Active display and Planebase interaction

[Roadrunner]

Hi there,


For some time there has been a problem with running Active Display and using PlaneBase at the same time, although a work-around has been available so that they co-exist. As from today, and since loading the latest version of PB3 and PL3 my copy of Active Display, for which I have only just got a new licence, does not appear to be populating BaseStation nor can I get any of the drop-down lists of aircraft (e.g.) it will not populate the Bizz jets, turboprops or Helicopters and is giving me a constant error message:
                       
                        SD22 flights for new session cannot be found. Please restart base station. Conversion from string "E" to type Date is not valid.


It would appear that the latest update is designed to get even further away from the old base station.sqb layout as possibnle so I think I will continue using AD for the foreseeable future and ditch Plane Base'.

[IanH]

latest update is designed to get even further away from the old base station.sqb layout as possible

I don't think that you can entirely blame PlaneBase. Active Display has used UserString4 for its own purposes.

It looks like UserString4 is one of the (many?) fields in the basestation.sqb whose purpose was never defined.

So two programs use this field for different purposes - if the use of the field was never defined which is wrong?

Clearly Active Display expects it to be a certain value while PlaneBase uses it for something anything else.

It seems to me that both programs do the same thing, so why would they both be running (and interfering)?

Simplest approach is to as you are suggesting - just use one program.

[Roadrunner]

I don't have both running at the same time. I run Active display all the time and after that is shut down each day I have run Plane Base to see if it picks up any "unknowns" that AD didn't find. There was a quick fix that could be used within Plane Base after this by running the reset data in Usersting4 and allow AD to run as usual in the next session.


With this latest update more than one field has been changed as the instructions refer to updating the .sqb file. I think it is within this that something extra is happening that stops the method I am using.


My main reason for posting was to allow all out there to know that the "fix" does not run anymore and one has to make a choice between Active Display and Plane Base. As I had, after a lot of thinking, decided to re-invest in a new AD licence in September, and as I prefer that to PB that is my choice.


I am stopping making full use of PB. If and wen AD finally calls it a day (and any more changes that can't be picked up and amended that may not be too long). At that time I will probably go to PB and use that. As it is I am keeping PB up-to-date and can manually check any unknowns that AD fails to find and then manually enter the data. Thus avoiding any conflicts and allow me to continue using the current structure of BaseStation.sqb.


Regards Mike

[kdt1]

Under Data Settings in base station
Message Filtering

Uncheck  Save Non-ICAO Addresses to DB