NO B.S. - If you want to keep flying P3D, read this.

[OldAirmail]

It's hoped that the Lockheed Martin Prepar3d team will find a solution to this problem.

Until they do, this is my solution to the problem of Prepar3d crashing at startup.

It may not be the best way to handle the problem, but it does work.

The actual procedure is VERY short and to the point.

Now that I know what to do, it shouldn't take more than a minute or two.
============================================================

I have to admit that Prepar3d is driving me to learn a lot of things.

Including some things that I would be ***VERY*** happy NOT to learn.

Yes more crashes. And when I can determine the cause of this latest one I'll let you know.
.

This, however will be a seat of the pants rescue lesson.


So, Prepar3d V2.1.9 started off extremely well. Not only did it have less problems, It was actually smother AND faster!

Feeling good about it, I start loading in drivers, making mods, installing scenery etc. And everything is great. It works like a dream.

And then it crashed while loading today.
And then it crashed while loading.
And then it crashed while loading.
And then it crashed while loading.

No go.


So I check the usual suspects that have made the V2.0 version crash.

OK. I've been making a lot of changes. Time to uninstall the last one or two that were installed before this started.

And then it crashed while loading.
And then it crashed while loading.
And then it crashed while loading.

No go.


Run the "install" to do a repair.

And then it crashed while loading.
And then it crashed while loading.
And then it crashed while loading.

No go.


Check the event manager. That wasn't very helpful (for my particular problems) with V2.0, but.....

Interesting.

"Faulting application path: E:\Program Files (x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2\Prepar3D.exe"
"Faulting module path: E:\Program Files (x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2\VistaMare\bin\VMCX_AP.dll"

Another way to look at it;



I don't know a thing about Vistamare other than it has Vista in it, and that's not a word that I like.


Luckily I pulled up this post from Aerosoft about Vistamare.

"We most certainly feel the need, but if the developer does not want to do it there is not a lot we can do. That 'single' dll is really a very very complex bit of code that needs a huge amount of knowledge of the inner workings of FSX. As far as we know there are only three people on this globe who could do write something like that without two years of investigation."

I still don't know what "Vistamare" is, but I come away with the feeling that whatever it is, it needs fixing. And that it isn't going to happen.



I start searching Prepar3d for files containing "Vistamare".

FOUND IT!

It's in an XML file. And as you may know by now, I'm quite willing to dig into XML and make it do what little I want from it.

There are two ways to get to the file that it's in.

Computer - yourusername - AppData - Lockheed Martin - Prepar3d V2
or
double click on Computer and paste this at the top - %APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v2




The file that needs modification is DLL.XML


****************************************************************************************************************
If you think that what I'm about to show you is beyond your abilities STOP. Have someone who is knowledgeable do it for you.

THERE IS NO WAY THAT I CAN GUARENTEE THAT YOU WILL NOT MAKE A MISTAKE.

SO BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING MAKE AT LEAST TWO BACKUPS OF DLL.XML. Preferably in two different locations.
****************************************************************************************************************


You need to RIGHT click on the file and chose Edit. If you've never worked on an XML file you may have to choose "Open with", and select notepad.

The file will probably look like this;



If you double click on DLL.XML you'll see something like this. I put a red box around the offending area.



According to my backups, this entry appeared today at 3:14PM. And from that point on I could no longer start Prepar3d V2.1.9.



The program ran perfectly until that point. And the program runs perfectly after removing the area enclosed in red.


I would suggest using notepad to space the lines in DLL.XML like this, before making any changes.

(And be sure to cross check it against the double clicked version of YOUR DLL.XML file.)
.

Remove the boxed area and save your changes.

Run Prepar3d.

Good luck.

[Jetranger]

OMG - I can only imagine how many hours spent trying to fix that silly ass problem !

I'm glad I don't have any of all this Add On' Stuff that I see so many people writing in to the Flight Sim boards about with Problem questions , about this or that, why this doesn't work, or that,,, etc. etc.

My lord, when does anybody actually find time to "FLY", if their so busy Fixing something that , really shouldn't be an issue in the 1st place !!!

I guess I don't get it, I'd rather spend my time "FLYING" , than having to "Tinker, Fix" someone elses "Payware" program that claimed it was "Supposed" to work with Flight Simulator this or Flight Simulator that, with Operating System A or B or maybe even C,,,,,,,,,

Geeeee ~ ~ ~ Wally, I got this sim to "FLY" , and well I'm Not getting much Flyin' in for all the time I'm having to spend to Fix, what I just bought that was supposed to work as they claimed, when the product 1st came out - -

said the Beaver to his brother Wally !

Wallys response to the Beaver :

Yaa gee, Beaver, imagine if that was someones New Car they just paid $30,000 to $40,000 for and drove it out of the dealership and then had to immediately put New Brakes on it, at home in their Driveway, on their own

Beaver says : yaa or a new Dishwasher , and already having to put a New Part on it , spends more time Fixin' it, than it does doin Dishes, MOM can actually do the Dishes Faster than the Dishwasher, cause its down all the time !!!

I Dunno' personally I kept away from all that stuff

Rex
Active Sky
Prepar 3D thingy whatch ya ma call it
Open Clouds
Rex Turbo Charged
X Weather Generator , whatever


and ya know what , I haven't had a CTD / Crash to Desk Top - or any major problems with my FSX Gold / Accelaertaion Sim in 3 years.

I have a few programs installed from Orbx Scenery wize and a whole bunch of Aircraft and add on sceneries and Traffic X,,,

reading all this stuff on these Flight Sim forums about all these Problems with these products, that's came out, that's supposed to be for the Simulator to supposedly Enhance whatever

Lord, not only do ya have to install it , but ya also have to FIX and Re-program the the thing too, on YOUR TIME and at your Expense ???????

Geeee, I'd rather spend my time FLYING in my Sim, Thank You !

after All that is WHY - I got the damn thing was to Fly !

I'm really not interested in playing Computer Programmer or being a Computer Code Specialist - no - that was their job, where the product came from that some of us Purchased

[OldAirmail]

I found the offending software. It's MadeiraX from Aerosoft.

To be sure, I removed a folder called Vistamare from the Prepar3d folder. I then used the Prepar3d install program to "rebuild" Prepar3d.

The Vistamare folder had not been reinstalled.


I then re-installed MadeiraX and checked the Prepar3d folder.

Ye'up. There it was, Vistamare.

And Prepar3d crashed again.


The crash itself is easy to fix: Remove the Vistamare section from the DLL.XML.



And while you're at it, delete the Vistamare from the Prepar3d folder.


Over at the LM Prepar3d site I got chewed out for installing legacy scenery/programs.

Obviously they can cause problems, and in the strictest terms you shouldn't do it.

From an IT standpoint, you don't want ANYTHING on/in your system that isn't approved.

But with the exception of computers being used in a classified project, that's not the real world.


So I'll continue to do things "my way" and let you know how I fixed the problems that I caused.


PS - BTW, MadeiraX DID work under V2.0

[Fozzer]

I get up in the morning*,
go downstairs,
switch the computer on,
load up FSX (or FS 2004),
select a plane,
a location,
the time and date,
the weather,
wait for it all to happen,
then go flying around until bed-time.

..with an occasional meal and visit to the small room in between times...

Problem-free, with no fiddling about.... ...!

No stress, no headaches...just lots of fun and lots of flyin'...

Paul.... ...!

* http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83Y2hv-3UCM

[Jetranger]

Airmail how'd ya ever find out that was the problem and then how long did it take you to find the location of all that problem stuff

whew, sounds awful tideous to try to find.

[OldAirmail]

I get up in the morning*,
go downstairs,
switch the computer on,
load up FSX (or FS 2004),
select a plane,
a location,
the time and date,
the weather, find a warm place to fly,
wait for it all to happen,
then go flying around until bed-time.

....

[OldAirmail]

Airmail how'd ya ever find out that was the problem and then how long did it take you to find the location of all that problem stuff

whew, sounds awful tideous to try to find.

Actually, I think that I'm getting good at this.

It's called "the bleeding edge".

I've even gotten to the point where I no longer break down and cry.


I have to get good at it, because this whole thing is like beta testing.

If you go to the Prepar3d support site you'll get answers only for the simplest of problems.

But then again, it's kind of like someone new to FSX asking for help and saying "HELP! FSX stopped working! What should I do to fix it?"


It kinda reminds me of when I tried writing software. I'd tell people "If you do only what I tell you to do, it'll work."



Truth be told, LM probably has the smallest number of people on the project that they can.

We have to remember that this is really R&D. The end user will probably be the military.


Think back to when they went in and got Osama bin Laden.

3D computer training can be a very useful thing when planning something like that. Each team member can go through his particular movement, well before they go in.

A supervisor can make corrections by watching everyone go through the motions on-screen.


And wouldn't the Japanese have liked to have trained their pilots, using this stuff, for the Pearl Harbor attack?


So this is R&D. And if you use it within the LM limits, you should be fine.



Most of the time that I wasted was done in trying the old solutions.

And with computers being computers, just because you make a correction, doesn't mean that it'll work. Sometimes you have to restart the computer to clear out old data, and re-initialize the program.



The big lead was in that post from Aerosoft about Vistamare, small as it may be.

That got me to thinking "Where, or what, is calling for Vistamare?"

And before getting familiar with XML (not that I really know what the heck I'm doing with it) I wouldn't have known where to look.



If anyone come away with anything, it should be that you may have it in your power to fix Prepar3d if it stops working. This was the same kind of problem we had with .INI files.


And if you think that this is bad, just wait until Prepar3d V3. That'll probably be a real 64bit program.

[Steve M]

Don't be discouraged from posting OAM. It will be of value to someone. Possibly even myself when I do my next pc upgrade. I don't have the horsepower to run Pr3pared yet..

[OldAirmail]

Oh, I'm gona keep on keeping on, as long as I can.

Look at it this way, Fixing Prepar3d every other day is more fun that building a faster than light drive, creating world peace, or tracking down the Fn tooth fairy who owes me a bunch of dimes

[Speed of flight]

When I load up FSX and click on the menu bar, I see that in the addon tab, I also have Vistamare something-or-other. It's associated with another addon. I can't tell you what it does, or to whom it belongs, but I've never had a problem with it, or that I know of.

I'm going to load 'er up and see what I can learn.

Did you recently install new scenery or an airplane?

[OldAirmail]

I've seen it in FSX before. Not knowing what it was, I didn't like it.

But as you say, it didn't seem to cause any problems.


I've started moving stuff over to Prepar3d. The one that caused the problem is MadeiraX from Aerosoft.

When I installed it, it inserted Vistamare and P3d died on startup.


Removing that section from DLL.XML fixed it. More or less.

The island of MadeiraX is ok, but the airport's a nightmare.

Whatever LM did to change P3d from V2.0 to V2.1.9 caused the problem.

And it really isn't a big problem. Things move forward, old things get left behind. That's life.

But that's the reason I'll keep FSX around. Like I said, not a big problem.

[Hestntonpms]

I have been paying close attention to P3d, I am dying to try it but I am kind of holding out until all of the bugs are worked out as by what I see many people seem to have issues and then again many do not, or seem to understand it, I am not into the learning curve, I am the kind of person that just wants to install the disk and fly, I don't want to move things around and try to get them to work, screw something up and then try to figure out what I did wrong .

That said, the program looks awesome so what do I have to buy to check it out, I mean I see all kinds of prices and I don't know what the minimum is.
I don;t think I want to spend 2 or 3 grand on a program I may or may not be able to figure out

I am not computer illiterate but also not good at maniupulating files and figuring out what I have to add to make things tick, if it were a physical moving part I could easily

[OldAirmail]

....
....
I am not computer illiterate but also not good at maniupulating files and figuring out what I have to add to make things tick, if it were a physical moving part I could easily

That pretty much eliminates the various professional/developer license.

So that leaves the Prepar3d V2.x Academic License, at $60.

And don't even consider the $20 per month Developer License.


Prepar3d makes it VERY clear that P3d is not to be used for entertainment.

The Prepar3d EULA (End User License Agreement) license insists on using P3d for training/education.

Although, elsewhere, it gives clear cut examples of that it considers training/educational uses, the EULA itself does not define or limit those educational choices.



I had hoped to get back into a cockpit this summer. Or I should say that I WAS intending to before we were shutdown, and everyone laid off.

So my education, at the moment, is informal and unstructured.

You must decide if your use can be considered educational, or entertainment.

And IF you'll be learning through the use of Prepar3d, then by all means buy the program.

[Hestntonpms]

I think they just say that because it has many bugs and do not to want to be held liable for a screwed up program, so it must be worded as such and relying on others to figure out how to fix it .

One look on youtube shows many people using it for :entertainment" purposes.
The way I see it , what the hell do they care what anyone is using it for as long as they're getting their money and not downloading it as a cracked file through a place like Expressfiles or some other site like that . . .

Of course I want it for entertainment purposes, I can not lie

[Hestntonpms]

I had a choice to make because I can not afford both, either myself or my son to take the flying lessons, I decided I could still benefit from my son getting his pilot license
Plus he's got a lot more opportunity than I do to do more with it, If I had unlimited funds it would be great for both of us sadly that is not the case here