As a request from Incarnate to share the workaround here:
Problem encountered:
I had the offline simulator launching by default when starting vo (why i dont know, cant recall if there had been an update), with no control of mouse or keyboard pnnly partial control with joystick but not allowing to complete the tasks requested from the simulator missions.
Workaround:
I launched vo with joystick unplugged and got back control of keyboard and mouse to complete the offline simulator mission and then got the vo logging screen back.
Exited the logging screen with the quit button.
Then relaunched vo with the stick plugged in, logging screen appeared as usual.