Possible "cure" for losing Saitek controls (Throttle etc) - P3D

[dafyddp3d 2]

Hi All

If like me you suffer regularly from P3D not shutting down properly after running the Bus , due to the dreaded FMGS.dll errors, (or for any other reason), and on re-loading the sim you find that the throttle (and probably a lot of other controls on your flight stick) don't work any more, then there might be a way of preventing it happening.

Control settings for P3D are recorded in the file "standard.xml"

The problem seems to be that for some reason (connected to the fact that the contents of the "standard.xml" file are possibly read into memory when the sim is loaded and re-written on exit), the section of the file associated with the flight stick is either missing altogether or corrupted in some way, as may be other parts of the file. (I'm only guessing, but definitely in my case that's what happened)

After having had several instances of this problem, and luckily having a backup to re-store from, I decided that enough was enough, and made the "standard.xml" file read only so it couldn't be easily modified by any third party software. (This is not a complete barrier, as I think the file could still be deleted and replaced).

So far I haven't had a single re-occurrence of losing my flight stick controls, despite the sim crashing on exit as usual. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed though!

My P3D control settings are more or less permanent, so the read only property is of little consequence, but if you do try this then remember to make the file writeable before changing key commands or axes. Making a backup copy of this file is a good idea too!

The file can be found in the folder %User\Appdata\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2\Controls

Seems to be working for me! Happy Flying

Dave

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Very interesting!

Is that under Win8.1?

[dafyddp3d 2]

Very interesting!

Is that under Win8.1?

Hi Mathijs

No, Windows 7 SP1.

(I updated my signature)

There was a suggestion on the P3D forums that an alternative method might be to re-name the controls file and reflect the change in the P3D.cfg file under the [CONTROLS] section. However, I don't think that would work, since most software would pick up the name of the xml file from the P3D.cfg file anyway!

Having made it read only, I tried changing some of the controls from within the sim to see if there was a problem with updating the file on exit, but there was no error in that respect, the file was not altered, and P3D simply seemed to ignore it. Don't know about FSX, I've not used it for a long while.

I'm not at all sure what was causing my original problem of losing my flight stick controls, but I am sure of two facts.

Firstly, the standard.xml file normally gets re-written (i.e. updated) each time the sim exits. If the sim does not exit properly, this could cause a problem with this file and any others that get re-written

When my problem occurred, the Saitek section of the file was missing (I didn't check the rest of it!).

Kind Regards

[Aerosoft Team [Inactive Account] 51558]

Yes, that makes good sense indeed.

[sergiozaki 0]

PLS can someone upload a standard XML file?

Mine is gone...

Thanks

[dafyddp3d 2]

Hi Sergiozaki

P3D v2.5 original Standard.xml attached. However, the content of this file will reflect the controllers on my system, and while it will contain the original key allocations, it may not be right for your system. Maybe you need to re-install?

Standard.xml