Howto:Reset/re-init Troubleshooting: Difference between revisions

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FlightGear does not currently support saving/loading flights or reliably switching between aircraft at run-time (this is extensively discussed at [[FlightGear Sessions]]). [[Reset & re-init]] is an effort to refactor the FlightGear initialization process so that resetting and repositioning (switching aircraft) is supported, without having to exit or restart FlightGear. Currently, this is exposed via the Canvas-based [[Aircraft Center]], but is considered broken or fragile at best by most core developers.

The core developers are aiming to find out the dependencies of different subsystems<ref>http://www.mail-archive.com/flightgear-devel@lists.sourceforge.net/msg18066.html</ref>, and re-factor them so that more and more subsystems can be made optional (analogous to [[FlightGear Run Levels|run-levels]])<ref>http://forum.flightgear.org/</ref>, enabling them to be dynamically removed and re-added at run-time. This will be particularly important to untangle implicit or hard-coded dependencies among the different subsystems, and will be one of the key tasks to move certain subsystems into dedicated [[High-Level Architecture]] (HLA) {{wikipedia|High-level architecture#Common HLA terminology|federates|noicon=1}}.

One of the long-term goals is to provide a so called "[[FlightGear Headless|headless]]" mode so that certain features/subsystems (unrelated to graphics) can be better tested in isolation. An example would running FlightGear in an automated fashion on the [[FlightGear Build Server]], which could help increasingly automate the release process and related regression testing<ref>http://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/message/34741767/</ref><ref>http://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/message/34627074/</ref><ref>http://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/message/34657550/</ref><ref>http://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/message/34701971/</ref><ref>http://sourceforge.net/p/flightgear/mailman/message/34657898/</ref>.

For testing purposes, it does make sense to run FlightGear using the minimal startup profile, with graphics/rendering disabled using [[Draw masks]].

James has added initial code to work on dynamic subsystem creation, so that subsystems can be added or removed. Only some subsystems are supported so far, since many have non-default constructors or other complexities (see [[FlightGear Run Levels]] for further details). With this change, it's now possible to dynamically add and remove the traffic-manager at runtime using fgcommands, for example (pasted into the [[Nasal Console]]):

{{Note|The following Nasal script can be executed via the Nasal Console or put in a separate file and executed via a menu item to easily test different aspects of reset/re-init. For the time being, you are likely to trigger segfaults/crashes or other undefined behavior (e.g., memory leaks), so it is recommended to run FlightGear in a GNU Debugger (GDB) session to obtain a backtrace. If you manage to cause a bug or crash, please file a bug report: {{Tickets}} }}

canvas.MessageBox.warning(

var title = 'Reset/re-init Panel';

     foreach(var cmd; ["re-init", "remove-subsystem", "add-subsystem"]) {  

     return label; # we want to update the label elsewhere

# NOTE: this must match $FG_SRC/Main/subsystemFactory.cxx

# TODO: it would make sense to add a dedicated list-subsystems to get a list of all supported systems !

    { name: "sound" },

    { name: "properties" },

    { name: "http" },

    { name: "cockpit-displays" },

    { name: "io" },

    { name: "logger" },

     { name: "gui" },

    { name: "Canvas" },

     { name: "CanvasGUI" },

    { name: "ATC" },

     { name: "mp" },

    { name: "ai-model" },

    { name: "submodel-mgr" },

     { name: "traffic-manager" },

    { name: "controls" },

    { name: "http" },

    { name: "input" },

    { name: "history" },

    { name: "voice" },

]; # vector with tests

     test.label = addTest(root: scrollContent, layout: list, test: test);

         var currentText = test.label._view._text.get("text");

         var neededLabel = test.name ~ suffix;

#FIXME: better use show()/hide() methods here which is more efficient than changing labels per frame ...

         test.label.setText(neededLabel);

append(dynamicLabels, {label:fps, cb:func getprop("/sim/rendering/frame-rate") });

append(dynamicLabels, {label:ms, cb:func getprop("/sim/rendering/frame-latency") });