Missing Instrument Gauges

[Adam Pestridge]

I did a flight earlier, stupidly I was using the Professional version on an Academic licence...doh

Everything was fine except I had the Beacon light problem, it was a red box flashing instead of the light, I found the fix for that on this forum and edited the effects file for it, sorted... thanks

Ever since then, although Im not convinced they are related, I found that many of the Pilots instrument gauges and FE instrument gauges are now missing, crucial ones as well...

any ideas? The plane flies and works as it should, Id like to return this issue back to normal asap.

I have since installed the correct version for the license I hold and havent changed the beacon.effect file yet and still see this issue.

[alan CXA651]

Hi Adam.
I dont have P3D i still use FSXA , but when you say you installed the correct version of L049 for your sim recently , did you delete all the files for your original install first , as some files are still left behind after using program uninstall , and the ones left behind have to be manually uninstalled.
Regards Alan.

[Adam Pestridge]

Hi Adam.
I dont have P3D i still use FSXA , but when you say you installed the correct version of L049 for your sim recently , did you delete all the files for your original install first , as some files are still left behind after using program uninstall , and the ones left behind have to be manually uninstalled.
Regards Alan.

Hiya, thanks for responding, which files are these, or rather, where would they be located? I did look in the A2A folder in documents and there were no L049 folders there.

Although this issue was happening before I re-installed it, so Im not sure this is the reason.

[alan CXA651]

Hi Adam.
I dont know where P3D or win 10/11 put things Nick of A2A will be better to ask for this , i still use win7 and FSXA.
in WIN7/FSXA some files are in Documents/My Documents/A2A and some files in users/AppData/Roaming/Micosoft/FSX.cfg .
you could try doing a seach off previous posts on clean reinstalling , as this subject has come up a few times .
Regards Alan.

[Adam Pestridge]

Hi Adam.
I dont know where P3D or win 10/11 put things Nick of A2A will be better to ask for this , i still use win7 and FSXA.
in WIN7/FSXA some files are in Documents/My Documents/A2A and some files in users/AppData/Roaming/Micosoft/FSX.cfg .
you could try doing a seach off previous posts on clean reinstalling , as this subject has come up a few times .
Regards Alan.

So I uninstalled the plane. Deleted every folder that said L049 and reinstalled the plane. No change.
The exact same thing.

I am hoping that someone from A2A responds, hence why I placed it on the forums.. To be honest, I dont think I know how these forums exactly work, because I thought you were a rep of A2A ...LOL

thanks for the suggestions

[Nick - A2A]

Hello Adam,

Have you made any other modifications to your Connie installation other than to the effects file that you mention? For example installing repaints or cockpit modifications?

In any case, one thing you can try is resetting P3D to its default graphics settings. To do this, navigate to the "C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5" folder (for P3Dv5) and make a backup of, and then delete the "Prepar3D.cfg" file. When you do this, I'd also recommend deleting the following folder as well. "C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Local\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\Shaders".

Just for info, installing the wrong licence for the aircraft wouldn't cause the issue you describe.

If the problem persists, please can you attach a screenshot showing how the cockpit is rendering in your installation.

Thanks,
Nick

[Adam Pestridge]

Hello Adam,

Have you made any other modifications to your Connie installation other than to the effects file that you mention? For example installing repaints or cockpit modifications?

In any case, one thing you can try is resetting P3D to its default graphics settings. To do this, navigate to the "C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5" folder (for P3Dv5) and make a backup of, and then delete the "Prepar3D.cfg" file. When you do this, I'd also recommend deleting the following folder as well. "C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Local\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\Shaders".

Just for info, installing the wrong licence for the aircraft wouldn't cause the issue you describe.

If the problem persists, please can you attach a screenshot showing how the cockpit is rendering in your installation.

Thanks,
Nick

Hiya Nick, thanks for coming back to me...

When this happened, Id been flying the J3 Cub.... I shut the sim down and restarted it with the Connie, in order to film a review for Sim Market... everything was fine, it was the stock (whatever comes with the installer version), I didnt add anything to it. I do have a video ( I placed screenshots from it in the discord channel) of all the gauges working correctly. As I was filming I noticed the Beacon light flashing its red box and remember a friend of mine having this same issue and there was a fix for it on here. I tracked down the fix and added the new line. Refreshed the scenery (thinking it might refresh the file) which of course it didnt. I restarted the sim and when I came back in, gauges and most all needles (as indicated in the pics on discord) are all missing.

I have uninstalled (fully, deleting all folders) and reinstalled, nothing. No change, I really am confused as it was just a simple restart of the sim that triggered this. I dont understand how or why, no changes to the sim sliders, gpu control panel, no windows updates (in fact I fully disable all my windows security when running P3D so it doesnt interfere)
I have run a repair on the content of the sim, in case it was the sim and still no change.
All my other A2A planes are fine.

I have since installed other liveries, looking for one that come with alternate instrument panels and they still share the same issue, where does the needles for the gauges and the instruments that are missing sit on the pc?

Just to be clear, you want me to delete my entire folder in app data for lockheed martin?

(I cant say returning P3D back to default settings will sort this as the plane was fine on these settings and Ive installed nothing to change that when the first issue happened, apart from adding a line to the effects file to fix the original glitch in the plane. I will try this tho)

[Adam Pestridge]

oh, Ive just seen you said delete the shaders folder only... LOL no worries

[Nick - A2A]

Just to be clear, you want me to delete my entire folder in app data for lockheed martin?

No, just the "Prepar3D.cfg" file really, and I recommend you make up backup first in case you wish to restore it. However, as well as this file, I'd also recommend you delete the separate "C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Local\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\Shaders" folder.

The shared gauge textures are installed to "C:\Users\[UserName]\Documents\Prepar3D v5 Add-ons\A2A\SimObjects\Airplanes\WoS_L049\texture" by default. To me, it sounds most likely that you've placed a modified file or files in this folder somewhere. However, it's also possible to have gauge textures in other livery-specific folders in the installation.

Thanks,
Nick

[Adam Pestridge]

Just to be clear, you want me to delete my entire folder in app data for lockheed martin?

No, just the "Prepar3D.cfg" file really, and I recommend you make up backup first in case you wish to restore it. However, as well as this file, I'd also recommend you delete the separate "C:\Users\[UserName]\AppData\Local\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v5\Shaders" folder.

The shared gauge textures are installed to "C:\Users\[UserName]\Documents\Prepar3D v5 Add-ons\A2A\SimObjects\Airplanes\WoS_L049\texture" by default. To me, it sounds most likely that you've placed a modified file or files in this folder somewhere. However, it's also possible to have gauge textures in other livery-specific folders in the installation.

Thanks,
Nick

When the issue first happened, I hadnt changed the folder at all of the original installation as I was making a review video. It was only when the beacon file issue was there, that I changed that single file.
When I reinstalled the plane, I didnt alter that file and yet the issue was there from a fresh installation.

To be fair, that shader folder you mentioned, I delete on a regular basis whenever I move to another airport as part of my routine of loading up the scenery for a flight. That folder would have been empty the first time I loaded the connie and only been filled with that loading of the sim....

I will delete the file you mentioned and let you know. One sec.

[Adam Pestridge]

I removed my cfg file and placed it on the desktop.
Ran the Black Marble tool that I use when I change to another airport, which also removes the contents of the folder you mentioned.
Ran the sim and when it loaded up into the scenario screen. The aircraft preview was visible and working (usually that is just black and I cant preview the planes, which I aint that bothered about) when I loaded back up my profile, that preview windows went back to being black ( I guess I use a P3D setting that it doesnt like LOL) but no change to the connie....

So I repeated the process again, this time, kept the default profile of P3D.. Same result. No change. This issue literally popped up out of nowhere when no change to the sim or system was made. Just restarting the sim seems to have caused it. LOL

[Adam Pestridge]

just to confirm, in the texture folder you mentioned that is shared by the liveries, there are 45 files present in that folder?

Is that correct?

[Nick - A2A]

Hi Adam,

Yes, there should be 45 files in the folder in question. However, can you check the size of the "vc_gxml2.dds" file as it looks like this one in particular isn't being rendered properly.

Thanks,
Nick

[Adam Pestridge]

Hi Adam,

Yes, there should be 45 files in the folder in question. However, can you check the size of the "vc_gxml2.dds" file as it looks like this one in particular isn't being rendered properly.

Thanks,
Nick

That file in question is 2MB in size... what size should it be?

[Nick - A2A]

File size is correct, thanks. Please can you also make sure that a copy of this file isn't present in any of the individual "texture.???" folders for the various liveries. (e.g. "texture.BOAC")

Thanks,
Nick