First let me say that I have a very fast system and have not had the CTD experience until this past week. My CTD was consistantly happening while flying across southern BC flying between Calgary and Vancouver. It didnt seem to matter what I did for settings it was consistant. I tried the German Patch- changed my Terrain.cfg file several times and even added the german texture files all with neg results. The CTD's still persisted. I tried flying at different times of the year because a lot of people seemed to suspect the seasonal texture files. That didnt work either. I was at this point blaming Microsoft for putting out a faulty product when I decided to try a different approach. So I removed the addon scenery/ scenery folder containing all my afcad files and and unenabled my add on scenery,landclass and mesh files and tried the flight again. I should say that I used the same plane a default 737 for all of this testing. Lo and behold it worked no CTD and flying in winter conditions with proper date. I then enabled all my addon scenery,landclass and mesh files and had the same result. NO CTDs..So now the afcads, since my ctd was happening in BC I added all the afcad files except for 5 BC airports and again Great flying and no CTD. I then started adding the BC afcads one at a time and reenacted the same flight over and over until I found the suspect BGL. It turns out to be the afcad for Kelowna airport CYLW which I downloaded from the AVsim library a week ago and I see now is not available. While this afcad was in my system as soon as I got to within 50-80 miles away my system would crash and I would get Facillity.dll, ntdll.dll error messages. In closing If you are experiencing the same ctd over and over again at the same location on the same route that you look at your afcad airport files in a 50-80 mile radius of where this is happening and try what I did. FLYING CTD FREEDon;-)

No joy for me, the latest CTD that I experienced was on a flight from Zurich to Innsbruck. No AFCAD files for that region on my computer, so I removed all of my third-party European mesh and tried the flight again. Same problem in approximately the same place.But, hey, glad you have yours fixed Don.Jim

Very interesting post... I haven't loaded any AFCAD files myself, but have flown CTD free mainly because I fly in the spring.Quite a few have said they have no add-ons installed when getting the CTD's. If the problem also exists with add-on landclass, my only comment would be some programming change on Microsoft's side has basically obsoleted the ability to customize landclass--a big issue I think, given the fact that third party support of landclass has been a big help to Microsoft.I must wonder, and maybe this list of questions would help isolate the problem better, what circumstances ppl get these CTD's in:1) With or without AFCAD files installed?2) With or without Landclass installed?3) Only in the winter, or year long?4) With or without Autogen displayed?5) With or without AI active?6) With or without tweaks applied?-John

For me:1) Either2) Either3) Winter, once late fall (there was snow on the ground though) but that is gone with the patch.4) Autogen disabled5) 100% AI, haven't tried disabling yet.6) Have the seasonal CTD patch applied (it is much better, but not completely resolved) and removed the Autogen default.xml fileJim

1) With or without AFCAD files installed? WITH AND WITHOUT2) With or without Landclass installed? WITH AND WITHOUT3) Only in the winter, or year long? END OF FALL THROUGH WINTER4) With or without Autogen displayed? HAVE TO TRY THIS ONE5) With or without AI active? WITH AND WITHOUT6) With or without tweaks applied? WITH AND WITHOUTLuca

1) With or without AFCAD files installed?Without2) With or without Landclass installed?Without3) Only in the winter, or year long?Winter only. I fly real time, and saw my first CTD just before the end of fall. I've tested the three other seasons without problem. I have tested spring and fall with dates safely away from the winter changes though, so I'll try additional tests with dates closer to winter until I start seeing the CTD's again. I had my first on Dec. 12, so I feel confident that is the fall date that effects my system.4) With or without Autogen displayed?With... set to dense (the setting I've used since first installing last July)5) With or without AI active?I've tried both ways. Didn't make any difference. I usually fly at 60%6) With or without tweaks applied?Not sure what you mean here. My latest FS9 install is bone stock. I have tried the crash_to fix, but I have saved some of the relevant folders (Texture, Modules, Gauges, Scenery>World) in their original form (as is my practice since FS2000 when adding 3rd party files... just in case I don't like what I add). During my present testing this practice makes it easier to revert back to stock form. The only real "tweaking" that I've done on my present install is to remove the "Display.cfg" and hand edit the driver level in my FS9.cfg. I have been doing this with all driver upgrades since early September without problems.I flew LOMAC for a couple hours last night... blowing things up was a nice change from the past two weeks with FS9. I've done my best to keep my CTD testing as scientific as possible, but to be truthful I'm presently burned out from the frustration. Last week I e-mailed MS with my findings up to that time, but have yet to hear from them. No doubt the holidays are a factor in this, so I'll contact them again next week.Hope this helps,

1) With and without2) Without3) Mostly in winter, a couple of times in the fall. Once in the summer.4) With and without5) With and without6) Fresh install without any single addon. That includes a whole system reinstallation, memory tests, and so on. With addons I get CTD as well. Have applied the german patch and the results are good, but not enough. I have installed FS9 on a second computer: same results, CtD. The mountain "bug" idea is interesting. If I can remember well, most of my CtD happens when I'm flying over mountains (??? not completely sure about it, I will look at it. Again, sounds interesting). Regards,Gabriel MoraPIV 2.8C 800FSB HTTMoBo Intel 875PBZ (latest drivers)1 GB Ram Kingston HyperX 350080 GB HDATI Radeon 9800 Pro, 128 MB, AIW, cat. 3.10SoundBlaster Audigy 2 (latest drivers)Windows XP Pro

Hi ALL, I would like to have your situation flight *.FTL and *.wx to see when your CTD appears to really see if there is a problems and see if I can duplicate the problems, send it me to: [email protected] If you got always ctd anywhere it's your system. I remember a guys who have CTD with fs2004, the problems was related to his system:Read the last posthttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchFor those always get ctd anywhere, it can be from the bios version or bios setting, video driver, ram, fan, application running in background, Ms update etc. Be sure you have the latest bios and latest chipset driver installed.I have seen users getting CTD with lomac with tons of various others problems in their forum . My freind his getting ctd with his AMD xp 2000 with many games as well etc. Degradation of the heatsink, CPU fan, power supply with time can cause CTD with intensive games or software. Installation of new software update or new driver with time can cause this anomalie. Ms update can cause something with fs2004 only. Force feedback enabled can cause crash at ground.Various 3rd party addons can cause crash like Don post.Texture non standard mixing with render to texture disabled/enabled can cause crash.My system:Asus P4P800 8X (latest bios and latest chipset driver installed)P4 2.53 GHZ512 RamGforce 4 TI 4200 128mb 8XOfficial Nvidia Driver 53.03-No junk software Installed in background or running-I have all PAI and Afcad installed from their site. Many mesh installed and various aircraft.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

Hi Chris, slightly off topic.. notice you are now on Nvidia 53.03 drivers.. did you notice any changes from the 52.16 drivers?I am reluctant to try any new drivers, since the 52.16s work so well on my Ti4200..For the record, No CTDs on my system (yet.. knock on wood..) even in winter and flying over the Alps..

Don,Thanks for the info - you have fixed my problem (touch wood)!!Copy of message posted by myself on original message I created:All,I have just seen a message posted by Don regarding the same subject - he recommends that if you have any AFCAD files for airports within 50 - 80 miles of where you CTD to try deleting them from your scenery folder.I have just tried this and it has worked for me.I was flying into Barcelona using a file from the AVSIM library - lebl_128213.zip - whilst I know the author wouldn't want any harm coming to anyone's system should I inform the file library managers?The only other CTD I had was last week flying from Orlando to Newark - I had just installed an AFCAD file for Newark!! - I will try out this flight again tomorrow deleting the AFCAD file and see if it happens again.Regards,Alex.

Hi Chris,"Be sure you have the latest bios and latest chipset driver installed."........while this advice normally would be regarded as laudable to those such as ourselves who may know how to go about it, I cannot imagine that it would have a direct bearing on this current issue. When FS2004 was released it would certainly have a built in tolerance for the huge variety of hardware setups out there. No way would software like this be found acceptable to the market were this not found to be the case. Let's not forget that WE are the obsessives who struggle to get the sim to perform the way WE demand, and this is on the back of the numerous mods and addons we care to throw at it.I have the 'latest' bios and chipset drivers for my MoBo when I purchased it in August 2002. The BIOS version is F7 and dated 13/05/2002. I have not experienced the problems you guys have experienced - CTD - (as yet!?) and the sim has always seemed very stable. Remember the 'latest' applied to my MoBo in late 2002. There was a further version of the Bios released but the 'fixes' were minor and were not relevant in my case. Therefore to risk performing an update would be pointless and, indeed, a little reckless for those with no onboard backup.The other factor we should consider here is the fact that the majority of purchasers of FS2004 haven't a clue how to update their board's bios or drivers nor are they even remotely interested. I imagine this factor was also considered by MS prior to the general release of the sim. I cannot help but conclude that the answer to these issues is of a far more simple nature and will be along the lines suggested by the original poster, i.e. something has been added to the sim which is causing instability in certain situations. Also, it may be that some systems are more prone to issues such as this simply because the end user has indulged in system tweaks like overclocking either their CPU, Memory or GPU. Just because they appear to run stable does not mean that that stability will be gauranteed in every possible situation. You have only to watch the performance monitor to see the CPU is being driven flat out while running FS. An overclocked CPU will, at best, be unpredictable when coping with demanding software like FS.Perhaps a good starting point would be to revert back to Bios optimized defaults before pointing the finger of blame at anything else.MikeEdit:P4 2.4GHz (400FSB), 1Gig PC2100 DDR Crucial, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128MB (Omega 2.5.04), Hyundai ImageQuest Q17 17" Monitor (1280x1024x32), Gigabyte GA-8IRXP MoBo, Ultra-Quiet PSU 400W, WinXP Home (SP1), DirectX 9.0b, AGP aperture = 128MBNo overclocking.

Makes me wonder if there's multiple issues going--AFCAD CTD's and seasonal CTD's... As for the seasonal CTD's, my FS2004 is plain vanilla, except for add-on aircraft. I am going to try some of the scenarios mentioned (and fly in winter--yeach...) to see if I run into the same issue.As for AFCAD issues, I've never installed any so I can't help there. If I do hit the seasonal CTD issue, I'll try swapping my worldlc.bgl with FS2002's just for kicks...

Hi, "Bios optimized defaults before pointing the finger of blame at anything else.``100% agree, I would assume users never touch anything from their system and oveclocking are not recommended at all, I never overclock anything, these are not official and non stable performance. I don`t use any extrenal utility tweaker for the graphics cards. Direct X with no problems, no problems with audio cards etc. "while this advice normally would be regarded as laudable to those such as ourselves who may know how to go about it, I cannot imagine that it would have a direct bearing on this current issue. "I should said: For those always get ctd Anywhere in fs2004 (not on specific area or replicable always at the same situation.)On peformance and stutter Yes and some crash caused by this, I have seen post about this on anothers forum. If there is always update on bios and chipset driver, it's because there is something fixed and improved.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

Good points Mike....Any CTD that is repeatable in only specific areas of the sim is likely unrelated to BIOS or O/S settings. Random CTD's almost always are related to such settings. Add-ons come into play next, and sometimes that's hard to get out of the community. When simmers say they don't have add-ons, many of them don't include aircraft in the mix. Recently, I became victim to the "falling contrails"..... Sure enough, an aircraft add-on had messed with the effects folder and swapped out a default fx file with an older one.That takes us further back to default installs. Any CTD that is repeatable by all simmers with the same settings is likely an issue with the sim. If it isn't repeatable, one of two scenarios applies:1) Perhaps the steps to recreate the CTD aren't well defined...2) Someone hasn't mentioned something regarding their setup...I haven't been hit with CTD's in either 2k2 or FS2004, and haven't taken much interest in them until these recent threads. The fact they all seem to hit around the same time/dates leads me to believe they may be repeatable. If I can find out what's happening, I may find a means to fix it or maybe someone else who tinkers with scenery will... I'll keep the forum posted...

Seems one common point:Winter = snow.Mountains - snow.I think Everest has year around snow. I'd try with a high enough performance aircraft flying around that area in summer, providing the summer snow shows in the sim.