A-10C and Hawk 'activated' but not available in game

[Martyn]

Hello All,

 

Several months ago I made a fresh Windows 10 install onto an SSD, to replace the in-place upgrade to Windows 10 that I had originally.

 

Around March, I installed a fresh copy of DCS 1.5 onto this new SSD, but to save lots of downloading I copied across much of the directory to the new drive. (Since it was some months ago, I can't remember exactly...)

 

Most of my modules successfully activated and are working fine, but the A-10C and Hawk are being stubborn and refuse to work. I last battled with this in March and gave up; now I'm trying again.

 

Things I've attempted, based on other threads I found back in March, are:

 

• Running the xxx_protect.exe program in the Mods\aircraft\name\bin folder as administrator, deactivating/reactivating
  
• Deleting all folders containing serial numbers information in the Registry, under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Eagle Dynamics\...
  
• Repairing DCS World
  
• Deleting an aircraft folder and then repairing
  

All to no avail. Any other ideas? I'm completely at a loss!

 

 

In the DCS main menu, under my profile it shows that all the modules are installed and active, however I do not see any icons along the bottom of the screen for the A-10C or Hawk - neither greyed out (as if I don't own them), or in colour (as if I do own them). They are completely missing. These aircraft also do not appear in the Training menu, unsurprisingly.

 

 

 

Thanks for any pointers. It might have to be a full DCS reinstall though I'm not convinced that will solve it either.

[BIGNEWY]

Hi

 

 

 

it should be a simple case of deleting the registry keys and then reactivating

 

you can see some advice here as well as reg files for deleting modules

 

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/en/support/faq/564/

[Martyn]

Thanks for the reply, Bignewy. Of course, it should be a simple fix, but for whatever reason, it isn't. Or rather, wasn't: I finally found a solution as described below.

 

This is DCS 1.5.7. Last night it was updated to the very latest version, though it didn't change anything with the behaviour since March when I last tried.

 

I re-ran both the A-10C and Hawk "_protect.exe" files (as administrator) and deactivated both modules. I'm down to 4 deactivations left on the A-10C as I have tried many times already.

 

I then manually deleted the whole registry entry for these two products. I could only find them under 'current user', not under 'local machine'.

 

So, with the registry clear, I fired up DCS and looked in the Module Manager. The modules were still listed and showed a checkmark, and the serial numbers were still present if I clicked the 'serial number' sections, but I figured those were being loaded from my profile (same as if I log in on the DCS website).

 

When I clicked the 'bin' icon to remove the modules, the DCS updater briefly ran (and requests admin rights), but after DCS reloaded the modules were still there - nothing changed.

 

(I've tried all of this before and then reactivated them, to no avail)

 

As mentioned, the icons were strangely missing from the modules list along the bottom of the home screen. I saw everything except the A-10C and Hawk... (I think). So I decided to focus on this aspect of the problem for a change.

 

I went looking for log files and found this the dcs.log file under C:\Users\<username\Saved Games\DCS\Logs:

 

00000.644 ALERT   SECURITYCONTROL: Manifest 'mods/aircraft/a-10c/dcs_manifest.x86_64': wrong manifest_token
00000.671 ALERT   SECURITYCONTROL: Manifest 'mods/aircraft/hawk/dcs_manifest.x86_64': wrong manifest_token
<snip>
00001.486 WARNING DCS: No update_id in manifest for ./Mods/aircraft/A-10C
00001.486 ERROR   Scripting: plugin: A-10C Warthog by Eagle Dynamics unit modification A-10C not allowed
00001.486 INFO    Scripting: plugin: A-10C Warthog by Eagle Dynamics skipped, not authorized
00001.489 WARNING DCS: No update_id in manifest for ./Mods/aircraft/Hawk
00001.489 ERROR   Scripting: plugin: Hawk T.1A by VEAO Simulations unit modification Hawk not allowed
00001.489 INFO    Scripting: plugin: Hawk T.1A by VEAO Simulations skipped, not authorized
00001.509 INFO    Scripting: plugin: A-10A by Eagle Dynamics disabled by Flaming Cliffs by Eagle Dynamics
00001.509 INFO    Scripting: plugin: F-15C disabled by Flaming Cliffs by Eagle Dynamics
00001.510 INFO    Scripting: plugin: Su-25A by Eagle Dynamics disabled by Flaming Cliffs by Eagle Dynamics
00001.510 INFO    Scripting: plugin: Su-27 Flanker by Eagle Dynamics disabled by Flaming Cliffs by Eagle Dynamics

Looked like some minor modifications to the aircraft folders may have simply blocked those modules? I do recall doing something with the Hawk cockpit textures long ago, back when the menu option for Low/Medium/High quality didn't work causing High quality textures to always load (which my PC didn't like). About the A-10C I don't recall changing anything except perhaps adding a new livery, though from memory that would go in a different place.

 

I've previously done a repair so I'm surprised the 'bad' files were not overwritten.

 

Anyway, I simply deleted the whole aircraft directories under 'Mods'. When I ran DCS, the aircraft icons returned to the bottom of the main menu screen. Progress at last!

 

The Module Manager has a little '2' next to it (much like a smartphone app) and when I clicked it, it told me I could now install those two modules. I clicked OK, let the installer run and reactivated the modules with my serial numbers.

 

Now all is working!

 

So it was never an activation problem in the first place, it was a module problem. But far from an obvious one... :huh:

 

Thanks for the help. Thought I'd post my troubleshooting steps in case they can help someone else in future.

 

 

Edit: Just saw your 'cleanup' video linked in your signature - perhaps that would have solved it too!

Edited August 26, 2017 by Martyn

[BIGNEWY]

Thanks for letting us know, glad you have it sorted now :)

 

yes a cleanup should have helped in this case

[cthulhu68]

Just curious what difference is between cleanup and repair. Is it that repair just checks folders and cleanup goes a step further and checks files?

[BIGNEWY]

Just curious what difference is between cleanup and repair. Is it that repair just checks folders and cleanup goes a step further and checks files?

 

cleanup will remove any files which are not part of the vanilla DCS install