solved Training all but empty?

[MAXsenna]

18 hours ago, Slippa said:

The speed thing is a weird one. I’m meant to be getting 264Mb download, 25Mb up.

My friend. In your screenshot above it says 33.7MBps down, which equals 267,9Mbps. So no wonder those ISP guys left with smiley faces. You get more than you pay for.  

I've re-read your latest post multiple times. But I do get lost. When we've asked you to rename the DCS Saved Games folders. Did you intervene and copy things back before you tested? You see, I ask because I got confused. 

 

18 hours ago, Slippa said:

If and when I need to rename my saved games folder and reset or reinstall DCS I go to the saved games folder on my D drive, open my sillysafe folder, copy the folders I want, my settings etc. Then I’ll open D/SavedGames/DCSOB and paste (and in some cases replace) the options, liveries, kneeboards folders.

I hope I misunderstood, because explicitly told you to start from fresh.  

 

3 hours ago, Slippa said:

The screeny thing is greyed out and unclickable all along the column. I couldn’t even bind it to a toe brake.

There's some buggery about the PrtScr key now. Conflicts several places. 

 

3 hours ago, Slippa said:

. I take it those ‘missions’ should be in C only and not in D/saved games so at least I’ll have cleaned up the mess made in D. 

Never mind the drive. Missions included in the core should never be in Saved Games. They should only be in the default paths in core. 

 

3 hours ago, Slippa said:

Wouldn’t be so bad if DCS wasn’t pretty much exclusively all I ever load up.

Well. Stop copying and moving things around! Apologies!

I'll say it again. Rename ALL DCS Folders under Saved Games, leave it be and re-install.

[MAXsenna]

https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+screenshot+on+windows+bootcamp&oq=how+to+screenshot+Windows+under+boot&aqs=chrome.1.69i57j0i22i30j0i390i650l3.14865j0j4&client=ms-android-huawei-rev1&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

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Don't know if it works.

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[Art-J]

^ Hear hear!

Slippa, are you sure there are no Saved Games leftovers on the C drive? We ask, because DCS by default attempts to create its Users/[Windows User Name]/Saved Games/DCS.OpenBeta folder on a C drive rather than any other one. So It's a bit puzzling why yours ended up on a D drive in the first place. Were you experimenting with moving it between partitions and using symbolic links?

In either case, we feel your pain, but after renaming any DCS folder from any Saved Games location anywhere on your PC, for the love of God please stop right there and DON'T, I REPEAT DON'T PASTE ANY F@#$%ING SAVED GAMES BACKUPS back in  . No hard feelings mate, we just try to make you stop reusing corrupted folder and wondering why the hell things don't work. 

Just launch clean, vanilla DCS (with Caucasus and maybe only Mosquito or Apache installed), with clean, vanilla Saved Games/DCS.OpenBeta (should be easy to confirm, with nothing configured whatsoever, including gfx and audio) and tell us if training missions are there. That's all what we're asking for as a starting point.

EDIT: I think I've read one can install clean DCS without Caucasus map nowadays and add it later (or skip it) in Module Manager. @MAXsenna, do you know if it's true? Maybe that's part of the problem - no map - no training missions visible. But then again, Slippa sees Mosquito rocket training mission and IIRC that one uses Caucasus map...

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Art-J

[Slippa]

1 hour ago, MAXsenna said:

My friend. In your screenshot above it says 33.7MBps down, which equals 267,9Mbps. So no wonder those ISP guys left with smiley faces. You get more than you pay for.  

I've re-read your latest post multiple times. But I do get lost. When we've asked you to rename the DCS Saved Games folders. Did you intervene and copy things back before you tested? You see, I ask because I got confused. 

 

I hope I misunderstood, because explicitly told you to start from fresh.  

 

There's some buggery about the PrtScr key now. Conflicts several places. 

 

Never mind the drive. Missions included in the core should never be in Saved Games. They should only be in the default paths in core. 

 

Well. Stop copying and moving things around! Apologies!

I'll say it again. Rename ALL DCS Folders under Saved Games, leave it be and re-install.

Cheers Max.

And apologies , I have to welcome you to my world of confusion. My only excuse is many years of sleep deprivation and an addled mind. Welcome to chaos, run for the hills. . Thanks for trying to fathom what mess I've made here. I promise, I'll stop copying and pasting things around like a nutcase .

57 minutes ago, Art-J said:

are you sure there are no Saved Games leftovers on the C drive? We ask, because DCS by default attempts to create its Users/[Windows User Name]/Saved Games/DCS.OpenBeta folder on a C drive rather than any other one. So It's a bit puzzling why yours ended up on a D drive in the first place. Were you experimenting with moving it between partitions and using symbolic links?
 

Guilty your honour.

I was determined to get as much of DCS, the whole install if possible, on to an external SSD in order to free as much of my C drive as possible. I read about moving my saved games folder and I think Rudel or someone helped me put my saved games folder properly on my D drive.

57 minutes ago, Art-J said:

for the love of God please stop right there and DON'T, I REPEAT DON'T PASTE ANY F@#$%ING SAVED GAMES BACKUPS back in  . No hard feelings mate, we just try to make you stop reusing corrupted folder and wondering why the hell things don't work.

Cheers for that. Broke the ice that had frozen over my eyes after looking at my folders.

I'll be patient next time around.

57 minutes ago, Art-J said:

Just launch clean, vanilla DCS (with Caucasus and maybe only Mosquito or Apache installed), with clean, vanilla Saved Games/DCS.OpenBeta (should be easy to confirm, with nothing configured whatsoever, including gfx and audio) and tell us if training missions are there. That's all what we're asking for as a starting point.

I will. I'll uninstall DCS again, have a clean up then reinstall it vanilla without adding any folders of options etc from anywhere. Every time I install it though, it isn't creating any saved games folder in my C drive. Wen installing, I've watched my saved games folder on the D drive as DCS creates its folder in there while it installs. But I wont touch any of that. As you're both trying to help, despite my lunacy, to first get us back to a basic vanilla install.

Seriously, cheers both of ya for the help, I'll try to behave .

I'm off to chop it all up. More as it comes, Cheers.

 

Edited September 11, 2023 by Slippa
typos (sleep deprivation)

[Art-J]

It's been years since I last did full reinstall, but I think fresh Saved Games/DCS is being created not during DCS installation process, but later, when the game is launched for the very first time.

I wonder if virtual folder moving with symlinks and all plays a role here. I know some people do it successfully (Rudel indeed knows a lot about it), but I never did it myself, so won't even try to advise.

I would, however, avoid installing DCS (or any game for that matter) anywhere in standard Program Files folder. I've been told Windows nowadays is allegedly not as psychotic and anal about files and folders access rights in that location as it used to be back in XP and early 10 era... but I remain sceptical  . Just to be on the safe side, I prefer to create my own games folder as far from Program Files as possible.

 

[Rudel_chw]

10 minutes ago, Art-J said:

It's been years since I last did full reinstall ....

 

Same .. DCS doesn't really require full re-installs to solve issues, thanks to its excellent built-in utility: dcs_updater 

 

10 minutes ago, Art-J said:

but I think fresh Saved Games/DCS is being created not during DCS installation process, but later, when the game is launched for the very first time.

 

yes, correct, DCS creates its saved games folder upon its first run.

 

10 minutes ago, Art-J said:

I wonder if virtual folder moving with symlinks and all plays a role here. I know some people do it successfully (Rudel indeed knows a lot about it), but I never did it myself, so won't even try to advise.

 

I use symlinks, but not for placing Saved Games somewhere apart from its usual location, but to move individual DCS folders to my cloud drive, for backup purposes. This use has never caused me any ill-side effects.

 

10 minutes ago, Art-J said:

I would, however, avoid installing DCS (or any game for that matter) anywhere in standard Program Files folder. 

 

I used to have DCS on its own disk, but when I started to use the DCS-BIOS utility I was forced to re-place DCS on its default place at /Program Files/ ... it has not caused problems for me at all. However, I did place both the DCS program folder and its Saved Games folder, on the exclusion list of the antivirus: half the reason was for better performance, and the other half was to avoid false positives when updating DCS.

 

[Slippa]

1 hour ago, Art-J said:

It's been years since I last did full reinstall, but I think fresh Saved Games/DCS is being created not during DCS installation process, but later, when the game is launched for the very first time.

I wonder if virtual folder moving with symlinks and all plays a role here. I know some people do it successfully (Rudel indeed knows a lot about it), but I never did it myself, so won't even try to advise.

I would, however, avoid installing DCS (or any game for that matter) anywhere in standard Program Files folder. I've been told Windows nowadays is allegedly not as psychotic and anal about files and folders access rights in that location as it used to be back in XP and early 10 era... but I remain sceptical  . Just to be on the safe side, I prefer to create my own games folder as far from Program Files as possible.

 

Oh, this is good to hear. I was only ever trying to install as much as I could on an external drive for the same reasons, to keep out of C as much as I could. I only diverted the saved games folder when everything went a bit nuts on my C drive and I had to ask for help here. Most of the trouble is probably (most probably) user error. As is patently obvious, I'm not exactly a tip-top candidate for coder of the year. .

 

1 hour ago, Rudel_chw said:

yes, correct, DCS creates its saved games folder upon its first run.

This threw me earlier and does indeed create it when DCS is first launched.

Cheers for the help back then as well Rudel, without everyone's help here half of us would be up the creek without a paddle half the time.

I was gonna post where I am now but after reading the advice I'm wondering if I could try the whole DCS install without a diverted saved games folder at all? Just try to install it completely onto the external. That was the original idea but I had a load of trouble updating a year or so back and was grounded.

Here's where I'd got to before I read your replies;

Snip works again somehow - Not the screeny in DCS though.

Brand new vanilla saved games (I haven't made a move)

For some reason, this turned up again like Jason from Halloween. 'Edge' It popped up a while back and sent me off searching for ways to bloody disable, uninstall and banish. I've tried messing in the command prompt but I'll have to try a few things with that if I ever get this sorted. They've made it a pita to uninstall.

DCS is more vanilla than I've seen it for a long time. There are no terrains, no modules, options settings, nada. I haven't touched a thing apart from turning the music off.

Thanks all for checking the mess I've got here, cheers.

 

 

[Art-J]

Whoa, so it's indeed possible to have an "empty" DCS without Caucasus in it. They must've introduced such option sometime after Marianas were released.

I forgot that free TF Mustang also had its own training missions. OK, install Caucasus then and let's see if they start showing up in game now.

Edited September 12, 2023 by Art-J

[Flappie]

1 hour ago, Art-J said:

Whoa, so it's indeed possible to have an "empty" DCS without Caucasus in it. They must've introduced such option sometime after Marianas were released.

Exactly.

[MAXsenna]

So? Did it finally work?
"Passed out" last night. Stupid me tried to walk 100 kilometers in less than a week didn't work well. I'm better today though.

World (land) of Confusion, Run to the Hills. Your British right? Well, up the Irons!


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[Slippa]

19 hours ago, Art-J said:

OK, install Caucasus then and let's see if they start showing up in game now.

I did. They didn't.

I uninstalled it and started hunting for SSDs. Out of stock locally so will have to order a couple. I almost never buy one at a time so I can back it up. Will have to wait a couple of days for those. Since DCS and 'a few other bits' are porking out 1Tb drives I'll get a couple of 2Tbs to put it all on.

I tried installing DCS straight to D just to see if I could sort anything out and test it. Installed there ok but I ran out of space on the drive trying to install Caucasus. Good eh.

16 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

So? Did it finally work?

spoiler above.

16 hours ago, MAXsenna said:

World (land) of Confusion, Run to the Hills. Your British right? Well, up the Irons!

Not a bad shot Max. Born in London, I lived a few miles up the road from football. First time on the terraces I was about five and, buy yourself a lotto ticket, it was Upton Park. We won the World Cup ya know .

This evening, I deleted all the crazy stuff on my D drive that I shouldn't need any more. Passwords, Banking details, Pin numbers, codes to Fort Knox and The Bank of England. All the crap I can do without. I made a bit of space but still not enough. Since I'm getting a bit itchy for a flight I went backwards to go a little forwards . I grit my teeth and started installing DCS back into the C drive. Vanilla. No messing about. Then I installed Caucasus telling my missus as strange as it may be, it's about the only variable I haven't tried yet. (Stop laughing and smh) Maybe, for some mad reason they've patched the training missions to the Caucasus map and if that was installed it may work?

Nope. No training still. I installed The Channel and Normandy map and just the prop aircraft. Still no training. I got my backup of my configs folder and liveries and put those in the saved games folder. That all worked as it should but still no bleedin training missions.

I thought I must have deleted them or uninstalled them somehow and went looking for them. They're in the C drive. If I copy those training miz files can I load or install them anywhere myself? Maybe there's a 'pinch DCS nose and make it swallow' shortcut in the options? Might start a petition for one if there isn't already, for Sharpies argumentative responses if nothing else . No offense.

I'm thinking when I get fresh 2tb jobs I might do a clean OS install, windows updates and all the twaddle and start all over installing DCS and a couple of games straight to the new external D drive.

Y'all maybe thinking Don't touch it and get the IT crowd in?

Hope I haven't made anyone dizzy,

cheers.

Edited September 13, 2023 by Slippa
Typo

[Art-J]

I'm out of ideas. If Caucasus map is installed correctly and if all mission files and single lessons.lua file are there in each respective aircraft folder (Mods/aircraft/[...]/Missions/Training) then they should show up in the Training Menu in the game, period. This is the only location where they should be by default.

As a workaround, sure you can copy and paste them to your Saved Games/DCS.OpenBeta/Missions folder, then launch them "manually" one by one, as if they were your ordinary custom missions. They should load and play allright I guess, just outside of Training Menu.

[Slippa]

2 hours ago, Art-J said:

I'm out of ideas. If Caucasus map is installed correctly and if all mission files and single lessons.lua file are there in each respective aircraft folder (Mods/aircraft/[...]/Missions/Training) then they should show up in the Training Menu in the game, period. This is the only location where they should be by default.

This is what I thought. I was surprised to find the files for training where they should be but still not show at all in the training menu. I’ve been trying to work out why the rockets training for the Mossie work. If I can see what’s going on there I thought I’d be able to chuck the rest in the same way but I can’t see anything special or different about them. The’yre all looking like they’re where they belong.

 

2 hours ago, Art-J said:

As a workaround, sure you can copy and paste them to your Saved Games/DCS.OpenBeta/Missions folder, then launch them "manually" one by one, as if they were your ordinary custom missions. They should load and play allright I guess, just outside of Training Menu.

I’m gonna give it a go. It’s niggling me. Not a big deal but an itch I have to scratch. Cheers for lookin in.

I’m starting to wonder if it’ll be ghosted out apart from the Mossie rocket training after I’m on a fresh OS, fresh drives and a fresh DCS install. We’ll see I s’pose.

[Slippa]

I've got em.

I was thinking about OB and Stable earlier and installed Stable on C. Loaded it up. sorted the music and screen res and clicked on Training. AH-64 Training came straight up. I went to the 109, as that's what I'm supposed to be converting to, they were all there.

I haven't actually tried them but they must work now, surely.

Are they even on Open Beta? Is it that simple? Am I being that simple?

So, though I've not got to the bottom of it properly, I can have a go at the training now.

Thanks all for checking my confusion.

[Art-J]

Yes they are present in latest OB, I've been using only that version for years now. Should be in yours too, so the puzzle remains unsolved. But, if Stable works for you, so be it.

One thing to keep an eye on. Training missions for both Fw-190s have, for some twisted reason, takeoff assist forced ON, overriding player's game settings. I don't remember if 109 missions share the same flaw, so be careful.

[Slippa]

7 hours ago, Art-J said:

Training missions for both Fw-190s have, for some twisted reason, takeoff assist forced ON, overriding player's game settings. I don't remember if 109 missions share the same flaw, so be careful.

Good shout. It can throw you that, and has me in the past. I’ll stick to the 109 til I can cold start and shut it down properly. I had a quick run in it expecting nightmares on the ground trying to taxi but it wasn’t too bad. Managed to take it up (and doesn’t it go up, vertically if you want to) and bring it down without breaking much more than the landing gear.

Drives should be here today. I’ll probably do a full re-install of the OS and all that so I’ll be mixing it up again. I never seem to get everything set just how I had it but then again, with whatever I’ve got that’s buggering things up, I don’t want it exactly the same again so .

No doubt I’ll have more issues, never know, I might get lucky.