WebMaximus

Forgive me for a possibly very stupid question but does running EFB in a 2 PCs setup actually require SimConnect? Or to make my question a little bit more detailed, does it require the SimConnect.cfg file on the Display Unit PC and the SimConnect.xml on the Data Provider PC both fully correctly configured with IP address etc? Reason I ask is I have been running EFB for many years now, first in FSX and lately in P3D2.5. After starting to suffer from stuttering issues in P3D 30-60 minutes into a flight I suspected a SimConnect issue where SimConnect maybe was flooded since I'm also using other addons requiring SimConnect such as ActiveSky Next. Someone gave me the tip to check what version(s) of SimConnect I have installed since the information was having multiple versions of SimConnect installed could cause stutters and possibly other issues as well. So for this reason I decided to check out SimConnect in a little bit more detail, did this as part of a clean reinstall of P3Dv2.5 trying to sort the stuttering issues I've experienced. What I found was that after installing P3Dv2.5 I only had one version of SimConnect installed on my P3D PC called Microsoft EFB SimConnect Client v1.0.20.0. This version was apparently installed by the P3Dv2.5 installation program. I later installed vPilot (the VATSIM pilot client) which didn't start successfully complaining about a missing SimConnect version called Microsoft Flight Simulator SimConnect Client v10.0.61259.0. After installing this version of SimConnect on my P3D PC where also the data provider of EFB resides vPilot started successfully and all was good. On my second PC where I'm running the EFB DU I already had Microsoft Flight Simulator SimConnect Client v10.0.61259.0 installed and that's the only version of SimConnect on my second PC. Now to my actual question...what I noticed was that EFB would start and work perfectly fine as far as I could tell even before I configured SimConnect for a networked install using the SimConnect.cfg file on my second PC and the SimConnect.xml file on my main PC. This puzzled me because I didn't think EFB would work in a networked setup without having the correct information in both these files. So right now I'm running EFB without any of these two files and still everything seems to be working just fine. Haven't had time to do an actual flight yet though but I did start up a flight and also connected to VATSIM using vPilot and everything was working perfectly fine showing my correct aircraft location on the airport chart map, displaying online traffic and so on. Sorry for the long post but wanted to give as much detail as possible serving as background to my question...does EFB really need SimConnect and if so how is it possible I'm running EFB in a networked setup without any of the SimConnect config files?

Very interesting thread! I've experienced the exact same thing but didn't think of EFB as the culprit since I've been using EFB since day one I installed P3D version 2.5 but only suffered from the stuttering issue for the last week or so. Will try stopping the Data Provider next time I fly and the stuttering begins to see if that stops the stuttering in my case too.

Many thanks for sharing this with us Urs and take all the time you need. Meanwhile the current version is running just fine.

No problem what so ever Urs, as mentioned I didn't see any bad impact but was just curious since it was a new one to me.

Got this error message a couple of times now and haven't seen it before, at least not as I can recall. However all the VATSIM stuff still seems to work just fine despite this error message so not sure if I even need to bother?

Hello Travis, It's only VPA that seems to have issues and what it doesn't like is that the alternate airport is removed, that the flight level is expressed like FL330 rather than 33000 (feet) and I've also seen it modifies the route putting in all waypoints along the route. However I don't see this as an issue with EFB but more like an unfortunate combination between how FSInn works and how my VA wants the FP formatted. The best thing would be if there was a way to have FSInn not picking up the FP just like you can in ASN having the 'Auto load flight plan' option checked or not.

Just noticed a side-effect using this autoload flight plan feature in EFB/ASN and it took a while until I realized what was happening. I'm doing all my flying online on VATSIM using a pilot client called FSInn and the last couple of flights just before pushback when I'm sending in my flight plan to VPA (the virtual airline I'm flying for) I've had error messages saying I must include an alternate airport, enter my planned cruise level expressed in feet and some other things as well. This has puzzled me since I'm sure I filled out the FP correctly but sure enough when I open up the flight plan in FSInn for some reason I've noticed this information indeed is incorrect/missing. First I thought maybe ATC ammended my flight plans because sometimes they do without letting you know so I fixed what was wrong and resent the flight plan and all was good. However today this same thing happened again and this time with no ATC online. What I then found out was that appearently not only ASN picks up the flight plan from EFB but also FSInn. I have asked over in the VATSIM FSInn support forum if there's any way to stop FSInn from automatically picking the flight plans and haven't received an answer yet but thought I would mention it in here as well for anyone else with the same issue wondering what is happening to the FSInn flight plan. Of course there's an easy solution to this by simply stop using this autoload flight plan features in EFB and ASN again if it's not possible to stop FSInn from picking this info up but I would be happy if there was another way since I do like this feature and especially now when I finally was able to make it work For anyone interested and with access to VATSIM's support forum the thread where I asked about this is located here -> http://forums.vatsim.net/viewtopic.php?f=43&t=63305

Very kind of you to say that, easy trying to be friendly and helpful when you're in friendly company

OK, thanks Travis and always a good feeling when you're able to contribute in a good way

Can't really take any credit, I feel more like a complete moron I didn't realize earlier on why it didn't work but happy all is good in the end

I'm happy to tell you everything is now working perfectly and just as I thought the problem was on my side all the time What I did was to change the path as you suggested to the default FSX Documents folder and stupid me of course you were correct regarding the PMDG FPs and how they are not affected by changing this path but instead rely on what folder you specify in the 'Save' dialog. Another step I had to take to make the FP autoload in ASN was to first manually load the EFB_current_garmin.pln once in ASN's 'Load FP' dialog to learn ASN the correct path. Previously I had ASN pointing to the PMDG FP folder. This was also clearly explained in the ASN documentation. Although this was never a big issue I must admit it's very convenient now to have any FP I activate in EFB automatically loaded into ASN! Thanks for not loosing faith in me and solving this issue Travis

OK, but if I change that path to C:\Users\MyUserName\Documents\Flight Simulator X Files from F:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\PMDG\FLIGHTPLANS\NGX I don't think I'll be able to enter a company route in the NGX FMC since the FMC will look for any route I enter into the company field in that path?

OK Travis, here's another report to satisfy your programming needs Just installed the 1.5 update and noticed some differences. The option to create Garmin FPs has been moved from the DU -> DP and I made sure that option was checked. Now running this new version I also received an error message in the DP window when I activated a FP in EFB saying... Exception from FSX received LOAD_FLIGHTPLAN FAILED Never seen this before and when I tried a second time I again received the same message but this time with (Repeated...) at the end. This was with the PMDG NGX in a "cold & dark" state. I then did another test after powering the a/c up (switching the battery ON and also connected GND PWR). After doing this and again activating the FP in EFB this time it looked better because I noticed a message in the DP window saying... Loading flightplan to GARMIN GPS ...however I still don't seem to have an active FP in FSX because when I bring up the kneeboard looking at the Nav log tab just like before it says... There is no active flight plan ...and also although I have the 'Auto load simulator flight plan' option checked in Active Sky Next still no FP is loaded in ASN when I activate the FP in EFB. I also checked for the EFB_current_garmin.pln file and now I did find it under... F:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\PMDG\FLIGHTPLANS\NGX Maybe that is the problem if it's supposed to end up in the C:\Users\MyUserName\Documents\Flight Simulator X Files folder for this automation to work?

Just did another test and now with the NGX powered up but still no go. I've configured ASN to autoload the active FP and I've configured EFB to create this Garmin file. I'm not 100% sure where this file should end up? I checked under C:\Users\MyUser\Documents\Flight Simulator X Files but nothing in there. I also checked EFB's DataProvider to check for any error messages but nothing. However and once again...this really isn't a big problem so please don't waste any more time on this guys. I'll do just fine without this feature. Merry Christmas everyone

Normally I plan my flight before powering up the aircraft but next time I'll try activating the FP when the aircraft already has been powered up to see if that will make any difference.

FSX has been running when I activate the FP in EFB but one thing that might be the cause of my problem is I've been in a cold and dark NGX. Maybe for this to work the aircraft need to be powered up and/or you need to be in a default FSX aircraft equipped with a GPS?

Thanks for the file, it wasn't in my FSX Documents folder so I put it there but still no FPs are loaded in FSX as far as I can tell when I load and activate a FP in EFB. I'm sure it's me doing something wrong but no big deal and please don't waste any more of your time trying to solve this for me although very kind of you because this really is not a big problem for me, I just load the same FP manually in ASN and it only take me a couple of seconds. Merry Christmas

OK, thanks Travis. Guess something must be wrong at my end then but no big deal, I'll just go ahead and load the FPs manually in ASN.

Ok, looking forward to hear about your findings!

Thanks but already tried both that and also closing/opening the knee board but to no avail.

OK, thanks for confirming this but then I don't see why it doesn't work in my case because when activating the FP in EFB I should then be able to see the FP on the Nav log using the built-in kneeboard in FSX right? In my case it says "There is no active flight plan"

I've checked this option to have EFB automatically send the loaded and activated FP to FSX but I can't get this to work and I guess this is because I'm running EFB in a networked environment with the Data Provider running on my main FSX computer and the DU on a second PC. Could someone confirm if this is supposed to work when running the DU on a second PC so I know if the issue is on my side or if it's not supposed to work? TIA,

I'm a beta tester for ASN and I can confirm it's working just finewith EFB.

This is truely great news because I just got P3D v2 and trying to get EFB to work. Everything is actually good so far except I don't see my aircraft on the map and thus also the 'Center on aircraft' button is greyed out.

Ok, sounds good