Recently I've been having problems with random CTDs caused by module 'Unknown' after a long period of no problems but I think I might have found a way around the CTDs. I have now done several flights without any CTDs and thought I would share my experience, maybe it will help someone else with a similar setup and problem.

 

I'm using FSX SP2 on Win7 x64 on an Intel Core i7-920 @ 4 GHz with 6 GB RAM. The addons I use are

 

Serveral airport sceneries mostly by Aerosoft but also some others

Aivlasoft EFB

GEX

UTX

FS2Crew Voice Edition for PMDG's 737NGX

FSGenesis mesh

Registered version of FSUIPC

HiFi AS2012

HiFi xPax

Navigraph AIRAC FMS data

PMDG's 737NGX

IvAp (pilot client for flying on IVAO)

 

I'm running Aivlasoft EFB, AS2012, xPax and IvAp on a networked laptop and FSX is running in fullscreen mode on my main PC.

 

What I found seems to be the trick that let me fly without getting those awful CTDs is to make sure always start the IvAp client after everything else is already started...ie make sure to always start IvAp last.

 

Will do some more flying before I'm 100% sure the CTDs are solved but if you have a similar setup and are experiencing CTDs try this and you might be able to solve your problems too.

All good until now...made a number of flights without a single problem but tonight I got a lovely CTD again and must say it's amazing how it so often happens right before you're about to catch the ILS at your destination :Liar:

 

Isn't there any way you can debug or in some other way find out what is actually causing these &"# CTDs that spoil so much of the fun with FS...?

Isn't there any way you can debug or in some other way find out what is actually causing these &"# CTDs that spoil so much of the fun with FS...?

 

Sorry to hear you had another CTD Richard. The only debugging tool I know of is your Event Viewer. That should give you some hints as to what caused the CTD. The faulting module or maybe the Exception Code 0xc0000005 error (Memory_Access_Violation) should give you a clue. The fact that you are getting the CTD's as you near the airport or the ILS leads me to believe FSX is using too many system resources. FPS usually go down during a landing or at least they do most of the time for me. If there is a 'faulting module' in your Event Viewer for the date and time of each crash, you can simply Google it and search across the whole flight sim community and not just here for a solution.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Thanks Jim for your input!

 

I think you're right that likely the CTDs are triggered by FSX using too many system resources and more specifically I think it might be SimConnect generating too much traffic between my FSX PC and my second PC where I'm running many of my addons.

 

Problem using Event Viewer is it doesn't say much and especially when the module causing the CTDs is unknown. That's why I was thinking maybe there is some other tool which would let you know what exactly is happening behind the scenes sort of speak when these CTDs happen.

 

Will try to dig deeper into the generated events in the application log should I have missed or overlooked something.

FSX itself is very stable (including Simconnect).

 

Let's not forget that FSX is a 32 Bit process. It will only address 4 GB Virtual memory address space (not to be confused with installed RAM).

 

Unfortunately half of that is reserved for system dlls (kernel32.dll, GDI32.dll, user32.dll etc…) and drivers.

 

That means only 2 GB is available for FSX, the loaded aircraft add-on, scenery, weather, AI traffic and other add-ons.

 

We build voice control add-on for FSX & FS9

 

In early days we were tempted to load our software (which happens to need a memory hungry speech engine) inside FS9 (or FSX) process via fsInsider.dll, the dll that gets loaded when the sim starts.

 

Doing that would mean at least 300 to 400 MB less virtual address space available to other add-ons.

 

In the end we decided against it.

 

Only a few megabytes (less than 10) are needed by the dll running in the sim to read from and write to the sim.

 

The bulk of the software runs in a separate process (with its own 4GB available virtual address space).

 

Should the speech engine leak memory, or our software misbehave the separate process would eventually die, but should never compromise the integrity of the flight.

Will try to dig deeper into the generated events in the application log should I have missed or overlooked something.

 

Hi Richard,

A lot of people go to the application logs first. I avoid all of that by looking in Custom Views then Administrative Events. It lists all of the recent events and there could be other things happening to your machine than just the application, FSX. If you look over in the far right column of the Event Viewer you'll see Actions and you can create even more custom views but the most important is the ability to change the view when you click on an event. I have mine set to open a preview pane. You sound very computer literate and I suspect I'm wasting your time but I just wanted to be sure. If you skip to the Windows Logs you have a lot of logs to go through to find something that is affecting your system. I like the Administrative Events as I can see the same error or warning messages popping up every day or everytime I restart my system. I just opened up my Application Log and saw nothing recent about the fact FSX had to shut down because of the aiplayer.dll (this occurs every time I exit from FSX and have Orbx/FTX scenery enabled. They are aware of the problem and are trying to find a solution). It's not a crash but an abnormal closing of FSX but it's recorded everytime it happens in the Administrative Events. It does eventually show up but I have to scroll way down in the log to find it. Even though the FSX module is unknown, it should have recorded other valuable info like the 0005 error for Memory_Access_Violation.

 

I saw too that you use mostly Aerosoft scenery and I have many of their products too like London City and Manhattan. With all the eye-candy turned on, London City almost brought my powerful system to its knees. That's why I mentioned that your crashes are most likely caused as you near a fps intensive airport or scenery and your system cannot handle it with the current settings. The only solution I know if that happens is to turn down your sliders and/or turn off some of the eye-candy.

 

Gerald from MCE has some valuable information and advice too. It made for some really interesting reading for me at least!

 

Best regards,

Jim