Crash to Desktop during long haul flights....again.

[stevehookem]

I don't know where to even start to find a solution to this. I am having more and more issues with FS9 crashing during a long haul flight. For example:

London to JFK: crash at about 20 miles from landing.
CYYZ to CDG: crash at about 5 miles out, runway in sight.
Seoul to Kai Tak: crash on approach, almost to ILS.
Dubai to Frankfurt: crash about 30 miles out.

It goes on and on. I trashed the cfg file and rebuilt it. No luck. Now I am unable to even start at some airports (CDG for example). FS9 will crash on the load screen. Keeping track I am now (for the most part) unable to use Frankfurt, JFK, CDG, Kai Tak, and Chicago KORD. And it seems like the list is growing everyday!

All of my airports are add-ons. But they come from different makers. I also use AES. I have Radar Contact, Track-IR, Ground Environment and FS2Crew running. I also have Ultimate Terrain and FS Global installed. It happens on most airplanes---I am usually flying the Level-D 767, Captain Sim 757 or PMDG 747 on these flights.

You can see my system specs in the sig. It's running very stable.

Where to begin? I have tried different areas, different planes, etc. Could this be something to do with NHancer or even weather loading?

Please help--about to give up on this.

[SeanTK]

Not sure but I'll throw out some possibilities:

-Virtual memory being used up and no subsequent warning message displayed. (Usually will tell you that there is not enough vm, but not always.)

-Duplicate AFCADs.

-Corrupted scenery.bgl

-AI traffic somehow corrupting the loading process.

-One of your environment/ambiance addons is corrupted.

[stevehookem]

OK, can you tell me what to do to fix or test each of those?
I don't think it's traffic related though. And the areas of scenery are all over the world.

How do I fix these?

[SeanTK]

For a possible AFCAD issue, use this:
http://www.nwlink.com/~erog/

Virtual memory issues just require virtual memory reallocation and OS process management. (Shutting down insignificant non-FS processes).

Try shutting off all of your AI traffic and flying into the problem airports after a short flight with your usual aircraft. (Just to be sure.)

Not sure how to address a scenery.bgl issue without starting from scratch, just tossed the idea to you since it could be the culprit.

For the most part, just try temporarily deactivating various addons and see if it still occurs. There really isn't a set of rules that say "adjust this to fix that".

[stevehookem]

I nver have figured out how to get VM right. I know this may be the issue. I don't think we have anything other than FS related stuff running. I do have the virus software Nick said to run, NOD32.

Is there an easy tool to run to shut down processes?

I read that having weather update every 15 minutes could cause a problem. I'm thinking about shutting off internet access while flying. I shouldn't have to do that however! Do you use updating weather on long haul flights?

[SeanTK]

I use updating weather as well and I doubt that would be the problem since if it fails to download, all the program does is pop up with a message saying it was unable to obtain it, then goes back to the sim.

[microlight]

The only time I've had CTD issues are:
- with badly-designed gauges. (Are you using a particular aircraft/panel all the time? If not, then it won't be this.)
- with texture files or bad bgls associated with downloaded sceneries - this might be closer to the problem. Try disabling a particular airport addon so you are working with the original M$ airport, and see if you still have a problem. If not, then there's an issue with that addon; probably either a .bgl file or a texture.

[stevehookem]

It's just happening at so many place now. How do you find the bgl that is corrupted? I don't see how that is possible!

The planes are all payware--Level-D, PMDG and Captain Sim. No freeware gauges at all.

[microlight]

First thing I'd do would be to work on confirming what the issue is. It may be nothing to do with airport sceneries, but with other addon area sceneries. Have you added new mesh or scenery areas around where the crashes are? I recently added the REX grass textures for FSX into FS9 and it was fine; tried to edit the roads textures and the sim crashed every time. Textures are some of the 'usual suspects'.

So one of the things you could do is to disable a problem airport back to default, see if you still have an issue there and then if not, reactivate it and then move the bgls and bmp files out one by one until the problem stops. So it may be worth focusing on one with the fewest bgl and bmp files. Tedious maybe, but it will help to narrow things down.

[stevehookem]

I have disabled all the airports in scenery manager except the two I am using. In this case last night, Amsterdam and O'Hare.

Flew from Amsterdam and was on final to O'Hare. Had the runway in sight at 1500' about 2 mile final. CRASH! Black screen and back to desktop.

I thought it would be smart to keep everything disabled now and only activate the two airports I need before a flight. That didn't work too well.

[wdavis]

I am not computer system-savvy.
I have a Thermaltake liquid-cooled system. By trial and error If I overclock my quad-core qx9650 to anything over 3.70 ghz, and over time FS9 or FSX will freeze or ctd. I attribute it to the cpu overheating over a long flight in spite of the cooling system.This happens while in FSXand FS9.
You may wish to expirement by overclocking to a lesser value to determine possibly oc is the cause of your ctd over a long flight. Your video card may also be overclocked too much.

[SubZer0]

Steve, have you tried setting all your overclocks back to default?

[stevehookem]

My temps just stay so cool. I can't imagine that this would be the issue. I haven't tried going back but I will. I will also put the VC back to factory.

One thing--the plane is just flying on autopilot, usually over water for these long haul flights. Is the processor really doing that much at that time? It just seems like such a coincidence that the crashes happen on final or close to final each time. With a heating issue, it would be more random I think. And each flight is a different distance and amount of time.

I don't think heat is the reason but I will try that. Any other thoughts?

[SeanTK]

That sounds like a memory issue to me. FS has been chugging away for hours loading and reusing resources, and then it has to suddenly load up a large amount of ground detail.

[stevehookem]

How do I fix a memory issue?