Problem with devicesorting.txt
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My setup is slightly different; I have BMS installed on my OS Drive, but the Config files are SymLinked to a second drive (my OneDrive folder - just in case my computer goes down, I have configs in the Cloud).
The file has the Administrator as the owner, I might change that, I’ll see if it makes a difference.
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Are any of you running Falcon BMS as Admin? I do not and never have…
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@CriticalMass Do you have OneDrive setup so the files are always stored locally and then updated in the cloud only when they are changed on the PC?
OneDrive can cause permission issues also as it thinks it’s the “owner” of the file, not your PC. -
@SemlerPDX I do. I’m sure it was needed for some other software, but that was a while ago:
- VA with your profile (obvs) (Admin)
- Helios (Admn)
- spacedesk (Not Admin)
- Opentrack (Admin)
- JoyStick Gremlin (Admin)
Do you run these? And do you run them as Admin?
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@SemlerPDX thou hast summoned me… lol
if you want to get hardcore on the readonly thing … you can try setting the UAC elevation flag on DeviceSorting.txt … and run BMS as non-elevated.
WARNING: that might make BMS crash when it attempts to overwrite the file … or throw a UAC prompt or something? idk haven’t tried. be sure to make a backup copy of the file before doing this.
(run from an elevated CMD prompt) icacls "\Falcon BMS 4.36\User\Config\DeviceSorting.txt" /setintegritylevel H:NW
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@TxMtb Hmm, OK, I’ll move it back to F4 BMS folder. This is what it looks like
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@SemlerPDX fwiw I also never run BMS elevated… never have. but I’ve only been flying since 2019 (end of 4.34 / start of 4.35 era) so maybe it used to be necessary, long ago?
maybe some other tools in the ecosystem require admin privs… but if so, they should still be able to see into BMS shared-memory and/or write to pipes, etc. just not other way around.
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@CriticalMass I also have my User/Config folder redirected to a spot within my OneDrive tree… thought I was the only crazy person here.
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@airtex2019 COUGH
That’s not the only place - as soon as my SSD nears 25% space left, I’m looking for stuff to “move”
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So I would be the second one, huh? Too bad, I love to be the first always.
To all those (yours too) above:
- lucky you, I’m experiencing this absolutely not capital “issue” since I installed Windows 7 -64 bit, and I am “on” Windows 11 Pro 22H2 now;
- I have no one of those softwares you quoted installed on my PC/system;
- I never felt the need to run any version of Falcon as an administrator;
- I always installed Falcon in its default directory (C:/Falcon BMS or the like) since years;
- there is currently almost 67% of space free on my 1Tb SSD after Falcon has installed.
With best regards.
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So, regardless of being admin, it’s only when I run Falcon BMS via Alternative Launcher (not admin) that the
Devicesorting.txt
file reverts from read-only to write.Might need to raise this with @chihirobelmo
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@CriticalMass said in Problem with devicesorting.txt:
@SemlerPDX I do. I’m sure it was needed for some other software, but that was a while ago:
- VA with your profile (obvs) (Admin)
- Helios (Admn)
- spacedesk (Not Admin)
- Opentrack (Admin)
- JoyStick Gremlin (Admin)
Do you run these? And do you run them as Admin?
I run my own AVCS profile for VA as Admin, because it is needed. That doesn’t mean that BMS itself also needs elevated permissions.
I don’t (yet) run Helios, was not aware this program requires to be run as Admin, but again, if so, that doesn’t mean that the BMS program also needs to be run as admin, unless Helios forces that requirement… does it?
I use TrackIR, and I do not run it as admin. When I used OpenTrack during VR testing in BMS, I do not recall having to run it as Admin, yet again, even if so, I didn’t run BMS as admin during those tests.
I do not use Joystick Gremlin (or spacedesk, or autohotkey, or any other utility other than VoiceAttack).
I also do not use Alternative Launcher.
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Do all users here who have issues with Devicesorting.txt being overwritten ALSO use Alternative Launcher? Would be nice if it was as simple as this, because that could be coded differently and then we’d have a proper solution instead of just a workaround.
If any of you do NOT use Alternative Launcher and have this Devicesorting.txt overwrite issue, please reply and let us know.
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@SemlerPDX So there was an unwritten rule (or a myth maybe) that if any software interacted with BMS they both had to have the elevated permissions - maybe VA was the original culprit being the one that seems to have administrator rights as a requirement: maybe that is no longer needed (I’m certainly going to set all my BMS related software to non-admin - except VA).
Looking at the changelog for AL v2.1.0 this line pops out
Sort Device Order, the device assigning more numbers of DX will come first.
v2.1.0 was when support for 128 DX devices was added, so maybe needs to overwrite the sorting file.
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@SemlerPDX I also don’t use AL and don’t have this problem.
Definitely AL must write DeviceSorting.txt … as it goes hand in hand with the .key file.
I think they added a “no overwrite” mode to prevent that kind of thing, once you get your bindings and axes all dialed in…
But tbh, AL is nice when configuring your keybd and hotas bindings. But for actual launching? I just make a desktop shortcut to
\Falcon BMS 4.36\Bin\x64\Falcon BMS.exe
and whatever other tools I need (WDP? IVC? RTT?) and be done with it. -
(the ampersand & and the tilde ~ used this way, are a shorthand to mean “turn off the ReadOnly flag”)
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@Cop23rd so, putting aside the readonly flag stuff, and going back to square zero … the original bug report … can you confirm if the problem (repeated lines in DeviceSorting.txt) happens when you launch BMS directly … not through Alt Launcher?
at this point I don’t know if that is an Alt Launcher bug, or a BMS bug.
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AL rewrites DeviceSorting no matter its read-only or not.
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@airtex2019 'I dont use alternate launcher. The lines with additional controllers are not listet visibly in devicesorting list in read only status, but they are still avtive, when I test the buttons.
If devicesorting file is writable, the lines will be added… -
dang - was hoping we were onto something here.
If Cop23rd doesn’t use AL, then it’s kinda back to square one. The best thing that could be done would be to try to create dependable steps that can recreate this issue on any computer, and narrow it from there… is it only one WinOS version? Are there WinOS security or configuration changes that matter such as installation location, etc.?
Fun in the sun here we come - weeeeeee