Troubleshooting¶

Quick-reference for common problems. Each section links to the relevant page for full context.

Board won't appear on the Network page¶

This section is about AIM boards on the cockpit network. An Open Hardware board over USB appears on the Open Hardware page instead; see A USB board doesn't show up below.

Tip

From manager 1.6.0, start with Network Health (Network sidebar, Network health button). It checks every layer in order and the first red light tells you exactly which of the steps below to look at, so you don't have to walk them all.

Confirm the PoE switch provides 802.3at power. AIM boards require 802.3at. They are not compatible with 802.3af-only switches.
Check the switch link light for the port the board is plugged into. No link light = cable or port issue.
Confirm the PC's cockpit network adapter has the correct static IP (10.24.6.1). Use the manager's Fix button on the Network page if the adapter isn't configured yet. From 2.6.0, the "AIM network not configured" warning no longer shows just because the cockpit cable is unplugged: with no cable in, check the cable and the switch, and use Network Health. See Set Up the Cockpit Network.
If your PC has Hyper-V, WSL, VMware, or VirtualBox installed, a virtual network adapter may have taken over the cockpit's addresses; see the next section.
Power-cycle the board. Hold until the link light returns, then wait 10-15 seconds for the board to boot and announce itself.

Boards worked before, then vanished after a reboot¶

If Hyper-V, WSL, or a VM hypervisor is installed, its virtual switch (vEthernet / VMnet adapters in ipconfig) claims its own subnet, and Hyper-V's Default Switch picks a new random subnet at every boot. When it lands on 10.24.6.x, two interfaces claim the cockpit subnet and Windows can route board traffic into the virtual switch instead of the cockpit NIC. Your configuration still looks correct, 10.24.6.1 bound, manager Listening, but boards don't appear.

Check: ipconfig. Any vEthernet or VMnet adapter holding a 10.24.6.x address is the conflict. Fixes (subnet reservation, re-homing the switch, or disabling the adapter) are in the Virtual adapters section of Set Up the Cockpit Network. From manager v1.5.0, the Network page flags this automatically, and running Fix installs a permanent subnet reservation that prevents it entirely.

A board says it needs its configuration sent again¶

Version 2.1.0 gave eight F-16C controls their own identifiers. They had been sharing one with a control on another panel, so they did nothing or fired the wrong thing: ICP DRIFT and FLIR GAIN, ANTI G TEST, and the ENGINE START RUN and MKR BCN lamps. Your saved wiring was carried across, but a board wired to one of them is still running its old setup.

AIM boards: open the board on the Network page and click Send configuration on the notice. The board restarts for a moment.
Open Hardware boards are sent the corrected setup on their own when they connect.
If one board carries both the ICP and EXT LIGHTING panels, a pin wired to DRIFT, FLIR GAIN or FLASH STEADY may be ambiguous. The notice then names the two controls. Open the wizard, set the pin for both, and click Save & Upload.

Board appears but shows UNCONFIGURED¶

The board booted but hasn't been set up yet, or a previous save didn't complete. Click the board row to open the setup wizard. See Add Your First Board.

Board disappears after saving¶

The board reboots to apply its new configuration. Wait 15-20 seconds. It will reappear with a green dot. If it doesn't come back, check the PoE switch link light and try power-cycling.

A USB board doesn't show up¶

Open Hardware boards appear on the Open Hardware page, not the Network page. A DED, PFLD or FFI display board appears on Avionics, Instruments, under the instrument it shows.

Use a USB cable that carries data. Many charger cables carry power only.
Close the Arduino IDE and any serial monitor; they hold the port.
A board that has never had the manager's firmware is not detected until you install it from the Install the firmware card. See Open Hardware.
Give the board ten seconds after plugging it in before you replug it.

A switch doesn't respond when operated¶

Switch states are visible in Avionics → Console Panels: open the panel's card, and each row's live state reflects your physical panel directly, not the sim. When you operate a switch on the panel, its row should change. The ‹ and › arrows beside it drive the control from the manager and send it to the sim.

If a switch doesn't respond when physically operated:

Confirm the control is assigned to a GPIO pin. Without a pin assignment the board doesn't know which input to listen to. See Assign Controls to Pins.
Check your wiring: one switch leg to the GPIO pin, the other to GND. Polarity doesn't matter.
A pin change takes effect after Save & Upload in the wizard. An AIM board restarts for a moment; an Open Hardware board applies it at once.
Try a different GPIO pin. A damaged pin won't respond even with correct wiring.

A rotary switch briefly snaps back to its previous position¶

When you turn a multi-position rotary, the display jumps to the new position, flicks back to the old one for a moment, then settles. This happens because the switch's contacts pass through a gap between positions, and a too-short settle window lets that in-between moment read as a real change.

The manager already guards rotaries with a 100 ms settle window by default. If a particular switch still does this (contact style varies between rotary brands), click the ⋯ button on that control's row in Console Panels and choose Adjust response time…, then raise the value until the snap-back stops. Saving sends the change to the board, which restarts for a moment.

A potentiometer reads jitter or wrong values¶

If the pot is not yet wired, click its ⋯ button in Console Panels and choose Mute this control. Unwired pots float and show noise.
On an AIM board, confirm the supply wire goes to 3.3V, not 5V. Using 5V on a pot channel can damage the board.
Run calibration: ⋯ → Calibrate range…, sweep full range several times, then Save. See Test and Calibrate.
Keep wiring runs under 1 meter. Long unshielded runs pick up noise.

Controls appear in the manager but do nothing in DCS¶

Confirm the DCS integration is installed (green "Installed" on the DCS Integration card on the home page). See Set Up DCS.
Confirm DCS is running and you are loaded into the airframe selected on the manager's Home page. The integration follows that choice.
Check the control in the wizard's Pins step. A control without a DCS tag isn't simulated in DCS.
Confirm the correct sim is selected in the manager (DCS, not BMS).

Controls work in DCS but wrong ones fire¶

Two controls are sharing the same pin. Open the pin assignment view. Conflicts are highlighted in red. Reassign one control to a free pin. See Assign Controls to Pins.

DCS cockpit lights and displays don't update¶

Confirm the DCS integration is installed and up to date.
Ensure you are in the cockpit with engines running. Some indicators only change when aircraft systems are active.
If a specific display (UHF, DED) is blank, check that the relevant DCS module exports are working. Some third-party module versions have broken export hooks.

BMS receives no inputs¶

Confirm the AIM Ghost Joystick driver is installed and shows the correct device count ([N] of [N] devices ready). See Install the Virtual-Joystick Driver.
Confirm the keyfile is loaded in BMS and current: BMS KEYFILE card on the home page should show Installed, not Update available. See Load the Keyfile.
Confirm BMS was launched with "Launch without applying overrides" ticked. Launching with overrides applied regenerates the keyfile and wipes your bindings.

BMS keyfile shows "Update available"¶

Your catalog has changed since the last export (a manager update added new bindings, or you changed pin assignments). Open Setup BMS keyfile and click Run export. Then reload the keyfile in BMS. See Set Up Falcon BMS.

Caution panel lamps lit in wrong positions¶

On an AIM board, the TLC59281 daisy-chain bit order is reversed from what the catalog expects. Swap the physical order of the two TLC59281 ICs in the chain. On an Open Hardware board with a MAX7219, check each LED against the exported pinout: anode to its segment line, cathode to its digit line. See Indicator and Caution Lights.

UHF or CMDS display shows nothing¶

Confirm firmware is v2.2.0 or newer. Check the Firmware page. See Update Board Firmware.
For UHF: the MAX7219 requires a 5V supply and 74AHCT125 level shifter on the SPI lines. 3.3V is not sufficient.
On an Open Hardware board, check that the UHF panel's DISPLAY row in the wizard names what you wired, a MAX7219 or TM1637 modules, and that all its pins are assigned. TM1637 modules need board firmware 1.5.0 or newer. See Open Hardware.
Confirm the SPI channel in Step 2 of the board wizard matches the physical wiring.
Confirm DCS integration is installed and you're in a cockpit. Displays update from DCS string exports.

A notice about DCS at startup¶

When the manager starts, it checks its part of DCS and puts right anything that is missing or out of date. The notice says what it did:

DCS was updated since your last flight. Restored: … A DCS update removed the aircraft display patch or your stick bindings, and the manager put them back. Nothing to do.
Updated the AIM script in DCS. The manager was updated and refreshed its own script in DCS. Nothing to do.
Updated the DCS display setup to match your screens. The display setup in DCS no longer matched the screens you assigned in the manager, so the manager rewrote it.

If the Home page still says DCS has an older copy of the AIM script after startup, click Re-install. See Set Up DCS.

Board firmware OTA update fails¶

Check the PoE switch link light during the transfer. A momentary dropout aborts the upload.
If the board shows "firmware may be too old to update over the network," flash once over USB to get a current build onto the board. See Update Board Firmware.

High CPU usage with nothing running (WUDFHost.exe)¶

If Task Manager shows WUDFHost.exe (Windows Driver Foundation host) working hard even when the manager and BMS are closed, and you have the AIM Ghost Joysticks installed, your virtual joystick driver is out of date. Driver 1.0.0.0 polled in a tight loop around the clock, roughly half a CPU core per joystick.

Update the manager to 1.6.2 or later, open Setup BMS keyfile from the home page, and click Update driver where the status shows Update available. Your joysticks are rebuilt with the same names and numbering, so your keyfile still applies. See Install the Virtual-Joystick Driver.

DCS-BIOS switches stopped working alongside the manager¶

Manager versions before 1.6.3 listened for DCS commands on the same port DCS-BIOS uses for its switch input (7778). Whichever integration loaded first silently cut off the other's input: DCS-BIOS warning lights kept working while its switches went dead (or the reverse). Update the manager to 1.6.3 or later, then launch it once before starting DCS so it updates its DCS integration. The manager now uses its own port and the two coexist cleanly.

Manager won't check for updates¶

Confirm internet access is available. The manager reaches api.github.com.
If you see "GitHub returned HTTP 403," the API rate limit was hit. Wait a few minutes and try again via Settings → CHECK NOW.