Help with creating flight on startup

[scianoir 610]

Thanks Hans!Yes I have St Malo, but I have had that on fs9 for quite some time before the problems began.If I ever find an answer I will let you know but, as it seems ok now for no obvious reason, it may, as you say, be Murphy's law!Thanks for all your suggestions and good luck to you too!Kind regards,Bill

[scianoir 610]

Have a feeling this may be something to do with VFR Terrain England and Wales addon (Horizon/Visual Flight) - Have been watching and checking Filemon closely and it consistently reports a 'NOT FOUND' error with some of the files connected with this just before fs9 hangs up (although the hang ups remain intermittent). Problem seemed to improve after uninstalling and re-installing it, but now error has reappeared as have the intermittent hang-ups! Anyone else with this problem using VFR Terrain?Bill

[hjwalter 25]

Hey there Bill,Glad to see that you are also still trying to find this needle in the FS9 haystack.I have never had VFR terrain England etc. on my system so I cannot comment on that but I still suspect something more basic e.g. something in the EURW folder because our hangs only occur in Western Europe, predominantly in the North and South.I'm going to cut/paste my whole EURW folder to somewhere safe and then replace it with the original EURW from the FS9 CD-Rom. O.K. there will be a lot of visible errors in many of the airport sceneries but this test is only to see whether or not our hangs originate from that folder.I also have very many FILEMON "not found" lines but almost all of them refer to (texture) files which are actually present and available to FS9. Moreover, there are no scenery errors visible in the areas inwhich they are used. So why FILEMON reports these "not found" error lines remains somewhat of a mysteryI've posted a message about our hang problems in the FlightSim forum about a week ago but as yet have had not a single reaction.I will post the results of my EURW test.RegardsHans

[hjwalter 25]

Hey Bill, it's me again,As planned in my above post, I have done what I said and have had no hangs anymore. However, Murphy's law does still exist.I cut/pasted the whole FS9 active EURW folder to a safe place outside FS9 and then replaced it with the original one from Disc 3. It's included in MSGAME8.CAB which you can unpack to any temporary folder. Once done, copy/paste the the whole EURW folder to where the active one was removed.This seems to work because I've since opened many flights in European addon sceneries without a single hang.I suggest you to try this also and let me know what your findings are.O.K., if we can now agree that the problem lies somewhere within the old EURW/scenery folder, at least we can now say that we have narrowed the problem down. The next step of cause is to somehow find out which old EURW scenery file is causing the problem because quite a lot of them will have to be selectively copied/pasted back to the new active folder, otherwise we will have many visible scenery errors like incorrect coast lines, AI aircraft hanging above the ground, etc. etc.Eager to hear from you.Hans

[scianoir 610]

Hello again HansThanks for the advice - I will try what you suggest and let you know the outcome. I agree that something in the EURW folder is likely to be the culprit as all of my hang ups occur in Western Europe.Will be back with the results!Bill

[scianoir 610]

Yes it worked, Hans - have not had a hangup on starting for the last 2 days! However it has caused all sorts of problems with scenery and I have therefore reverted to the previous set-up - so far it remains ok! (but it does this sometimes just to lull you into a false sense of security!)Cheers,Bill

[hjwalter 25]

Yes, I had a lot of scenery problems also but the most important ones were related to my addon airport elevations causing AI aircrafts to hang above the ground, to be invisible underground or somewhere inbetween. I opened each and every one of my saved flights which began at addon airports in Western Europe and checked the AI aircraft around me. If they were parked normally on their wheels then I went to my next flight etc.If however there was an elevation problem I copied the new EURW/scenery AP9xxxxx.bgl file concerned to a fixed place outside FS and de-compiled it using a program called JABBgl by a Swiss guy named Jacky Brouze. With this small program it's possible to alter native airport elevations. There is however a small problem here and that is that the program (which I have gotten used to) works in meters and with a decimal comma. Why this is/was chosen is unclear but it works. After any elevation alterations I de-activated the original AP....bgl file in my new EURW scenery folder by giving it a recognisable non .bgl (e.g. ".Nice") extension and then cut/pasted the altered file in it's place. I then opened the same flight again to see what had happened to my AI aircraft. If no good then I repeated the whole process again, only this time leaving the previously renamed ".Nice" file as it was. It's a question of trial and error.My way of finding out which AP...bgl file it concerns is by opening the airport's AFCAD file using Lee Swordy's AFCAD program and selecting the "stock airport", usually the bottom one of the two. After the airport lay-out has appeared click the open-folder-button and the name of the "AP" file containing that airport will appear in the window next to "Open file". Write it down because that's the one you should then search for in your new EURW scenery folder. Be carefull though because they all look alike.Go through all your addon EURW airports in this way first until you are happy with them before proceeding further.Now, there are a lot of other files in the EURW scenery folder which do not begin with "AP" and these all concern things like coastlines, roads, rivers, lakes, mesh, etc. and I suspect that a lot of these will have been automatically renamed and substituted (#@!*&%) by installer programs in your old EURW scenery file. This will be true especially when you have (had) country wide VFR type sceneries installed.Same six figure numbers after the initial two letters can be regarded as related and can be used to select and copy/paste from your old EURW scenery file. However, when copying/pasting, always select both the renamed and the substituted files, they should appear together as pairs. Take care however that you copy/paste all those pairs within your old EURW scenery folder which have the same six figure numbers.Again, this will be a trial and error process performed by flying over the areas concerned and looking to see whether or not the scenery seems OK. If you are not happy with what you see, e.g. reef like structures along coasts and in lakes, then remove all the pairs concerned, restore the original single XX9xxxxx.bgl files (from the CD) and go flying again untill you are happy. Well Bill, if this all seems too complicated for you then I'm afraid you will be obliged to burn your haystack, forget the needle(s) and make a fresh install but in any case the above repair method is the way I did it because my FS9 is now so huge that a fresh start is just not possible anymore. I rely totally on regular back-ups of my whole FS9, so repairing any problems and avoiding them as much as possible, is my only way out.Good luckHans

[scianoir 610]

Many thanks, Hans, for the detailed advice on how to correct the resultant scenery problems etc. Although I am learning, I am not quite as au fait with the inner details of fs9 as you are, but I will try to pluck up the courage to undertake all these file modifications. Like you I have a huge fs9 (almost 150GB), so uninstalling fs9 for a fresh start is not an alternative.Kind regards,Bill

[scianoir 610]

Am not sure if this will be any help, Hans, but I inactivated all the scenery that I had installed prior to this problem occurring and then, one-by-one, reactivated them. The problem, for me anyway, may lie with the French scenery addon for Belle Ile and Quiberon - I have kept these inactive and have had no hangups on starting in Western Europe for the last 8 days. Not sure if you use these addons, but just thought I would let you know in case!Cheers,Bill

[hjwalter 25]

No, I don't have that addon but my hangs are slowly beginning to occur again although seemingly less frequent and less severe than before. This would mean that my "solution" is not the real end of it all although it definitely does influence the severity. By "severity" I mean that a second startup of a flight now usually starts normally instead of after three to five goes as before.However, my posting of our problem on FlightSim.com has, in the meantime, also produced some reactions by people who have the same problems ..... in USA !!!This causes me to start thinking that the problem could be more general than we have been thinking uptill now.Please keep me posted on how you are faring further because your 8 days of hang free flying sound very interesting.RegardsHans