CRJ-200: Where we all stand - June 3rd, 2011

[Cameron]

Hi, All,

First off, thanks to many of you here for your patience. We understand that for those of your experiencing problems with the latest update, this is a very frustrating time. Please know that we did not release the 1.1 update or product knowing these bugs were around going in. The reality of the matter here is we tested this product more than any other X-Aviation release has been tested before, and problems that never cropped up in our testings are being found in the customer base. Our test routines included multiple people, lots of computers, and varying flavors of operating systems, versions of OS's, as well as different plugins installed to try and ensure we had ironed things out ahead of release. Unfortunately (and fortunately), we're in somewhat of a "first" position. We are the first to accomplish an aircraft release of this magnitude. The systems are extensive, and the product has been something people have been after for a long while now. That's the fortunate side. On the unfortunate side, because we are the first of this category in a release, we are also the "guinea pig" to stability of other products with one as complex as this. We are exploiting code habits on other plug-ins (some still supported, some not) that are not so "good," while we're also finding some bugs in our own software or trying to create work arounds for other products' compatibility. We are actively contacting authors of said plugins to either help or figure out workarounds, providing them copies of the CRJ in an effort to make YOUR life a little easier. We want every customer here to enjoy this product, and if anyone of you here truly knew our current work schedule on this product alone since even before release day I think you'd safely agree that we mean what we say when we say we care very much about resolving these issues and getting any kind of patches we can out the door.

We realize that some of you feel as though you're being treated as a tester. Please don't misconstrue this! If we ask you to test something, it's because we want to help you and understand the issue you have. We want this product to work for you so you may get to enjoy it just like we have. It also means that if we're asking you to undertake a task like refreshing your libraries, redistributables, or anything along that line that we are unable to reproduce your error but are very committed to trying to understand what is going on on your end so we may help! I know Javier has also mentioned installing Linux (this is part way a joke) to a rare few of you. This is not a must, it is not something we are forcing you into, and it does not mean we are ignoring your issue with your current OS. Javier's main point here is that we want you to be able to enjoy the product, and some of you who are overly frustrated, do not want to test, etc. may find it more appealing to install a free operating system that is relatively easy to install and is known to provide more FPS with little hassle once you get it going. If you're also willing to wait till we sort out/investigate your issue, then that's just as well!

One thing to bear in mind here is that the customer base for the CRJ is large. The majority of people who seek to post in the forums are those with issues, while the happy one's usually keep to themselves. We have done some internal customer polls at X-Aviation with a group of pre-selected people, and so far the stats ring out as follows:

83% of users report no problems

17% report an issue

98% of the reported 17% issues are Mac users.

The Mac users who are having issues are getting a fix very shortly. We have worked tirelessly to figure out what's going on here, as again, Javier, Philipp, and myself cannot duplicate these errors on a WIDE array of Mac OS systems. There are also MANY Mac users just like us who do NOT have problems running the CRJ at all, and because of this it has made it even more difficult to solve. This simply goes back to the above statement about how through our many tests prior to release, none to little of what is reported here could ever be re-produced!

Thanks to the help of the Mac users who have reported problems and provided crash logs since we could not re-create the scenarios ourselves, we believe we have found the problem for Mac and are promptly working on the fix. Should you wish to read about this you may do so here: http://forums.x-pilot.com/index.php?topic=2373.msg23061#msg23061

In short, the Mac issue is a bag of mixed nuts. It is and is not a CRJ issue. It is a CRJ issue because we employed what we thought would be a better, more realistic font set for the CRJ. This works on a lot of systems, however, on a lot of others it does not and that actually comes down to an issue with Apple, Inc. themselves. We will be going back to what we know works for everyone and hopefully close the chapter of CTD reports very, very soon.

Javier, Philipp, and myself all greatly appreciate your business, your support in offering crash and standard log files, and we are committed to making the CRJ experience a good one. Sometimes it can seem like a never ending episode of walking into walls when we get replies like this (click "this"), but we remain strong with the will to push on and continue to break X-Plane's boundaries...for you!

Thanks to everyone for your time, patience, understanding, and business!

All the best,

Cameron, Javier, and Philipp

[dpny]

Finally my near-OCD obsession with cleaning out my fonts pays off!

[Simmo W]

Thanks Cameron and Team, a good message. I know I'm one of the affected ones, but can I say with all my heart, I know you guys mean the best for xplane and your customers. It's just that we were so used to XA's perfectionism, this was a bit of a shock. The hours spent by many of us have been frustrating, let's just say that. You could have done better, but I'm aware that's easy for me to say. Hehe, next time you WILL seek more beta testers!

Despite all this, you guys have still been way more responsive than the org and probably put some msfs co's to shame. DO FEEL PROUD!

Mistakes are only made by those who TRY in life. By pushing xplane to it's limits, you've hit some hurdles but will keep running till you win! Look at the Fonts issue, it just took time and Philipp's genius to nut it out. By releasing such a complex craft, you have exposed some issues within xplane, like plugin management/compatibility. That'll help in the long run.

So thanks for everyone's continued efforts. Remember we are all human and many of us are just little boys wanting to play with our toys..NOW!

S

[Cameron]

 It's just that we were so used to XA's perfectionism, this was a bit of a shock.

Thanks for acknowledging our generally good reputation, Simon. 

You could have done better, but I'm aware that's easy for me to say. Hehe, next time you WILL seek more beta testers!

A matter of living and learning to be sure, and I agree. Fact of the matter here is none of us saw these issues coming since everything was so smooth on our 7+ test machines. We'll do our best to learn from this!

Despite all this, you guys have still been way more responsive than the org and probably put some msfs co's to shame. DO FEEL PROUD!

Thanks!

Cheers,

Cam

[karingka]

Thanks for this message Cameron. For the people who complain and whine about being testers, well, they just do not realize the complexity of the product. I have not been able to fly recently. I didn't complain, because I know you guys are working hard to fix the issue.

Can't wait for the Mac Fix!

[Japo32]

Well hope it can fix it.. meanwhile you don't have to wait for flying.. you can still fly with 1.0 version. No problem going backwards.. Only have to uninstall the 1.1 version and then install the 1.0.

[FlyPod]

Thank you for the update. I for one appreciate the efforts and empathise with how you must feel as you try to sort this out. I'm a regular customer and understand the complexities with this acf, not from a techie view but by the incredible systems and realism the product offers! So patience is important, and as someone earlier said you are extremely responsive...way more than most other vendors...

On another note, thank you for the 3 video tutorial, in my 2 years on X-Plane it is the most helpful I've seen, and has helped even with other airliners in general some of the things I never really understood!! It's essential viewing, very detailed in the small things you explain. I think you try hard to understand your market and what people here want from the products. All will be well in the end - can't wait for the fix

Thanks again

[Bill Grabowski]

"... to install a free operating system that is relatively easy to install and is known to provide more FPS with little hassle once you get it going..."

Interesting. Are you saying that Linux will provide better performance for X-Plane and the CRJ than both Mac and Windows? I installed Ubuntu on my Win 7 machine to try it out (it's what you do when you get bored), and so far I perceive that what you say is correct. X-Plane seems to actually run faster, and installation was certainly easy and quick for Ubuntu. I'm sure the CRJ will run well on Ubuntu, but I'm holding on buying until a later release, while following these forums. I could not get the CRJtester to run on Ubuntu, but did on the Win7 side.

Please ignore the occasional idiots who post derogatory remarks. There will always be those 1% who are too stupid/ ill mannered/ crude/ obnoxious to be admitted to polite society. Be amused by them (I know ... it's difficult).

Bill

[Cameron]

Interesting. Are you saying that Linux will provide better performance for X-Plane and the CRJ than both Mac and Windows? I'm sure the CRJ will run well on Ubuntu, but I'm holding on buying until a later release, while following these forums. I could not get the CRJtester to run on Ubuntu, but did on the Win7 side.

Hi, Bill,

That's correct. Linux tends to run X-Plane the best of all platforms provided you get a good graphics driver set. The downside to Linux is that there are also a lot of plug-ins not made compatible with it for X-Plane. Coincidentally, the CRJ appears to be the most bug free and "smooth sailing" on Linux at this time. That may just be because Philipp is a heavy Linux user, and as the primary programmer of the CRJ now that would make sense.

Please ignore the occasional idiots who post derogatory remarks. There will always be those 1% who are too stupid/ ill mannered/ crude/ obnoxious to be admitted to polite society. Be amused by them (I know ... it's difficult).

Thanks, Bill!

Hope to see you in the CRJ skies soon!

[Japo32]

Yes the crj was programed first in Mac by Anton and then in Linux by Philipp. But the reason it is going better in mac and linux is because the way qt libraries are managed by the OS. That was said by Philipp

[greglloyd]

After reading the posts above about the HandleOFAScalerMessage issue that has been identified with Macs, I decided to look around on the net for more info on this. It seems that several software applications are having the same issues (e.g. Steinberg music software, some versions of Firefox, some Adobe apps, etc).

The common thing I am seeing is that the issues most people running these other apps say that they are sure the issues were introduced with the release of the OSX 10.6.7 update. Users running on 10.6.6 are NOT seeing issues.

I suspect the Mac users that have not been having any CRJ issues may be running OSX 10.6.6 or earlier.

Given this, I am about to do a clean reinstall of OSX and a manual update to 10.6.6 combo (which I have just manually downloaded) and will then attempt to test the CRJ-200 afterwards.

If this resolves the issue then I'm personally going to stay with OSX 10.6.6 until Apple, etc resolve the HandleOFAScalerMessage issue as clearly there may be many apps that encounter similar issues under certain circumstances. For example, I saw it two evenings ago being thrown by Google Chrome.

I'll post my findings here later.

[haardy]

hi greglloyd,

thank you for your investigation but I have to veto  ;D

Why? I am currently running 10.6.7 without issues. From my experience I had more problems with 10.6.6 than with the current version. It might alos be the case that 10.6.6 caused more troubles and several of those were fixed in 10.6.7. But maybe not all.

I would not recommend to step back, maybe you loose more than you gain. Please have a check about what you are losing before changing in the same sources you checked for HandleOFAScalerMessage. Stepping backward might not be easy when you already ran 10.6.7 for a longer period of time before.

anyway, have fun with it

[woweezowee]

10.6.8 is about to be released very soon. I'd wait.

[Dispatch]

Hi Cameron,

despite all those troubles you have, I can't complain with the CRJ at all. Also running on 27" Mac OSX 10.6.7, I do not have encountered any CTDs or some other "technical issues". Also the FPS are pretty good. It's just some minor issues here and there, but nothing really bothering.

As I luckily seem to have a plain sailing Mac running, can I be of any help for you guys?

Cheers.

btw. May I suggest you to state / update a list of plugins in a green / yellow / red - manner? This could actually help everybody.

[caneman]

Dispatch,

I'm running the exact same set up ... experienced no issues with v1 but CTD with v1.1.  What plugins are you running?  Did you remove any additional files after install?  Have you had to clean your fonts?

Thanks for the info ... just trying to figure out how to get airborne again.

[dpny]

I suspect the Mac users that have not been having any CRJ issues may be running OSX 10.6.6 or earlier.

I'm running 10.6.7 and haven't had any font related problems. However, because of my job, I tend to do a very thorough cleaning of my machine's fonts and have a very small set active at any one time. Both Adobe and MS apps install literally hundreds of fonts in multiple places, so it's very easy to have font conflicts just because of the messy installs.

Additionally, Adobe has done a very poor job of moving to 64-bit on the Apple side, and many of their plugins still run in 32-bit land. This causes some problems as well.