Reverse directions.

[Hawkeye]

Hi Alan,

As you say, there are bound to be errors in the Routes database despite all the hard work you and the team put into it and it goes without saying that your efforts are much appreciated by everyone. I don’t for one minute think that John was complaining or ‘having a do’ at you.

Anyway, on to a little ‘annoyance’ I get with routes.
I regularly get flights not showing a route in My Flights although there is one shown in the d/base.
I’ve attached just one example from earlier today.
Wondering if this anomaly is common to everyone or just me, due perhaps to corruption of my 5.00.072 installation
I can’t understand how, if it’s a fault at my end, only a few and not the lot don’t appear Any ideas?

Regarding your comments about updating.  Although I regularly manually update anyway because I reckoned using Auto Populate in Preferences may be the cause of my box often ‘hanging’ for up to three minutes at the Optimising Data stage,  like John, I thought that by ticking the boxes for photos, aircraft and routes in the ‘Auto Populate’ facility it would do exactly that. If it doesn’t, what does it do?

Regards,

Syd

[Runway 31]

Syd,

A long time ago users decided that routes would have a life span of 3 months, I am sure use of the search system would find the discussion.  The decision was taken when the routes were crap and could probably be reviewed now.

What you see is the result of that decisions, the ch date needs changed as the route is time expired and the only way it can be done is for me to recycle it back in through the database which I do with a lot each day when I see a flight ID with no route showing either in myflights or on the network.  However with so many routes in the database and the fact that I cannot watch every flight every day, some get missed and it is only when I am advised or notice them that they get recycled back in.  AAL87 has been recycled back in now that you have advised me so should show OK now.  To users if you see routes not showing tell me and I will sort it out.

Regarding auto-populate.  It is intended to update singular aircraft that you pick up or click on that have no data allocated on your Navadata and the data is available on the server.

2.  It will only auto-populate the aircraft if you actually pick up the aircraft in myflights or if you click on a network  flight.
2.  It will only auto-populate if the data is already in the database.
3.  It will not overwrite any data already in place.  A database update is required for this.
4.  For photos you require to click on the aircraft for its photos to download.
5.  For routes auto-populate only populates data if there was nothing existing for it previously on your Navadata, it doesn't over-write any existing data.  Again a database update is required to change existing data.

Often I see a new aircraft on the network for example out of Airbus on delivery.  I don't click on it at this stage.  I enter the data into the database and then click on the unknown aircraft.  The grid updates within a few seconds with the map following shortly afterwards, an example of auto population in action.  If you were then to go to the Navdata you would see the new aircraft at the very bottom if you went into the aircraft table and clicked on Show All and Add Record.

Database updates update the entire database taken direct from the server.  Auto-populate has nothing to do with optimising following a database update.  Optimising is just the software finishing processing the data from the download or ensuring the data is in the correct place each time you start up.

Hope this explanation helps.

Alan

[Runway 31]

John,

The main reason for the auto-update column as you mention is to allow users to change it to NO from the default YES.

You may note that we pick up multitudes of Miscodes  An example of this NO change is where a users may want to manually update the database if where they have a non-plotters local to them that the pick up very often that has for example an American hex code from its previously life that it is still using.  The US unfortunately reuse hex codes/registrations and a new allocation for the hex code/registration could for example be on an airliner which is ADSB equipped and is then noted all over the world.  The user may never see that aircraft in their locality especially if they don't use the network facility and may therefore prefer to have their miscode show its details.  They would then change the YES to NO and that would prevent the miscode being over written by the correct data when they carry out a database update using the Do not Update manually changed records option for updating.

Another use is where the user prefers to use their own photographs for aircraft and it can prevent the server stored photos being downloaded.

The errors you noted initially will probably have been caused by the old version of the software with the one from last night caused by my error adding it into the database.  Unfortunately there is no central database that we can call the flight ID's from and we have required to compile one through hard work over tome and which requires constant updating.

I would welcome it if you forwarded any details of incorrect or no route showing flight ID,s and I would endeavour to update or add in the details.

Many thanks

Alan

Alan