Need help sleuthing: sudden CTD on loading flight

[JBaymore]

Hi folks.  

So just when one thing is going great... (got a new short throw lens for my out the windscreen view projector for really cheap) another one goes down the drain.  ::)

Last night I was doing a 1 1/2 hour flight from KRNO to KSEA.  About 20 minutes out of KSEA the computer without warning crashed to the desktop.  Instantaneously.  No hang.  Clean "stop" of fs2004...... no need to reboot the machine or anything.  It is running fine.

So today I try to start up the sim again expecting all is well.  It gets to loading a flight after the create a flight screen, and at "loading terrain" at about 40% it does a similar "clean" CTD exit routine again.  I try a number of times, Same result.  So I try a different location and aircraft from the KBOS and BAe 146 default one I have set up.  Same result.

So for yuks I backup and delete my old tweaked up fs9.cfg file and restart the sim to let it generate a new one.  I set up the normal setting to match my old ones. I take the default one..... comes up with the Cessna at KSEA and it is OK.  I figured...OK ...that was easy.  I'll just have to re-tweak it back to where it was.

WRONG!!!!  So I try the default location at KBOS with the Cessna........ and boom CTD.  A few more crashed starts at KBOS tells me ......not solved.

I decide to experiment, and I go to RJAA in Japan..... and the sim starts fine with the BAe 146 aircraft there.  Good in Heathrow.  Good in Juarez.  Good in Toronto.  Hum.....looks like maybe the USA is problematic.

So I try KSFO....nope.  KBOS....nope.  Phoenix Sky Harbor.....nope.  KLAX....nope.  Just when I decide that it is crashing at any US airports... and think I may be on to narrowing down the problem....... it then works OK at O'Hare.  And then OK at Miami too.  Crap!

The common factor SO far is that the places it does NOT work are all in the USA.  But not ALL places in the USA don't work.  So far, any place outsie the USA has worked.  It always crashes with the message "loading terrain" and it is always at about the 35-45 percent complete mark.  It always crashes "clean".... meaning the main computer is fine.

I have not installed any software or addons between the time the machine was running fine and the in-flight crash last night.  So there are no new things that weren't there before the sudden crashing.

I am HOPING for a "traceable" and easy fix here.... not to have to reinstall the whole shebang.  I have fs2004 tricked out with a SCAD of payware...... it will litelrally take a full day of computer work to reinstall it all, I bet.  

The sim had been "stable" before this.  came out of the blue.

Appreciate any constructive thoughts you might have.

best,

.......................john

[Romflyer]

My immediate thought is 'do you have UT USA?'

[JBaymore]

Thanks for the reply.

Nope... I have FSGenesis mesh for the whole world....buffer and tighter meshes ..... which is one possiblity.

[JBaymore]

Eliminted FSgenesis World Buffer mesh........ FSGenesis NE mesh and FSgenesis USA landclass.  Still crashing.

No new updates availabe for GE II Pro so not some "core" problem there.

best,

..............john

[homebrewer]

Reading that, I am ever so happy that FS for me is just a way to waste a little time. For you, it's an avocation-- something into which you really sink your teeth. If my FS started doing that and a solution was not easily found, the sledgehammer would come out of the garage and teach this machine a thing or two. I have no patience for machines that do not do what I tell them....

[JBaymore]

Well... it appears that an airport scenery file that I had added about a week before the problems started..... and which was seeming to be working without ANY issues over multiple starts of the simulator and flights ....... suddenly was the problem.

I removed it as a "last ditch grabbing-at-straws effort"...... and it APPEARS that the problem has stopped.

Totally bizarre.

best,

....................john

[homebrewer]

So are you gonna put it back on and verify the solution?

[JBaymore]

Yeah I will.

Becasue of that is not the solution........ then it started and stopped all on its own.  Which is a scary thought.  :o

best,

...................john

[homebrewer]

[quote]
... then it started and stopped all on its own.