Problem with build 484

[Garys]

I have a major problem with build 484 that I hope you can help me with. I dont even know how to describe it correctly. After installing the latest updates for the boeing suite I have the following problems.

1. Upon startup of the GC all screens are blank. In order to get a display I need to press the w key. I have tilltes off in the ini and have never started the gc minimized before. Exiting the program and restarting doesnt start in its last position , the screen always starts balnk so I continuosly have to press the w key at each start.

2. After install it made some adjustments to the positions from gc480, however I can no longer make any adjustments on the active screen. What seems to be happening is there is an active screen and also a de-active screen. Yep 2 screens. However the de-active screen seems to be the one on top. In order to make an adjustment I need to toggle the w key to go between these 2 screens because all adjustments are happening on the screen you cant see which doesnt make any sence so Im constantly going back and fwd making minor adjusments because I cant see exactly what changes Im making.

3. The quality of the letters are poor, but again cant make any changes to the open gl settings to test as pressing esc brings up the menu on the screen that you cant see. pressing w to bring it the front doesnt work as the keyboard and mouse are still active on the behind screen.

4. the F3 option does not work, screen is blank. F7 works. In order to make any changes to the display pages I need to press w. So if im currently on the pfd/nd page and I want to go to pfd only I press F1, nothing happens so I need to press w and there it is. Press w again will take me back to the pfd/nd page.

This has been very frustrating and I do appologize for my description. Its quite hard to put in writing exactly what is happening.

[eschiratti]

Hello Gary,

can you please e-mail us at support@projectmagenta.com? Can you send a screenshot or photo of what you see?

Ciao

Enrico

[Nick1150]

Sorry I am a newbie, and I am not in no position to advise, but those things happened to me too -->


1. Upon startup of the GC all screens are blank. In order to get a display I need to press the w key. I have tilltes off in the ini and have never started the gc minimized before. Exiting the program and restarting doesnt start in its last position , the screen always starts balnk so I continuosly have to press the w key at each start.I have exactly the same issues... I found that pressing the "restore down" button (right of the windows minimize button) and after press "maximize" button again, it fixes the problem. Of course you have to do that everytime you startup, and this is fustrating, but I am sure Enrico will fix that very soon.





2. After install it made some adjustments to the positions from gc480, however I can no longer make any adjustments on the active screen. What seems to be happening is there is an active screen and also a de-active screen. Yep 2 screens. However the de-active screen seems to be the one on top. In order to make an adjustment I need to toggle the w key to go between these 2 screens because all adjustments are happening on the screen you cant see which doesnt make any sence so Im constantly going back and fwd making minor adjusments because I cant see exactly what changes Im making.That happened to me too when i tried instead of having maximized the GC, to resize it in the screen. If you maximize the window everything will come in its saved position.





3. The quality of the letters are poor, but again cant make any changes to the open gl settings to test as pressing esc brings up the menu on the screen that you cant see. pressing w to bring it the front doesnt work as the keyboard and mouse are still active on the behind screen. Indeed the quality of the letters is different from the 480 version, but the difference is not big, so I am not sure.





4. the F3 option does not work, screen is blank. F7 works. In order to make any changes to the display pages I need to press w. So if im currently on the pfd/nd page and I want to go to pfd only I press F1, nothing happens so I need to press w and there it is. Press w again will take me back to the pfd/nd page. Try maximizing the GC window

[Garys]

@ Enrico, I will get that to you later today

@Nick, Thanks for your reply. Kinda glad in away that Im not the only one. The only problem I have with some of your suggestions is that I have my monitors mounted behind the mip so I cant actually see the windows task bar or where the gc has minimized too. The only workaround Ive found is the w key. The F3 page just doesnt respond to that unfortunately.

[farrokh747]

hi garys - if you want to have a look and debug your GC desktop hidden by the bezels, try using

http://www.realvnc.com/products/free/4.1/index.html

you can view/control a remote PC desktop with this, from any PC on the network... this should make it easier to troubleshoot your GC screen....

Hope this helps - not exactly answering your original Q, but it may help....

fc

[Matt Olieman]

hi garys - if you want to have a look and debug your GC desktop hidden by the bezels, try using

http://www.realvnc.com/products/free/4.1/index.html

you can view/control a remote PC desktop with this, from any PC on the network... this should make it easier to troubleshoot your GC screen....

Hope this helps - not exactly answering your original Q, but it may help....

fc

I use the same thing "VNC" it's fantastic. No keyboards or mouse hooked up to other computers, just turn them on and you're ready to go using VNC.

Matt Olieman

[Garys]

Excellent suggestion guys, Thankyou. I will give it a try

[Garys]

UPDATE: All is working well now. Once I could see what was going on and where it was minimizing too it was a quick easy fix. Thanks for your help guys.

[eschiratti]

I still wonder how it got messed up in the first place though. And even re-reading what you wrote I am not able to reproduce it. It is certain it shouldn't happen.

[blueskydriver]

Not sure what you meant either about blank screens and minimized, but I can think of two things. One, for blank screens, if you're using PMSystems and you're at cold and dark (CD) state, the screens would be blank. If you shut down PMSystems in that state, it's going to start in that state the next time. So, when you start GC, you'll likely see the screens, but if you start PMSystems afterwards in CD state, they'll go blank.

Two, here is a sure fire way to know if something is starting minimized or not. Right mouse click on the icon of said program, and then look for properties. In the window, click shortcut tab, now look at Run: What's in the drop down space there?

It will be Normal Window, Minimized or Maximized. Select either Normal Window or Maximized. This process can be used for any icon on your desktop...

BSD

[Nick1150]

Hi to both,

I am not sure if you are refering to me to Garys...

Nevertheless I do not have pmSystems.

I am still having issues. Everytime my 3 clients are switched on, windows startup opens WideFS and PM glass cockpit as it has always been doing since the beginning. The WideFS opens and then the PFD.exe (Topmost = on in the ini file) is opened in a maximized mode, and I used to seeing all gauges in my 3 clients.

Since 484 version, the pfd.exe is opened in a maximized mode as always but there are no gauges.

By minimizing the pfd.exe window and re-maximizing again, the gauges appear in their saved place on the screen.

As read above Garys has solved this problem by connecting via VNC, but I do not have such an issue cause my clients are laptops connected with a VGA cable to the MIP screens, so I can see the MIP screen through the laptop screen...

Thanks

Nick

[Garys]

I also autostart the gc like you Nick. What I found that had happened is that I run two instances of the GC on each machine for cap and f/o and upper and lower Eicas in an expanded desktop setup. I always had the f/o and lower eicas start first on each machine as the first monitor is the one with the desktop icons. After quiting the gc software with the q key I started them up indivdually to find that the f/o and lower Eicas were defaulting to a minimized state on the first monitor instead of the second monitor causing the second monitor to go blank. Starting the cap and upper eicas would then again start on the first monitor in a minimized state over the top of the f/o and lower eicas which is why I assume the w key was working the way it was.

Once I could see what was happening I was then able to start each one individually again, move to its respective screen, resize and save.

@ Blue sky.. Thanks for the desktop icons tip. I never knew you could do that.

Gary

[Aaron]

Same issue here.

Blank screen (well, I must say black hehe) at the start. I can see the gauges after minimize and the restore, or via the W key.

The issue appears right after the update (from 482 to 486 in my case). Tomorrow we will try installing VNC, and resizing and quiting with the Q key as gary does, to see if this help.

In addition to this, I must say I have multimonitor setup (very much like Garys, with Captain PFD and EICAS2 in one computer and FO PFD and EICAS1 on another (and two monitors in every computer, of course))

[Nick1150]

Same issue here.

Blank screen (well, I must say black hehe) at the start. I can see the gauges after minimize and the restore, or via the W key.

The issue appears right after the update (from 482 to 486 in my case). Tomorrow we will try installing VNC, and resizing and quiting with the Q key as gary does, to see if this help.

In addition to this, I must say I have multimonitor setup (very much like Garys, with Captain PFD and EICAS2 in one computer and FO PFD and EICAS1 on another (and two monitors in every computer, of course))Hi Aaron,

Enrico helped me out in this and to be honest I am very happy ith PM support !!!

So Aaron, can you please check if StartElec=off in the your pfd.ini file ?

Another question... Do your standby instruments appear, when at the same time EICAS is not ?

[eschiratti]

The StartelecOff option is for those who *want* dark screens when the GC starts up, and do not use pmSystems. It simply waits for a keypress or the FS battery to be on to fire up the Glass Cockpit.

[Aaron]

Thankyou Nick and Enrico.

Im on holydays right now, but I will test it as soon as I arrive home. I think its a great feature for cold and dark option.

I am very happy with PM support too!!!

[Aaron]

I was unable to replicate this problem on my home PC, but in my simulator is still happens.

I do not use the project magenta stand by instruments because I have analog ones by simkits, but I activated them to see if they appears or not, and the result is not. The startelecoff is off in the ini file.

Finally, after a couple of hours and some test I found the problem is something with wideclient. If I run PFD.exe without wideclient already running, the glass cockpit works perfectly as usual, but If I run them with wideclient already running, its show me the blank screen with no gauges.

I have also checked and this issue only happens with PM Glass cockpit 484 or 486, with 480 version there is no problem, and GC always show the gauges (With or without wideclient)

Ive changed the order of running aplication at startup (first GC then wideclient), and everything is running fine, but still sound extrange for me!

My configuration is one PC (two monitors, win7x64, ati 5550) for captain PFD/ND and lower EICAS (two monitors) and another (two monitors, win7x86, nvidia) for FO PFD/ND and upper eicas). Both of them with last version of wideclient and the server with last FSUIPC