Error message

[rickyo]

Good day guys;

I've installed a lot of fine looking WW1 aircraft and get the following messages from about 6 of them.

1- Failed to initialize the data base .... you might need to reinstall .... data files are missing or corrupted. I'm sure you've seen the whole message before.

2- Generation of quick combat mission has failed. Something like that.

There seems to be no problem with the planes. the weapons work and they start up and fly just fine. Are these messages something I should worry about?

Cheers .... Rick

[UncleTgt]

See Allens reply to this thread ... http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...n-and-problems

It sounds like the same issue.

CFS2 has several "hard" limits hidden within the code. These limits are guidelines, your PC hardware & set up seems to influence things too

More than approx 100 player aircraft installed - failure to initialize databases ... message (note: if you have a lot of ships installed this can also add to the models in use total)

Solution - reduce the number of aircraft installed

More than 1400 - 1700 Object DPs - either same as above message, or random can't find ### model messages

Solution - reduce the active number of object DPs

More than 200 active runway entries - new runways don't show up in Free Flight lists

Most error messages affect use of Free Flight, Quick Combat or Mission Builder. It seems that you can overload your install with >100 aircraft & fly user created Missions or Campaigns quite happily. I'm not sure if the same is true of object DPs but if the hard limit is the number of Model files in use, it may also be true.

[rickyo]

Thank you very much, Uncle!

... and another question. I have ACMan installed, I'm guessing this would take care of the problem. I have not used it yet. Would there be a problem with putting the stock aircraft in a hanger?

Cheers again .... Rick

[UncleTgt]

Rick

ACMan will work, even just creating a subfolder called HANGARED & moving the aircraft you don't need into this folder whilst in Windows Explorer works just fine too. Just be sure to do these changes BEFORE you fire up the sim, don't move stuff around whilst you have the sim running ...

[rickyo]

Great! Thank you. I'm relearning all this stuff and may even learn more!

Cheers .... Rick

[rickyo]

Morning All;

I'll try to keep this short, but sometimes it's hard for me to explain things. I was seeing the messages described above that seemed to suggest I had too many aircraft installed. I started to remove aircraft, got down to about 60 and still had the messages. Well, I just could not live with seeing those, so I removed all planes I had added and started installing them one at a time. It appears certain aircraft were causing the messages to appear. So, now the messages are gone, but I'd really love to have some of those "problem" planes.

I cannot remember, but it seemed before that not many planes came with an "Installer Package". I used to avoid using "auto installers" and installed everything "manually". Every plane I download has an installer package. Now I see ever aircraft, even the stock aircraft has this installer package in it's folders. If you click on it, 99.9% of the time you see a black box telling you it no longer works. I've clicked on it as a last resort when a plane would not show up in free flight.

Really, I never had a problem installing planes before.

Not that I need them, but for some reason Gotha bombers, old and the latest offerings, give me a message saying they may cause scenery objects not to show up.

it's very frustrating. I spent 14 hours yesterday trying to get what appears to be very easy to install aircraft to show up without error messages or show up at all in free flight.

Do you guys have this "Installer Package" when you download an aircraft? It's in EVERY aircraft in every install of CFS2 I have.

I don't know if the installer package is a problem. Rami's latest RAAF campaign works with no problems, no messages, and every plane has the dang installer in it's files.

I use this pc to reach the forums and download items and transfer them to my off line pc. Today, I'm going to download a couple of planes, see if they have the installer, remove it before I transfer to my off line pc and see what happens.

Maybe it's some kind of bug?

Cheers All .... Rick


EDIT: I just removed all the installer packages from the stock aircraft in a "clean install" of CFS2 and got error messages and could not fly. Put them back and all is well again. Well, I guess I have to live with the installers, really, I just don't remember seeing them before I got back into the sim.

[Rami]

Rickyo,

CFS2 has a number of known "bugs" in it, things you have to look out for. Among them are...

1) The number of aircraft you can have in a sim. (Without a patch, which itself can be problematic, the limit is usually 100)

2) The number of objects you can have in a sim. (Usually between 1500 and 1600)

3) The number of ships you can have in a sim. (Usually around 90)

When you get the "failure to initialize the databases" and the "quick combat" message, the best way to reset this is to check for one of these three things, exit out of the sim, use the windows search feature to delete all the filelist.dat, .cdp files, and index files from the install, and then restart the sim.

Also, for each aircraft, you should use an editor like notepad to check the .cfg files for panels and sounds, often these are "aliased" to other aircraft, such as the A6M2 Zero.

it would look like this: AH_Spitfire_MK1A_54_Deere\SOUND

What this is saying is that the sound for a Hurricane or any other aircraft in my Battle of France sim that uses that soundpack is dependent on those sounds being in that folder, in that aircraft, in the AIRCRAFT folder, in the sim.

If I were to remove that aircraft or the sound folder from the sim, any aircraft which uses that soundpack will no longer show up/ work in the sim. I understand it can be very frustrating, hunting down gauges and weapons can be equally frustrating and time consuming.

As you can imagine after your experience, this is why I spend countless hours making sure that almost all of the aircraft, ships, weapons, and scenery objects are included in those auto-installers. It's as much of a pain for me to do this as it would be for you, but I only have to do it once, and then you all get to reap the benefits.

Thanks for the nod with regard to the auto-installers, and we're here to walk you through anything you need.

[rickyo]

Thanks Rami, this is something I will explore today. I can live with the "Installer Package" being in all the aircraft files. It seems I have. It just really bugs me when I cannot install something like "Sop_Tripe" a fine AeroCrate aircraft. I notice with this one that sound is aliased to his Newport 17. The Sop_Tripe has this in the sound folder along with another, "alt_sound", which is aliased to the stock A6M2 Zero. Do I keep both sound folders? Hee, hee, that will be my last question for the day. Thank you, my friend! The Sop Tripe does show up and work fine, just with the dang error warnings.

Cheers bud .... Rick

[Rami]

Thanks Rami, this is something I will explore today. I can live with the "Installer Package" being in all the aircraft files. It seems I have. It just really bugs me when I cannot install something like "Sop_Tripe" a fine AeroCrate aircraft. I notice with this one that sound is aliased to his Newport 17. The Sop_Tripe has this in the sound folder along with another, "alt_sound", which is aliased to the stock A6M2 Zero. Do I keep both sound folders? Hee, hee, that will be my last question for the day. Thank you, my friend! The Sop Tripe does show up and work fine, just with the dang error warnings.

Cheers bud .... Rick

Rick,

If you don't have the Nieuport but you do have the Zero, then use the latter, and rename it "sound.cfg" Then at least the plane will work.

[rickyo]

Thanks Rami. I've decided to try these planes out in mission builder and find out which will work. It seems any with an error warning causes the mission builder to give you a warning and close. Also, after just taking a few peeks into Cody's bible I believe I will need to make a new aircraft folder for each skin I want to use. So, I'm not going to worry about planes I cannot get to work and be thankful for the ones I have and move ahead "enjoying" all the "fun" of mission building! I've made very basic missions before and after many hours of swearing and head banking, I realize Just how much skill and work is needed to produce the fantastic campaigns you guys have uploaded for all to enjoy. Thanks to all for for doing this. I have a feeling most here now are CFS2 experts! I can't imagine many folks are going to want to install a 20 year old sim these days. I am very happy that I kept the discs. I know I had bought about 6 copies and have found 2 of them. You never know, you might lose everything, back ups and all! I think I may have passed on a few copies, they were getting harder to find and quite expensive. I bought my first for $12 at a local shop!

Cheers and thanks to all who have already had to come to my rescue .... Rick