No atmospheric or re-entry effects

[JAD_Interplanetary]

After upgrading to 1.0.4 (Steam autoupgrade) I don't seem to be getting re-entry/dynamic effects anymore. As an example, I'm hitting ~32km PE at Kerbin returning from Minmus and I'm not seeing any visual effects, heating, or any of the craft's exposed bits getting ripped off. Also, I have a few SSTO planes that would regularly experience shock and heating effects in the lower atmo (going about 1100 at ~17km for example) but now there are none. Did some default setting get flipped somewhere? Or has aero actually changed that much that those scenarios no longer show or have any effects?

[Fenris]

After upgrading to 1.0.4 (Steam autoupgrade) I don't seem to be getting re-entry/dynamic effects anymore. As an example, I'm hitting ~32km PE at Kerbin returning from Minmus and I'm not seeing any visual effects, heating, or any of the craft's exposed bits getting ripped off. Also, I have a few SSTO planes that would regularly experience shock and heating effects in the lower atmo (going about 1100 at ~17km for example) but now there are none. Did some default setting get flipped somewhere? Or has aero actually changed that much that those scenarios no longer show or have any effects?

Are you using mods that may not be updated? I was playing last night and all the effects still worked.

[JAD_Interplanetary]

Are you using mods that may not be updated? I was playing last night and all the effects still worked.

KER, KAC, KJR, ScanSat, a few science-listing/-performing mods, PreciseNode, and Trajectories. The only one I can think of that might have an impact would be Trajectories, but I would have assumed it just measures and calculates, not makes any changes. A handful of them haven't been updated past 1.0.2.

[mikegarrison]

The obvious answers, in order, are:

1) Try deleting all mods. If that works, try adding them back one at a time.

2) If step 1 didn't work, try installing a fresh install.

3) If that didn't work, good luck.

[Fenris]

I'm using KER and PreciseNode as well with no problems. Doesn't seem like any of the others should cause the problem. Only other thing I can think of, did you go into the cheat menu and turn the effects off for testing something then forget about it?

P.S. Also did you check file integrity (forgot what it's called actually) with Steam to make sure nothing was missed in the update?

[Chaos_Klaus]

Did you manually change your physics.cfg after 1.0.2? If so, delete it and verify the game cache to reset it.

[JAD_Interplanetary]

did you go into the cheat menu and turn the effects off for testing something then forget about it?

P.S. Also did you check file integrity (forgot what it's called actually) with Steam to make sure nothing was missed in the update?

No cheats are on, so it's not that. I'll try the file integrity check.

Did you manually change your physics.cfg after 1.0.2? If so, delete it and verify the game cache to reset it.

I haven't manually changed it, but that doesn't mean it hasn't been changed. If I delete it, will it be regenerated?

[mikegarrison]

If I delete it, will it be regenerated?

Yes.

I just moved my copy out of my game folder to the desktop. I launched the game and it silently regenerated the physics.cfg file.

[Vanamonde]

Moved to modded support.

[kiwi1960]

Could it be that the settings have changed... make sure all the video settings are as they were before.

[BrunoTheMad]

I had this issue under very specific circumstances, and managed to resolve it. It affects a clean vanilla install as well as any modded installs. I own the steam version of KSP, and experienced no heating or visual reentry effects when attempting to run the Linux 64-bit version. The temperature gauges would not activate on reentry, and it seemed as if none of the parts on the craft were being heated at all. However, adding a shortcut to the 64-bit binary to my steam library seems to make reentry effects and heating work without issue. In fact, running the 64-bit linux version from a shortcut in my steam library is currently the only way I can get reentry effects and heating to work using the 64-bit version. I have no idea why this may be the case.

[NathanKell]

Deleting the file and letting KSP regenerate it is NOT sufficient. You need to either get the clean file from a store download of KSP, or delete it and verify local cache (steam). The settings in the 1.0.4 file are not the defaults that KSP generates.

[JAD_Interplanetary]

Thanks to all for your suggestions. I verified the local cache through Steam but that didn't help. In the end, it turned out it was a working directory problem. I have a command line script to start KSP, but it wasn't switching to the KSP directory before running KSP. As soon as I added that, bingo! Re-entry effects. I guess there are some config files (physcis.cfg?) that look for their path relative to the working directory, not the KSP binary's location.

@BrunoTheMad, try running the 64-bit version from inside the KSP directory, and see if that helps. I believe the reason launching from Steam works is that it correctly sets the working directory, but just running from the command line with a relative or absolute path does not.

[BrunoTheMad]

That worked perfectly for me, thanks for the heads up!