Anybody ever see this?

[PRB]

What could be causeing this? Duenna is "loosing contact with" FS, about 30 minutes into a flight. Here's the duenna log.

01.01.2013 22:21:20z
01.01.2013 22:21:20z Duenna.EXE started (v.0.891 R131 (31/01/2010 03:13:24))
01.01.2013 22:21:21z Connection open to FSX / FSUIPC 4.600a
01.01.2013 22:21:26z Starting leg, on-ground
01.01.2013 22:21:30z Take off from VNKT 0.8nm (N 27° 42.56' / E 85° 21.85')
01.01.2013 22:21:30z Aircraft=F7F-3S Unfinished Marines
01.01.2013 22:44:31z Warning: FS unavailable
01.01.2013 22:44:36z Warning: FS unavailable
01.01.2013 22:44:40z Warning: FS unavailable
01.01.2013 22:44:44z Warning: FS unavailable
01.01.2013 22:44:52z Warning: FS unavailable
01.01.2013 22:44:56z Warning: FS unavailable
01.01.2013 22:45:01z Warning: FS unavailable
01.01.2013 22:45:02z Warning: FS unavailable
01.01.2013 22:45:03z Duenna.EXE closed. // This is where I closed duenna because FS locked up.
01.01.2013 22:53:39z
01.01.2013 22:53:39z Duenna.EXE started (v.0.891 R131 (31/01/2010 03:13:24))
01.01.2013 22:53:40z Connection open to FSX / FSUIPC 4.600a
01.01.2013 22:53:42z Starting leg, on-ground
01.01.2013 22:53:46z Take off from VNKT 0.8nm (N 27° 42.56' / E 85° 21.85')
01.01.2013 22:53:46z Aircraft=P-38J-camo
02.01.2013 00:18:09z Finished leg, on-ground
02.01.2013 00:18:14z Duenna.EXE closed.

[robert41]

Hey Paul.
I had this happen during the Holkham flight last month.
For 6 minutes near the Wash/Canadian border.
Not sure what exactly happened.
My full FSX screen minimised to desktop.
I clicked the icon, FSX came back up, still in flight. Restarted the duenna and finished the flight.
Duenna glitch?

[PRB]

It may be a duenna glitch, but when it happens to me it also locks up FSX. Actually FS9 too, as I just tried a long flight with duenna in FS9, so I'm out of the racing business until I figure out what's causing it. I'll try reinstalling duenna first I guess.

- Paul

[Willy]

Are you running the radio/cd player? If you go to change CDs, it'll cause a FS unavailable to the duenna.

[PRB]

No, not running the CD player, but that does give me an idea... I just cleaned out my startup folder of several useless programs, and uninstalled a couple more. Then ran Spybot Search and Detroy, followed by CCleaner.

- Paul

[n3306tx]

Hey Paul.
I had this happen during the Holkham flight last month. For 6 minutes near the Wash/Canadian border. Not sure what exactly happened.

This is interesting. I've tried to fly the Holkham flight about 5 or 6 times now in FSX after about 3 hours and every time I got close to the Washington/Canada border my FSX crashed. I also had been having Duenna problems with data getting to the tracking site, which apparently re-setting the TCPIP stack seems to have solved. But I'm still experiencing the "FS Unavailable" problems in both FSX and FS9.

Now I'm trying to figure out what is causing FSX to crash around the US/Canada border. One crash happened near the Idaho/Washington border, but all the others happened around where you say you're crash happened.

I'm thinking the "FS Unavailable" message might possibly be due to FS having trouble or taking it's time trying to load some scenery file, which might be causing the sim to "pause" while it's trying to load up the scenery. And when the file can't load for some reason (corrupt, lack of resources, etc.), FSX times out, hangs, and/or crashes. When I get time to spend more hours troubleshooting, I'm going to disable all my add-on scenery, REX, and ORBX NA Pacific Northwest. I don't think I have a resource problem as I run Windows7, I7 processor, 16 GB RAM, latest system and graphics updates and run FSX from an internal SSD. I suppose could be a bad scenery texture file also, but how do you easily troubleshoot that to pinpoint the exact file causing the problem?

Was Duenna tracking online when the error occurred? Can you reproduce the error making the same exact flight, same plane, etc. and not tracking online? I've seen the same "FS Unavailable message" when Duenna was running and the sim was paused, or if I had other programs in focus or running in the background that caused resources to be taken away from FS which seemed to have caused a delay in loading scenery and textures, which in turned locked up the sim.

Interesting that several of us now seem to be having Duenna problems lately. I also wonder if some recent Windows or other software update is causing the problem. Like PRB, my sim is certainly not stable enough to race and if I can't figure it out, I likely won't be flying in the RTW this year.

One other thing...you'll probably also get the "FS Unavailable" message if Duenna is running but FS is not running. Duenna then will time out in 120 seconds. For example if you start Duenna before FS or shut down FS and leave Duenna running.

N3306TX

[PRB]

Some good info to think about, 3306. I used CCleaner to remove all but three programs from my startup folder. There were about seven Adobe things all wanting to start up! Update checkers, mostly. Since doing that I've flown several legs without experiencing the problem. Of course, it's hard to say if it's fixed, you never really know, since I had some good flights before the "fix". If I can get through a few long legs without problems, I'll start to be convinced...

- Paul

[srgalahad]

Now I'm trying to figure out what is causing FSX to crash around the US/Canada border. One crash happened near the Idaho/Washington border, but all the others happened around where you say you're crash happened.

I'm thinking the "FS Unavailable" message might possibly be due to FS having trouble or taking it's time trying to load some scenery file, which might be causing the sim to "pause" while it's trying to load up the scenery. And when the file can't load for some reason (corrupt, lack of resources, etc.), FSX times out, hangs, and/or crashes. When I get time to spend more hours troubleshooting, I'm going to disable all my add-on scenery, REX, and ORBX NA Pacific Northwest. I don't think I have a resource problem as I run Windows7, I7 processor, 16 GB RAM, latest system and graphics updates and run FSX from an internal SSD. I suppose could be a bad scenery texture file also, but how do you easily troubleshoot that to pinpoint the exact file causing the problem?

N3306TX

Once upon a time, back before all the additional scenery was available, several people noted similar crashes in the PNW. IIRC there was a faulty scenery file in the default setup but it might take a lot of digging to find old posts that discussed this or located the offender. I know I was caught by it, but so long ago that it got filed in the "I don't care" bin. It IS a likely culprit as I think it was encountered in a SOH practice ( or perhaps during the year we used Seattle as the start/finish) --BINGO! now I remember... I was testing for a leg from central WA to the SeaTac area that year when we had multiple 'entry routes' for the finish and ruled out that route because I got 2 or 3 consecutive crashes of the sim.

Yes, the above sequence could be the cause of some of the disconnects, as could anything else that causes FS to halt long enough to get a flag from Duenna ( and remember that Duenna polls/tests more frequently in the initial/final segments of a flight). As Seattle was one of the special areas enhanced by MS you might try disabling any PNW areas (including default) and then testing. If it's OK, add bits back in one-at-a-time until the fault reoccurs. Last addition holds the flaw. Real bugger if the bad file is in another part of the world that conflicts with the PNW tho'. I'd start with forum searches on the subject.

Scenery glitches can be a bear but they happen fairly frequently. A friend had one in FS9. I'd installed some scenery for him and he started getting sim dropouts. Took a while but we narrowed it down to two files.. found out that both dealt with a particular 5 mile area and thus conflicted. Removed one BGL and all was fine.

[robert41]

I'm thinking the "FS Unavailable" message might possibly be due to FS having trouble or taking it's time trying to load some scenery file, which might be causing the sim to "pause" while it's trying to load up the scenery.


I used CCleaner to remove all but three programs from my startup folder

Interesting possibilities.

[PRB]

For some reason I've been assuming that this problem is related to the duenna program, probably because it always happens when the duenna is running. But the duenna is running only when I'm on long flights... In any case, duenna is fine, I think. It's reporting "FS not available" for a very good reason: because it isn't available, because it crashed! But why it sometimes crashes after an hour or so may be hard to track down.

[Milton Shupe]

Paul,

Back on my old computer, I had an application that tracked and recorded FS I/O's. It was talked about a lot back in early FS9 days and was useful for seeing what it was doing and how it worked. Very interesting to see the files that FS was opening at startup, and then during flights.

Unfortunately, I do not have it now and I do not remember the name of the app. Hoping that someone here will remember it. With all the forum crashes at all the major site the last few years, it may no longer be available. I will see what I can find.

[PRB]

Something like that would be great. I'm doing some "Googling" while "otto" has the bridge in my flight to SCIP. Thanks Milton.

- Paul

[PRB]

Well, I completed a three hour flight just now, with no problems. In the FSX.exe properties dialog, I checdked the "run this program as administrator", and also set it to run compatible with Win XP SP3. Completing one flight is inconclusive, since the crashing problem does nbot occurr on every flight, and I have yet to discover a pattern.

I will try Milton's Process Tracker program on my next flight, but that won't be for another week, since I'm headed out of town for the next week. Going to a small airport in Delaware called Summit (KEVY). There's a bunch of Royal Canadian Air Force CH-147F Chinook helicopters there, and we're getting ready to teach the first batch of RCAF maintainers on thier new whopty-chopper. If you "Google-Earth" it you can see some of the big beasties parked on the ramp. They might be US Army Ch-47Fs though. The Canadian ones are a bit longer, and have other changes in the cockpit and software and such. Darned Canadians have to be different! :icon_lol:

- Paul

[PRB]

Back from my trip to KEVY via KPHL, to visit with the RCAF about what they call the MHLH (Medium Heavy Lift Helicopter). Fun bunch, those Canadian military types. Got to snoop around inside a US Army CH-47D (old steam gauge version), and a mock up of the RCAF CH-147F (MHLH). There was a Dutch CH-47 in the hangar too, which was interesting. We couldn't snoop around that one though. Apparantly they are somewhat "protective" of their "stuff"... Seems this Summit Aviation outfit does a lot of mod work for lots of organizations, Boeing, RCAF, Dutch AF, and others. Glad to be back home anyway.

Now to try Milton's process tracker program...

[Milton Shupe]

*BUMP* Did you ever determine the issue?

[PRB]

I just started working with Process Monitor this morning. Very interesting program. I'm trying to figure out how to make it show me FSX related events. Right now it seems to just show me "Explore.exe" events, which is basically windows itself.

One thing I did, as a result of "Googling" was to check the "run this program as administrator" and set compatibility to "Windows XP SP3" on the FSX.exe properties. After that I ran a three hour leg with duenna running, with no problems. This can't be considered conclusive, however, since the problem has always been intermittent.

Anyhow, still working this issue.

- Paul

[PRB]

Wow! Process Monitor is amazing. I've figured out how to make it show only FSX.EXE events, and to exclude all those that return "SUCESS". After all, if it's working I don't need to know about it. Still, the thing returns TONS of data. I can't wait for my "problem" to occurr while this thing is running! Here's a screen shot of it one second after I fired up FSX!I need to tweek the filters some more...

[PRB]

Just completed a Wildcat flight from Henderson Field to Rabaul. I wanted to make sure it would be a long flight! :icon_lol:

Process Monitor "saw" over six million events fire, about 10,000 of which I captured, between FSX and duenna. And each of those events can be examined in detail. Astonishing. Of course, the flight was completed without incident.

- Paul

[robert41]

That looks cool. Hopefully everything works out.