Simviation Forums

Recently I had a serious lightning strike on the power cable feeding electricity to my home and I lost all power for two days before the power company was able to repair it. When I powered up my computer and launched FS2004 I found that the airplane picture was missing in the preview window. The screen was all black. I tried all kind of settings and nothing worked. Has anyone else experienced this problem. How do I fix it and get my selected aircraft picture back. I have been using Flight Simulator for over fifteen years and have more than 200 aircraft in my hangers and have never run into this problem. Thanks for any help you can give me.
Georgiaracer

I have fixed some FS 2004 quirks, this unofficial way: I reinstall FS 2004 from my DVD at the same location over the one failing. In my case, this works every time. In México, the electricity is cut at least once EVERY DAY, without any warning: sometimes it is a lightning strike, sometimes it's "maintenance" from electrical company, sometimes a neighbor sneezed but reflects in my FS 2004 even if I am using a Lap ("only") & stay on battery power before closing FS 2004 & turning it off properly. Must be the power surge of the disconect & reconect. When I had a copper wire conect for my broadband, it was a hundred times worst: now, with optical broadband, I can even watch movies with better quality than the Satellite Dish!! (and without loosing the transmition with every storm for half an hour AT LEAST. Then, when the signal comes back, we have to endure the commercial about "This is normal for every satellite system"...5 minutes transmit for EVERY half an hour of "finding satellite" BS, for the night's duration?? HOW ENTERTAiNiNG!! )

Thank you Jean Loup for your reply. I do not have power failures as often as you in Mexico. Your solution must be the way to go to correct this problem I will try it and hope it works for me. I'm afraid something will change my downloaded plane files. You say you have done this many times, so I assume your files came through the new install over the old intact.
Thanks again for your fix to my problem.
Georgiaracer

I get a bad feeling about this .....

gwillmot wrote:I get a bad feeling about this .....

That is how I felt the first time: for some unknown reason (allways after some elctricity quirk), the UNiNSTALL file was not there, for reinstalling a new FS9 afterwards (a clean reinstall from zero files). So I gave it a shot, and to my surprise it did not touch any extra aircraft I had nor other scenery add ons or extra flights, only the standard FS9 files were reinstalled & what ever missing ones, added back. On another ocasion, my Real Environment said "Cant locate Flight Simulator 9" (don't know why it does that once in a while crocodile) and after reinstalling on top of my Flight Simulator(2004)9, it located it as usual. I ALLWAYS reinstall using the "Flight Simulator 9" original name, & never tried this on Silver Wings nor Golden Wings modified FS9's (because they never fail!!). ONE NOTE: I do not install in "Program Files" but in Local Disc (C:) and I am using Vista, tweaked & thinned out as recomended: no Air, no UAC, & no etc.etc!!

My original jewel case always names the Flight Simulator as; "Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004: A Century of Flight"

(I always fondly refer to it as; FS 2004...rather than FS9!).

This followed the naming of; Microsoft Flight Simulator; '98, 2000, and 2002, each describing the actual year of release of the products.

For some reason Microsoft Flight Simulator 2010 broke the mould by calling it; "Microsoft Flight Simulator X" instead!.... ...!

Paul.... ...!

Jean Loup, I did the re-install of Flight Simulator 2004 and it did not correct the problem of no aircraft in the preview window. After the install, I checked all my files and aircraft that were installed previously and everything was intact. I have no idea what to try at this point. Maybe someone else has had the same problem and could be of some service, Anyone ?.
Georgiaracer

georgiaracer wrote:Jean Loup, I did the re-install of Flight Simulator 2004 and it did not correct the problem of no aircraft in the preview window. After the install, I checked all my files and aircraft that were installed previously and everything was intact. I have no idea what to try at this point. Maybe someone else has had the same problem and could be of some service, Anyone ?.
Georgiaracer

The picture you see in the preview area comes from a file with the word THUMBNAIL in it if you take a look at one of the aircraft that you can see you will see what I mean it will look something like this B737-400 NTL/Texture.esd/Thumbnail.jpg
This is the file you are missing all you need is a JPG file and rename it
All of this you will find in the Aircraft.cfg file of the plane missing the preview
This is an example
http://library.avsim.net/zipshow.php?DL ... age%2Fjpeg

georgiaracer wrote:Jean Loup, I did the re-install of Flight Simulator 2004 and it did not correct the problem of no aircraft in the preview window. After the install, I checked all my files and aircraft that were installed previously and everything was intact. I have no idea what to try at this point. Maybe someone else has had the same problem and could be of some service, Anyone ?.
Georgiaracer

SORRY about this Georgia Racer, I never missed previews & I am at loss of ideas.

garymbuska wrote:The picture you see in the preview area comes from a file with the word THUMBNAIL in it if you take a look at one of the aircraft that you can see you will see what I mean it will look something like this B737-400 NTL/Texture.esd/Thumbnail.jpg
This is the file you are missing all you need is a JPG file and rename it
All of this you will find in the Aircraft.cfg file of the plane missing the preview

Forget my intrussion: this is true for FSX. In my FS9 (FS 2004 if you preffer) I have many standard (and added) aircraft with no THUMBNAiL in any texture nor in any other files, and can't find any reference of preview in their aircraft.cfg. I tried to tweak in different modes the aircraft.cfg file to eliminate the preview, without any success: it either shows the aircraft with preview, or erases it from the list compleately. Still, with no more ideas

I REPLICATED the NO PREVIEW problem, with the AFCAD program (http://www.flightsimworld.com/downloads ... le/49.html), so this might help. (After Download & extracting all) Open AFCAD221 & Clik AFCAD.exe. When it opens, go TOOLS & Aircraft Editor:


In my experiment, I choose this aircraft: so pick one of yours!

Notice Aircraft Radius (m) number: 7 is the standard, 200 the Máx & 1 the Min (should be between 1 & 200, or no go!)

After setting Aircraft Radius at 1:


After setting Aircraft Radius at 200:


Re-setting Aircraft Radius to 7 (FS9 standard for Baron 58):


Maybe your PREViEW is so small it seems not there, maybe something else.. I hope this helps you!!.

Jean Loup wrote:Forget my intrussion: this is true for FSX. In my FS9 (FS 2004 if you preffer) I have many standard (and added) aircraft with no THUMBNAiL in any texture nor in any other files, and can't find any reference of preview in their aircraft.cfg. I tried to tweak in different modes the aircraft.cfg file to eliminate the preview, without any success: it either shows the aircraft with preview, or erases it from the list compleately. Still, with no more ideas

I have a number of add-on aircraft in the folders for my FS 2004 and FSX with no thumbnail Pics, and I never did bother too much about seeing a "preview" of the aircraft in the Library of aircraft, if it didn't appear automatically.
As long as the actual name of the Aircraft is listed, it suits me.

A Thumbnail Pic can be produced, but its extra work...and I'm too tired to mess about... ...!

Paul.... ...!

Hang on chaps! I think you're getting confused.

This is the FS2004 forum. There are no thumbnails in FS2004. The Preview window is what Jean has shown in his shots.

I have never experienced the problem that georgiaracer describes but I suspect it might be a graphics card setting or driver issue.

Jean...The AFCAD program looks promising. The example aircraft you used to demonstrate the program is one of my favorites. I'll give it a try and see what happens. My next question is... how did I make the change to the video in the first place. Thanks for your help. I will reply with my finding.
Georgiaracer.

Sorry about that Wrong version of FS my mistake please ignore.