http://forum.avsim.net/topic/350763-fs9-limit-on-scenery-library-entries/ is a thread regarding if there are a maximum number of entries in scenery.cfg. Loosing some add-ons in the list might relate to some of this.

Lots more really useful information guys! Thanks. Right now I'm fairly certain it's an AI traffic problem. I thought I had eliminated that as an issue earlier by disabling AI traffic and it didn't help. But this time I removed all but the default file and the problem went away. So now I'm slowly putting them all back in a few at a time to see if I can identify one that's causing the problem. I will check the threads posted above as it's all good stuff to know anyway. I think the maximum scenery.cfg file might well be correct in my case as I'm a scenery junkie and I've gotten a bit carried away lately. (Lots of sale priced payware mostly!) It's probably time to clean out quite a few addon airports that I never use and which are causing long load times if nothing else. I'll keep you posted guysIan

1. Right now as I type this I have the excellent freeware RAF Leuchars on my other screen with extremely dense AI and a complex payware addon sitting on the runway waiting for me to take off. So that does seem to point the finger towards Southern England (Nothing personal chaps - my Mum was from London!)

Possibly the same Leuchars - which even worked on my old setup. I had a heavy Isle of Wight scenery which I ended up dumping, too, and that was the problem end of the UK! For a while I ran all of Maxted's small airfields, but they have been replaced one by one. I didn't find high numbers of sceneries to be a problem - as I said I have heaps of airfields and VFR items all close together in the UK and much of western Europe now, with no issues. AI can be a kick so the suggestion to switch it off makes some sense, but again I run plenty...John Hinson said on the other thread there's no scenery limit, just a limit as to what shows on the library list. That said, I had a scenery vanish only yesterday, had to re-enter it! But I both sympathise and fully applaud you being a scenery junkie.

Well, the good news is that everything is working normally again. The bad news is that everything is working normally again and I still have no clue what caused the problem and so can't predict if it will come back again. If it does, I may just have to pretend that the UK has joined Atlantis and is now immersed in a deep hole somewhere! LOL As soon as I removed the traffic files the problem was gone. So I thought to myself - 'ah ha self... Corrupted AI file!' So I put them all back a few at a time, tediously restarting FS afterwards - over and over all evening. By the end they were all back and it was working fine! Same thing that happened last week when I removed all the UK addon sceneries and replaced them one at a time! If it happens again I will try moving FS9 to a different disk or, using Ultimate Defrag, I can actually force the files to go to a different place on the disk to test Al's suggestion.

Great news! Well done matey...

Great news! Well done matey...

Thanks... And I think I may have just found the original culprit that was causing all this. In one of my original posts I mentioned that I had purchased some older UK2000 addons from Just Flight in their recent sale. I thought I had eliminated them as an issue by my original procedure of removing all UK addons, inactivating them and then adding them back one by one. This helped as they all worked fine after being restored but I still hadn't found what caused the problem) Well, I just discovered that the JF installer had put British Airports Vol 5 & 6 directly into the scenery folder (not addon scenery). And when I checked the scenery.cfg file I found that the installer had used a / (forward slash) instead of \ (backslash) in the local scenery line as in --- local=scenery\BritishAirports/BA3 I fixed it, fired up the same flight I've been using over and over trying to fix this thing and the first thing I saw was that the number and variety of AI had increased enormously. So maybe that indicates a connection between scenery files and AI traffic files that was causing the UK region to be "unstable." Each time I thought I'd fixed it all I had done perhaps was "reset" things temporarily until the program attempted to call up BritishAirports and got the wrong command and threw a hissy fit. (aka CTD) So the good news is really good this time - I think I've solved the original problem with a permanent fix rather than a temporary one. And after all these years, I've found that there are still ways to screw up FS9 that we never encountered before! LOLCheers guys - thanks for all the support!

<Sigh of relief>I keep coming back to FS cos you never know what kind of curve ball it will toss at you next!

<Sigh of relief>I keep coming back to FS cos you never know what kind of curve ball it will toss at you next!

I'm tempted to observe that what you said sounds like my wife - but FS doesn't make you take out the garbage and never asks you if a new scenery makes it look fatCheers mateIan

Computer Pilot has made the article on defragging optimized for FS available as a free download. It is based on UItimate Defrag: http://www.pcaviator.com/aux/pdf/ComputerPilotV15I5Defrag.pdf

Computer Pilot has made the article on defragging optimized for FS available as a free download. It is based on UItimate Defrag: http://www.pcaviator...V15I5Defrag.pdf

Outstanding! Thank you!!!