Orbx FTX Central is out for v4

[crashaz]

Downloaded and installed this morning! I started out at Yuma MCAS to see how FTX SoCal blended with OpenLC North America. Yuma looks great... and Yuma never looks great in real life.

[stovall]

Works perfectly, My Southern Cal, Northern Cal and Global went in perfectly. Great tool for P3D v4.

[gman5250]

Yep...straight up plug and play for me too.

[dougal]

I'm confused as to why FTX Central would be of much use??? Unless it maybe updates scenery packages to be compatible?

[lownslo]

Pretty slick upgrade... Kudos to ORBX for making it so simple and painless for their customers.

Greg

[Javis]

Not for this customer they didn't... Royal PITA that's what it was...

So you gentlemen are not accustomed to this message then ? :

Your download for FTXWhatever has been interrupted.
Would you like to retry downloading this product ?
Yes/No

That's what i've got out of it most of the time. About every 5 seconds...

Only FTX Global base and OLCEurope would install just about uninterrupted but the Europe regions made me almost want to give up on flightsimming all together.

I have most of my Orbx/FTX stuff installed with P3Dv3 so after downloading the new FTX Central i thought it would be a matter of pick and click and everything would be taken care of. Well, it finally did but not after two days of irritation and aggrevation. And, not to forget, perserverance.

The worst thing was to get the new Orbxlibs. Just no way whatsoever to get it via FTX Central. Over at Orbx i needed to search the forums to even get to the location of this new Orbxlibs zip.... Grrrrrrr

After downloading it installed within seconds via FTX Central manual download option (should've probabely done that with the Europe regions as well )

So, it's not all wine and roses for everyone trying to install FTX into our brandnew precious P3Dv4. Not sure why though.... Is it my neck of the woods maybe ?.... (the Netherlands) I have an extremely fast internet connection, never a problem with downloads, gigabytes within a minute or so. Btw, same thing happend when installing FTX stuff in P3Dv3.

Anyway, all's forgotten, very pleased with the results !

I have moved the complete FSX folder from my second SSD drive to a HD, it still works but i will never return. After all these years FSX is now a closed book. It was great fun but it's time to move on.

Long live P3Dv4 !

cheers,
jan

[lownslo]

Your download for FTXWhatever has been interrupted.
Would you like to retry downloading this product ?
Yes/No

Yep, I get this if I forget to set my Environment Variables properly for ORBX downloads. I use a RAMDisk where I send all the crap websites want to put on my computer... I find it easier to manage their crap this way. But ORBX doesn't like it.

When downloading from ORBX I set my System Environment Variables to two folders I create on whatever drive I want them to go to... the Folders are the standard "TEMP" and "TMP". Although as I recall ORBX uses only the TEMP folder. Once I have my Environment Variables set all ORBX download and installs work just fine.

HTH,

Greg

[gman5250]

Not for this customer they didn't... Royal PITA that's what it was...

Long live P3Dv4 !

cheers,
jan

I'll elaborate on my previous post Jan. It was a straight up plug and play, but it took three days of downloading Global, Vector, North America, ORBX Libs and various other bits. Not the fault of ORBX, who were on the ball with their update.

Rather, I chose to allow FTX Central to re-download those add-ons to ensure I was completely up to date. Where I live, download speeds are competitive with smoke signals due to my very remote location. The biggies like FTX Global and FTX Vector each took the better part of a day to download.

The downloads are always kind of a white knuckle ride because we get regular power surges, failures and lightning interruptions here this time of year.

At the end of the day, the whole process always involves a fair amount of pain and suffering, but the end result was actually a straight up re-install and things worked as expected.

All that said....

Long live P3Dv4...

[modelr]

My download of P3Dv4 and install was effortless, as was my upgrade of FTX Central, and download and install of a few airports I wanted on the last day of the 47% sale. All downloaded and installed fine. I did not get a notice to redownload/update any of my global stuff, so haven't, yet.

After doing the setups, and a quick few minutes in P3Dv4 to allow the sim to do it's first run setups, with everything working great, except I couldn't find/remember what keys to use to turn on the fps counter. The sim was running smooth on default settings. Then I restarted to try a clean run of the sim... and everything went downhill from there. The computer stuck on the blue restarting page for minutes. After about 5 minutes, I did a manual shutdown/restart. The front bios page showed normally, but then I got two quick "-" marks, blinking, and that's as far as it went. 5 minutes later, I did a manual restart, same thing. Couple more times, same. Finally tried going into bios settings. Nope, wouldn't do it. would partially open a page, then freeze. Same for all four possible pages in bios front page. Tried resetting all memory cards, video card, unplugged and replugged SSD C drive. Tried unplugging all the others. Don't know what happened, but it looks like I get to update my rig, like it or not. Gonna be buying it one piece at a time, processor, MB, RAM and video card, so probably won't get to fly for six months or more. Bummer.

[Javis]

Yep, I get this if I forget to set my Environment Variables properly for ORBX downloads. I use a RAMDisk where I send all the crap websites want to put on my computer... I find it easier to manage their crap this way. But ORBX doesn't like it.

When downloading from ORBX I set my System Environment Variables to two folders I create on whatever drive I want them to go to... the Folders are the standard "TEMP" and "TMP". Although as I recall ORBX uses only the TEMP folder. Once I have my Environment Variables set all ORBX download and installs work just fine.

HTH,

Greg

Would you say that'll be something for me to try, Greg ? I still have a LOT of Orbx/FTX stuff to install for v4 of course. I could go with the manual download option but when FTX Central works (i.e. not presenting this 'download interrupted' message every other 5 seconds..) it is extremely handy. A bit like Steam, isn't it. However i have no clue how to go about setting up 'System Environment Variables'. In fact it's the first time i hear about it.. ( not that computer savvy myself.. )

[Javis]

I'll elaborate on my previous post Jan. It was a straight up plug and play, but it took three days of downloading Global, Vector, North America, ORBX Libs and various other bits. Not the fault of ORBX, who were on the ball with their update.

Wow! I'd better stop complaining then, Gordon...

Download speed never a problem here, lightning fast. The problem is the constant interruptions when doing the process via FTX Central. Manually downloading the files no problem at all.

I also think Orbx deserves kudos for the very quick v4 update. Where would we be without them (IMHO of course). Had a quick look at v4 straight out of the box but regarding scenery that's not really something to write home about. FTX Global plus Europe regions makes me feel right at home again. And boy how i love my new home ! Particularly because of just about no more dreaded popping in and out ground textures. Everything's nice and sharp right away on the spot. Truly wonderful ! And very smooth too !

I spotted two new entries in the FTX Central Europe v4 compatible menu today : Northen Germany and Norway. Just to add to the festivities i bought Norway.










Long live P3Dv4 and Orbx/FTX ! ;-))

Cheers,
Jan

[lownslo]

Would you say that'll be something for me to try, Greg ? I still have a LOT of Orbx/FTX stuff to install for v4 of course. I could go with the manual download option but when FTX Central works (i.e. not presenting this 'download interrupted' message every other 5 seconds..) it is extremely handy. A bit like Steam, isn't it. However i have no clue how to go about setting up 'System Environment Variables'. In fact it's the first time i hear about it.. ( not that computer savvy myself.. )

Would be good if you check your system config. Here's a site that explains how to check the Environment Variables: https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000549.htm

If you check/change the E.V.'s and still get that warning you should definitely contact ORBX... they'll assist you getting it all sorted.

Good luck,

Greg

[b52bob]

To me, at least, ORBX is the number 1 must have for flight simulators. I know you could go broke very soon with the large number of products but well worth it.

Central is a great idea. All the products in one place, easy download, and fast updates.

the reinstall into V4 went flawlessly.

[Javis]

Would be good if you check your system config. Here's a site that explains how to check the Environment Variables: https://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch000549.htm

Thanks, Greg !

cheers,
Jan

[jmig]

To me, at least, ORBX is the number 1 must have for flight simulators. I know you could go broke very soon with the large number of products but well worth it.

Central is a great idea. All the products in one place, easy download, and fast updates.

the reinstall into V4 went flawlessly.

Bob and other senior pilots. I don't know if you are aware of this or not? However, ORBX gives a 20% discount to senior pilots. There is a link on the forums to signing up for the discount.

Of course, the once a year 47-50% off sales is better.

[modelr]

My download of P3Dv4 and install was effortless, as was my upgrade of FTX Central, and download and install of a few airports I wanted on the last day of the 47% sale. All downloaded and installed fine. I did not get a notice to redownload/update any of my global stuff, so haven't, yet.

After doing the setups, and a quick few minutes in P3Dv4 to allow the sim to do it's first run setups, with everything working great, except I couldn't find/remember what keys to use to turn on the fps counter. The sim was running smooth on default settings. Then I restarted to try a clean run of the sim... and everything went downhill from there. The computer stuck on the blue restarting page for minutes. After about 5 minutes, I did a manual shutdown/restart. The front bios page showed normally, but then I got two quick "-" marks, blinking, and that's as far as it went. 5 minutes later, I did a manual restart, same thing. Couple more times, same. Finally tried going into bios settings. Nope, wouldn't do it. would partially open a page, then freeze. Same for all four possible pages in bios front page. Tried resetting all memory cards, video card, unplugged and replugged SSD C drive. Tried unplugging all the others. Don't know what happened, but it looks like I get to update my rig, like it or not. Gonna be buying it one piece at a time, processor, MB, RAM and video card, so probably won't get to fly for six months or more. Bummer.

Not seeing how to edit, I'll Quote and update:
Found my problem causing computer not to boot. Turned out to be a remote, USB powered hard drive hot switchable desktop module, that wasn't even being used, but was plugged in. Weird. Unplugged all my USB stuff, comp booted right up, plugged each item in one at a time, and restarted, until it wouldn't. Unplugged the module again, booted. So, I'm happy. Now to go fly.

[papab]

Not for this customer they didn't... Royal PITA that's what it was...

So you gentlemen are not accustomed to this message then ? :

Your download for FTXWhatever has been interrupted.
Would you like to retry downloading this product ?
Yes/No

That's what i've got out of it most of the time. About every 5 seconds...

Jan,
Try this next time the download gets interrupted in FTXV3:


Open FTX3,go to settings

Under General-Untick "use multiple threads" if you have that checked, uncheck it then click the blue "Save" button
Under Tools, click "Clear Temp" to clear unfinished ORBX downloads
Close and restart FTX 3 Central....
Now try to download your products through FTX Central

Rick

[jeansy]

Jan,
Try this next time the download gets interrupted in FTXV3:


Open FTX3,go to settings

Under General-Untick "use multiple threads" if you have that checked, uncheck it then click the blue "Save" button
Under Tools, click "Clear Temp" to clear unfinished ORBX downloads
Close and restart FTX 3 Central...
Now try to download your products through FTX Central

Rick

Yep, that one is a must, so may times incomplete files are the main culprit that causes the download to get confused(or interrupted) and halt, and or the actual installation to have a brain fart and terminate

[Javis]

Jan,
Try this next time the download gets interrupted in FTXV3:


Open FTX3,go to settings

Under General-Untick "use multiple threads" if you have that checked, uncheck it then click the blue "Save" button
Under Tools, click "Clear Temp" to clear unfinished ORBX downloads
Close and restart FTX 3 Central....
Now try to download your products through FTX Central

Rick

Thanks Rick, and yes these were the first tips i tried too ( from FTX Central-3 forum) to no avail at all ..... Tried other tips too like check UAC (lowest), exclude FTXCentral.exe from my anti-virus prog., delete the Orbx folders from ...user/AppData/Local and ....Temp and then reinstall FTX Central. Also no dice nore sigar what so ever.

This is also true for almost all posts i've read at this FTX forum regarding download/install trouble via FTX Central.

The most annoying thing is that it CAN work absolutely fine. I noticed this during my first attemps and just recently again when i bought Germany North. 'Day one' no chance at all. 'Day two' Bingo! within half an hour. ( download and install via default FTX Central method while i did download the file manually and tried that option as well ( 24 times....;-))

All these tips are great and might even work with some people but my experience sofar is that you desperately need ONE thing only : LUCK!!

I'll stay in Europe for the time being and leave all my FTX USA, Australia, New Zealand stuff a.o for later. Lots of FTX Central download/install error logs have been sent in so hopefully a solution for this annoying problem might be found sooner or later.

It's a good thing FTX sceneries are of such top class, makes all this irritating installation hassle very much worthwhile afterall !

cheers,
jan

[papab]

Thanks for the reply..
I assume that in a few months things will settle down and the downloads will smooth out


Rick

[modelr]

I've had the same problems downloading "some" sceneries in FTX Central. When mine would do that, I would go to straight download, and install with FTX. Has not happened lately, was mostly after ORBX stopped selling in outside stores, and made everything transfer to them, and use FTX Central mandatory. Funny thing was, it was not consistent. Sometimes it would be large files, sometimes small ones. My latest purchases all downloaded well.

On another note, do we have to redownload everything for P3Dv4? I just got my 'puter back up and running, so haven't installed anything to v4 yet.

EDIT: Went to ORBX forum, found info on new FTX Central and what upgrades. Letting it do them now.

[modelr]

Bob and other senior pilots. I don't know if you are aware of this or not? However, ORBX gives a 20% discount to senior pilots. There is a link on the forums to signing up for the discount.

Of course, the once a year 47-50% off sales is better.

Whoa! Didn't know that. Still have a bunch of bush and little airports to get. Have to check that out. Thanks for the info.