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First, X-Plane 10.35 beta 2 is live.  If you had beta 1, X-Plane will ask to update.  A few bugs that made beta 1 unmanageable are now fixed:

  • No more crashes when using multiplayer.
  • Joystick axis assignment UI works.
  • EFIS App support is back in.

See the full release notes for more.

EFIS App networking support will remain in X-Plane for the life of v10.  We thought that no one was using this option, and interestingly, none of the bug reports were from actual EFIS-App users.  (If you are using EFIS app with v10, maybe drop us a line?  EFIS app has been discontinued for a very long time.)

It turns out that a third party app is using EFIS App’s network output. This is sort of weird; the output is labeled for EFIS App and isn’t a published “thing.  On the other hand, it’s really easy to figure out how the option works and jump on it, and that’s apparently what the developer did.* So we won’t pull it until a major version break.**

WorldEditor Soon

I think we’ll get a WorldEditor 1.4 public beta early next week; I’m just going through the last beta-stopping bugs now.

Linux Nerds: I need help with this bug. Basically we don’t have a way for me to compile a cross-distribution WED release on Ubuntu (Debian) without CURL going somewhat haywire.

If we don’t come up with anything better, my default action is going to be to compile on Ubuntu and if it doesn’t work on your distribution, you can rebuild from the open source. That’s not awesome, so if anyone has a better idea, I’m interested. (But: doing several builds on several VMs for several distros is not on the table. I can’t spend that kind of time on Linux build process.)

MeshTool Anyone?

I have a build of MeshTool that can build X-Plane 10-style DSFs (with the new terrains). If you’d like to try it, please let me know.

Edit: if you want to try an early private beta of MeshTool, please email me. My goal is to have 2 or 3 users try a private build first to make sure it more or less works; then we’ll do a public beta.

* It turns out that the EFIS App output is just the regular data output on another port. More modern options like Xavion and Foreflight really have their own proprietary protocols.

It begs the question of whether we should intentionally have a ‘handshake’ with our own app to guarantee that we don’t have to do third party compatibility on what we consider our own internal interfaces.

** There’s an easy work-around for the authors if they want their product to keep working with the next major version: go back to using X-Plane’s regular UDP data output, which is actually a published thing.

About Ben Supnik

Ben is a software engineer who works on X-Plane; he spends most of his days drinking coffee and swearing at the computer -- sometimes at the same time.

36 comments on “X-Plane 10.35b2 and Other Betas”

  1. Hi Ben,

    Would love to give new MeshTool a try. I am just finishing Python program for driving MeshTool which currently copies X-Plane 10 polygon and network assets but not having 10-style base terrains is obviously not ideal. I am on Mac.

    On a separate note, I have compiled a new DSFTool which handles elevation clamping for submeter precision (like MeshTool) by adding min max range to command line. If you leave these off it reverts to normal unclamped behavior. Not sure where I could post these changes and/or compiled version if anybody is interested.

    BR,

    Justin

    1. Hi Justin,

      Email me off list for Meshtool. For the DSFTool change, I’d say show me a patch (a GIT patch file or a pull request) and I’ll see if it’s appropriate for permanent inclusion in the code.

  2. It would be nice to try the new MeshTool. I waited a long time for this moment. 🙂
    I really need to change some parts of the surface. And ofcourse add more lakes, river and more detailed coastline. Please let me/us know whet i can try it.

  3. Thank you for your continued hard work, Ben! Just something I was wondering, do you know why Austin removed some of his IOS apps such as the EFIS app, X-Planner, X Plane Remote, etc?

  5. I use X-mapper on my phone connected with X-plane. I love being able to track my aircraft location on my phone without the need to switch out/interrupt the game screen.

  6. And them my X-Mapper didn’t work? After loading 10.35b1, now it works again? And I had a bug report all ready to go… Thanks.

    On this iPad area, what is the chance of a view in X-plane being streamed to the IPad? In other words I can watch the view of aircraft instruments while flying outside the aircraft?

    Anything would be better than zero!

  7. Wow! I’ve been waiting an eternity for a version of mesh tool which can build v10 terrain. Fantastic news!

  9. Thank you Ben, i m very interesed to test the new MeshTool where can get it?
    About WED 1.4 what will be new? Some new features or bug fixes?

  10. Hello Ben,
    I’m the creator of Courchevel scenery (published on x-plane.org) and I would like to test the mesh tool you’re talking about (yes, I was one of the people asking a tool like this).

    Thanks in advance

  11. ” (But: doing several builds on several VMs for several distros is not on the table. I can’t spend that kind of time on Linux build process.)”

    Of course you do not need to do that. Given the code is available, we compile by ourselves and submit the working executable either to you directly or hand a download link to you. This is the normal procedure for like 98% of the Linuxers.

  12. Ok a couple of points here..

    1. Thank you, did not know about EFIS app and I will sure use it from now..
    2. Meshtool – I’ve been waiting for that for ever.. Please sign me up..

    3. Here is a suggestion, not sure if it is a good one but…
    – Upload feature for library elements to WED, with this scenery developer can upload .obj models to a server and when a new WED comes out, it is included if approved?

    Is it even possible or would that require a ¤#%#¤ load of server space that you guys do not have or have the ability to implment through mirroring sites?

  13. Hello Ben,
    looking at the WED problem, it seems that the problem is, that Ubuntu and Debian change the CURL_OPENSSL_4 symbol to CURL_OPENSSL_3 (patch description says “Keep versioned symbols backwards compatibility.”). Also libcurl.so.3 is linked to libcurl.so.4.

    Building with unpatched version of the library would probably break Debian/Ubuntu based distros (I’ll try that).

    I’ll try to see what does it take to build the thing and if I succeed I’ll post the result to the X-Plane.org Linux forum…

    Kind regards,

    Michal

      1. Hello Ben,
        I got it compiled on CentOS 6.6, which is hopefully “conservative” enough to be a good base. I’ll do some more tests to see if it works on newer distros too and post the result on the ORG…

        Kind regards,

        Michal

  14. Ben,

    Would the mesh tool allow changes which would eliminate the “washboard” effect of some runways trying to follow contours? I don’t hit many airports with this problem, but when I do, it is hard to stay “stuck” to the runway.

    Thanks to you and all you guys for your hard work.

    John

    1. Yes – you can recut the underlying mesh and set the terrain heights to whatever you want. But you’re making your own mesh – so it’s not a FIX, it’s a REPLACEMENT.

  16. Hi, May be I am missing something here, forgive me if that is the case. But still wanted to suggest what I felt is possible solutions. Why not one of the below approaches

    Approach 1) Build a static version of the application with no dynamic libraries

    Sure the application is going to be large, as well as if any security/bug fixes are released for these statically linked libraries, we don’t get the advantage of the same, till we recompile and release a new version of the application.

    OR better yet

    Approach 2) Why not use dynamic library explicitly rather than implicitly. i.e use dlopen/dlsym/dlclose mechanism directly to access the curl library.

    1. Hi,

      Option 1 (static) was my initial idea. I think we hit problems where we weren’t able to set the library build script to build curl + ssl + libcrypto statically on all distributions. I don’t remember the details of what went wrong, but if you can submit a patch to the libs dB that fixes this, then we can do this and we can all go home.

      Option 2 (dynamic via dlopen) is a possibility but there is still the potential for problems (which is a problem in ANY dynamic situation): WED depends on a version of libcurl that allows custom certificates via the API. We do this because the gateway has its own -private- signature, rather than relying on a certificate authority.* So if we can’t validate via a private certificate (and only some SSL back-ends to curl allow this) we are in trouble.

      Anyway, if you have good Makefile kung fu and want to take a stab at (1) please email me and I can point you in the right direction.

      (If we used a CA, we’d have to cope with revocation lists, root certificate bundles, and all of the other insanity that comes with full CA support. Obviously if our private key is stolen AND someone can manage a man-in-the-middle attack, they’d be able to steal gateway logins. We considered this an acceptable risk.)

      1. Hi Ben,

        summary => how widespread is the issue with libcurl+libssl+forced certificate chain not being supported wrt popular linux distros.

        details of coming to above summary =>
        From your initial/original post as well as your response above as well as a very very casual/initial look at libcurl documentation, unless I am missing something, you are depending on libcurl and the back end ssl library used by libcurl to support the option of you specifiying a specific certificate (maybe self signed or …) to validate the server identity (instead of using a CA Certificed/signed certificate trust chain).

        And this issue can remain as long as you are not in control of the curl and inturn the ssl library used by this curl library. But then in any scenario other than either Apr1) a full static build or a Apr2) which uses a libcurl (and maybe libssl, or may not matter actually but leaving it there as I don’t fully understand the ssl path of libcurl) provided by you, this problem will exist.

        And if I understood your original situation clearly, you where already making the assumption that the system provided libcurl+libssl will support the option of you supplying the certificate to be used to validate the server identity. And the problem was mainly to do with a specific hack forced by ubuntu wrt libcurl, Which the dynamic dlopen mechanism should circumvent with out any problem and with out much effort right?

        As for scenarios in linux distros where libcurl+libssl doesn’t allow self provided certificate to validate the server, cann’t you ask such users to compile libcurl manually with the required libssl library, provided most of the popular distros don’t have this problem.

        And for my understanding do most of the popular distros like ubuntu/fedora/debian/redhat/suse/… support self provided certificates to be used for validating server????

        NOTE: I have never worked on libcurl/libssl/etc (even thou I have used security algos directly for my own ends and needs), nor looked at how strongly these libraries try to stop bypasses if required. So all of my assumptions above may be largely invalid and or stupid, forgive me in that case.

  17. I use the old EFIS app on an iPad 1 (both the app an the OS cannot be updated, giving me a nice status quo regarding the X-Plane EFIS app) and the X-Mapper app on an iPad mini. I love using both apps.
    I find the EFIS app easier to use than Xavion. BTW, Xavion doesn’t seem to work on the iPad 1 either.

    Thanks a lot for keeping EFIS (networking) alive through all of X-Plane 10!

  18. Will the ATC problem be solved in this beta? As you may know the ATC voice sound funny when the computer is abroud the US. Due X-Plane use the speech synth of Windows and not a propietary speech engine, when X-Plane is installed in a French computer, or Spanish computer, or German computer… it read the english texts from the ATC spelling like a french, a spaniard or a german
    The results are things like this
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwuQ2nBXUfE

    Ouch!!!
    In Prepar3D or FSX we won’t have these problems, because they use a propietary speech engine, so they will read english with perfect english, even if the computer is in a foreign country.
    Please, fix this someday. Your international users will thank you this.

  19. Hi there Ben

    Would be really interested in the Mesh Tool , especially as making meshes for Africa would be great .
    Regards
    Lawrence

  20. Quick question Ben on the subject of the scenery_packs.ini :-

    Is it possible to add commented lines? In a large custom scenery collection these could be extremely useful when looking through the file. For instance could the parser ignore any text after a \\double backslash or a #pound sign ?

    Many thanks.

  21. Ok i admit i am addicted, i need my fix, wed 1.4 . Got to fix an airport my hand are shaking 😉

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