Removing Sim Update 5 incompatible mods
On July 28th, Microsoft Flight Simulator's Sim Update 5 was released. Some of the introduced changes also affected the way liveries or several add-ons work in-game. As a result, some liveries are currently no longer compatible with the latest version of the game, i.e. have malfunctions or misrepresentations. For this reason, we already added a new compatibility feature last month, which allows users to see if an add-on is compatible with the current sim version before actually downloading it.
Meanwhile, almost 3 months have passed since Sim Update 5 launched. And while fortunately many creators have responded promptly and updated their add-ons to be compatible with the latest version, there are still some add-ons on our platform that are yet incompatible. We would like to encourage these creators to update their uploaded add-ons to work with Sim Update 5 by September 20th, 2021 at the latest. After all, no one benefits from having broken add-ons on the platform. We consider the tolerance period of three months sufficient enough to do these changes, as they are really minor in most cases anyway.
Creators: Please double-check your liveries
Since Sim Update 5, especially liveries for the following aircraft have been reported to be not working anymore, as they show pink textures on the wings:
- Boeing 787
- Boeing 747
- Asobo A320
- FBW A32NX
- Citation CJ4
For the aircraft above, all you need to do is fix the texture.cfg file of your package. Rifle88 has launched a tool which will do the work for you in a few seconds, so you just need to replace the old texture.cfg with the new one. After replacing the broken file, upload and update the new package to Flightsim.to. That's it, and everyone can use your liveries again!
What happens to incompatible add-ons after September 20th?
Basically, we will disable all incompatible add-ons after September 20th, 2021 as it doesn't make sense to provide broken add-ons. That said, any add-ons or mods that don't work after September 20th, 2021 will be disabled. Creators will then have until December 31, 2021 to submit them for reactivation if they have been updated later. If nothing happens by January 1st, 2022, we will permanently remove these add-ons from the platform.
Clarification: This only applies to add-ons that have actually stopped working for the last 3 months. It doesn't matter whether these are officially marked as "Compatible" or "Incompatible", we will check them manually.
There are exceptions
At Flightsim.to's sole discretion, we reserve the right to update incompatible add-ons that have not been updated by September 20th, 2021 ourselves, to make them compatible with Sim Update 5. We will make these minor adjustments for very popular and in high demand add-ons that enrich the community to be able to continue our services, unless (a) the creator has made his add-on compatible by September 20th, 2021 himself, (b) decides to delete his add-on or (c) expressly informs us that he does not want us to update his file. This procedure goes hand in hand with our terms of use, section 4.1.
While only a very small fraction of add-ons are currently affected (< 1%), we still want all add-ons offered by Flightsim.to to work properly, so that users no longer have to worry about compatibility anymore. Most likely, this procedure will also apply to all future Sim updates that affect the compatibility of add-ons - we will of course ensure that creators will have more than enough time to react to required changes in the future as well.