DCS 2.7 Input folder location? All my keybindings are gone...

[Pitufo]

HI.  It's "possible" I may have done something unknowingly stupid in trying to fix this problem, but by my best recollection of the events, 2.7 installed, I tried it out, was super happy to see all my keybindings in place.  Then last night, I started it again, was super sad to see that they were all gone.  In 2.6 I learned to make a backup folder of all my keybindings in the "Input" folder in the SavedGames directory, which I update every time I make a change.  

 

Where is the folder I am supposed to copy and paste all my keybindings to located now?  I'm getting confused with so many windows open...  it used to be straightforward...  The only thing I've been able to do to get things to work was to individually upload in the sim the profile for the exact device one by one.  I don't want to go through setting all my keybinds again.  That was a lot of time and was still a work in progress.

 

 

[Pitufo]

Okay now this is just getting stupid...  All the other options settings work fine except when I go to controls..  I'll add a screenshot but some support from the developers would be appreciated because I spent a lot of money on this... It never listed exceptional computer skill as a requirement for enjoying the product.  Thanks in advance

 

[Art-J]

The location hasn't changed and the controls shouldn't disappear after an update. The folder is still C:\Users\[your user name]\Saved Games\DCS.OpenBeta\Config\Input\ and that's where you should put your backup files. Or at least that's where they will end up if you load them using the backup one by one. No idea why yours got wiped out, though.

[Pitufo]

thanks, but maybe I should be more clear on the problem.  When I go to the settings menus (push the gear icon) the controls page is just blank.  blank.  All the other tabs work such as the VR, Special, Graphics etc.  Also, while on the blank controls page I'm unable to click cancel or OK or the X at the top right of the screen for awhile.  Then eventually it will let me exit.  I don't understand.  Also, I just noticed that in DCS\savedgames\input some of the aircraft folders are (now?) different names?  For instance, in my saved games\dcs\input I have an "F-16C_50" and "FA-18C_hornet" like I always remembered them being but in my DCS\mods\aircraft folder they are called "F-16C" and "FA-18C"  Same with "A-10C II" and "A10C_2"  Is that normal?  I should also add that if I start a mission, not even my keyboard will work.  Can't even press Escape.  I'm not sure if this is something I mucked up myself or not because it was working just fine when it updated to 2.7.

Edited April 23, 2021 by Pitufo

[Lange_666]

1 hour ago, Pitufo said:

Also, I just noticed that in DCS\savedgames\input some of the aircraft folders are (now?) different names?  For instance, in my saved games\dcs\input I have an "F-16C_50" and "FA-18C_hornet" like I always remembered them being but in my DCS\mods\aircraft folder they are called "F-16C" and "FA-18C"  Same with "A-10C II" and "A10C_2"  Is that normal?

 

That is normal.

 

Your control files should be in C:\Users\Your Name\Saved Games\DCS.OpenBeta\Config\Input and then a folder for each aircraft with in there a folder for each type of controller ie keyboard, joystick (stick throttle, rudder go here, in fact all axis controllers), mouse....

 

You can rename the Saved Games/DCS folder and run DCS which will create a new one. You can then try and copy your backup over, try one aircraft at a time.

If not working maybe running a repair will make things work again.

 

[Pitufo]

Thanks, I tried that.  What the result was was that now in the controls page, all my devices show up, and the tab to select aircraft shows up, but there are no commands to bind.  So the page is accessible now, but empty.  Also after exiting it and going back the second time my screen went totally black with the music still playing.  It didn't seem like the game hung...  I dunno, this sucks.  Maybe I should have mentioned that I'm using Steam version I dunno.

 

EDIT:  yes verifying the files worked but takes forever.  

Edited April 24, 2021 by Pitufo

[Steel Jaw]

Do controller settings/bindings get saved automatically here or must I click on save ingame controller setup?

[Tippis]

4 minutes ago, Steel Jaw said:

Do controller settings/bindings get saved automatically here or must I click on save ingame controller setup?

It's semi-automatic, of sorts.

You have two options of getting out of the bind screen — by cancelling out (using the cancel button or ESC) — or just exit normally. If you cancel out, any changes you've made will be discarded; if not, they're retained. But there is no real “save” button other than the ones for exporting the entire controller setup, and there are better ways of doing that in bulk anyway.

[Steel Jaw]

18 minutes ago, Tippis said:

It's semi-automatic, of sorts.

You have two options of getting out of the bind screen — by cancelling out (using the cancel button or ESC) — or just exit normally. If you cancel out, any changes you've made will be discarded; if not, they're retained. But there is no real “save” button other than the ones for exporting the entire controller setup, and there are better ways of doing that in bulk anyway.

Reason I ask I just reinstalled DCSW but saved my input folder and am not sure where it goes now.

[silverdevil]

@Steel Jaw %userprofile%\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config

 

good luck!

[Tippis]

16 minutes ago, Steel Jaw said:

Reason I ask I just reinstalled DCSW but saved my input folder and am not sure where it goes now.

What @silverdevilsaid — that said, note that if this is a new windows install and not just DCS being put back, chances are that the device IDs for all your USB peripherals (that is, all your sticks and pedals and panels and whathaveyou) will have changed and will not match what your old files are called.

This can be remedied by simply renaming the files to match the new IDs, or by using the import function in the bind screen. The former requires a bit of work to figure out the new IDs, and requires some good file tools to make the best use of it, but it will massively save time if you have a lot of modules that have to be rebound. With a good bulk rename tool, rather than having to import a hundred different bind files to match five devices for 20 planes, you just need 5 rename actions to do it all in one go.

[uniform]

Where would the folder be if you dont have a Users > User name > Saved Games folder? I dont have a saved games folder, but know its being stored somewhere.

[Rudel_chw]

21 minutes ago, uniform said:

Where would the folder be if you dont have a Users > User name > Saved Games folder? I dont have a saved games folder, but know its being stored somewhere.

Saved Games is a standard windows folder, you should have one .. if you deleted it or moved it someplace else, then try at c:/users/your user/documents/my games/dcs/

[MrSatchie]

Remember, sometimes the input files just need to be loaded again AND, that the binds for any PINKIES / Modifiers must be added for the profile to load successfully..

 

Just putting this here for future browsers

[jackd]

re loading ... must that be done for each one individually?

[silverdevil]

6 minutes ago, jackd said:

re loading ... must that be done for each one individually?

hello i did a doc about this in 2021 and it is still relevant.

https://pcwiseman.com/downloads_files/DCS_New_Computer.pdf

[Tippis]

  An advanced version (and for the love of all that's holy, make sure your saved binds are in a safe place so you don't fiddle with those) is to go through PowerShell.

The way its file listing, filtering, and renaming tools work means that once you have both the old and the new GUID figured out, you can do a search-and-replace kind of thing across all of your input files.

Figure out the path to your Saved Games directory (XXXXX - something like c:\Users\whateveryoucallyourself ), some sufficiently large identifiable part of the old GUID (AAAAA) that has now been replaced by a new, equally large and identifiable part (BBBBB) in the new GUID. In the example in silverdevil's PDF, we can see that the old GUID contains "5A9967D0-9A59-11e8-8001" so we can use that for the AAAAA string, and in the new GUID it is instead "98C8D120-A501-11eb-800E", so that would be the BBBBB string. Then plug those into this powershell command line:

gci "XXXXX\Saved Games\DCS\Config\Input" -filter "*.diff.lua" -Recurse | Rename-Item -NewName {$_.Name -replace "AAAAA","BBBBB"}

The components are:

• gci (Get-ChildItem) : look in a directory and return a list of what's in it.
• -filter :  only return the stuff that matches the file name pattern we input (in this case, the diff.lua files that are used for bindings).
• -Recurse : check all subdirectories as well (because it won't find anything directly in the Input folder).
• | Rename-Item :  feed the results into the rename command.
• -NewName : if a match is found, give it a new name of…
• {$_.Name -replace "AAAAA","BBBBB"} : …the current name, but replace all occurrences of one specific string with a new specific string.

If you type the new string incorrectly and the game doesn't pick it up, just reverse the placement of the AAAAA and BBBBB strings and run it again. If everything works, all your old files will have new and matching names. If something is left over, it's because it couldn't rename because the new file already existed (e.g. because you were experimenting to see what the new GUIDs were).

[MAXsenna]

@Tippis Excellent points as always. Now, Powershell might be a little intimidating for some users, so why not suggest PowerRename from PowerTools. Same thing with a GUI.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/powerrename

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Tippis]

Because I use TotalCommander as my general file manager (and it has a very competent mass rename tool in it) and just needed to find a PS solution because I wanted to script up a way to swap things around whenever my MFDs decided that, today, this one, not the other, would be the middle one.

Since it's a swap rather than just a rename, it's a three-step process (mfd1 -> temp; mfd2 -> mfd1; temp -> mfd2), and since the names were fixed and 100% knowable, doing that via scripting was just a much quicker solution.

Edited October 8, 2024 by Tippis

[MAXsenna]

Because I use TotalCommander as my general file manager (and it has a very competent mass rename tool in it) and just needed to find a PS solution because I wanted to script up a way to swap things around whenever my MFDs decided that, today, this one, not the other, would be the middle one.
Since it's a swap rather than just a rename, it's a three-step process (mfd1 -> temp; mfd2 -> mfd1; temp -> mfd2), and since the names were fixed and 100% knowable, doing that via scripting was just a much quicker solution.

For you, was my point.

EDIT: Many users have a hard time managing their swap file, and you want them you use PS scripts. I assume you haven't been working with user support much? On the other hand, TotalCommander was an excellent idea!

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Tippis]

“Support” is a very flexible term.

[MAXsenna]

52 minutes ago, Tippis said:

“Support” is a very flexible term.

It is ain't it?