Like the title says... I'm getting frequent CTDs immedately on launching FSX whenever DWC or cloud smoothing are selected in ASE with Build 642. On some occasions, the FSX launch screen just disappears. On others, I get to the Free Flight screen but it's shifted to the bottom right side of the screen and is only partly visible (I noticed a similar problem when I was using Winch X - it vanished as soon as I removed Winch X from my system). And on a few occasions, I get an FSX.exe application error, specifically: "The instruction at 0x200c7399 referenced memory at 0x0a4b73f8. The memory could not be read."In all these cases, ASE is running before I launch FSX.I'm able to launch FSX with no problems when ASE is in standard mode.My FSUIPC is version 4.649, registered. I have no weather options selected in FSUIPC.For what it's worth, I noticed a similar problem with my pre-SP2 ASE and an earlier FSUIPC module when DWC was selected. I hadn't been using DWC for a while, and only noticed the problem recently. I thought at first an add-on might be the cause, but the problem persists after FSUIPC and ASE upgrades, and after rebuilding the fsx.cfg.I'm wondering if DWC and cloud smoothing don't like my overclock (which is otherwise stable and runs at low-to-moderate temperatures), or if I need to change settings in FSUIPC, or if I'll have to limit myself to ASE standard mode, which if so wouldn't be so bad.Thanks in advance for any insight you can provide.

Hi,Drop your over-clock back to normal and see what happens. I know my OC is pretty sensitive with FSX and not so much with FS9.

Hi,Drop your over-clock back to normal and see what happens. I know my OC is pretty sensitive with FSX and not so much with FS9.

Well, interestingly, when I dropped the overclock, I was able to run DWC, then launch into FSX with no problems. Then, when I restored the overclock, I was still able to launch into FSX with no problems. A while later, after a break during which the computer had been on but idle, I launched ASE with DWC again, then launched FSX. This time I got the free flight screen offset to the lower right. But unlike previous times, I was able to drag it back to the center of the screen, then launch a flight.It looks like the overclock may have something to do with the DWC problems, but I'm not sure - it doesn't seem to happen consistently so it's hard to pin down.One other clue - on occasion, when I successfuly launch FSX, I get a TrackIR lockup that requires me to shut down and restart Track IR with FSX running. Generally, Track IR freezes on exit, and I have to invoke the task manager to get rid of it. But when I relaunch it, it (and FSX) run with no problems.I'll keep testing.FSX is a mystery.Or have you noticed?

So true!

Reporting in again after troubleshooting and testing... still have some tests to run but I think I've got the problem solved. It doesn't have to do with the overclock - it has to do with a corrputed dll.xml file. Apparently it picked up an extra (blank) line - I'm not totally sure at what point, though the blank line was just above the entry for the Virtuali add-on manager that's installed along with the FS Dreamteam airports (I'd just picked up and installed several of these as a result of their recent sale). While I was at it, I also cleaned out the rest of the dll.xml and also the exe.xml, both of which had references to programs and modules I'd long since uninstalled, including EZCA, Cumulus X and Winch X. If I wanted to be completely systematic, I would have deleted the references one at a time to trace the cause, but I decided to work quickly instead. The botom line seems to be that both of these files are easily corrupted and can affect the way FSX loads and behaves. It's worth backing them up before any install, and/or editing them regularly. The pointers in this post helped a lot. Hope this helps others in the same boat, or similar boats.

Reporting in again after troubleshooting and testing... still have some tests to run but I think I've got the problem solved. It doesn't have to do with the overclock - it has to do with a corrputed dll.xml file. Apparently it picked up an extra (blank) line - I'm not totally sure at what point, though the blank line was just above the entry for the Virtuali add-on manager that's installed along with the FS Dreamteam airports (I'd just picked up and installed several of these as a result of their recent sale). While I was at it, I also cleaned out the rest of the dll.xml and also the exe.xml, both of which had references to programs and modules I'd long since uninstalled, including EZCA, Cumulus X and Winch X. If I wanted to be completely systematic, I would have deleted the references one at a time to trace the cause, but I decided to work quickly instead. The botom line seems to be that both of these files are easily corrupted and can affect the way FSX loads and behaves. It's worth backing them up before any install, and/or editing them regularly. The pointers in this post helped a lot. Hope this helps others in the same boat, or similar boats.

No, that wasn't it. I soon picked up the crashes again, which happened at times (but not consistently) on all three ASE settings. I ran a bunch of Simconnect log files, and disabled and re-enabled the FS Dreamteam programs (Couatl and the Add-On Manager). When they were enabled, the Simconnect log stopped short, as soon as it began to call Couatl elements. When they were disabled, the launches mostly worked - except for one when the Simconnect log was stopped farther along. I wss getting ready to start copying and pasting excerpts from the log files when it suddenly occurred to me - as it should have several hours or days earlier - to try the obvious thing and launch FSX first, followed by ASE. I'd always run ASE first because of problems I'd had in the distant past getting FS to pick up the ASE data if FSX was already running. In this case, however, it turned out to be the cure - or at least I think it is. I was consistently able on several tries to launch FSX, then launch ASE with DWC set, then get FSX to pick up the ASE weather. Finally I got brave enough to try a local flight, of about a half-hour's duration, which went without a hitch. So that may be the answer. It does seem to me that there's some sort of Simconnect issue behind all this, and it may possibly be related to Couatl and the Add-On Manager, but I can't be sure. But I do seem to have a workable hack solution, which is all I was really looking for.Once again, FSX turns out to be a wonderful hobby that on rare occasions involves flying airplanes.I hope this helps others with similar problems.If my solution turns out not to work, I will, of course, be back...