Installation

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Installation
What to do to make it work
This summarizes installation quickly.
If you are relatively new to X-Plane plugin installation and/or especially to CSL model installation you definitely want to follow detailed step-by-step instructions instead:
Step-by-Step
There's also a quick video tutorial available (by BlueDuck, a LiveTraffic user), which introduces most basic steps of setup and operations. For more details I'd refer you back to the Step-by-Step instructions.
If you are upgrading from v1.5 to v2.0, then please follow these steps:
Upgrading from v1.5 to v2.x
Limitations and Requirements
First of all make sure to understand inherent limitations of the approach LiveTraffic takes and if it fits your purpose under these conditions. Then please double-check requirements are met. They include
Windows: required redistributables (download)
MacOS: Tips for security prompt issues (FAQ)
Windows only: Do update the Visual C++ Redistributable!
If you don't see LiveTraffic in your Plugins menu, and your Log.txt contains
Code = 126 : The specified module could not be found.
then you have to
Download and install https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x64.exe!
Yes, it's a hassle...but it saves significantly on LiveTraffic download size.
LiveTraffic plugin
​Download the plugin from X-Plane.org.
The LiveTraffic plugin ships as a ZIP archive. Unzip it. The LiveTraffic folder is then to be moved into <X-Plane>/Resources/plugins, the same as with other plugins.
Linux only: There are two builds available. The standard one is built on Ubuntu 20.04. If that fails to load try the other one built on Ubuntu 18.04 by renaming LiveTraffic-bionic.xpl to LiveTraffic.xpl.
CSL Packages
You must install CSL packages with aircraft models, otherwise LiveTraffic has no models it could put into your sky and will fail.
To start with, the Bluebell packages are recommended. They are known to work and since v1.3 installation became quite a bit simpler: Download all archives, unzip them into .../LiveTraffic/Resources/CSL, then add the content of the Airbus 2 folder into the Airbus folder, and the content of Boeing 2+3 into Boeing and you're done.
​X-CSL models also work out of the box. The X-CSL Update (take any version with the highest version number) is a comfortable tool. LiveTraffic is not automatically recognized, instead use the menu command "Set Custom Path" to directly select the path where to put the models into, e.g. create .../LiveTraffic/Resources/X-CSL for this purpose.
Users experienced with CSLs might venture father and install other packages, for example from X-Plane.org.
It is strongly recommended to check the Log.txt file after installing new packages. LiveTraffic tries hard to provide you with meaningful warnings and errors, definitely after you switch logging level to "Debug". Often times they simply indicate wrong modelling, which ultimately the model developer would need to fix (missing or mistyped texture files, conflicting ICAO aricraft types...), but in most cases an experienced user can fix it himself. The Support Forum could also provide help. Name the package you added and upload a full Log.txt file with Debug-level logging.
Additional CSL package paths
LiveTraffic is able to read CSL packages also from other locations. If you have CSL packages somewhere else you can point LiveTraffic to them. This certainly also goes for the above recommendations: If they are on your disk already somewhere then just let LiveTraffic know.
See Settings / CSL for the configuration options.
X-Plane Settings
None of the following settings hinder LiveTraffic to display traffic. But they may affect the user experience:
Draw parked aircraft
...should probably be off. LiveTraffic won't display parked aircraft per se, but sometimes aircraft can be followed up to their parking positions. And it simply looks better if there is no other aircraft then.
AI / Multiplayer Aircraft (for TCAS)
...are no longer needed for LiveTraffic's purposes as of LiveTraffic v2.03 together with X-Plane 11.50. If you had configured them only to see TCAS you may remove all of them now.
If you are running X-Plane before 11.50, then you will still need to configure AI Aircraft in X-Plane's aircraft settings to see TCAS blibs and for providing data to some 3rd party plugins.
Removing LiveTraffic
...is as simple as deleting the entire folder <X-Plane>/Resources/plugins/LiveTraffic including all its files and subfolders. If you want to remove any trace you can also remove the two preferences files that are written by LiveTraffic: <X-Plane>/Output/preferences/LiveTraffic.prf and .../LiveTraffic_imgui.prf.
BUT in case you are just fed up by problems installing LiveTraffic...consider going to the support forum so we can try helping you to get LiveTraffic up and running. You might be asked to set the Log.txt logging level to "Debug": Do that in Settings > Advanced > Logging, start up X-Plane once more, shut it down, and now take the resulting Log.txt file from your X-Plane main folder to the Support forum!
Introduction - Previous
Limitations
Step-by-Step
Last modified 1mo ago
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Outline
Limitations and Requirements
LiveTraffic plugin
CSL Packages
Additional CSL package paths
X-Plane Settings
Removing LiveTraffic