TrackIR problems

[BaronVonVaderham]

So, earlier in the week I tried out my trackIR. Played a couple of instant free flight missions in Caucasus, and trackIR worked fine, like a charm really.

today I was flying a multiplayer game, and trackIR didn’t work.  Tried to close and start it mid game, without success. Stopped the game closed it and started it again, but still no joy.

is there something special I need to do with trackIR to getint to operate in a multiplayer game?

[Hiob]

No, trackIR is nothing but an input device. Like a mouse basically. If it works in SP it should work in MP (at least I never heard that MP-servers can restrict input devices, but who knows).

Be aware though, that TrackIR must(!) be started before DCS. You can’t stop and restart it without restarting DCS subsequently.

[Tzigy]

This might not be applicable to your case but mine occasionally stops working while in the session, SP or MP, usually after a pause, never midflight.  Historically I would stop DCS and restart track IR and DCS and it would work.  Relatively recently, I learnt on this forum (thank you to whomever it was!!!) great trick - just unplug the TrackIR USB cable, wait few seconds and plug it back in to the same port and voila! back in action without having to restart the whole game..

[MAXsenna]

This might not be applicable to your case but mine occasionally stops working while in the session, SP or MP, usually after a pause, never midflight.  Historically I would stop DCS and restart track IR and DCS and it would work.  Relatively recently, I learnt on this forum (thank you to whomever it was!!!) great trick - just unplug the TrackIR USB cable, wait few seconds and plug it back in to the same port and voila! back in action without having to restart the whole game..

Unless you have disabled hotplug in the control settings. Then you need to do a rescan I assume. I don't have the original TrackIR, so I use OpenTrack with a PS3 cam. It has stopped working a couple of times, and I only need to do a rescan, never need to unplug. I don't even have to start OpenTrack before I start DCS. Go figure.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Hiob]

5 hours ago, Tzigy said:

This might not be applicable to your case but mine occasionally stops working while in the session, SP or MP, usually after a pause, never midflight.  Historically I would stop DCS and restart track IR and DCS and it would work.  Relatively recently, I learnt on this forum (thank you to whomever it was!!!) great trick - just unplug the TrackIR USB cable, wait few seconds and plug it back in to the same port and voila! back in action without having to restart the whole game..

The discribed behavior would suggest, that your usb ports go to sleep. You can disable the usb-powersaving function in the powerplan settings. Which I would strongly recommend.

Maybe OP has the same problem. @BaronVonVaderham

Edited April 19, 2024 by Hiob

[BaronVonVaderham]

I’m not sure what a rescan  is. 
my usb port is not asleep. I tried the unplug replug truck but that didn’t work. 
 

. In the app I see the three ir LEDs, and the pointer moves across the reference ball in the app. The camera shows only the left Green light. Same for when I’m running dcs. Soo I think that has something to do with it. 
I tried plugging in and unplugging the camera but that didn’t work. I tried with restarting dcs but that didn’t work either. I tried plugging in the usb power connector, but that too didn’t make any difference. Soo note I’m at a loss about trackIR.

[MAXsenna]

I’m not sure what a rescan  is. 
my usb port is not asleep. I tried the unplug replug truck but that didn’t work. 
 
. In the app I see the three ir LEDs, and the pointer moves across the reference ball in the app. The camera shows only the left Green light. Same for when I’m running dcs. Soo I think that has something to do with it. 
I tried plugging in and unplugging the camera but that didn’t work. I tried with restarting dcs but that didn’t work either. I tried plugging in the usb power connector, but that too didn’t make any difference. Soo note I’m at a loss about trackIR.

In the controls settings, on the row below all the bindings. You have the option to enable/disable hot plugin, and there's a rescan button.
This will of course not work if there's an issue with TrackIR itself.

Sent from my SM-A536B using Tapatalk

[Hiob]

13 hours ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

I’m not sure what a rescan  is. 
my usb port is not asleep. I tried the unplug replug truck but that didn’t work. 
 

. In the app I see the three ir LEDs, and the pointer moves across the reference ball in the app. The camera shows only the left Green light. Same for when I’m running dcs. Soo I think that has something to do with it. 
I tried plugging in and unplugging the camera but that didn’t work. I tried with restarting dcs but that didn’t work either. I tried plugging in the usb power connector, but that too didn’t make any difference. Soo note I’m at a loss about trackIR.

Sometimes TrackIR gets hung itself. One green light indicates that the camera can see your tracking dots (active or passive, depending on which you use), the other green light indicates if the application is „connected“ to trackIR. From the top of my head I can‘t say wether the left or right green light is for the application.

Anyway, if TrackIR itself is stuck a simple restart does the trick. You don’t even need to kill it beforehand. But you need to restart DCS.

Does the TrackIR mirror show functioning head movement for you when it doesn’t work in DCS?

[Slippa]

Sometimes while DCS is loaded my trackir gets locked up. Knowing this was happening I bought a little USB hub and plugged trackir, my throttle, stick and pedals into it. Now when trackir plays up I just hit the button for it on the hub turning it off and on again. I don’t have to reset DCS then to fix things.

 

At times my USB connection/disconnection sound starts going while peripherals are having a fit. I don’t know if they’re going to sleep and waking up but I’ve no idea what sets it off, what’s causing it.

[BaronVonVaderham]

52 minutes ago, Hiob said:

Sometimes TrackIR gets hung itself. One green light indicates that the camera can see your tracking dots (active or passive, depending on which you use), the other green light indicates if the application is „connected“ to trackIR. From the top of my head I can‘t say wether the left or right green light is for the application.

Anyway, if TrackIR itself is stuck a simple restart does the trick. You don’t even need to kill it beforehand. But you need to restart DCS.

Does the TrackIR mirror show functioning head movement for you when it doesn’t work in DCS?

I did try to close trackIR as well as dcs, I also shut down and restarted my pc. The problem remains. 

36 minutes ago, Slippa said:

Sometimes while DCS is loaded my trackir gets locked up. Knowing this was happening I bought a little USB hub and plugged trackir, my throttle, stick and pedals into it. Now when trackir plays up I just hit the button for it on the hub turning it off and on again. I don’t have to reset DCS then to fix things.

 

At times my USB connection/disconnection sound starts going while peripherals are having a fit. I don’t know if they’re going to sleep and waking up but I’ve no idea what sets it off, what’s causing it.

The usb trick does not resolve the issue. 
 

left green indicated that trackIR sees the IR LEDs. I can see the LEDs move in the trackIR app and the main virtual ball (whatever you want to call it) moves perfectly fine. Right Green beans track IR is connected to a compatible app. Soo since the right green led isn’t working, the problem lies with the connection between track IR and dcs because dcs should work. 
 

I’ll try uninstalling and reinstalling. 

Edited April 20, 2024 by BaronVonVaderham

[Slippa]

Sounds like your trackir is working and if it works in SP there shouldn’t be any reason it won’t in MP too. Sounds odd.

 

 

[Hiob]

Just now, Slippa said:

Sounds like your trackir is working and if it works in SP there shouldn’t be any reason it won’t in MP too. Sounds odd.

 

 

Yes, very.

@BaronVonVaderham did you try different MP servers?

[BaronVonVaderham]

Managed to resolve it. This is what I had to do:

Uninstall TrackIR using teh windows add/remove programs function

Run TrackIR installer and select uninstall TrackIR.

Go to program folder and appdata (insave games) folder and find any traces of trackIR/NatrualPoint, and remove all of it, including USB drivers.

Reinstall TrackIR using the trackIR installer.

 

And now it works again... 

Go figure. I actually found the suggestion in a thread a couple of years old. the Win95 solution still seems to be the prevalent solution to fixes...

[Slippa]

Good stuff. 

[BaronVonVaderham]

And today the problem is back. Soo I have to conclude there is a bug with the software. Maybe I’ll uninstall and try the stable version instead of the beta version

[_Hoss]

Were the lights on the camera red or green? Be careful you don't have the pause set to something you have mapped to your HOTAS. It should work just fine in any mode of the game once you start it, have green lights on the camera on your monitor, and you're centered in your TIR camera screen with three lights.

Make sure whatever profile you are running for DCS, you check "Exclusive" that way it won't change no matter what you do... I use my IL2/DCS profile for both games, and I never worry about switching between games. It's always there.

Edited April 21, 2024 by _Hoss

[rob10]

1 hour ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

And today the problem is back. Soo I have to conclude there is a bug with the software. Maybe I’ll uninstall and try the stable version instead of the beta version

If you mean DCS, there is no BETA vs STABLE.  They merged the versions a couple of patches back.

Check your lighting (even reflected sunlight can mess with it) or other hardware issues.  Working for everyone else using it, so I doubt it's something with DCS or TIR software.

[BaronVonVaderham]

On 4/21/2024 at 11:13 PM, _Hoss said:

Were the lights on the camera red or green? Be careful you don't have the pause set to something you have mapped to your HOTAS. It should work just fine in any mode of the game once you start it, have green lights on the camera on your monitor, and you're centered in your TIR camera screen with three lights.

Make sure whatever profile you are running for DCS, you check "Exclusive" that way it won't change no matter what you do... I use my IL2/DCS profile for both games, and I never worry about switching between games. It's always there.

 

I’ll  try the exclusive option . As said, left light is green, right light doesn’t come on, which means the sim is not recognised as compatible. (Which we know is not true, yet that’s what the cam indicates).

don’t have any pause mapped, and I’m seeing the three lights on the top right in TIR. And I’m centered. It’s the only thing I mapped to HOTAS.

 

On 4/21/2024 at 11:37 PM, rob10 said:

If you mean DCS, there is no BETA vs STABLE.  They merged the versions a couple of patches back.

Check your lighting (even reflected sunlight can mess with it) or other hardware issues.  Working for everyone else using it, so I doubt it's something with DCS or TIR software.

It’s not other lighting. The lighting is always the same (night, dark outside, on,yon Leighton, when it works zero issues, until it doesn’t work. External light sources don’t switch off the right green light on the cam though, they show up as red interference on TIR.

something else is goingon, because I played it fine without problems for several weeks, and then suddenly it stopped the right green light and didn’t work in dcs, until in unis tall every file and reinstall inform scratch. Then it works again for as long as I play. The onlything thatching, is that I switch off the computer when I’m done, and next day switch it on again.

but here is a question: TIR has a stable and beta version. I’m using beta version, so maybe that’s what’s wrong?

[rob10]

57 minutes ago, BaronVonVaderham said:

but here is a question: TIR has a stable and beta version. I’m using beta version, so maybe that’s what’s wrong?

Huh.  I didn't realize there was a TIR beta version.  Didn't think it had changed at all in many years.  If you end up having to uninstall again anyway its worth trying the stable version.

[BaronVonVaderham]

Just now I think I found the culprit: OpenTrack/AITrack...

Although previously I wasn't running them, I did have them open (I thin in case the battery of TrackIR ran our).

Tonight again it didn't work, but then I checked if maybe there was a conflict with Opentrack/AITrack, so I switche dthem off. Then switched off TracKIR, switched it on, and started DCS. And voila, the second green light cam eon!

So lesson learned: Charge your batteries, and don't run other trackers!