Simviation Forums

Last night I was going to put in a little carrier landing practice but my FSX would only go to the first initial screen then stop responding. I tried doing a restart and even a complete shut down but it still gets stuck at the initial screen. I though I had seen where someone else had posted a problem like this but I could not find the post. Does anyone have any suggestions short of reinstalling FSX.

Might be a problem with your logbook ?
Try editing the logbook with the tool nammed "logbook editor" (google knows), remove the last entry, see if FSX starts normally.

EDIT: you can reach the freeflight menu ? Then I'm not sure it's not the logbook. Have you tried renamming your FSX.cfg to force FSX generate a new one ?

Thanks for your reply.
I believe you are right, it does have something to do with my logbook. I already had logbookedit.jar installed on my computer so I tried getting into my logbook but the editor would not load it up. I found the logbook.bin file and it does have data in it. And it was last updated on the 23rd of Apr when I last flew. When I try to shut down the editor it will not shut down. I have to use CTRL-ALT-DEL to get it to go away. Then I get a message about Java "Java platform SE Binary is not responding". If I go to where my logbook is, right click on it then open with and choose Logbookedit.jar I get a message saying that Logbook.bin is Not a valid win32 application.
What do you think about that.

What happens if you launch the logbook editor EXE file with the right-click -> "run as an administrator" ?

I don't get an option "run as administrator" when I right click. What if I create a new config file, will it be just like the one I am renaming, or will I loose a bunch of settings?
The logbook editor I am using is a jar file. Also I am not getting as far as the menu screen. It gets stuck on the very first screen where it says Flight Simulator X. A lot of people may have this turned off so it does not show on startup.

For the logbookeditor (.jar) file....

Do you have the Java Virtual Machine installed on your computer? It's required as mentioned in the README.txt.

I went ahead and renamed my FSX.cfg file. It looked like it was going to go because it asked for a few confermations about running some addons, but when it finished asking for the confirmations it was stuck again. I am going to go and retreive my old .cfg file.
I don't want to do a re-install. Maybe there is something wrong with the logbook editor?
Help!

Do you have the Java Virtual Machine installed on your computer? It's required as mentioned in the README.txt.

The logbook editor was working before these startup problems started yesterday. Previously (not any more) I was having a lot of problems with FSX freezing up while in flight. I seem to have that fixed now. But I was using the editor to enter flights that I got cheated out of when my flights would lock up. But, still something could have gone wrong with it just recently.

Seems like your logbook.bin got corrupted, and when that happens FSX wont start. Other than doing a reinstall, move your logbook.bin to a different folder, fire up the sim, it will write a new one. If that works you can try putting back your orginial logbook.bin  and try to start the sim again.
I hate to tell you, that most likely, you will have to start with a new logbook.bin, which means you'll lose all your hours. It's one of the most annoying glitches with FSX, so i always back up my logbook.bin after every flight so when it gets corrupt (which it eventualy will) I'll be able to load my last log and only lose that one flight.

Thanks, I will try starting a new logbook. I have lost two logbooks over the years. It is a bad problem. I will let you know what happens.

OK Thanks, moving the logbook.bin to another directory got things running. Now I need to find out if there is any way I can get the old logbook data into this new logbook.
Anyone know how to get this done?

Here is an update. I did have a backup of my logbook from just 2 days ago, so I copied it into the right folder over writing the neww one and FSX started up. I only lost 2 flights. (short one)

Excellent news.
The logbook problem is indeed one of the most common causes of FSX not willing to start. Usually, editing the logbook to delete the last recorded flight is enough to repair it. My version of Logbook editor has an .exe file inside, strange.... anyways, you had a backup copy of your logbook so it's cool

It is good that my sim is working again and that I only lost two short flights, BUT if I try to load the logbook.bin into the logbook editor I get this message
"Cannot Open Logbook (null)" I reinstalled the logbook editor and also Java and I still get this message. FSX is running as it should so the logbook must be good.
Anyone got any ideas about this?