Error in OpenRocket

[MetricRocketeer]

Hi TRF colleagues and especially OpenRocket experts,

Two questions, please:

I copied into OpenRocket a RockSim file for a LOC-VII. I was working along nicely mainly changing cosmetic things like paint color. Suddenly, OR crashed and left me with the file below, which I cannot open. So, I am going to start over. But what happened?

And I also have this question. As an example, let's consider the nosecone. The RS file shows the nosecone from its database as a LOC PNC-7.51, whose calculated mass is 1096 grams to the nearest whole gram. So, I imported into my OR rocket the very same component -- a LOC PNC-7.51 -- and it shows a weight of only 830 grams. This is a substantial weight difference -- and anyway, why is there any difference at all?

Thank you for your assistance.

Stanley

 

[mikec]

Which version?

When I load this file with OR 15.03 it loads with a bunch of warning messages and the cone mass is 831 grams. There's no mass override on the cone so this is just being computed from the material density and thickness. FWIW, the LOC website gives the weight of this cone as 31.5 oz or 893 g.

Translation problems between RS and OR are very common. I can't speak to the specific reason here, but it's just something I've learned to live with. And IMHO all files should be treated with suspicion until you have measured weights.

It may simply be that the way OR and RS compute the volume of a cone, and the two programs' value for plastic density, are different. The OR number seems closer to reality based on what the vendor reports.

 

[MetricRocketeer]

Which version?

When I load this file with OR 15.03 it loads with a bunch of warning messages

Hi @mikec and all other TRF colleagues ,

Thank you for your response.

Interesting. I was also able to load the file using OR 15.03 and with many warnings. So I saved the file with a different name, and then I tried to reopen that newly named file using OR 22.02.beta.05, and I still could not open it.

That was a good discovery on your part that you were able to open the file using OR 15.03. But I want to be able to keep up using the latest versions of OpenRocket. So thank you for your discovery. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve my problem of trying to understand why my first attempt caused an OR crash.

Stanley

 

[mikec]

That was a good discovery on your part that you were able to open the file using OR 15.03. But I want to be able to keep up using the latest versions of OpenRocket.

Understood, and certainly any crash of the later version should be corrected if possible. FWIW, I've found that 15.03 does everything I need it to do, so I just continue to use that. For basic flight simulation, later versions don't really add anything AFAIK, and I am used to 15.03's foibles. YMMV.

 

[lakeroadster]

Hi @mikec and all other TRF colleagues ,

Thank you for your response.

Interesting. I was also able to load the file using OR 15.03 and with many warnings. So I saved the file with a different name, and then I tried to reopen that newly named file using OR 22.02.beta.05, and I still could not open it.

That was a good discovery on your part that you were able to open the file using OR 15.03. But I want to be able to keep up using the latest versions of OpenRocket. So thank you for your discovery. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve my problem of trying to understand why my first attempt caused an OR crash.

Stanley

I loaded 22.02.beta.05 and used it for about 2 days before going back to 22.02.beta.01. Too many bugs and issues with 05.
FWIW: I was able to open the .ork file you uploaded. It did show the error messages as displayed below.

 

[MetricRocketeer]

I loaded 22.02.beta.05 and used it for about 2 days before going back to 22.02.beta.01.

Hi @lakeroadster and everyone else,

Could you or anyone else please explain how to load 22.02.beta.01. Now that I have installed 22.02.beta.05, I cannot get any lower version to load.

I should note that I am not necessarily planning to use 22.02.beta.01 -- but the suggestion was interesting. The developers of OpenRocket have done a great job and performed a tremendous contribution for the entire rocketry community in making OR available. If serious bugs do exist in 22.02.beta.05, I just look forward to fixes. I am sure that the OR developers will continue to improeve Or as soon as they can.

Just for the time being, however, how would I invoke 22.02.beta.01.

Thank you all for your answers.

Stanley

 

[astronwolf]

WIW, I've found that 15.03 does everything I need it to do, so I just continue to use that. For basic flight simulation, later versions don't really add anything AFAIK, and I am used to 15.03's foibles. YMMV.

Yep. I dislike the direction OR took after 15.03, and continue to use 15.03. It's tempting to start a new fork where 15.03 left off and keep with the basic flight simulation.

 

[Charles_McG]

I honestly can’t tell a ‘change in direction’ in the 22.n betas. And I haven’t had any trouble with beta 5.

 

[lakeroadster]

Hi @lakeroadster and everyone else,

Could you or anyone else please explain how to load 22.02.beta.01. Now that I have installed 22.02.beta.05, I cannot get any lower version to load.

I should note that I am not necessarily planning to use 22.02.beta.01 -- but the suggestion was interesting. The developers of OpenRocket have done a great job and performed a tremendous contribution for the entire rocketry community in making OR available. If serious bugs do exist in 22.02.beta.05, I just look forward to fixes. I am sure that the OR developers will continue to improeve Or as soon as they can.

Just for the time being, however, how would I invoke 22.02.beta.01.

Thank you all for your answers.

Stanley

What I did was go back into my computers "Downloads" folder and found the old Open Rocket Application file.

 

[MetricRocketeer]

What I did was go back into my computers "Downloads" folder and found the old Open Rocket Application file.

Thank you, @lakeroadster. I thought about it, and I very much appreciate your suggestion and your input. However, I am going to try to stick with the latest version. I prefer not to revert if I can help it. OpenRocket has been fantastic, and I remain a big fan. Of course, software is complicated.

While we are on the subject, I still always keep RockSim handy as a crucial portion of my software toolbox.

 

[lakeroadster]

Thank you, @lakeroadster. I thought about it, and I very much appreciate your suggestion and your input. However, I am going to try to stick with the latest version. I prefer not to revert if I can help it. OpenRocket has been fantastic, and I remain a big fan. Of course, software is complicated.

While we are on the subject, I still always keep RockSim handy as a crucial portion of my software toolbox.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Open Rocket... I use it nearly every day. I merely went backwards due to features such as Photo Studio not working... and because of bugs.

 

[JoePfeiffer]

Hi TRF colleagues and especially OpenRocket experts,

Two questions, please:

I copied into OpenRocket a RockSim file for a LOC-VII. I was working along nicely mainly changing cosmetic things like paint color. Suddenly, OR crashed and left me with the file below, which I cannot open. So, I am going to start over. But what happened?

And I also have this question. As an example, let's consider the nosecone. The RS file shows the nosecone from its database as a LOC PNC-7.51, whose calculated mass is 1096 grams to the nearest whole gram. So, I imported into my OR rocket the very same component -- a LOC PNC-7.51 -- and it shows a weight of only 830 grams. This is a substantial weight difference -- and anyway, why is there any difference at all?

Thank you for your assistance.

Stanley

Hmm, it somehow generated a .ork file that at a brief glance looks syntactially OK, but is breaking the parser. I'll be opening an issue on this one...

 

[MetricRocketeer]

Hmm, it somehow generated a .ork file that at a brief glance looks syntactially OK, but is breaking the parser. I'll be opening an issue on this one...

Hi @JoePfeiffer,

Thank you for looking into this.

Stanley

 

[JoePfeiffer]

Hi @JoePfeiffer,

Thank you for looking into this.

Stanley

I'd appreciate it if you could also post the original rocksim file, or if you've got a github account add it directly to https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket/issues/1778

 

[JoePfeiffer]

Could you or anyone else please explain how to load 22.02.beta.01. Now that I have installed 22.02.beta.05, I cannot get any lower version to load.

All the old betas and other releases are at https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket/releases

 

[MetricRocketeer]

All the old betas and other releases are at https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket/releases

Thank you, @JoePfeiffer. This is good to know.

 

[SiboVG]

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Open Rocket... I use it nearly every day. I merely went backwards due to features such as Photo Studio not working... and because of bugs.

FYI: we fixed that Photo Studio bug some weeks ago, so it should work again in the next release. For any other bugs please notify us, so we can fix them. We're trying to get the 22.02 release out as bug-free as possible.

 

[SiboVG]

Hm, I can open the design just fine in the latest build of the OR unstable branch. I'll look into the cause of the bug in OR 22.02.beta.05, but I do know I fixed a bug on appearance editing after beta 05, which may be related to this (since you mentioned fiddling with the appearance settings).

 

[MetricRocketeer]

Hm, I can open the design just fine in the latest build of the OR unstable branch. I'll look into the cause of the bug in OR 22.02.beta.05, but I do know I fixed a bug on appearance editing after beta 05, which may be related to this (since you mentioned fiddling with the appearance settings).

Thank you @SiboVG for looking into this.

 

[SiboVG]

Okay, the issue was with the LP-78 parachute preset. There was a bug on importing parachutes (this issue), which was solved in this PR. So the issue is already solved, but sorry for the inconvenience...

If it's worth anything to you, here is the .ork with the preset line removed, so you can open it in 22.02.beta.05.

 

[MetricRocketeer]

I am running out the door right now. I will get back to this in a few hours. I am most curious to explore what you found. Thanks.

 

[neil_w]

Yep. I dislike the direction OR took after 15.03, and continue to use 15.03.

I would definitely be interested to hear more about what you perceive to be our "direction".

The essence of the 22.02 release is:
1) A few core features that were widely requested (e.g. pods, fall-away boosters, Cd override)
2) Fix a million bugs
3) Improve UX in about a million areas

The long release interval between 15.03 and now is another story, but we believe that we'll be on solid ground going forward.

 

[MetricRocketeer]

Okay, the issue was with the LP-78 parachute preset. There was a bug on importing parachutes (this issue), which was solved in this PR. So the issue is already solved, but sorry for the inconvenience...

If it's worth anything to you, here is the .ork with the preset line removed, so you can open it in 22.02.beta.05.

Hi @SiboVG or anyone else,

Thank you for all of your great and successful efforts.

So you rescued my file. Good for you, and thank you for doing it. Would it have been possible for me to rescue the file? How would I have done that? Or is that too difficult to explain?

Stanley

 

[neil_w]

While the mechanics of the actual recovery are easy, as is so often the case the problem would be knowing what to do, and honestly there's no general answer there.

The ork file is actually a zip file, which contains an ORK file (rocket.ork) and a decals folder. Rocket.ork is an XML file, and for the most part it's pretty readable and understandable. But to do that, you'd need to know exactly what was causing the problem. In this case, one of the error messages was regarding the parachute, so maybe you could have taken a shot and deleted the parachute and you would have gotten it to work.

Basically, the process is to change the name of the file to <filename>.zip, then unzip, then edit the rocket.ork file, then re-zip, then change the extension back to .ork.

 

[mikec]

I honestly can’t tell a ‘change in direction’ in the 22.n betas.

See https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket/releases for the release notes.

FWIW, my opinion about "direction" (I can't speak to what astronwolf meant.) I'm sure all the changes are well-intentioned and desirable. They just weren't things that made me want to mess with upgrading from Java 8 to later versions (I use Linux and maybe that's easy and maybe not.) I don't use OR for visual rendering, and while I'm sure the UX changes are less confusing, I was mostly used to the way 15.03 worked. If I need to use boosters or pods I will go to the effort to upgrade.

I'd be more interested in features to simulate extreme flights, including wind modeling, impact dispersion, better supersonic modeling, etc. There's some work on dispersion being done with a 15.03 fork, I forget where that work was being done, I read about it on arocket in the last couple of years.

 

[Charles_McG]

See https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket/releases for the release notes.

FWIW, my opinion about "direction" (I can't speak to what astronwolf meant.) I'm sure all the changes are well-intentioned and desirable. They just weren't things that made me want to mess with upgrading from Java 8 to later versions (I use Linux and maybe that's easy and maybe not.) I don't use OR for visual rendering, and while I'm sure the UX changes are less confusing, I was mostly used to the way 15.03 worked. If I need to use boosters or pods I will go to the effort to upgrade.

I'd be more interested in features to simulate extreme flights, including wind modeling, impact dispersion, better supersonic modeling, etc. There's some work on dispersion being done with a 15.03 fork, I forget where that work was being done, I read about it on arocket in the last couple of years.

I know the changes being made, I can RTFM. I don't use the rendering either - but I don't think it's new in 22.

User Experience depend on the user - I've given feedback on github on some specific areas I thought need improvement.

I do fly models with fall away boosters, and am looking forward to exploring that. But I'm pretty sure that was a long standing request from pre-15. I know I was looking for it when working on my Titan IIIe. (2016 - I just looked it up.)

I've seen the comment about 'change in direction' before. I still don't understand it. I must be blind to it.

 

[neil_w]

OR supports a pretty broad array of functionality. Many (maybe most) don't use all of it. Some don't use the 3d rendering, others don't care about supersonic modeling, etc. We try to distribute our development to as many different areas as possible and not neglect any of them. Not everyone will be satisfied with the feature development in their personal favorite area, because we can only do what we can do.

But, like @Charles_McG, I still don't understand this "change of direction" business. Everything in the new release is continuation and refinement of what was there before. Major new features are those that have been asked for by many users for years. UI improvements have streamlined many operations but not radically changed anything. Frankly, there are a lot of aspects of the program that could use a lot more radical change.

As for Java: the reason we are distributing packaged apps is to save people from having to upgrade Java on their system. You don't need to do it.

 

[Charles_McG]

As for Java: the reason we are distributing packaged apps is to save people from having to upgrade Java on their system. You don't need to do it.

(But people probably should [upgrade Java])
I work for a Honeywell owned company - the standard Java runtime hasn't been allowed on machines on the global domain for years. Packaged runtime engines in their own directories are still allowed.

I partly commiserate with resistance to change - I've got a hoard of compact Fieldpoint backpanes and modules that haven't been supported in Labview since 2015. But I don't like the 'change in direction' of cDAQ.

I have colleagues with instrument software running on WinXP. <shudder>

But the 'look and feel' of OR hasn't tripped my change sensors. Neither has the workflow. It still feels kinda dated.

 

[JoePfeiffer]

See https://github.com/openrocket/openrocket/releases for the release notes.

FWIW, my opinion about "direction" (I can't speak to what astronwolf meant.) I'm sure all the changes are well-intentioned and desirable. They just weren't things that made me want to mess with upgrading from Java 8 to later versions (I use Linux and maybe that's easy and maybe not.) I don't use OR for visual rendering, and while I'm sure the UX changes are less confusing, I was mostly used to the way 15.03 worked. If I need to use boosters or pods I will go to the effort to upgrade.

I'd be more interested in features to simulate extreme flights, including wind modeling, impact dispersion, better supersonic modeling, etc. There's some work on dispersion being done with a 15.03 fork, I forget where that work was being done, I read about it on arocket in the last couple of years.

On Java, I don't know what distribution you're running but it absolutely could not be easier on Debian. If you're running pretty much any other Java application, I suspect you've already got a less antique version on your system. Besides, if you're using our packaged installer it comes with its own JRE so the version of Java is hidden from you.
On things you'd like to see in OR, that's actually more where my interests lie as well (and I've done some simulation enhancements in the current release, and have some ideas for the future). What I'd *really* like to see is some quantitative comparison of OR's results with actual data, along the lines RASAero has done. I don't really know how good or bad OR's supersonic simulation is...

 

[lakeroadster]

FYI: we fixed that Photo Studio bug some weeks ago, so it should work again in the next release. For any other bugs please notify us, so we can fix them. We're trying to get the 22.02 release out as bug-free as possible.

I just loaded the beta.05 again. Pulled up my Level One rocket, clicked the Photo Studio, and got the same bug report that I got when I uploaded beta.05 in late September...

I get that same error report with my other designs also.