OnCourse Software

Hi Dave,
i hope you allready passed thru illness and you´re on the way to feel better. I have an issue with MCE/PF3 which seems quite difficult to solve or even find the culprit. Very important: this all started exactly when the very first PF3 build was released with MSFS compartibility, but i can´t say which version it was. At that point the MCE didn´t worked anymore with PF3, but short after you, Gerald from MCE provided a new MCE build too, also with MSFS compartibility and every thing seems working as usual again. But it turned out that there is major issue since then which is really annoying.

On every, really every flight it happen quite often, that the hotkey-commands driven by MCE-FO aren´t get thru PF3. For example: PF3-Departure commands to contact Munich Radar on 123.45. The MCE-FO dials in the correct frequency (as i can monitor this via the great WebDisplay from Pointy), after dialing the MCE-FO contact Radar like "Munich Radar, Lufthansa 123 passing thru 4000" but Radar isn´t responding. Instead after a short while, Radar comes up with "Traffic at FL something, sqawking 1234, contact Munich Radar on 123.45". The MCE-FO read back this advisory and contact Radar again. But again no response instead of "Traffic at FL 123, sqawking 1234 contact Munich Radar on 123.45" and then this game starts over and over. Sometimes the contact establishes after 3 or 4 times sometimes it takes some more tries.
This is really annoying especially if this happen when you handed off to approach and have to wait for decent instruction which come much to late in that case.

Over the past months Gerald has provided some patches to get rid of this. But it seems unpossible. Gerald thought it would be an issue of loosing focus of the sim that the hotkey isn´t sent to PF3. The last patch from Gerald provided the capability of his fsinsider.dll to force the focus of PF3 before a hotkkey is sent by MCE. But i really doubt meanwhile that it is a focus issue, because, even if try to manually sent the "zero" hotkey via keyboard this doesn´t work no matter if i focus the Sim or not.

But soemthing else weird is happening sometime in PF3. If it takes to much of tries by me or the MCE FO to establish the contact, PF3 takes over by itself and contact the facility. In this case this is a little weird because it also changes the controller voice. For example: If Munich Radar uses voiceset A while demanding to be contacted like "Traffic at FL 123, sqawking 1234..." and after several unsuccesfull tries by MCE FO, then the inbuild FO of PFE takes over and say something like "Lufthansa 123 at FL 123" and Munich Radar is immediatly responding but with a different voiceset B.

And another bahavior i have watched is, in case the MCE-FO is going thru to PF3 and will establish the contact as exspected, i can hear that the controller give some advises to other AI traffic arround me, and then he talks to us like "Lufthansa 123, Roger" or "Lufthansa 123, sqawkident". But in case the contact by MCE will NOT go thru to PF3 it is allways the case that AI traffic will contact the controller like "Munich Radar, Condor 123 with you at FL200". Then the controller responds to the AI and after this i´ll get "Traffic at FL123 sqawking blablabla..." Though i can say, if i can hear radio chatter of AI planes giving their position to Radar first, the Hotkey of my FO wasn´t received by PF3. If it was received normally i can hear the chatter, where Radar is giving advisory to AI Traffic first.

Dave, you may have an idea what compartibilty setting of PF3 for MSFS could have caused this issue. Because before the establishing of the initial contact worked perfectly well by 100 % with MCE-PF3.

Important: I´am using P3D V 5.3 HF2. I don´t use MSFS or have it installed and never had it installed or in use in the past. Please let me know what you may need from here for investigating this issue.

Hi Bernd,

Thank you for your very full and clear explanation about your problem. It is in stark contrast to some emails I receive that simply state 'PF3 doesn't work!'

The only thing we're missing here is the debug log, so, when you experience this issue again please attach the debug log (as explained in the red message above), with brief details as to which point in the flight the problem occurs, and I'll gladly take a look

Hi Dave, honestly the simple state PF3 doesn´t work is in the same way just wrong as it isn´t really helpfull, i agree!
I explained in such detail, because this takeover by the PF3 FO and also the pattern that the ATC chatter with AI-aircrafts differs always in the same way in case when the issue happened, could be helpfull for trace down the root cause, and let me think about that it´s may be not an issue by MCE or not only MCE, at least.

Here you are. I´ve made just yesterday a leg from EDDF to LFBO as Lufthansa 1096, squak 5364. Attached you´ll find the Debug_Monitor.log file of this flight.
Additionally i´ve attached the Clearance.log of the same flight where i have marked in yellow colour when the issue appeared. The marked line in blue is the take-over by the PF3-FO to get initial contact. I hope you can read word documents, because txt files can´t keep the markings.

Hope this helps.

Hi Bernd,

Thank you for the logs.

I wish I had a definite answer for you but all I have I'm afraid are suspicions. Now, bear in mind, I don't have MCE installed and have never used it so it may well be something that is configurable within MCE, in which case you may well be able to tell me the answer to my thoughts.

Checking through the log it would appear that when things start going wrong the hotkeys are appearing in very quick succession or in a different sequence to when things are working correctly. For instance... here's the log output following ATC giving you your taxi instructions, which all works correctly. (Hotkey #10 is the Roger key and Hotkey #21 is the PIT key)

Code: Select all 28.11.2022 19:55:26: 130 - ****** HotKey #21 detected! 28.11.2022 19:55:26: 130 - Set 'Execute' Hotkey #21 ! 28.11.2022 19:55:26: 160 - Press to talk button DETECTED... 28.11.2022 19:55:38: 160 - Press to talk button RELEASED... 28.11.2022 19:55:38: 200 - ****** HotKey #10 detected! 28.11.2022 19:55:38: 200 - Set 'Execute' Hotkey #10 !

So in the above you hit the PIT key to readback the taxi instruction and then the Roger key is sent AND the important thing here it was actioned eg. Set 'Execute' Hotkey #10

Now, moving on to the first time things went wrong... here's the log output

Code: Select all 28.11.2022 20:13:08: 010 - Transcript: 'Lufthansa 1096 Contact Frankfurt Radar on 127.95 ' 28.11.2022 20:13:16: 250 - ****** HotKey #21 detected! 28.11.2022 20:13:16: 250 - Set 'Execute' Hotkey #21 ! 28.11.2022 20:13:16: 270 - Press to talk button DETECTED... 28.11.2022 20:13:28: 270 - Press to talk button RELEASED...

Notice above there's no Roger key received. Is this sent via MCE or do you have to hit something?

A short while after you hit the PIT key and and this time there's also the Roger key, but it appears before the PIT key in the log but occurs in the exact same millisecond

Code: Select all 28.11.2022 20:13:31: 540 - ****** HotKey #10 detected! 28.11.2022 20:13:31: 540 - ****** HotKey #21 detected! 28.11.2022 20:13:31: 540 - Set 'Execute' Hotkey #21 ! 28.11.2022 20:13:31: 570 - Press to talk button DETECTED... 28.11.2022 20:13:43: 580 - Press to talk button RELEASED...

The PIT key will always take precedence and I guess you have the PIT setup on your yoke. So how is the Roger key sent?

Seems to me like it may be a timing issue... but I'm only guessing.

More than happy for you to share the above with MCE support and I'd be equally happy to discuss anything with them if need be... they have my contact details already.

Other than that I'm not really sure what else I can do at this stage

Hi Dave, thank you for your proffesional investigation sor far.

To answer your question for MCE: Usually MCE should do the flow in it´s own, without any further action from me. So MCE works like this for instance:
To get taxi instructions i have to command verbally "request taxi" and MCE execute the nessecary hotkeys, like execute the PTT key because the FO is simulating his talking to Ground, and once the taxi instructions given, these are detected by MCE and it rogers the given instructions while the FO is verbally read back them.

In flight, when the FO has the Radios, he automatic react to a contact by radar and should roger the given advise and then do what was advised.

Assuming your agreement, i´ll pass our thread to Gerald from MCE and may he´ll find something to fix or he´ll contact you for a view down to the bottom of this culprit.

Quote:

Assuming your agreement, i´ll pass our thread to Gerald from MCE and may he´ll find something to fix or he´ll contact you for a view down to the bottom of this culprit.

Great idea!

dmarch wrote: *

Wed Nov 30, 2022 7:12 pm

Quote:

Assuming your agreement, i´ll pass our thread to Gerald from MCE and may he´ll find something to fix or he´ll contact you for a view down to the bottom of this culprit.

Great idea!

Hi Dave, because you helped me in this case instantly i won´t forget to follow-up on this issue, which seems not be a real one in fact.

Meanwhile i was in contact with Gerald from MCE and he tried to help me by setting a delay in the config, but unfortunatly that didn´t solved the issue.

BUT!! here is what seems to be the real cause and what i have written to Gerald just a few minutes ago:

Hi Gerald,

i hope you enjoyed the Christmas days with you family and Santa was good to you all. I want to give you a little follow-up on the FO recognition issue in PF3. Meanwhile i have tested several figures of the delay setting you gave to me. But unfortunnatly that doesn´t seem to fix the issue. BUT there is always light, where shadow exists: Yesterday i have made two legs from EDDF to EDDB and return. On both legs i was assited by MCE and controled by PF3 without any flaws. The initial contact was established by the MCE FO without one single re-try needed. The difference in my setup was just, believe it or not, to start PF3 and MCE as administrator by force (right click "exec. as admin").

I know, PF3 and MCE, both application exe are configured as to be executed with admin rights (they have this little windows shield shown), but it seems that´s not enough. In fact, execute the apps manually as admins seems to be the "key". I´ve had no time yet to check if it´s need to be done for both nessecarly or if it´s only one of them where it makes the difference, but i will test this further next time.

Though it seems it´s more or less another Windows hick-up cause by their strong security architecture.

I wish you a happy new year anyway.

And the happy new year and my best wishes for the coming near is addressed to YOU aswell, of course!

PS: I really appreciate your decision of constantly provide the "Beta" builds, between the official major releases.

That's great news and thank you for coming back to explain. Thank you also for your kind words. I hope you enjoy the rest of the festive session