October 5th, 2023 Development Update - Microsoft Flight Simulator

This week’s Screenshot Challenge winner is Twitter/X user BasedRaccoon! If you’re interested in participating in our weekly Screenshot Challenges, check out the details in the Community section below!

Last week on September 28th, we released Sim Update 13. Following this release, an unexpected issue occurred. This issue prevented many players from downloading/installing content and affected both in-game updates and Marketplace content installations. After internal analysis, we determined an issue with the update service was introduced sometime after the release of Aircraft & Avionics Update 02 in June. The issue went unnoticed until triggered by a significant spike in traffic to the update servers following the release of Sim Update 13. The update servers became over-saturated with update requests, failures started to mount, and this caused downloads and installs to slow down, loop, or fail to complete.

On September 29th at approximately 0600 UTC, we deployed a server-side fix to rectify the issue and additional server-side fixes over the next 24 hours. According to our telemetry, these fixes have successfully resolved the issue for the majority of users, though we understand some players who attempted to install the update on Thursday or Friday of last week may still be struggling to successfully update their simulator. You may need to delete one or more temporary files to “un-stick” the install. Instructions for all platforms (PC/MS Store, PC/Steam, and Xbox) can be found in this post.

We want to extend our sincerest apologies for this unfortunate issue following the release of Sim Update 13. We understand how frustrating and inconvenient this situation has been and understand the time and dedication each of you put into playing Microsoft Flight Simulator. Moving forward, we are committed to working towards better prevention of such incidents from occurring. We appreciate each and everyone’s patience and understanding as we worked through this issue.

As part of our ongoing efforts to improve the performance and stability of Microsoft Flight Simulator, we recently announced a new public testing opportunity specifically targeted to reduce crashes on the Xbox platform. There is a new optional test build available now for players on Xbox Series X|S. This build does not contain any changes to the sim itself but does include enhanced error logging and reporting. This data is collected automatically from everyone who installs the test build and will be used to help the development team diagnose and resolve application crashes. If you are an Xbox player who would like to assist with this data collection, you can find instructions on how to download and install the test build on our forums here.

– MSFS Team

Feedback Snapshot

Click here for the web-friendly version of the Feedback Snapshot.

Development Roadmap

Click here for the web-friendly version of the Development Roadmap.

Marketplace Update

This week we have a special announcement from our friends at DC Designs!

This Friday, October 6th, DC Designs will be participating in the One Special Day fundraiser for SpecialEffect. This great cause provides custom-created games, computers and controllers to those with disabilities that would normally prevent them from being able to enjoy games. For this fundraiser, 100% of all proceeds on DC Designs’ aircraft will go to this charity.

If you’ve been eyeing any aircraft from DC Designs, they ask you to consider purchasing it on Friday, October 6th!

Marketplace Releases

Click here for the web-friendly version of the Marketplace Update.

There are 75 new and 26 updated products in today’s Marketplace Update.

75 NEW PRODUCTS: 37 ON PC, 38 ON XBOX
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC	New on Xbox	New on Xbox
New on Xbox	New on PC	New on Xbox
New on PC	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox
New on PC and Xbox	New on PC	New on PC and Xbox
New on Xbox	New on PC and Xbox	New on PC and Xbox

26 UPDATED PRODUCTS: 16 ON PC, 11 ON XBOX
Updated on PC and Xbox	Updated on Xbox	Updated on PC and Xbox
Updated on PC and Xbox	Updated on PC and Xbox	Updated on PC and Xbox
Updated on PC and Xbox	Updated on PC	Updated on PC
Updated on PC	Updated on PC	Updated on Xbox
Updated on PC and Xbox	Updated on PC	Updated on PC and Xbox
Updated on PC		Updated on PC and Xbox

Marketplace Backlog

Current Backlog: 553 Total

BACKLOG: NEW PRODUCTS

	*Testing Status*
Content Type	Initial Processing and Validation by MS	Handed off to 3P for Functional Testing	Functional Testing in Progress by 3P	Functional Testing Signed off by 3P	Total
Aircraft	82	11	2	2	97
Mission	38	15	4	1	58
Scenery	30	3	2	1	36
Livery	28	14	1	0	43
Airport	50	26	7	18	101
Other	41	15	1	13	70
Total	269	84	17	35	405

BACKLOG: UPDATED PRODUCTS

	*Testing Status*
Content Type	Initial Processing and Validation by MS	Handed off to 3P for Functional Testing	Functional Testing in Progress by 3P	Functional Testing Signed off by 3P	Total
Aircraft	18	8	9	1	36
Mission	0	0	0	0	0
Scenery	5	2	1	0	8
Livery	22	10	0	0	32
Airport	23	25	1	20	69
Other	0	3	0	0	3
Total	68	48	11	21	148

SDK & Third Party UPDATEs

No updates this week.

Community Fly-In

The world’s oldest airline (still in operation) is KLM, the flag carrier of the Netherlands. KLM was founded 104 years ago on October 7, 1919. To commemorate this milestone in aviation history, our community fly-in this week will be an aerial tour of Holland. The flight plan was created by our regular panel member and Dutch citizen Pieter2427 who will be sharing lots of interesting facts and trivia as we fly across his beautiful home country!

Event details are available here. All are welcome to participate!

Community Video

For this week’s Community Video, we join real-world airline pilot and flight simmer 737NGDriver as they highlight some of the new features that arrived in the Boeing aircraft for Sim Update 13.

737NGDriver runs through the new Simbrief integration, wind uplinks, and the new checklist features onboard the Boeing 747-8. All users can utilise these new features in this plane now!

If you’d like to learn more, we’ve created two tutorials showcasing the new Simbrief functionality in the Boeing aircraft, as well as how to correctly use the Electronic Flight Bag to calculate takeoff performance figures in the Boeing 787-10: