Back here again,
Setup
X‑Plane 12 on macOS
Ortho4XP 1.40.
Tile: +40-004 (Madrid area – LEMD is inside that tile).
Patch: Patches/+40-004/LEMD.patch.osm.
Custom DEM: Elevation_data/+40-004/+40-004.tif.
OSM data is in OSM_data/+40-010/+40-004/...osm.bz2 (airports, roads, coastline, water).
Ortho4XP finds and uses all of this correctly: the log shows the airports, roads, water, and “Loading altitudes from DEM file,” then builds the mesh and masks without errors.
What works
Step 1 (vector data) completes normally.
Step 2 (mesh) completes; Data+40-004.mesh is created.
Step 2.5 (masks) completes.
Step 3 downloads and converts all orthophotos, and reports:
*Download of textures completed.
*DDS conversion of textures completed.
*Encoding of the DSF file (with final node counts).
So Ortho4XP is clearly doing the full build.
What doesn’t work
At the very end of Step 3, every run ends with:
text*Activating DSF file. ERROR : could not rename DSF file, tile is not actived.
After that:
In the resulting zOrtho4XP_+40-004 folder, I see all the Data/mesh/terrain/textures files.
But under Earth nav data/ there is no +40-004 folder and no +40-004.dsf.
Sometimes there is an empty +40-010 folder, but no DSF inside.
Because the DSF never gets written/renamed into Earth nav data/+40-004/+40-004.dsf, X‑Plane 12 never loads the tile: even with all other sceneries disabled and zOrtho4XP_+40-004 alone in scenery_packs.ini, I still see default XP12 autogen, not photo ground.
What I’ve already tried
Deleting the zOrtho4XP_+40-004 folder and erasing cached data (OSM, masks, JPEGs, whole tile) in Ortho4XP, then rebuilding.
Changing the Base Folder (including building into a temporary Custom Scenery folder on the internal drive, then copying the tile).
Verifying that paths for custom_dem and custom_overlay_src are correct and writable.
Ensuring no old copies of the tile are still referenced in scenery_packs.ini.
In all cases, the build ends with the same message:
text*Activating DSF file. ERROR : could not rename DSF file, tile is not actived.
and no DSF appears under Earth nav data.
Questions
Has anyone seen this specific “could not rename DSF file, tile is not actived” behaviour with Ortho4XP 1.40 on macOS, and found a practical fix?
Is there anything in the official LEMD patch workflow (or XP12 vs XP11 differences) that could influence where/how the DSF is written?
Would you recommend a particular Ortho4XP build or version for XP12 + LEMD to avoid this DSF activation issue?
I’m comfortable reinstalling Ortho4XP if needed; I mainly want to check whether this is a known quirk with the current 1.40 build, or if I’ve overlooked something obvious in the directory structure or patch setup.
Thanks in advance for any pointers—happy to share more log snippets or screenshots if that helps.
By
Joaquin Esteve ·
