Pan Pan Pan - FSX stops responding, will not run

[Xyn_Air]

So, the past few weeks I have installed several add-on aircraft. After each new aircraft, I exit FSX, restart, and check to make sure everything works.

So far, so good.

Then, I wanted to edit the airlines.cfg file so that ATC would recognize more airlines outside of the default using the same process above (ediut, restart, check, exit).

Somewhere along the line, FSX stopping loading up. It just would hand forever on the startup image and stop responding requiring a force close to exit.

So, I replaced the airline.cfg file with a copy of the original, restarted my computer, and no luck.

So, then I uninstalled FSX and all add-ons that had a separate install/uninstall, and did a full reinstall from DVD (FSX Deluxe Edition) followed by installing SP1 and SP2. Still no luck.

So, then I did a repair install from DVD without uninstalling first. Still no luck, and I am noticing I am getting the same error all the way through:

SCENERY.CFG file error. Local scenery directory (Addon Scenery\SCENERY) in scenery Area.115 not found. Click OK to continue.

Well then... I cannot even locate this file directory period. A quick search around the Internet, and reading through several trouble-shooting forums later, I find you can remove this error by adding the file "Addon scenery" to the FSX root directory, and then in that folder adding two more folders, "scenery" and "texture".

So, I did that, and the first error went away. But, now when I try to run FSX I just get a fatal error and Windows closes FSX. It simply will no longer run.

I am approaching panic mode...

[Xyn_Air]

Well, did a more thorough uninstall (apparently things were still on the registry from before) and another complete reinstall.

FSX is working again, and that is a relief. Though, now it seems to be running much more slowly that it was before all this happened. Sigh.

I will just have to keep an eye on it and see how things continue to function.

Maybe time to just give in and buy FSX:SE... it is on sale, after all.

[pete]

Hi and welcome.

There is no reason why any addons from simviation should not work in FSX.

Can you please be specific about what version of FSX you are using (& assuming it is a boxed version?) and what exact files you are trying to install?

[Xyn_Air]

Hi and welcome.

It'sa a -me! Mario! I mean, Xyn. Been awhile, yes?

There is no reason why any addons from simviation should not work in FSX.

Oh, I am not sure it is necessarily an add-on that crashed FSX. Seriously, the last thing I did before it stopped working was pin FSX to Start (those box-like little panels that are on the right hand side of the Start menu in Win10). No joke. That said, right before that I had edited my airlines.cfg file. Now, I had edited the airlines.cfg file before without any problem. Buuut, a recent add-on has one of the aircraft with the airline ID as "Northwest", and I had just also added that to the airlines.cfg file. Could they be arguing with each other into mutual exclusion of resources causing the program to stall? Maybe. Maybe not. At this point, it is a guessing game what went wrong, because it sort of died without warning, and with no major changes between running and not running.

The last add-on I added was a bundle for the A320 - the Project Airbus Mega Package (PA320.zip. And, hey, when FSX is running, it is a nice looking package.

Can you please be specific about what version of FSX you are using (& assuming it is a boxed version?) and what exact files you are trying to install?

FSX: Deluxe Edition (yep, out of the box), with, of course, SP 1 and 2 patched in from downloads. Since I could not get FSX to run at all, and since replacing the last edited file with a copy of the original was not helping, I decided to do a full re-install. The first two times did not fix the issue (see above), but spawned new ones.

Some digging around, and there were still FSX files from 2012 bopping around in the registry. Once I got those out of the system, I did a third re-install from scratch and got FSX working again.

That said, it seems significantly slower to load than before. Also, it doesn't show up in the Start menu at all (talking about the drop-down menu, not those stupid tiles), though this is not much of an issue since I can easily start from a shortcut pasted onto the desktop.

[garymbuska]

If you want any program in Windows 10 to be in the start up menu you have to pin it there.
One thing most people forget when uninstalling FSX is they forget about the FSX.cfg file This file is not removed as part of the uninstall
in Windows 10 it is found in C:/USERS/your name/APP DATA/ROAMING/MICROSOFT/FSX or FSXSE I think i got this correct

[Xyn_Air]

If you want any program in Windows 10 to be in the start up menu you have to pin it there.
One thing most people forget when uninstalling FSX is they forget about the FSX.cfg file This file is not removed as part of the uninstall
in Windows 10 it is found in C:/USERS/your name/APP DATA/ROAMING/MICROSOFT/FSX or FSXSE I think i got this correct

Yeah, it seems when I did the uninstall... well, it did it in 'layers'. That is, it took off SP2 first. Then SP1. Then, finally after much hair pulling and hand wringing, I finally got the original fsx.exe and .cfg (from 2012!) uninstalled and cleaned up and off the drive. Ugh! Really had me going for about half the day.

After install, the first couple of times I ran FSX, it seemed so sloooooow compared to before. But, each time I have run it since, it seems more and more like its old self. Does it build up some sort of common use files, like scenery, that take a few times to populate?

[garymbuska]

Not sure if that is how I would word it but more or less that is what it does.
One of the bad things about uninstalling and reinstalling is you have to go through all of the trusted software again. The other thing is the building of the FSX Scenery cfg file.
when FSX first starts up one of the things it will do is to kind of pre load scenery so to speak. i think the term is cache but not sure. That was one of the differences between FS9 and FSX which is why it loads up a little quicker than FS9. Now it still takes it a little time to actually display the scenery but it is a little quicker than what fs9 is.