Help please with intermittent CTD

[sandar]

Hi all, :help:
I am hoping one of you helpful guys or guyesses might be able to help pinpoint and cure an annoying problem I am having with FS9.

I am getting intermittent CTD's (increasing in regularity) while flying in FS9. They occur, for example, when I try to resize the GPS window, alter the view using the 'S' key or using the hat switch to look out of the side. It occurs with a variety of aircraft, the last time flying Jen's recently released Brittannia, two hours into a flight, really annoying.

[edmoore235]

Hmmm,
What flavor of OS are you running? Any new hardware added? Any changes in area temp or vent? Any changes to your FS9 setup? It may be driver problem with the Display card, or one of many settings in the display adjustments. Hope I have not messed ya up.

Ed

[sandar]

Sorry, a bit remiss of me not to mention specs.

Windows XP Home edition
Dual core AMD (2x2600MHz)
GeForce 8500GT 512mb
3GB ram

All drivers updated in February

I haven't changed any display settings since I updated my drivers in February. All seemed OK until a couple of days ago.

I did have to do a system restore last week, because of an unrelated problem (corrupted install of of IE7). I have checked the drivers and they are still the updated ones. It may be an idea to reinstall the display drivers though.

Temperatures are all within operating parameters

Thanks Ed.

[sandar]

Well, I have double checked the drivers and have notice a new one was released a few days ago and is now installed, but the problem persists.

As soon as I tried to alter the zoom on the GPS, FS9 crashed back to the desktop and a darned sight quicker than when I close FS down.

I have noticed a few other anomalies as well. Some gauges have disappeared altogether, while others have duplicated and I now have a plethora of gauges with the suffix 001, 002 etc. Sometimes certain 'planes won't start, nothing will get the engines to run. Another glitch that has developed is the splash screen comes up when I start the sim, but then disappears as the sim refuses to load. Sometimes removing the terrain.dl or display.dll will allow the sim to start, but why????

I am thinking about re-installing the whole thing, but with photo scenery, traffic, terrain and other add ons, I will be loading the thing for days.:bump:

[Dangerousdave26]

The first thing I would do is rename the fs9.cfg file to X-fs9.cfg.

I use X-{file name} as a way of remembering that I renamed the file to save it as a backup or troubleshooting. I don't always remember what I was doing but I know I was the one doing it.

Restart the sim and see what happens.

The fact you are loosing gauges or gauges have been duplicated has me a bit perplexed

[Lionheart]

If its only in a certain area, go to a different area in another country and try it then.

If it runs fine in other locations 'far away' from the region you are in, then its a double airport code BGL, such as twin AFCAD files with same name. They will CTD a flight. Mainly when you look outside in the direction of the airfield.

Also, certain addons can cause this. I had Germany 4 small airports and it caused CTD's. I had to deactivate it to get FS9 back. I could fly in California and it still crashed.


Bill

[Motormouse]

as Bill says, its a duplicated .bgl, afcad or otherwise,or maybe a landclass error in a scenery package causing this,
go back into your scenery library and start de-activating scenery,one by one, until you find the culprit.

duplicate gauges with a .001,002 etc,etc suffix happen when you save a flight, fs copies all active gauges ready for next time.

ttfn

Pete

[sandar]

Pete; The thing about the duplicate gauges makes sense, well sort of, the extra gauges can mount up quickly if you save a flight with old muti-engined 'planes.

Bill; I did a quick check and found 7 duplicate afcad files. I have now put them all into one folder and will see what happens. CTD's occurred when I flew close to an airfield which either appeared on the GPS or I used the hat switch to look out of the side windows. However, one CTD occurred while flying over the Bay of Biscay, half way from the south of England and Gibraltar and almost the same distance from Spain, not many airfield there. But it does indicate that your suggestion may be the problem. It's going to take a long time to go through all of the additional sceneries though, I have been collecting them for five years.

Dangerousdave; I did edit the FS9.CFG, after backing up the original one, but reverted back to the original one as the changes didn't make any difference that I could see. I will try your suggestion.

Many thanks for all of your help and suggestions, much appreciated.

[Motormouse]

Pete; The thing about the duplicate gauges makes sense, well sort of, the extra gauges can mount up quickly if you save a flight with old muti-engined 'planes

It's not just 'multi-engined planes' at fault, its' the way fs is programmed to 'save' every time you start a flight too, listed
under the name of 'ui generated flight', or 'previous flight' or 'program generated temporary flight' (all of these are present in the 'my saved flights' menu), which is why its' still best to start with default C172
then swap to the plane you want once flight has loaded.








It's going to take a long time to go through all of the additional sceneries though



I do it (check for errors) by 'halves'
ie, de-activate (you don't have to remove) the top 10-20 scenery areas in the library, (number 1 thru' to 10 or 20 on the priority list) then see what happens when flying in exactly the same spot as a ctd occurred.

If you get ctd then the problem lies elsewhere than in 'that' particular batch of scenery,re-activate them then deactivate next batch..priority 20 thru 30 and so on...

A ctd while in the middle of nowhere is sometimes caused by a landclass
scenery bgl being in a folder along with 'normal' scenery, don't know how many times its' been mentioned here, but landclass .bgl files should be in their own separate scenery folder,which should not have an associated texture folder

I use flightsim manager (freeware) to scan the scenery library for wayward landclass files, (it can also scan for unused and duplicate gauges btw) but there are other programs out there that will also do this.

hope this helps

ttfn

Pete

[Terry]

After you have it straightened out, a good policy when installing any new scenery is to open the airport with AFCAD. It will list any duplicates along with the default. You can then open them one at a time to determine which to delete or remove.

[sandar]

Pete, Many thanks for the advice.

I was about to deactivated the first few sceneries when I though it might be sensible to deactivate the last ones to be installed. Guess what? the problem seems to be cured. I am keeping my fingers crossed (or would do if the arthritis would let me) that it is permanent.
I have gone through the files in the scenery files and found a landclass bgl there. This scenery was for Victoria, Australia and I was getting CTD's while flying in the UK and over the Atlantic!!!y I reactivated the other two sceneries and immediately got the dreaded CTD, so I deactivated one and still CTD'd. To cut a long story short, all three sceneries seem to have faults so they are history.

I have never used anything like Flightsim manager, but after this bother I will try it out.

Terry, sounds like good advice checking airports with afcad.

Once again, many, many thanks for your time, patience and advice. :ernae: