Fresh reinstall, another fatal error

[cavity]

I just finished a complete reinstall of the sim.  I deleted every last folder I could find on my D drive, and any folder associated with the sim on my C drive.  After reinstalling and flying for about 2 hours, the sim crashed and reported an ntdll.dll error.  I searched MS but didnt really understand what that file does.  Any one here have a clue?  Is that a general file that just happened to crash during the flight, or is that something related to the sim?  Thanks, Todd

PS.  Im watching my hair turn gray realizing it may be the computer and not the sim!

[JBaymore]

Todd,

Hum... "NT" is sort of related to Win XP.  Previous incarnation of the operating system.

All of the crap you've had...... seems to point in that direction.

Do a surface scan of your C: hard drive.  You might have some bad sectors in crucial areas.  Like where the OS is.

best,

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

[IVANOW]

It is a Windows System 32 file.  ( ntdll.dll)  It is called Application Extension. It is made by Microsoft.

[Nav]

I deleted every last folder I could find on my D drive, and any folder associated with the sim on my C drive.

It's quite frequent on here to hear people reporting problems after they've installed FS9 on drives other that the C drive. My guess (only a guess) is that the game is in fact designed to work best on the C drive (especially when it needs spare disk space to use as 'virtual memory') and that a lot of add-ons are designed on the assumption that the C drive is in use.

cavity, I'd suggest that you re-install on the C drive (making sure that the C drive has plenty of spare space) and see if that solves the problem.  

[expat]

It's quite frequent on here to hear people reporting problems after they've installed FS9 on drives other that the C drive. My guess (only a guess) is that the game is in fact designed to work best on the C drive (especially when it needs spare disk space to use as 'virtual memory') and that a lot of add-ons are designed on the assumption that the C drive is in use.

cavity, I'd suggest that you re-install on the C drive (making sure that the C drive has plenty of spare space) and see if that solves the problem.  

Hi cavity

I have my FS9 installed on my D drive. I have always installed games and flight sims on my second hard drive. That way I know where everything is. However, after a re-install of FS last month (I lost all gauges and no matter what I did etc) I still had the same problem. I had let FS install back into the original folder under the original name FS2004. The answer was an uninstall and then renaming the folder, mine, to Centry of Flight.  All worked as advertised now. However I stress that was the fix for my problem

Matt

[JBaymore]

I've been running fs2004 on the E: drive since it came out.  Before that I ran fs2002 on the E: drive.

The only problems that I have encountered that can be traced to that is some poorly designed third party autoinstaller stuff that just completely ASSUMES that the simulator is installed in the default directory that the program suggests.  For those...... I couldn't install them.

best,

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

[cavity]

I googled the ntdll and found that there is some vulnerability to some viruses.  This file is an extension of Windows 2000 and some other earlier versions of MS products.  A patch was produced in 2003, but only applies to SP1 on XP or earlier.  I believe SP2 included the patch. My C drive could hold the sim space wise, but having it on the D drive makes things alot easier to track.  The only problems that I have had with this computer have occurred while playing the sim, nothing at all while using a bunch of other programs.  What amazes me is that so many other companies can produces software that runs well on MS, but MS cant produce a program that runs well on it own system.  Not bashing MS, just seems that this sim in particular seems to have poor code.  Well, Ill keep posting and thanks again to all of you who offer so much help and knowledge on these subjects.  I would probably walk away in frustration if I didnt have all the help others have offered. Todd

[cavity]

After some more disk cleaning and such, I flew another flight.  Just after landing, another fatal error.  This one was with g2d.dll.  What was interesting is that after the install, the game remembered my settings in the hardware and weather section.  Did I leave something behind?  I removed everything from the D drive.  Unless it still uses files on the C drive, how did it remember my settings?  Todd

[cavity]

Can one of you go into your main drive and go into the windows folder and then the Prefetch folder.  How many FS prefetches do you have there?  Even though I uninstalled the update before uninstalling the sim, there were alot of fs9.1 prefetch files in there.  What are these and should I delete them?  Todd

[JBaymore]

Todd,

Aha... even if you removed all the FS2004 stuff from the D: drive... did you get rid of the fs9.cfg file that is hidden on the C: drive.... no matter WHERE you install the sim?

That is wghere a LOT of the custom settings you have are located.

best,

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

[JBaymore]

Todd,

Just went and checked that for you.......

In my folder...... only ONE directly related fs9.exe prefetch file.  Also a FSASCTL one...... one FSAUTOSTART one....one AIBRIDGE one.... and one FSHOSTSPY one.  That's all the obvious flight sim ones that I could find.

Hope that info helps... I know NOTHING about such files.  But I'll share the general thought.... "If in doubt, ..... don't".  ;)

best,

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

[cavity]

Hi John, I just removed the sim again.  I think I will burn all my FS files to disc and remove them from my computer.  I thought about doing a whole system reinstall but that is out of the question.  Seems like the g2 and g3 dll files errors are fairly common for the people with crashes, but no specific way to address them, as always depends on the system and cards and such.  I am going to clean out everything that I can and then try again.  Ill let you know.  Todd

[cavity]

Here is the latest.  I reinstalled yet again.  Updated to the new version, which my exe now says 9.1 for the first time ever.  Flew for a few hours, everything was fine. Then out of the blue, crash to desktop, no errors what so ever.  Tried again today with the same results, no error messages, just straight to the desktop.  So, how do you fix something when you cant even tell what is causing it?  Todd

[Katahu]

Delete the fs9.cfg file and restart the sim. FS will create a fresh new one and things might come back to normal [you might have to readjust your display settings in FS9 after doing this].

[JBaymore]

Todd,

Just got back from teaching today at the college.... kinda' tired now.  Whew......

If you are comfortable with this..........

Open the case.  Discharge any static and ground yourself.  One by one remove every card installed on the mobo and then SOLIDLY reseat it into the sockets that hold them.

Fire it up and try again.

Also... get a computer diagnostic program that tests your hardware and OS.  I know that they are on the web as freeware.....just can't remember where.  Do a whole system scan.

I am guessing it is NOT the sim itself... it is the sim heating up something or taxing a component operationally.  Maybe a bad RAM chip.... a bad sector in a critical area of the hard dish the OS is on, a single component "going south" on a card somewhere..... something like that.

Do you do any other processor / graphics intensive programs for long times?  Do THEY crash?


best,

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