Skin install troubles, need reinstall DCS: BS

I was getting an error message ".../Scripts/Database/db_countries.lua/48: unexpected symbol near ','

Found that CanadaTRN 1.4, CANADIAN_OLIVE_GREY 1.0 BY sHARKSTER64 AND cANADIAN fORCES sTANDARD fICTIONAL 2.1 by CrazyD, possibly some others that I didn't try, all would crash showing this message when launching, yet Austrian Army Color scheme 1.0 by Chriz would work even though it relied on shared files (marked with yellow, not green when it

installed).

While searching on the forums to find fixes for the above issues, found the best way to install skins mods etc as in the following method:

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When installing skins, it's best to use Modman 7.1.1.0 (or higher)

Make sure you install "Ka-50_For_all_Countries 1.1" first (Uninstall all other Mods first).

Then next install "ModMan7_skin_sample - Slovakian Airforce" as some skins use that skins' files to work.

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At the moment I did this but something is ammiss, as I don't see the skins that aren't part of the program, only the Slovakian skin, but I think it was when I uninstalled "ALL" at one time got a message about something or other and now CanadaTRN etc load the game without the message "....", but skins don't show.

Now I want to reinstall DCS: Black Shark from scratch into root directory this time, and start over again.

Does this muck up the activation, or best to deactivate first, or when it offers to uninstall, will it offer to repair the current install (as some games do)?

What's best way to go about this without mucking everything up?

Still have no idea what to do with "Converted" file types, have only found one instance of "MrConverted" during my search, and it didn't help my problems.

I am not knocking these skins in any way, just that I am having trouble sorting them out. I appreciate the effort that modders go to in helping their community.

It would be very appreciated if I could get some answers to these issues.

Thanks for your help.

The problem with using skins for different countries other than Russia, is that the developers didn't make it all that user friendly to install. What you have to do is install the Slovak skin first before installing any of the other country skins. This is a unique skin that replaces the db-countries.lua file with an altered one so that Slovak and Canada are Ka-50 flyable. If you have any skins on there already, they will be erased. If you desperately want this skin, then you have to install this one first before doing anything else. Then you install the all countries mod so that it makes all countries flyable. It replaces the db-countries.lua file again with one that makes all countries flyable. The slovak skin is already on the replaced db-countries.lua file. Now you can add all the skins you want. You must do it in this order or you will run into the same problems. :thumbup:

As for reinstalling, I would try the above suggestion first and if that doesn't work then reinstall. Just uninstall all previous skins, and reinstall everything in the order that I stated above.

Hi Sharkster64, just got your response. I had already done a few things in past few days, as outlined below. I have now got all your (and others)

skins going, and they are great skins. Thanks for your efforts.

My update on above:

Uninstalled, then reinstalled to C:\Eagle Dynamics\Ka-50.

Reinstalled Modman to D:\Modman, as suggested by a poster in problems bugs pages. Uninstalled it first.

Went to run game before doing ANY mods, only got Launcher.exe error AGAIN.

Tried a reboot to see if that fixed it (NO, stll error).

Then thought I'd just try reinstalling Catalyst 9.6 drivers without removing old ones first, and lo and behold, it worked.

Then installed some skins, including the problem ones (for me), and all went OK.

Installed other mods and the rest of the skins, and got launcher.exe error again, so reloaded Catalyst 9.6 drivers again, and all OK again, but some skins weren't showing in the DCSMax skin select portion, that had shown before. To cut a long story short, I noticed that the Austrian skin was marked yellow, all others were green, so I uninstalled Austria, and the others showed again. this last part only applied to the skins that were sharing the Slovakian skin.

My game is now running fine, just been promoted to 1st looie, (saved my profile before uninstall). Only thing still to do is find out about the skins/ mods that get the "MrConverted" treatment, 'cause I'm not touching anything else till I know what happens first.

Don't know if this might solve some issues with problems I, and others I've seen here, but at least it's a starting point.

Heard that Catalyst 9.7 drivers are out, but I'll leave them for others to try out first. Hope this long winded spiel helps someone out of trouble, now back to the game.

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PS Since writing the above have now discovered on 2 seperate reboots on different days that I need to do the reinstall trick with Catalyst 9.6 over the old version, if I just try to start it I get Launcher.exe error. It then works OK , all day with no problems. Don't know what's causing this, but it's easy to just run 9.6 install.

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