Here's my trace after putting the "bad" 000003.log back in place (after which, I get the issue described in this thread - no menus other than the settings)
...and for reference, here's the log with the "good" 000003.log in place (when I get working menus and am able to use the game)
trace files pre doing the "before and after version" workaround suggested. (Works BTW, it takes a few seconds to populate the images in the menu the first time after upgrading to latest version again) and after the workaround. It was a fresh install, but the game was installed in this windows installation months before.
didn't try that. Installed previous stable and then back to this build and fixed the issue. but ai is very bad, maybe something with this changing builds?
@Alex Sawczuk, I believe clearing the local storage is the problem. In the RC I also did that and had the same problem: blank menu screen. Seems like the leveldb isn't initialized anymore (in UserData\player\LocalStorage\Local Storage). Luckily, when copying an old "Local Storage" into the "LocalStorage", the problem went away. Switching to an older build (without this problem), starting rFactor once, and then switching back to the newest version, should work...but there seems to be a problem for (new) users without a local storage yet.
P.S. you can easily reproduce this by renaming "UserData\player\LocalStorage" into "UserData\player\LocalStorage.bak". After starting the application, the menu screen will be empty. Now close rFactor and copy "UserData\player\LocalStorage.bak\Local Storage" into the newly created "UserData\player\LocalStorage" folder. Start rFactor again, then everything is okay.
in my case it didn't help, only the workaround bringed the menu back, a fresh install does not initialize it