Global scenery installer (XP11 pb11) deleting my existing global scenery every time

Question

Hi, folks.

I have the digital download desktop version (Windows 10 64bit, latest X-Plane 11 (pb11, but also happened in all previous betas).

I installed X-Plane 11 and its scenery normally via digital download installer, and I picked a lot of global scenery up front at the time (this was about 2 months ago, I guess).

However, ever since then, each time I go to add more scenery using the X-Plane 11 Installer, it spends a significant amount of time scanning my files but two problems ensue:

(1) The map displayed in the global scenery installation screen is always blank (even though it clearly scanned the whole directory which took a while), and...

(2) Once I select the region(s) I want to add and continue the installation, the installer immediately deletes my entire repository of global scenery (!!) before it installs only the newly-chosen region(s)!

This is maddening. It's basically the worst of both worlds: on the one hand, it is really hard to be sure which scenery I already have installed when I'm choosing the additional regions, and on the other, though it thought I had nothing installed originally, it's clearly seeing the old scenery when it calculates the difference in regions chosen upon starting the actual install, hence it deletes all the rest of my (global) scenery!

If it thinks I have no regions installed (bug #1), it shouldn't then use the absence of those regions chosen in the installer as an indication I want to delete those previously-installed regions!  And, I'm confident that if I manually click on each region I already have installed to add it to the installation, it will actually delete the existing global scenery as above, and then re-copy all the data again -- and again I will end up with the same problem next time.

Please, tell me -- is there a workaround here? How can I make the installer detect my currently installed global scenery when it makes its pretty map?  Is there possibly a file permission issue or something else you can think of? I really really really do NOT want to have to reinstall all my global scenery (yet) again.

My current workaround is to first copy my existing global scenery folder into a backup location, before selecting my new scenery. Once the new scenery is installed, I re-copy the old saved scenery back, which thankfully in Windows works the way you want, letting you replace only the diff.  I don't get at all why it needs to do this, though -- it's way too painful a process, and takes forever (but not as long as the alternative). Though really just the first time, because after that I can reuse my copy as long as I add any newly added global scenery when I update it.  But I mean, should I really have to do this myself? It seems the software could do this, much easier than I. It doesn't make sense why this is happening.

Please help. Thanks.

  Steve

 

 

 

Answer 1

Deleting all existing scenery in order to install new scenery is definitely not how the install is expected to work. I have not seen this issue before in any of my experience. My guess would be that if the installed scenery isn't showing up in the map picker, the installer thinks you want to delete it, since the add/remove function is the same path through the installer.

Please make sure you are using the latest version of the installer from X-Plane.com. It probably wouldn't hurt to re-download it just to make sure nothing went wrong with it either. If it continues to happen, please attach copies of the installer log and X-Plane log.

Comments

Well, thanks very much for your response, jroberts.  I am sorry for the delay in following up, but I had to go travel for work and was away from my simulator for a full week (almost suffered serious withdrawal!).

When I got home, I sat down and made a backup of my whole global scenery directory, and tried to troubleshoot further to figure out what might be causing it...

However, after my very first attempt, I was able to get it back to working correctly. So the problem is no longer happening, which makes me very happy.  I had tried so many things prior to posting, but nothing seemed to work.  Not having a backup, though (since it takes forever and uses lots of space) I wasn't able to try the more risky troubleshooting.

Anyway, long story short, I honestly don't know how it started working again, but it's working again. I'll update this thread if I can figure out what exactly caused it to start working (if anyone is really having the same problem), but otherwise unless it surfaces again, I'll consider the matter closed. Huge thanks for the insights.

  Steve

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Hi Steve,

If it comes back and you can figure out what exact steps cause it, please go ahead and file a bug here with all the details. It's more likely to get seen that way. :)