Evan Reiter

The width is a fixed with by default. I'd like to make it NOT be a fixed width but rather fill the screen. We tried changing those exact values to "auto" but it still didn't span the page. We tried the prosilver theme on the FSX Multiplayer website and thought it looked horrible. However, the beauty of this new update is that you can make your own style choices. For most existing users, the old style ('BVA_Blue') will now be the default. If you wish to update to the new one, navigate to Control Panel > Board preferences, select "My board style", and choose from either the old template ("BVA_Blue") or the new template ("BVA_White"). For new users, "BVA_White" will be the default template (but it can easily be changed as I just described). If the width issue doesn't bother you, then you're welcome to use the old style. Of course it's possible. However, I really like having that link there. I think that eventually we'll get used to it. It's been annoying for me as well, but after a few times I'm figuring it out. I think ultimately it will be nice to have breadcrumbs that make more logical sense for new members that shows where they are (e.g., on the website, then the forums, and then where in the forums).

BVA is proud to release the latest version of the BVA Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement! The package covers 36 airports within our preferred airspaces (ZBW and ZNY), with the exception of KBOS, which is included as its own package. This release combines several of the Airport Updates (released for events), as well as new files at KACK, KBDL, KISP, KOXC, KPWM, and many more. One of the elements that BVA has been missing for a long time is an installer program that will automate the installation and updates of scenery files. Unfortunately, this means that members who already have BVA's Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement will need to manually uninstall the old files before installing this update. The instructions to do this are included below. We have re-named several files to help avoid this issue in the future. We are happy to help you walk through this complicated process. If you would like me to remotely connect to your computer and get this all done for you, feel free to ask in FlightDesk. I can spend 5 minutes on your machine to get the files uninstalled, and install the new stuff for you. If you choose to do the upgrade yourself, uninstalling previous versions of the files is critical in order to ensure you do not see duplicate items when accessing the scenery. Please follow the uninstallation instructions carefully. As always, please let us know if you have any questions about the installation process, or if you notice anything that requires updating in the scenery, the installer, or these instructions. --- [*]Download the New Installer Download the new Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement and save it to your computer. The file is over 50MB, and may take a few minutes to download. [*]Uninstall the Previous Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement From your computer's Control Panel, uninstall "BVATC's AFCAD (Scenery) Enhancement". If the program doesn't exist, move to the next step. Navigate to FSX's Addon Scenery location; for most installations, this is: C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft GamesMicrosoft Flight Simulator XAddon Sceneryscenery. Delete any files that were not uninstalled automatically, including: Anything that has "AFX_" at the beginning (there should be 21 of these files; the full list is included at the bottom of this post for reference*). The files "KPWM_VIS_REF.bgl" and "KACK_VIS_REF.bgl". The file "AFCAD_V3_README.txt". The files "ADEX_KPVD_BVA.BGL" and "ADEX_KPVD_BVA_CVX.BGL". The file "Uninstal.exe" If you don't have any of these files, then the uninstaller worked as it should have, and you can proceed to the next step. [*]Check your Addon Sceneryscenery folder for the following files; if the exist, delete them: ADEX_KBDR_BVA.BGL ADEX_KBDR_BVA.BGL ADEX_KDXR_BVA.BGL ADEX_KDXR_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KDXR_BVA_SBX.BGL ADEX_KPOU_BVA.BGL ADEX_KPOU_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KAVP_BVA.BGL ADEX_KBGM_BVA.BGL ADEX_KBGM_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KBML_BVA.BGL ADEX_KBML_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KLCI_BVA.BGL ADEX_KLCI_BVA_CVX.BGL ADEX_KJFK_BVA.BGL [*]If you have the beta updates released for KACK, KISP, or KPWM installed: Delete the following files from FSX's Addon Scenery location; the files are: KACK_BVA.BGL KACK_CVX_BVA.BGL KISP_BVA.BGL KISP_CXV_BVA.BGL KPWM_BVA.BGL KPWM_CVX_BVA.BGL KPWM_VIS_REF_BVA.BGL [*]If you have previously downloaded either of "Military Bases of BVA" or "Boston Area Hospitals" from our "Optional Software" page: Delete the following files; these are included with the new package: Otis ANGB.bgl AFX_0MA1.bgl AFX_0MA4.bgl AFX_16MA.bgl AFX_MA20.bgl Beverly Hosp.bgl Boston Med Ctr.bgl Lawrence Hosp.bgl Mass Gen Hosp.bgl [*]Install the new Featured Airports Scenery Enhancement Run the installer downloaded in Step 1. The automated installer will place all of the necessary scenery files, and then activate the new "BVA_FeaturedAirports" scenery area. If you would prefer to manually install the files, a link to the manual installation is included in the installer. [*]If you use ORBX's FTX Global Freeware Airport Packs: After running the installer, you should manually delete the files for the following airports from BVA. You can do so by navigating to the C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft GamesMicrosoft Flight Simulator XAddon SceneryBVABVA_FeaturedAirportsscenery directory and manually deleting the appropriate files. Some of the airports will have two .BGL files each. KPVC KMVY KLCI KBTV KBGR KBDR Finally, you should navigate to the ORBX FTX Global folder (C:FSXORBXFTX_GLOBALFTX_FTXG_AIRPORTSScenery) and delete the following files: ADE_FTX_FTXG_KACK.bgl ADE_FTX_FTXG_KACK_CVX.bgl NOTE: LEAVE the file "FTX_FTXG_KACK_objects.bgl" in the directory. This will ensure that you have the ILS Runway 6 Approach at KACK, but still see the beautiful ORBX terminal and other objects. And that's it! The new files are a combination of updates from BVA as well as our external scenery design partners Dihedral Design, Jim Cook, Mike Funk, and Ray Smith. There are a few updates (e.g., KEWR and KLGA) that are not entirely accurate, but represent improvements over the default FSX scenery updates available. Including those updates in the package now will make it easier for us to update them when the time comes. --- * NOTE: As referenced above, the full list of files from the PREVIOUS version that should be DELETED before installing the new one are: - ADEX_KPVD_BVA.BGL - ADEX_KPVD_BVA_CVX.BGL - AFCAD_V3_README.txt - AFX_CYMX.bgl - AFX_CYQB.bgl - AFX_KABE.bgl - AFX_KACK.bgl - AFX_KALB.bgl - AFX_KAVP.bgl - AFX_KBDL.bgl - AFX_KBED.bgl - AFX_KBGR.bgl - AFX_KBTV.bgl - AFX_KBVY.bgl - AFX_KCQX.bgl - AFX_KHYA.bgl - AFX_KISP.bgl - AFX_KJFK.bgl - AFX_KMDT.bgl - AFX_KMHT.bgl - AFX_KMVY.bgl - AFX_KPVC.bgl - AFX_KPWM.bgl - AFX_KSYR.bgl - KACK_VIS_REF.bgl - KPWM_VIS_REF.bgl

Unfortunately, the old blue style that we used isn't as compatible with this latest version of the forums. It's still usable, but it no longer takes up the full page width, meaning that the forums aren't as easy to read when using a device with a large monitor. I personally like the new colors; I think the white looks cleaner. That being said, we're certainly open to changing the color scheme. I tried a few different things earlier today but couldn't figure out anything I liked. I can keep trying to play around with it over the next few days to see if there's something that works a bit better. Another option would be to have the old style as an option for people who would prefer that color scheme (and want to live with a slightly less responsive design). How are others feeling about the colors? So far, it seems like most people dislike them. Normally, we would try to "preview" the new style to get feedback and make changes before doing the update. However, none of us is an expert on phpBB and we don't have the resources or time to create a separate "demo" platform. Any other changes we make, we'll have to "do it live".

As you have likely noticed, our forums received a major update today to the latest version of phpBB. Along with an entirely new and cleaner look, there are a number of new options available for our members. Amongst other changes, you will likely notice a more intuitive menu system, responsive design, easier access to common links, and more logical menus for notifications and private messages. Please take a few minutes to look around the new board and, as always, let us know if you have any questions about the new functionality or notice an issue with the upgrade. phpBB is highly customizable so if there is something about the new template that doesn't appeal to you, there's a good chance it can be updated. There are a few things we suggest you explore as part of the new User Control Panel. You can access it by clicking on the 'person' icon at the top right, then selecting the "User Control Panel" menu: Once in the User Control Panel: [*]Click Profile, and update your information, signature, avatar, and anything else you would like to include. [*]Under Board Preferences, set your timezone. Also, select your preference under "My board style" and choose from either the "White" or "Blue" theme. [*]Click the "edit notification options" menu on the left. The new notifications system allows for email or online notifications for a much broader variety of events. [sizeimg=800:942yzwjy]http://i.imgur.com/2G578jV.png[/sizeimg:942yzwjy] You may also notice that we have swapped the order of the buttons on the "Post a new topic" screen to better align them with other phpBB boards out there. This can be swapped back if people prefer having the "Submit" button on the left. This phpBB style ('basic') was developed by Arty. We are also using the American English Language Pack, developed and copyrighted by Maël Soucaze.

Devon -- apparently this wasn't working for some people. I don't know exactly who but that was the feedback. Zac is one of them. You might want to try to troubleshoot/follow-up for future.

If you have a specific guest in mind, feel free to give him or her the server information. If you send me a quick email with the username(s) that your guest(s) would be using, and agree to be responsible for their conduct, then there's no issue with a non-member joining.

Reminder for all pilots to download/modify their aircraft so that aircraft in the session appear without substitutions:

This TFR is being posted in advance of our upcoming Virtual Fly-In and Airshow at New Braunfels Regional Airport (KBAZ). It restricts the airspace in a 10nm ring around KBAZ, up to 12,000' MSL, during the Airshow component of the event. More information about the event is posted on the Challenge page and in our forums. Issue Date: March 25, 2015 Location: New Braunfels Regional Airport (KBAZ) Beginning Date and Time: March 28, 2015 at 1510 ET Ending Date and Time: March 28, 2015 at 1830 ET Reason for NOTAM: Temporary Flight Restrictions for Airshow Type: Airshow Affected Area(s): Area A Airspace Definition: Center: On the San Antonio VORTAC (SAT) 073 degree radial at 22.0 nautical miles (Latitude N29°42.27', Longitude W98°2.53') - KBAZ Airport Radius: 10 nautical miles Altitude: From the surface to 12000ft MSL Effective Date(s) From March 28, 2015 at 1510 ET To March 28, 2015 at 1830 ET Operating Restrictions and Requirements: No pilots may operate an aircraft in the areas covered by this NOTAM except for performance aircraft in communication with Show Boss. Other Information ARTCC: ZHU Point of Contact: Boston Virtual ATC Administration

Thanks to the pilots and controllers for joining this event. I really enjoyed it! Great feedback all around from the guys on msFlights.

Correct; we'll be using the msFlights.net TeamSpeak server for voice/ATC.

This Friday (March 20), our controllers will be hosting a Regional Circuit at KMHT and KALB on the msFlights.net FSX server. Just like any other Regional Circuit event, ATC will be fully staffing both featured airports. The big difference: the event is held on another server! The event runs from 8-10pm ET on Friday, March 20 in the msFlights.net server. First, connect to TeamSpeak, at msflights.net Then, connect to the msFlights.net FSX multiplayer server at 23.255.207.47 We're running this event to give our controllers a chance to practice for the upcoming Cross-Community Flight without impacting our members. Seven controllers are currently on the roster to cover positions including Approach, Tower, and Ground at each featured airport. Rather than using FlightDesk, we'll be using this simplified flight plan form to submit flight plans. BVA members are welcome to attend the event and participate. Just connect to the msFlights.net server by 8pm ET, and use the flight plan form above to submit your flight plan. ATC will all be conducted in the TeamSpeak server, just like what will happen here during the Cross-Community Flight. For more information about the event, including preferred routes and downloads, please visit the msFlights.net forums: http://msflights.net/forum/calendar.php ... =2015-3-21. Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions about this event.

The New Braunfels Fly-In and Airshow is scheduled for Saturday, March 28, beginning at 1pm ET. From 1-3pm ET, BVA members will be able to arrive at KBAZ with a full roster of ATC. Like any of our other Pack The Pattern and GA Fly-In events, pilots are encouraged to fly VFR closed traffic or practice instrument approaches during the fly-in portion of this event. BVA members are encouraged to join the Member TeamSpeak server after they have parked their aircraft. We'll be watching our virtual airshow together in the Member TeamSpeak. The airshow itself begins at 3:30pm ET, with a fly-in from the FSX Thunderbirds. The full lineup of performers is: 3:30pm ET - FSX Thunderbirds Fly-In 3:50pm ET - Demonstration from BVA's Virtual Military 4:15pm ET - Matt Webber 4:30pm ET - Javi and Eddie in the P51 Mustang and F18 (Demos and Heritage Flight) 4:45pm ET - FSX Blue Angels Flyover 5:00pm ET - FSX Thunderbirds Demonstration (live stream) After this weekend's Landing Competition at KOSU, all of the details for our upcoming Fly-In and Airshow will be posted on the Challenge page.

As of this morning, the website migration should be completed for most users. There may be a few people for whom the DNS needs to still update, but based on feedback most users are now on the new website. All known issues have been resolved, so please let us know (either via this thread or email) if you notice anything that doesn't look or work correctly. --- In the interest of transparency, and for those who are interested, I'd like to share a bit more information about what has been happening over the past few weeks. As I mentioned in a previous post, BVA uses 'shared hosting' rather than a dedicated machine for our website and forums. We do this in order to reduce costs for the community's donors. Shared hosting means that we are paying for a portion of a server computer. To help maintain the efficiency of shared computers, most hosts apply various restrictions to what shared hosting customers can have. For example, GoDaddy restricts shared hosting customers to an MSSQL database size of 200 MB, which isn't enough for us. Our former ISP allowed us only 1 each of MySQL and MSSQL databases, which was a manageable challenge. Given the size of our website, forums, and the applications that run on them, shared hosting is really not the right solution. However, we are creative in the way we design our website and applications to make the solution work for us. As a result, we pay less than $10 per month in web hosting costs. There are alternatives (e.g., hosting the website on someone's personal computer or on our FSX host). However, in the interest of redundancy, stability, and security, our administration believes that the shared hosting approach offers the best balance of cost and quality. We have been with our current provider since February 2011, and have generally been very satisfied with the service and support received. However, for the past year, we've noticed that service and support has declined. Website and forum outages weren't uncommon, and we would receive no notification of an outage; in most cases, I would find out about a website outage from a member. I would then have to speak with the ISP, who would find out about the outage from me. There were several other issues we had with them, including recently when they delayed the launch of the FSXMultiplayer.com website for a month because of their own ineptitude. The last straw for us was the migration that I first posted about on February 23. We found out on February 23 that a 4-day outage was to occur beginning on February 26. As you know, we scrambled to find an alternative solution and continue to host the files needed for our Getaway event. Almost three days later, they decided to cancel the migration due to inclement weather, and returned the servers to the original location. Once again, we were given no notification the servers were back online (I happened to notice the website working again). Furthermore, they STILL have not communicated when they plan to reschedule the migration. There's no doubt that will still be happening, and based on our past experiences, customers will get almost no notice. Before the end of the migration, we began a search for a new provider that would meet our requirements. Personally, this was a tough time for our administrators to be involved in a migration. However, we didn't feel we could afford to wait for another outage. Over the course of several phone calls and quite a bit of online research, we found the provider to which we've just switched our services. It's early, but thus far we've been happy with the support and service received. I want to clarify the extent of effort required to migrate a website as it's something I wasn't aware of before I was involved with the first one we did back in 2011. At a very high level, migrating a website means: Moving all of the files from one provider to another; in our case, this is over 20GB of data. Backing up, transferring, and restoring databases. Configuring specific settings and permissions; every ISP has a different panel, so there's a learning curve associated with this. Setting up things like FTP accounts, subdomains (e.g., informer.bostonvirtualatc.com), etc. Doing as much testing as possible, and fixing as many issues as possible, before any domain names are transferred. Transferring the domain nameservers from our old provider to the new one, which takes between 1-24 hours for everyone. Testing and correcting any final issues. Remembering that this had to be done for both Boston Virtual ATC and FSX Multiplayer, I'm estimating the total effort of about 40 hours, spread between about 10 volunteer administrators. Website migrations are one of the most frustrating things to be spending time on as volunteers because at the end of the day you get a product that looks exactly like what you had, and if we've done it right, end users won't notice the difference! Because we're still on a shared hosting plan at our new provider, outages and issues are inevitable. However, we believe we'll have much more stability and reliability than we have experienced recently, and particularly than we have experienced in the past year. Prices at the new provider are comparable to what we have been paying (actually, a bit lower). As always, none of this would be possible without an exceptional team of volunteers. The A-Team as a whole has been closely involved with the migration by helping in the decision-making process and testing. Not surprisingly, this project was led by our website administrator Phil ('Ferrari308guy'), who did all of the heavy lifting despite a busy schedule. However, I also want to highlight the involvement of Zac ('zploch'), who spent several hours yesterday testing and checking every single website page to ensure that it loaded and to try to find as many glitches and bugs as possible. Luke ('shyflyguy') donated a server computer to us that was vital to us as a testing platform. Finally, I'd like to highlight the efforts of Bostjan ('bostjanlaba'), who helped us set up his donated server to be used as a temporary website during the first outage. Without that, we wouldn't have been able to run our Getaway. We have done our best to complete the migration with minimal interruption to our services, and we're especially happy to say that our FSX server hasn't been down for a single second throughout the entire migration. As always, thank you -- our members -- for the patience and understanding you show. It's what motivates us as administrators to do what we do. Hopefully this is the last post about website outages/issues that we have to write for a while!

We are currently in the process of migrating our website to a new hosting provider. In this way, we will be able to avoid the 4-day outage that was scheduled (and then re-scheduled) by our previous provider, with almost no notice. While we have worked as hard as possible to minimize downtime, there are some issues that can only be addressed after our domains are pointing to the new web hosting provider. Over the next few hours and into tonight, we will be working to resolve a few issues on our website and forums. We appreciate your patience and understanding as we do so. Once we have stabilized the website, forums, and the many applications that run on our website, we'll provide an update here. It is our hope that the new provider is able to provide more reliable service than our previous provider.

Earlier today, our ISP informed us that as a result of inclement weather, the intended migration would not be practical this weekend. As a result, they have brought our website's server computer back online in its original location. Why it took them almost two full days of down time to make that determination remains a mystery. At some point -- they have yet to decide when -- they will re-attempt the migration (which presumably would mean another several days of outage for us). Clearly all of this is unacceptable and we are taking actions on our end to ensure that any additional work our ISP might do won't have an impact on the services that we as members depend on. The work that we are doing may result in additional outages over the next few days and/or weeks, and we'll certainly keep everyone informed of anything we have planned. For now, we expect our website to be stable and fully accessible. If there is anything on the website that doesn't appear to be working, please let us know. I'd like to again express and re-iterate that this type of service is not something that we as BVA administrators expect or allow, nor is it something we will continue to put up with. It is worth noting that BVA pays for shared hosting. This means that we use a portion of a web server to support our various websites, forums, and other applications. Typically, a web presence of our size would require a Virtual Private Server or even a Dedicated Server. In fact, that's the type of server we use to host FSX. As we are a lean organization that survives on donations, we have decided to use shared hosting despite the reduced performance and reliability of shared hosting providers. In doing so, we save a substantial amount of money over what it would cost for us to run two dedicated servers. Finding our current shared hosting provider required quite a bit of effort and research, as most of the large shared hosting providers (e.g., GoDaddy) wouldn't be able to support our requirements. Considering the expenses, the performance of our current ISP has generally been acceptable until recently.

The website is temporarily online. We are continuing to work on various elements of the website, and that work could result in additional outages. We will provide an update by Sunday, March 1 with more information.

Tom, I couldn't agree more. We are paying the going rate for shared hosting (about $8 a month, I believe) so it's not much but enough that this type of thing isn't acceptable. Giving us just 4 days to do something about it is even worse...that's obviously not enough time to make a move. Perhaps that was their thinking. It's too bad because for the first few years they were an amazing provider with good service and high reliability. For about the past 12 months, it's been nothing but bad surprises and worsening performance. We have a fair amount of specific requirements that make some shared hosting plans difficult (we're trying to squeeze a pretty large website into a low-budget hosting solution to save our members money). That being said, the hunt is on, and I'm hopeful we'll be able to provide members more reliable service moving forward.

Our website and forums will be offline from Thursday, February 26 at 6pm ET until the morning of Monday, March 2. The FSX server, including FlightDesk, Live ATIS and TeamSpeak, will not be affected. Our ISP informed us (today!) that they are migrating our server to a new location, and that migration is expected to take most of next weekend. Given the short notice, there is nothing that we as administrators are able to do to maintain service. We will do our best to provide a temporary landing page but most of the features of the website, as well as the forums, will be offline until the migration is complete. We do not have any reason to anticipate any changes to the operation or look of the website once service is restored on Monday.

This issue has been corrected with a new file, just posted. All textures and buildings should be appearing by both day and night. If you experience any issues, please let us know!

I don't think we need one...do we?

We just noticed that the texture for the new Tower at KBOS is missing from the installation. The Tower itself is there, but appears as an untextured shape. You may wish to wait on the re-download (given file size) until we've posted a patched installer.

Thanks John! The issue with spawning while online was actually a problem with our server. Would you mind giving that another test and let me know if it works more normally now? Regarding the issues in single player, we'll take a look with our own crash detection settings on to see whether we can replicate that.

My version is definitely not doing that! Seems like there are some missing files, maybe textures or just BGLs. Obvious question: could you check your scenery library to see whether you might still have the old version of KBOS activated? If not, could you try to re-install? If that doesn't help, please upload some screenshots of which files are located in each of the 'scenery' and 'texture' folders for the new scenery. C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft GamesMicrosoft Flight Simulator XAddon SceneryBVABVA_KBOS Cody: One other thing to check this weekend is whether you might be running "Preview DirectX 10". If you are, could you try disabling that?

Great! Sorry about the inconvenience. By all means, please let us know if you have any trouble getting the update set up and installed.

It might be a browser caching issue. I think by refreshing the page, the download should work. Could you please: 1. Navigate to the "Required Software" page: http://www.bostonvirtualatc.com/AllMemb ... tware.aspx 2. Click F5 a few times to refresh the page 3. Try the link for the Boston Airport Scenery Enhancement again Let me know if you have any success with that. If not, I can email you the direct link to the .exe file.