Aerosoft And Autogen (Not Just Lord Howe)

[Agade 0]

I would have to ask the developer for the details but we are doing it for nearly every scenery project these days and I have never heard that it causes any problem. To be honest I do not know what the other products you mention are. We normally can only guarantee our products with our other addons as you will understand.

Mathijs, based on this statement I would like to ask you some questions. As we have already demonstrated on this forum, this practice causes problems with the Aces Acceleration expansion pack and any scenery which uses autogen entries from this, as well as with any other companies scenery which edits the default.xml and autogendescriptions.xml, it may even cause problems with your own products. As such, I would like the answers to some questions;

1. Is it possible to have a list of which Aerosoft products edit autogendescriptions.xml and default.xml, and which replace them?

2. How will you guarantee that, as you go on, installers for older products are updated to include the entries needed for the newer ones? Will you have an install order published somewhere promenant on your site to avoid issues?

3. If you do not intend to update the installers for previous products, will you state on your site that they are not compatible with the Acceleration pack, or with any other addon that edits Autogendescriptions and default xml files?

4. If any patches to existing products also present this behaviour, will they have a warning attached within the downloaded file or on the support page?

5. Is there any possibility that you will change this behaviour for future products to something more user friendly and more widely compatible? Either to appending by default, or offering a choice between appending and replacing in the automated installer?

I would appreciate answers to these questions for two reasons; So I can avoid any issues should I have to reinstall my existing aerosoft addons and to aid me in deciding if I should purchase any further product. I am sure others would find these useful too.

[Kofi 0]

If I may add,

The biggest issue caused by this is that users who own Acceleration have the "default.xml" autogen file irreversibly changed....

[warbird861 0]

If it's possible they could just add their entrys in the default.xml rather than replacing it. But I don't have slightest clue if it's possible

[Private-Cowboy 3]

Any text editor can do that so why can't a script? The xml can be opened and edited even with the most basic text editor that comes with windows.

[Koyote 0]

Hi all

It would be nice when Aerosoft and the developer of this scenery can take a look at this problem. I'm really intersted in this scenery, but not with this problem. I have so many add ons like GEX/UTX/FTX/Germany West an so on, and i don't want to kill my complete installation. Why does this installer overwrite essential files? Other scenery developers need this files too, and when this installer replace the whole file and kill all entries in the default.xml, then it's possible that many other add ons are no longer workable. Please replace the installer so that the entries are added to the necessary files and not overwrite it. Thanks for looking into this.

Regards

Christian

[Marc W. 0]

Well, the simplest way for those who fear issues is simply to back up the original file ...

[Agade 0]

Which usefully prevents us having to reinstall, but doesn't solve the fundamental issues with this practice .

[Chevy 2]

After not being present for a few days in this forum I cannot find any "official" statement from Aerosoft concerning the installers' habit to overwrite FSX AccPack/SP2 files with older ones. Is there any? Or are they still examining the problem?

I got very hesitating and I am afraid of buying LHI unless I hear something "official". Don't want to crap my whole FSX...

[Koyote 0]

Hi Chevy / Christian

Yes, it would be really nice if we will hear something official from Areosoft about this. I have so many add ons on my system, and are not very interested to make a complete reinstall of my whole fsx. Most add ons i have, are from Aerosoft. It looks like that not only Lord Howe overwrite the default.xml and autogen files. I'm not sure, but it look like that Germany West overwrite this files also. Now my question is, when a user buy lord howe, and install this on a clean FSX installation, then i think everything works normaly when you have SP2, but what is with when Acceleration is installed? And what is, when the user buy Germany West after the installation of Lord Howe? Does this kill the complete autogen from Lord Howe? Witch add ons are overwriting this essential files, that many other scenery developers need for there products? I'm sure that Aerosoft know what they do, so i think it should be easy for a scenery developer from Aerosoft to explain this, how this works, and why they replace files.

Best regards, and happy flying

Christian

[Agade 0]

Given that there are several teams developing different products within Aerosoft, I suspect this one might take some legwork for the guys to answer. Until then, if we just keep it on the first page so it isn't forgotten about and they can see we're concerned. Though it would be nice to get an acnowledgement that it's being looked into from someone.

[Marc W. 0]

After not being present for a few days in this forum I cannot find any "official" statement from Aerosoft concerning the installers' habit to overwrite FSX AccPack/SP2 files with older ones. Is there any? Or are they still examining the problem?

I got very hesitating and I am afraid of buying LHI unless I hear something "official". Don't want to crap my whole FSX...

Hiya!

No reason to hesitate, not only is LHI extremely gorgeous, worth every cent and - due to the small size of the island - runs on max details on all but very slow machines ... if you are concerned about "crapping your whole FSX" - LHI doesn't do that ... check the report from those people affected and simply make a backup of those files ... one should do that anyway from time to time

Cheers,

[Agade 0]

You will, however, be missing the LHI autogen entries in your backed up files, which may cause things on the island to display oddly.

I would suggest instead, downloading the acceleration + VFR Germany West and LHI patched default/xml and autogendescriptions.xml from This Link, you may have to reinstall any other addons you have that add to these files, but your acceleration entries and LHI entries will be fine - the VFR Germany West entries won't do any harm if you don't have it installed.

This should be a suitable stopgap until aerosoft fix this problem with vfr germany west and LHI - allowing you to enjoy both if you wish .

[Sasa 921]

Ok, there are in fact two Aerosoft sceneries I know that add entries to the default.xml and I'm currently working on the third one (VFR Germany 2 - North). It's Lord Howe and VFR Germany 1.

In both cases the installers add new entries to the default.xml without thouching or replacing all the other entries and without overwriting the old file completely. The installers also create a backup uf the original default.xml and remove the added entries when the particular scenery is beeing reinstalled.

I also checked the entries that are beeing added with Lord Howe and they all come with new object IDs/GUIDs so that they can only be displayed in the area of Lord Howe or in other words: Only there where autogen files are calling those particular GUIDs.

As long as there is no scenery calling those objects those new entries in default.xml won't do anything to your FSX except for increasing the filesize of your default.xml, which doesn't affect performance btw.

On the other hand the MS installer for Acceleration Pack DOES overwrite the default.xml. So if Lord Howe or VFR Germany where installed before Acceleration Pack the entries have to be restored manually or by a installing the addons again. There's not much we can do about that because we can't change the installer for Acceleration Pack.

Bests,

Sascha

[Private-Cowboy 3]

add new entries to the default.xml

You honestly think that when an installer puts a 7MB version of a file aside and puts a 2MB version into place it "just adds" something. Maybe you should check twice. For all of us the installer replaces the autogen files, not adding to existing ones.

[Cody Bergland 4]

Unfortunately, I also have a TON of addons, but LHI has not affected any of them in any way.

[Agade 0]

It is nice to see an answer Sacha, but it isn't actually correct.

Several of us have observed that the default.xml file changes from the 7meg acceleration pack version to a 2meg pre-acceleration version, Mathjis has directly stated that aerosoft products overwrite rather than append, so I am not quite sure how to square what you've said with what we've seen on our systems.

If the released installers are /supposed/ to work like this, and there has been an error, that's actually quite pleasing, it means it is something that will be fixed rather than an aerosoft policy decision, and makes me a lot happier about picking up the rest of the VFR Germany series (which I've been very much looking forward to).

To be clear, we are not worried about acceleration overwriting the LHI or VFR Germany West entries, we are worried about LHI (and, according to Mathjis, VFR Germany West) overwriting/replacing the acceleration files. This is behaviour we have all observed in the released product.

[Cody Bergland 4]

Has anyone confirmed any noticeable changes? Forgive me if I come into this conversation late.... but has anyone seen any issues besides the size change?

I have Acceleration, tons of addons, LHI and VFR Germany West and have not encountered ANY issues with any of my addons... including FTX and GEX.

[Sasa 921]

You honestly think that when an installer puts a 7MB version of a file aside and puts a 2MB version into place it "just adds" something. Maybe you should check twice. For all of us the installer replaces the autogen files, not adding to existing ones.

The filesize beeing smaller doesn't mean there is necessarily less information in the file. Can you please, if available, open your latest default.xml in Word Office? You can an option there where you can count the worlds and lines. Then open the backup default.xml and check there too. Are the less lines in there?

If yes, our installer guy certainly has to check if there is something wrong in the installer which causes a problem (do you actually see a problem in the default scenery caused by this?). I checked the installers of VFR Germany before releasing the scenery because I'm dev there, so I'm totally sure it is working at least for VFR Germany 1.

Bests,

Sascha

[Private-Cowboy 3]

Unless Aerosoft uses some sort of compression (which they don't on the autogen files) it does mean exactly that. Checking the lines with Word is not very useful because Word can hardly handle xml files of that size. I got several crashes of Word trying what you suggested.

Besides the question if there is an actual visible difference is not very useful either. When I take away half of your system fonts, would you notice it right away? No. You'd notice when you do very special things. I doubt many will spot a difference at all because how do you judge? You have to take comparison shots everywhere in the world to find a possible difference. This is not something that jumps at you right away. That does not mean that basic files should be messed with without asking or even telling the user about it though.

[Lawman 14]

I just tried the "Word"-test that Sascha suggested and this is what I found (note that I tested with SP1 not SP2 and with VFR Germany West and not LHI):

- the original "default.xml"-file had a filesize of 5.044.112 bytes on my machine and according to Word contained 44.514 "words";

- the "default.xml"-file after installing VFR Germany West has a filesize of 2.314.508 bytes and acccording to Word contains 45.220 "words".

[mk83 7]

You should try winmerge instead of word, a great tool to compare all kind of code line by line. It's free and has no problems with 7 mb xml files.

http://www.winmerge.org/

[Agade 0]

Everyone ...

After considerable playing about with default.xml files from before and after both the VFR Germany West and LHI Installers and use of the tool above, this is what I think is happening:

Comparing the files before and after, they have more lines, but are smaller in size, every time. Along with the others pursuing the same line here, I had been sure this had to indicate that something had been removed ... I now believe I was wrong.

All of the 'before' default microsoft files are encoded in UTF-16, The Aerosoft 'after' files are encoded in UTF-8.

UTF-16 uses two bytes to represent each character of 'western' text, UTF-8 uses one. Given the contents of the default.xml file, this could account for the entire difference in filesize (especially the consistancy with which it occurs) and yet still have the installer behave as Sascha describes.

Sascha, please, can you confirm if the installer is saving the file after it finishes editing as UTF-8?

If this is so, I owe you an apology, everything you have said about the install routines is true and I've been chasing a wild goose thanks to Mathijis' comments in the other thread and my own stubborness. I will therefore, as consequence, deliver to you a drink of your choice via whatever method you choose to recieve it .

[warbird861 0]

...I will therefore, as consequence, deliver to you a drink of your choice via whatever method you choose to recieve it ...

Sascha remember to ask something very expensive and demand 1st class airmail even if Agade lives next door to you

[Agade 0]

Just keeping this one from dropping off the bottom!

Sascha, please let us know, does the VFR Germany West installer peform the apparant change from UTF-16 to UTF-8 that I'm seeing here?

Please speak to the person who coded the Lord Howe Island installer and ask them what it does to these autogen files, I am seeing the same change from utf-16 to utf-8 in the default.xml, but I do not have the knowledge to check the autogendescriptions.spb binary file and one of the ORBX team who does is reporting it has been altered in an undesired way.

The easiest thing for you, and best thing for us as customers seems to be to ask the LHI installer guy to check and describe what his program does.

[Sasa 921]

Sascha, please, can you confirm if the installer is saving the file after it finishes editing as UTF-8?

I can confirm this. The filesize IS indeed smaller although the autogen file contains more lines and information, which can be handled even faster by FSX. That's what I tried to tell you.

So after all the discussion was always about you thought there COULD be something wrong although you have never seen an actual problem?

Bests,

Sascha