Failed to Read from File (CTD)

[Guest mattr228]

Has anyone ever had a "Failed to read from file" error pop up on their screen while playing FSX?For me, it usually occurs right before landing or when using the instant replay feature. A windows error window will pop up with the following message : Failed to Read from File; with only a "OK" button. -If you close out or hit "OK" on the window it will exit out of FSX and remove the icon from the toolbar. However it is still running in the 'Windows Task Manager". -Also if you choose to ignore the Error message and continue on, it seems it will not load any scenery and will just have green line & boxes where the scenery should have loaded. I have also uninstalled and reinstalled FSX - but did not take care of the problemThis has also happened before SP1 & after the installation of SP1Can anyone shed some light on the problem? Sorry for the long post, hopefully this can help narrow down to where the problem is. And can help anyone else having this problem. -----A little information about the system I am running:Microsoft Windows XPMedia Center EditionVersion 2002Service Pack 2Intel Core 2 CPU6400 @ 2.13GHz1.00 GB of RAM256MB ATI Radeon X1300PRO----______________as for the settings on FSX (worth mentioning)[GRAPHICS]Texture Resolution - Very HighAnisotropicAnti-Aliasing[sCENERY]Level of Detail Radius - LargeMesh Complexity - 95Mesh Resolution - 38mTexture Resolution - 5mWater Effects - High 1.xScenery Complexity - Extremely Dense[WEAHTER]Cloud Draw Distance - 60miDetailed CloudsCloud Coverage - Maximum[TRAFFIC]Airline traffic density - 100%Airport Vehicle Density - Low____________________Thanks !

[Guest firehawk44]

I've never heard of this error msg within FSX before and a Google search of "Failed to read from file" did not disclose many others receiving this error msg. It usually appears when a DVD program, like NERO, is having difficulty reading a file while copying. You may have received malware and you might run a malware program such as Windows Defender to be sure. Also suggest checking your Application Events folder for any error messages that occurred when you had your CTD (if you're not familiar with this program, goto your Start Menu and open help and support and search for Events or Application Events). You can then check on Microsoft through the Events program for a possible solution. If none is found, you might do some research on Google or another search program of your choice.Best regards,Jim

[Guest mattr228]

>I've never heard of this error msg within FSX before and a>Google search of "Failed to read from file" did not disclose>many others receiving this error msg. It usually appears when>a DVD program, like NERO, is having difficulty reading a file>while copying. You may have received malware and you might>run a malware program such as Windows Defender to be sure. >Also suggest checking your Application Events folder for any>error messages that occurred when you had your CTD (if you're>not familiar with this program, goto your Start Menu and open>help and support and search for Events or Application Events).>You can then check on Microsoft through the Events program for>a possible solution. If none is found, you might do some>research on Google or another search program of your choice.>>Best regards,>JimThanks for the reply Jim,-I tried to do a search before I had the post, and did not find anyone having a similar problem. -I try and keep a clean computer, Daily virus & spyware scans, as well as system cleanup. Unless my programs (PC-Cillin & Ad-aware) are not picking it up. But nothing suspicious is running in the task manager. -As far a CD/DVD burning program goes, ROXIO & CINEPLAYER is the only two programs that I have installed to manage the drive. Neither are loaded upon startup (least to my knowledge). -This has been an issue for some time now, 4+ months since I got FSX, but now is becoming more frequent and annoying to say the least. -The last instance of it happening the sound was cutting in and out then hit me with the message. Thanks for your help, Matt

[Guest firehawk44]

Matt,I figured you kept a clean system. Most people do (or try) but you still have to mention possibilities. I reread your original post and you have most of your sliders moved to the right. I do not know how you're getting away with that without an out of memory (OOM) error and/or CTD. Perhaps this is actually what's happening to your FSX. FSX is beginning to crash due to insufficient memory and the scenery is having problems loading. I have read other simmers receive OOM errors approximately 10-30 minutes after loading a flight. I have found the two sliders worth watching are the Level of Detail Radius and Autogen. You did not mention your Autogen level but I would recommend "Normal" or below for your system. The Level of Detail Radius causes OOM's for me if I have this setting at "High". At Medium, the OOM's go away and there really isn't any noticable difference in texture resolutions. I fly longer and smoother too. You also have your Airline traffic set to 100% and I didn't know anyone had a computer today that would allow this setting to be set at 100%. So I now suspect your FSX settings are causing your strange error msg and subsequent CTD. Try lowering the Level of Detail to Medium first and see if that fixes the problem. Then start lowering your other high settings until the problem goes away. I hope this helps and you can get this resolved soon.Jim

[Guest mattr228]

Hi Jim, I was also thinking about the running out of memory option, although i didn't think much into it because the oddity of the error message. My frame rates usually range from 15-18fps in 3D cockpit and 25-30fps (30 max FPS). Im not one of those FPS junkies with 60-80+FPS, I'm not sure if at that high theres any difference. Although I should mention i am not running at full screen resolution. This seemed to help my FPS a considerable amount. I'm running a 20" wide-screen monitor so i don't mind running outside of full screen.Here is a more detailed list of my settings, i was only listing those sliders that the settings were on the high side. -Perhaps I'm sacrificing in one area for another? -----------------------GRAPHICS__________256MB ATI RAdeon X1300PRO.0Target Frame rate: 29Full Screen Resolution 1024x768x32Global Texture Resolution: Very HighAdvanced Animations - checked Lens Flare & Light bloom - uncheckedInformation text - Single LineAIRCRAFT_________Default #### Pit View - 3DTool Tips - UncheckedHigh-resolution 3-D virtual cockpit - checked3-D Panel transparency % - 0Aircraft Casts Shadows on the ground - uncheckedAircraft casts shadows on itself - uncheckedAircraft landing-lights illuminate ground - CheckedSCENERY__________Level of detail radius: LargeMesh Complexity: 95Mesh Resolution: 38mTexture resolution: 5mWater effects: High 1.xLand Detail Textures - checkedScenery complexity: Extremely DenseAutogen density: NoneGround Scenery Shadows: uncheckedSpecial effects detail: LowWEATHER__________Cloud draw distance: 60mi / 96kmThermal Visualization : NoneDownload winds aloft data with real-world weather - checkedDisable turbulence and thermal effects on aircraft - uncheckedRate at which weather changes over time - No change Detailed Clouds set @ MaximumAirline traffic density % : 100Gernal Aviation % : 0Airport Vehicle density: LowRoad vehicles %: 0Ships & Ferries %: 0Leisure boats % : 0---------------------------------Before SP1 i couldn't run any traffic at all unless i wanted 4-8fps, however after SP1 i could run a greater percentage. -Now I actually have to wait to take off :(this is also with HiFi Sim's X-graphics . Any ideas? Your help is greatly appreciated!-Matt

[Guest firehawk44]

Hi Matt,Your settings look good to me except the Level of Detail radius, which I think should be set to Medium, and the Airline density setting. I think the Large Radius setting is for the future generations of computer systems. I have also read somewhere (can't recall where but probably on his blog) that Phil Taylor stated (or someone from the Aces Team) the Airline traffic density should stay low for current systems. 100% is for future gaming systems and it was done on purpose by MS. If you continue to receive crashes, this is definitely one setting I would lower below 30%. If you have a commercial airport traffic program like I do (currently not installed), you'll receive more than adequate traffic at 30%. As I stated before, my OOM crashes stopped when I changed just this one setting from Large to Medium. OOM's and CTD's can occur even when your FPS are high. My OOM's happened when I had 50 plus FPS (my frame rate is set to Unlimited) and things were going great and suddenly the panel would begin to blur, the land textures would blur, and FSX would freeze, sometimes with the last scene still showing, and sometimes with a blank screen with just the sound running in the background. I did an Alt/Tab or Ctlt/Alt/Delete to get back to the desktop and I would see the OOM message telling me to lower my FSX graphic settings. I have an extremely powerful system (the Dell XPS710H2C) and I found it frustrating seeing the OOM errors with 4GB of memory. Besides lowering my Level of Detail radius setting, I also found a thread on the FSX Forum here about a possible solution to the out of memory crashes. It required downloading some software and then doing a small modification of the FSX.exe to let it know I had more than 2GB of memory. The modification worked but I started to receive another error msg stating my display drivers had stopped responding and the application had to be shut down. I discovered this was a problem NVIDIA and Microsoft were having with the NVIDIA 8800GTX graphics cards. It has subsequently been fixed with the latest NVIDIA drivers (158.24). Now I am no longer suffering any crashes. I don't know if this happens with the ATI cards too. As you, I also installed the outstanding software from HiFi and my FSX seems to be running much better. All land textures are very clear and the FPS are running between 30 and 120 FPS with all sliders under Scenery maxed out except for the Level of Detail setting. My Autogen is set at Normal. I have also turned off airline traffic and vehicle traffic but will probably return to the default settings for those sliders soon. I'm just enjoying the flights now, especially with the new X-Graphics and Active Sky X.I might add that I have not tried to tweak FSX by tweaking the FSX.cfg. I think you have to be very careful doing that as a bad setting will just make matters worse. The Aces team tested FSX and SP1 on a multitude of computer systems with various configurations and, based on their assessments, they set up a default FSX.cfg based on your current system. Moving the sliders higher than they recommended is asking for potential trouble and dissatisfaction with the product.Unfortunately, every system is different with different software and programs running in the background that could interfere with FSX. Sometimes, there are problems with a bad install of the video card drivers or another system driver and that messes FSX up. I've heard of people having crashes simply because they forgot to defrag their harddrive after installing FSX/SP1. So it's really hard to give you really good advice on your settings. I guess if it's working okay, don't mess with it but I still think the CTD and error msg you are receiving is due to your high airline density and level of detail settings. Yes, I know others are also running those two settings at the maximum levels too w/o problems but I think it's very rare.I appreciate the opportunity to provide you with some thoughts and ideas. I apologize in advance for the long dessertation. My mind is constantly running which is a good thing I guess....Best regards,Jim

[Gridley 257]

Just got this message for the first time after updating my nVidia drivers - any chance you've done the same?

[Guest mattr228]

im using the same ATI drivers dell put on my system when i got it ...... i tried updating the drivers although i just got numerous .dll errors that caused it to reboot i just got the same error a few minutes ago , so heres a little more information on the problem heres the error signature:AppName: fsx.exeAppVer: 10.0.61355.0AppStamp: 4643ee0aModName: kernel32.dllModVer: 5.1.2600.2945ModStamp: 44ab9a84fDebug: 0Offset: 00009783The Following Files will be included in this error report:fsx.CFG.txtdxdiag.txtscenery.cfgfdr.dat

[Guest firehawk44]

"im using the same ATI drivers dell put on my system when i got it ...... i tried updating the drivers although i just got numerous .dll errors that caused it to reboot i just got the same error a few minutes ago , so heres a little more information on the problem heres the error signature:AppName: fsx.exeAppVer: 10.0.61355.0AppStamp: 4643ee0aModName: kernel32.dllModVer: 5.1.2600.2945ModStamp: 44ab9a84fDebug: 0Offset: 00009783"Matt, The kernel32.dll handles memory management and that's what caused your crash. Do a Google search for "kernel32.dll" for further info. Again, your FSX.cfg settings are set too high for your system. Have you tried Phil Taylor's suggestion of moving ALL your scenery settings to the left (lowest setting) then systematically moving each slider to the right until you find the right settings that won't crash your system and/or cause the scenery to blur? Best regards,Jim