till213
commented
4 months ago Hello,
I saw your comment on flightsim.to and was just about to suggest to raise an issue here on github.com, as it makes it easier to reply and provide further information (with screenshots etc. if necessary).
Indeed, there has been a change in Sky Dolly v0.17 related to how the SimConnect connection is setup: Sky Dolly now properly honours the presense of a SimConnect.cfg client configuration file (to be placed into the Sky Dolly application folder). That is, Sky Dolly now provides a proper "configuration index" (relating to one of the configuration sections of said SimConnect.cfg) as argument when connecting to the flight simulator (MSFS).
Sky Dolly v0.17 now also ships with an example SimConnect.cfg (in the Sky Dolly application directory), providing three configuration sections:
- Local ("pipe")
- IPv4
- IPv6
The Sky Dolly application settings - under Flight Simulator - let you chose the connection type:
Those three connection types refer to the provided SimConnect.cfg configuration sections 0 (default), 1 and 2:
SimConnect.cfg:
# Connection type: "Local (pipe)"
#
# This is the default connection type: MSFS and Sky Dolly run on the same local machine
[SimConnect]
Protocol=Pipe
Port=Custom/SimConnect
Address=127.0.0.1
# Connection type: "Network 1 (IPv4)"
#
# This is the network configuration with IPv4: MSFS and Sky Dolly may run on the same local
# machine (local address 127.0.0.1), or on different machines. In the later case adjust the
# 'Address' with the corresponding IPv4 address of the server (running MSFS).
[SimConnect.1]
Protocol=IPv4
Address=127.0.0.1
Port=500
MaxReceiveSize=41088
# Connection type: "Network 2 (IPv6)"
#
# This is the network configuration with IPv6: MSFS and Sky Dolly may run on the same local
# machine (local address ::1), or on different machines. In the later case adjust the
# 'Address' with the corresponding IPv6 address of the server (running MSFS).
[SimConnect.2]
Protocol=IPv6
Address=::1
Port=500
MaxReceiveSize=41088These configuration sections should work out of the box with the default SimConnect.xml (= SimConnect "server configuration", where server is the flight simulator, here: MSFS). And when I say default then I mean the SimConnect.xml that is automatically generated in the Microsoft Flight Simulator data folder when not present (or renamed):
- Steam: C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator\
- Microsoft store: C:\Users\[user_name]\AppData\Local\Packages\Microsoft.FlightSimulator_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCache\
Given the fact that you already mentioned SimConnect.xml (attention spelling: capital C! But should not make a big difference on a case-preserving, but not case-sensitive file system) I assume you already know most of this. Also refer to the official documentation here:
- SimConnect.cfg: https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/Programming_Tools/SimConnect/SimConnect_CFG_Definition.htm
- SimConnect.xml: https://docs.flightsimulator.com/html/Programming_Tools/SimConnect/SimConnect_XML_Definition.htm
To summarise:
- Yes, there have been changes made related to how Sky Dolly v0.17 connects to MSFS
- An example SimConnect.cfg specific for Sky Dolly (respectively the three selectable configuration sections in the Sky Dolly Flight Simulator application settings) is provided
- This should work out of the box with the default SimConnect.xml server configuration
All that being said, Sky Dolly is fully "self-contained". Specifically it comes with its own SimConnect.dll (originating from the official MSFS Software Development Kit (SDK)). So there should be no need to "re-install the SimConnect library".
-> But it is theoretically possible that other SimConnect related addons have installed "system-wide" SimConnect configurations (Sky Dolly does not install anything except in its own application directory), such as SimConnect.xml that would -somehow - interfere with the SimConnect.cfg as provided (newly) by Sky Dolly.
In fact, I remember an older issue where one user also could not establish a connection with MSFS: the actual "MSFSSimConnect" plugin (Sky Dolly uses an extendable plugin architecture) did not even load, as the underlying SimConnect.dll reported errors.
Turned out that the original author of that issue once had a SimConnect.xml server configuration somewhere on his system that could not be found anymore (?), and that this was now somehow interfering globally with SimConnect connections. In fact, the original author could not even launch the "Simvar Watcher" example application that comes with the MSFS SDK: the underlying SimConnect.dll simply refused to load ("link"), apparently due to some "global / sytem-wide" mis-configuration.
To be clear: this does not seem to be the same problem in your case: I was just mentioning this issue to illustrate that yes, theoretically it is possible that other "global" configurations interfere now with how Sky Dolly tries to connect with MSFS via SimConnect, especially since Sky Dolly now properly honours existing SimConnect.cfg client configuration files.
What I am just about to do:
- In the next few minutes I will publish a new minor patch release Sky Dolly v0.17.2 that will check the existence of any SimConnect.cfg in the Sky Dolly application directory
- If such a SimConnect.cfg configuration cannot be found then Sky Dolly enforces a local connection: exactly just like Sky Dolly v0.16 and earlier did (specifically: the configuration index SIMCONNECT_OPEN_CONFIGINDEX_LOCAL (= -1) is provided as connection argument again)
Just for the record: I cannot reproduce this problem (I do have some other addons like the Fenix A320 and Flight Recorder etc. installed that also make use of SimConnect - but no addons that install any "global" SimConnect configuration settings, or change the SimConnect.xml in the MSFS data folder, to the best of my knowledge).
So what you can do (already now, but latest with the upcoming v0.17.2):
- Remove the SimConnect.cfg from the Sky Dolly application directory (or rename it - make sure you keep a copy "just in case")
- You can also try to remove (rename) the SimConnect.xml server configuration and re-launch MSFS: that will re-create a new default SimConnect.xml server configuration again
Let me know how it goes.
betterpilot
Describe the bug I am trying to use the new versions 0.17.0 and 0.17.1 on the same computer as I am running my sim on. The legacy versions work great for me but I am unable to get this version to connect.
I checked my Simconnect.xml and reinstalled the Simconnect Library but still cannot get Skydolly to connect.
I have the Extracted Skydolly folder on my desktop and I am running the Skydolly.exe from the folder on my Desktop.
Apologies in advance if this has nothing to do with SkyDolly and something to do with my system setup but I have tried everything I could think of and cannot get the app to function.