Have to press ctl-alt-del at end of flight

[Stickshaker]

Since some time I have a weird problem. When ending a flight I get a black screen (sound still works). When I press control-alt-delete I get the screen with the task manager etc, and after pressing 'cancel' I have my image back (the FSX start page). Since this occurred I can only make one flight properly; during the next flight FSX runs out of memory. Has anyone encountered this problem (and found a solution)?

[IanHenry]

I had the same problem with FSX-SE, never did find out the reason. Look here:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...aphics-Problem

Ian

[BendyFlyer]

Stickshaker. I am of the strong view that this is a FSX bug and there is no permanent fix that I am aware of, except a completely different flight simulator program.

You can generate this problem when you switch in and out windows and hence it is both a problem with the way Windows works, the way it draws windows and displays graphics and switching between threads running and it is a problem related to the diverse and simultaneous processing of the different program scripts and coding used in FSX; xml, Visual Basic, windows OS, and various drivers and your hard drive operation (slow or fast etc), so data gets lost so to speak and goes into what is called a NULL, hence the black screen and the only cure is to switch between programs and commands using Windows task manager. I gathered this was the case when I had this occur and listened to my hard drive hunting for data that was now out of sequence or lost.

I would suggest you get rid of the automation dll file, delete the FSX.cfg file and copy the logbook.bin then delete the original. These will all be rebuilt on start so it is not an issue but it does get rid of unknown data corruptions or loss in these files which seem to me to be the sorce of many of FSX's problems. There is no cure because it is the limitations of FSX and the various hardware and changed software platforms around since it was first put together and its genesis goes back to the mid nineteen eighties, so its cute but a bit like DOS, times up I am afraid. The programs menu interface is seriously flawed as well and is very clunky hence it the menu file system of FSX contributes as well in my view.

If it is any consolation, FSX is still a great program when it runs right and dont forget this is a seriously complicated piece of computing your enjoying via the screen as one sims into any type of aviation activity you like. The above are the only way I have found to get you running with minimum work in my humble experience.

[odourboy]

Black screens/frozen screens with sound are also symptoms of a graphics card driver crash. I've had similar issues when I had an Nvidia driver version that just didn't work well with FSX. Kicking the task manager forced a reset of the driver and recovery. Check our event logger. If there was a driver crash, it 'should' be in logged as an event. If that's the problem, try a different driver.

[Stickshaker]

Thanks to you all! I am going to try out these solutions and will report back.

[StormILM]

I posted a similar thread recently. I tried the driver roll back to no avail and made a number of other checks to see if I added something that's causing the issue. Still, no precise suspect. Here's what I do know. Before my partial PC rebuild (to SSD's) back in August, I had no issues of this sort even with the latest drivers. This issue did not appear until after I migrated to the SSD's and then ran all the latest Windows Updates. I have a strong suspicion that something in one or more of those updates (either the optional or important updates) might be the culprit behind this issue. I notice how many people are reporting it for both Steam and Acceleration versions and all seem to correlate with the Windows 10 prep updates going into W7 & W8. Looking at the MS Updates thread posted in today's threads, I am now deeply suspicious that certain MS updates are causing havoc across FS related software. Whatever the cause of of the Blackscreen issue is (and other issues now being reported with MS Updates), voices need to sound off as IMO, this appears to be a serious threat to the stability & usability of our FS software. Hopefully some more light can be shed on things and solutions found.

[BendyFlyer]

I agree re MS updates or security fixes etc. This has been my experience as well, get a batch of updates and fixes and sure as night follows day there will be glitches with FSX (and other stuff as well).

I also concur that it could be a video card on the way out but it also could be a hard drive that is showing signs of wear too. As is always the case, there is no simple solution to a lot of FSX stuffups. But I do know this there is no way I am going to try and adapt FSX onto any newer version of Windows (8 or 10) but will move to another sim, either P3D or X-Plane.

I guess if none of the suggestions work, that is getting rid of files, then it can only be a major corruption problem occurring either because FSX itself is damaged or you have a hardware problem and that I have no suggestions or answers for alas. I have so far done 3 complete re-installs of FSX since first buying the program in 2010 because of glitches that could not be fixed via any other method, which is always fascinating as the fresh install always works until enough other stuff is added to it for it to fall over again.

[Stickshaker]

Thanks to you all for your advice. So far, nothing helped. For the moment I decided to leave things as they are. Apart from the exit bug FSX works fine and I may be tempted to try out P3D anyway.

Thanks again. if I run into any remedies I'll post theme here.

[StormILM]

I feel the same way, overall FSX still works fine and runs super smooth other than the End Flight/Exit bug. I do have one piece of additional information that may/or may not shed some light on this issue. I keep a guest user profile set up on this PC and decided to go over to that side and fully set up FSX for my Dad to use (on occasion). Oddly enough, on that user profile all the same aircraft & scenery works totally normal and exits without the hung black screen. I'm still analyzing this to make sense of it.

[Jafo]

These days whenever I have an issue with FSX I can trace it to a 'gau' that people claim is compatible when they release a 'port' but actually isn't quite.
Exiting or changing planes mid flight causes CTD.

The blank screen is much the same...out of mem but too dumb to tell you it is....

Re MS updates... for a few years I ignored IE9 and IE10 because updating to either killed FSX totally [would not start].
A later [unknown] update since resolved that and for me either now cause no issue.

I no longer [and never will] check the 'auto-update' option in MS Update.

[vortex]

Stickshaker. I am of the strong view that this is a FSX bug and there is no permanent fix that I am aware of, except a completely different flight simulator program.

I'm not convinced that this is a bug in FSX - if it was we'd all have the problem and, clearly, most people don't. I'm slightly more convinced that it could be a problem with MS updates. I haven't got this problem on my desktop PC but I only download the critical updates. As a result, I have had hardly any (if any?) of the "updates" which prepare for Windows 10 which may, potentially, be the culprits. I did have this problem briefly on my laptop with FSX-SE. However, it mysteriously corrected itself without my intervention so I'm not certain what caused it.

[Terry]

It's simple enough to uninstall all updates since the program worked correctly. If no update is at fault you can always reinstall them.