending with Default Scenery = 38 and Default Terrain = 39

(Folder that contains the .BGL files) c:Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery with ILS\Scenery

(Inside of that Scenery folder are over 150 .BGL files modified with ADE, running alphabetically from SBOR_ADE9_CG.BGL to ZO6H_ADE9_CG.BGL)

SCENERY LIBRARY - Addon Scenery = 2 refers to c:Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator 9\Addon Scenery\ where many downloaded add-on files reside, with the near absolute total being different from those identified in the "Addon Scenery with ILS"

One thing I am sure of is that the problem lies with the puzzled unlearned old guy sitting in front of my keyboard.

Thanks again.

Tgidson:

I should add that the Addon Scenery directory contains airport folders, each with subfolders Scenery and Texture plus a scenery.dat file.

Addon Scenery with ILS directory contains only individual airport .bgl files - nothing else.

Thanks.

I should add that the Addon Scenery directory contains airport folders, each with subfolders Scenery and Texture plus a scenery.dat file

Are those airport folders added to the Scenery Library?

If not, then FS will not use them.

The Scenery Library entry for Addon Scenery only controls .bgl files in ...\Addon Scenery\scenery.

So if you have .bgl files in ...\Addon Scenery\SomeAirport\scenery, SomeAirport needs to be added to the Scenery Library.

Also, you can forget about the scenery.dat files, those are the files created/edited by FS when it indexes scenery on startup.

In fact you can do a Windows Explorer search for all scenery.dat files and safely delete them. Some say this fixes scenery problems, I have never seen this myself.

Addon Scenery with ILS directory contains only individual airport .bgl files - nothing else.

Just to verify, your ADE-generated .bgl files are in ...\Addon Scenery with ILS\scenery.

You say these files are not working. How do you mean they are not working? Do you not see the ILS in FS or is the problem with FSNavigator and/or FSCommander?

peace,

the Bean

Hello tgidson:

Just noticed that going from FS9 - SETTINGS - SCENERY LIBRARY either by clicking on the Area or clicking on the Edit button the following happens:

In the "Addon Scenery" area all directories and their respective sub-folders (scenery and texture) and files show up.

In the "Addon Scenery with ILS" the directory is blank, no files show.

This would indicate, I would guess, that I am not being able to activate those needed .BGL files compiled via ADE.

Would those ADE-modified files be ORBX files which you mentioned? But since they worked alright in previous occasions with the same procedures I am now adopting it would not seem so.

Just added this additional information which might help you in analyzing what I am surely missing here.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Dear Stringbean:

I apologize for not being quite clear in my attempts for help on this "problem" .

The individual airport folders are not added to the Scenery Library. Just the Areas "Addon Scenery" and "Addon Scenery with ILS" are added and activated.

I would have to add and activate quite a lot of Addon airports to the Scenery Library? Again, this unknowledgeable user keeps wondering how come this worked before this reinstall, in a kind of " block" arrangement.

For the ADE-compiled airports, then, if the " block arrangement" will not be possible it would mean a couple of hundred individual additions.

"Not working" was my fuzzy attempt to indicate that the ILS do not show up neither in FSCommander and FSNavigation (with their databases duly updated).

Sorry for the incomplete informations from this end and my grateful appreciation for your willingness to help.

The individual airport folders are not added to the Scenery Library. Just the Areas "Addon Scenery" and "Addon Scenery with ILS" are added and activated.

Then the individual airports are not being seen by FS.

I would have to add and activate quite a lot of Addon airports to the Scenery Library?

Only if you want to use them in the sim.

Again, this unknowledgeable user keeps wondering how come this worked before this reinstall, in a kind of " block" arrangement.

I doubt that it did. Unless the files from "before" are still around, there is no way to tell.

For the ADE-compiled airports, then, if the " block arrangement" will not be possible it would mean a couple of hundred individual additions.

No, they can all be in one active scenery folder.

Each entry in the Scenery Library consists of a parent folder that is usually named the same as the entry in the Scenery Library.

Inside of that parent folder is a child folder named scenery. Inside of that child folder is the actual scenery files, all with the .bgl extension.

Optionally, inside the parent folder is another child folder named texture. Inside of that folder is the image files, or textures, required by the scenery .bgl files. The textures can have one of several extensions including .bmp, .R8, .PAT, .pal, and a few others.

Addon Scenery is a parent folder only for ...\Addon Scenery\scenery and ...\Addon Scenery\texture.

If you have another parent folder inside of Addon Scenery, it has to have it's own entry in the Scenery Library or it will not work.

If you have ...\Addon Scenery\SomeAirport\scenery and ...\Addon Scenery\SomeAirport\texture, SomeAirport will have to be added to the Scenery Library for it to work in the sim.

In theory you could put all of your scenery .bgl files in Addon Scenery\scenery and they would work.

This is a bad idea as it makes troubleshooting impossible and file management a nightmare.

"Not working" was my fuzzy attempt to indicate that the ILS do not show up neither in FSCommander and FSNavigation (with their databases duly updated).

So they do work in the sim? They show up in the GPS, on the Map and you can tune them in a plane and fly them?

Then they are working fine and there is no problem with them.

The problem lies with the addon programs, neither of which I use, so I cannot help you with them.

peace,

the Bean

The developer of ADE supplied a utility that runs through your scenery as determined by scenery.cfg contents. After it scans your scenery it will list all but default airports. You can then enter the ICAO ident in the Find box to filter the results for your airport in question. You can see if your ADE compiled .bgls are showing up and in what priority they are being read.

It is a bit of a complex utility so please read the documentation regarding priority and in the list check the folder labels being used.

Regarding duplicates in some scenery this is normal but usually they reside in the same folder and refer to a multiple layer installation. If they are not in the same folder but have priority they can be causing a conflict.

http://www.scruffyduck.org/simple-airport-scanner/4584282795

is the current link with description and download source.

Stringbean, tgibson and ronzie:

Thanks ever so much for being so patient in your attempts to help me on this subject.

The problem, thanks to you all, has been solved!

ADE-compiled BGL files which were in the "Addon Scenery with ILS" Area were moved to "Addon Scenery\scenery" and this Area was moved to the top position. Now the ILS's which I had ADE-added are shown in their totality both in FSCommander and FSNavigator.

My excuses for inconveniencing you in the process. This much desired project has come to a happy satisfactory ending.