General Question Does Orbiter 2016 have a diagnostic tool?

Genesis

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Hi all.....just a quick question....I've moved onto Orbiter 2016...and if I'm correct, the older versions had some kind of Diagnostic tool which helped with errors.....I can't remember where it is located...was wondering if anyone knows if Orbiter 2016 has a diagnostic tool?.....I don't mean the Orbiter Log by the way...(or is that the NEW diagnostic tool)....thanks
 

Urwumpe

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As far as I can tell, it doesn't have it anymore.
 

jedidia

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I never was aware it had one. I mean, what is it supposed to diagnose, that can't be diagnosed with a debugger or common code diagnostic tools?
 

Urwumpe

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I never was aware it had one. I mean, what is it supposed to diagnose, that can't be diagnosed with a debugger or common code diagnostic tools?

Not like that, the 2010 version had a small diagnostic tool available to check the configuration files of Orbiter for problems.

Wouldn't be a very complex tool, a small smoketest script in Lua could do the same now.
 

Genesis

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Exactly....yeah, it was really handy when loading add-ons...it would let you know where problems lie and was very informatiive.....I find that the orbiter log, although lets you know if there is a loading error, does not actually say what the error is..apart from letting you know that it was unable to load something...maybe I'm not that computer savvy to be honest....
For example, I wanted to load Ascension Island 2016, but I already have Wideawake International.....would I be able to add Ascension and would it overwrite Wideawake?...or would it cause problems visually....or would the best thing be to uninstall Wideawake International....
 

Face

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WIA and AI2016 are most probably not compatible. The explicit meshes alone would clash visually with the 2016 terrain.

And for this example, I wonder what a diagnose software should do. Warn you about add-ons using old mechanisms? It sure is complicated to make it check a visual result for plausibility.
 

Genesis

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Thank you for your advice Face...and also the previous comments....thank you for taking the time to reply....regards to all
 

Urwumpe

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WIA and AI2016 are most probably not compatible. The explicit meshes alone would clash visually with the 2016 terrain.

And for this example, I wonder what a diagnose software should do. Warn you about add-ons using old mechanisms? It sure is complicated to make it check a visual result for plausibility.

Well, if add-on developers would support it, it could be possible to use a simple text file like Python does in its .egg-info folder for describing the contents of an add-on, even for those that are compiled and encrypted.

For example, we could add a "Metadata" folder to an Orbiter installation, and have text files for each add-on placed there. And each text file could look like that:

Code:
[sdk]
OrbiterSDK:2016P1

[dependencies]
OrbiterSound:5.0
Multistage:3.5.0

[config]
Vessels/SpaceShuttleOrbiter.cfg
multistage/veryfoobar.ini
Earth/BocaChica.cfg

[scenarios]
Apollo/Apollo 8.scn

[modules]
protostar.dll
plugins/fxcontrol.dll

[meshes]
enterprise/enterprise.msh

[textures]
jumpstart.dds

[add-textures]
bettertextures.dds

[sound]
veryloud.wav
piano.wav

[resources]
add-docs/neverreadme.txt
html/whitestar/titanic.chm
configurator.exe

Just for example... this way, it would be easy to check any missing configurations or dependencies or version conflicts....
 

kuddel

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A general check for a "correct" Orbiter installation should be performed too - as a first sanity-check for 1st time users:
  • check if directory structure is reasonable (to check if a user has extracted the ZIP "all into one folder" e.g.)
  • check if the runtimes Orbiter needs are installed (as Install/testvcr.exe does).
  • for a setup that contains Modules/Plugin/D3D9Client.dll whether the DirectX runtimes are installed.
 
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