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Maps not showing up in Browser

Postby Foxwolfen » Thu Jan 26, 2023 1:51 am

Hi all,

I have enabled --httpd=8080 in the startup options, and I get all the regular telemetry, including my flight scene, but not the map. I understand Atlas is depreciated, so, if I get the map working, will it have terrain elevation and other details? Map canvas does not seem to show any terrain details either.

I am using Neon Linux, with FG 2020.3.17 appimage and data from flightgear.org, Firefox 109, no firewall.
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Re: Maps not showing up in Browser

Postby wkitty42 » Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:54 am

do you mean the map overlays like the one with the routing charts served from VFRMap.com?

if the answer to the above is "yes" this is most likely because the AIRAC has changed but the code in Phi that uses the AIRAC has not been updated... [harsh truth] this is a task that must be done each and every time the AIRAC changes but for some reason no one has seen fit to do it or to automate it somehow so the current AIRAC number is fetched from somewhere and used in the URLs that Phi uses for these overlays... [/harsh truth]

with the above said, find your FGDATA/Phi/topics directory and look inside Map.js for the two VFRMap.com sections... note the URL contains a number in the form of YYYYMMDD... find out what the current AIRAC number is that VFRMap.com is using and change those two URLs to use it instead of the one currently in them... i generally do this by going to vfrmap.com and right clicking somewhere on the map so i can select to view the page info... then i select the media tab so i can look at the URL of any of the map tiles... that gives me the YYYYMMDD number of the maps they are currently serving... at this time that looks to be 20221229 so we use that in the URLs and the maps should return... at least the ones served from vfrmap.com anyway...

FWIW: the last time i did this on my system was when the 20211007 AIRAC was in use...

now it is possible that you may be having another problem that is causing the maps to not be retrieved... in a case some time back, the user's system was being blocked from that site and others for some reason... i don't recall the details but i think it was eventually solved for them...
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"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: Maps not showing up in Browser

Postby Foxwolfen » Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:04 am

wkitty42 wrote in Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:54 am:do you mean the map overlays like the one with the routing charts served from VFRMap.com?


I mean the one that opens in your browser. Third entry under "Equipment" in the sim menu. I tried adding the date you suggest, but nothing changed.
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Re: Maps not showing up in Browser  

Postby Hooray » Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:25 am

wkitty42 wrote in Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:54 am:do you mean the map overlays like the one with the routing charts served from VFRMap.com?

if the answer to the above is "yes" this is most likely because the AIRAC has changed but the code in Phi that uses the AIRAC has not been updated... [harsh truth] this is a task that must be done each and every time the AIRAC changes but for some reason no one has seen fit to do it or to automate it somehow so the current AIRAC number is fetched from somewhere and used in the URLs that Phi uses for these overlays... [/harsh truth]


That's very true, and has been affecting the project and its users for several years now. Like I said previously, it would make sense to use a separate property/xml entry so that this can be easily updated automatically for each release.

The other option would be to use a Nasal script or property rule to update the AIRAC cycle based on the date set inside fgfs.

Someone should probably file a bug report to get this solved.
Personally, I think this increasing reliance on external 3rd party web services has been more and more problematic for fgfs.
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Re: Maps not showing up in Browser

Postby wkitty42 » Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:44 am

Foxwolfen wrote in Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:04 am:
wkitty42 wrote in Thu Jan 26, 2023 10:54 am:do you mean the map overlays like the one with the routing charts served from VFRMap.com?


I mean the one that opens in your browser. Third entry under "Equipment" in the sim menu.

ahhh, ok... that may be something completely different...

Foxwolfen wrote in Fri Jan 27, 2023 2:04 am:I tried adding the date you suggest, but nothing changed.

well, that change only affects the VFRMap.com URLs used in the Phi map overlays...

so looking at FGDATA/gui/menubar.xml, we see that the external browser option is called "map-browser" and that it uses nasal to
  1. check if the FG web server is running
    and
  2. load the external browser and point it to localhost on the port that the server is running on...
assuming you are on windows, the first thing to check is if your firewall or some other security tool is allowing or blocking localhost connections...

you should also be able to test this by not using that menu bar option, simply opening your browser while FG is running, and pointing it to http://localhost:port#/ where "port#" is the port you specified in your --http=xxxxx configuration line... eg: --http=8080 would use http://localhost:8080/ in the browser...

and that brings up another possible problem... if your browser or some other security tool is trying to enforce https everywhere... i don't think the FG web server can even do https so check your browser is also not trying to force https...
"You get more air close to the ground," said Angalo. "I read that in a book. You get lots of air low down, and not much when you go up."
"Why not?" said Gurder.
"Dunno. It's frightened of heights, I guess."
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Re: Maps not showing up in Browser

Postby Foxwolfen » Fri Jan 27, 2023 9:43 pm

wkitty42 wrote in Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:44 am:i don't think the FG web server can even do https so check your browser is also not trying to force https...


You nailed it! That was exactly it. I do enforce https. I made an exception rule in Firefox (I use Linux) and boom.. there are the maps! Thank you so much!
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Re: Maps not showing up in Browser

Postby Foxwolfen » Fri Jan 27, 2023 10:09 pm

Hooray wrote in Fri Jan 27, 2023 8:25 am:
That's very true, and has been affecting the project and its users for several years now. Like I said previously, it would make sense to use a separate property/xml entry so that this can be easily updated automatically for each release.

The other option would be to use a Nasal script or property rule to update the AIRAC cycle based on the date set inside fgfs.

Someone should probably file a bug report to get this solved.
Personally, I think this increasing reliance on external 3rd party web services has been more and more problematic for fgfs.


Actually, as far as I can tell, in the Linux appimage version, everything seems to be working. Aircraft with a moving map display, such as the Viggen, worked properly with both the old date and the new date. That being said, I am not sure if the Map (Canvas) is supposed to show terrain. If it is, then it is indeed broken, as its not for me.

Personally, I think using OSM has been a miracle boon for FG. Some places are beginning to look spectacular. I hope the sim begins to be able to use the satellite terrain images as textures. And now that the brower map is working, this sim has taken on a whole new dimension. Makes navigating in the 172 a whole lot easier.
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