I've been running W8 since building a new system earlier this year, and never had the disconnect issue (simple Logitech Extreme 3D Pro, no install of its software, just straight vanilla MS driver) until last night, when I waited patiently for the PMDG 777 to "come back" after it froze for a while on a long flight (it did... come back, that is.  BTW a nice tip there is, start the chronometer and it'll indicate to you if things are running or not, and help identify the point where timeouts occur).

 

This was the first time (for me) I'd left FSX running without direct, regular joystick input during flight (I generally prefer GA).  Which led me to suspect timeout/powerdown/device-thread priority/etc. type of issue.  I'd had a horrible problem with a Novation Ultranova USB dual audio/MIDI driver install update a little while ago, solved by moving the install to a different USB port.

 

What I learned through that experience is how to identify what port a USB device is connected to.  While I have no external USB hubs, the USB controller chip on the ASUS Maximus V Extreme motherboard does provide an internal "hub" equivalent in its support (USB standard) of multiple USB 2.0 devices on its USB 2.0 ports.  I have my joystick running off the same USB port, then, as my keyboard/mouse.  You can check this by going into Device Manager and changing the View to "View By Connection," to see what devices are connected to which chips on the motherboard, a handy thing for a variety of purposes.

 

I'm not confident but I'm going to try moving my joystick to a USB port with no other devices connected to it.

 

There's been a lot of theory on this thread, and the FSUIPC solution seems to be the most consistent workaround.  It, along with FSXAssist, and maybe that DNLYJ tool, seems to succeed by making sure the joystick device is being constantly polled.  My experience is that W8, even more aggressively than W7 (though W7 has these features, too), is designed by default to power-save, to turn off everything it can, in MS's sheepish and ill-fated attempt to compete with Apple iPhone and iOS5/6/7 by creating a kludged version of Windows that tries to look like it's good for portable devices, thus creating havoc for hardware systems with no need to operate like an iPhone with a Lithium Ion battery......  so I'm pretty sure there's probably some hack in DirectInput that is causing the problem (which doesn't get overwritten by older DirectX installs/reinstalls during add-on installs).

 

The tip referring to the MSDN page regarding device cooperation is probably a useful clue, way up there on this thread.  It implies that the responsibility is ultimately with the software developer, to use technique to make sure the joystick doesn't lose device focus or priority and lives happily alongside other input devices (keyboard and mouse), without getting in their way.  Not a DMA or IRQ problem, obviously, but similar in logic at a far grander, more hilarious scale.

 

I suspect the various utilities assisting or not with this issue are basically preventing the joystick device state change that occurs when it's not used for awhile, at least that's my contribution to this thread of Twelve Blind Men Describing the Microsoft Elephant.

 

I don't know whether there's anything PMDG can do in its code for its aircraft to deal with this, but I could hope so, if that's possible; that's a WAG on my part, at best.  I haven't run into the problem with other aircraft, which is what gives me this hope.

 

I also suspect that the "stealing focus" issue is a big one; with REX running and starting up FSX on my system, I ALWAYS, ALWAYS minimize the Weather Engine window (which uses a subset of a browser to display the weather map, generated from a Cloudmade Tile Server, in the window), so that when the weather updates, it doesn't attempt to grab focus away from FSX or any of the sub-windows/panels open in it while doing so.  I think this has been part of my luck.  I'm more likely to have glitches if I forget to minimize that window.  I suspect the same is true on other setups, where multiple programs are being run alongside FSX.  ANYTHING that starts up a Window on the desktop is likely to be a factor -- say if you have any notification popups from software, "a new update has arrived, swaddled in platinum diapers," etc. etc. that might occur invisibly to you while in full-screen mode.

 

I do stay in full-screen mode for my use of FSX; I am cautious about running anything alongside the program.  Even good add-ins within the program.

 

Further info re: my disconnect crisis: the 777 froze, for about 15 minutes, then unfroze.  A few minutes later, it random-auto-minimized itself to the taskbar (sometimes when FSX does this on my system, I can't get it to open again and have to Task-Manager endtask it).  I managed to get it back up, in windowed mode; it was Paused.  I unpaused it, and it ran, but joystick was disconnected.  Not visible in the Device Manager interface for it, either -- used DM to reset the hub it was on, after which it showed up again (outside FSX).  So something had knocked it out during either the freeze, or the random minimize.  It might well have been some sort of background update (Norton 360 updates itself like every two minutes with little updates, security excitement!).  One other critical piece of info, though: I'd forgotten to minimize my REX Weather Engine window at startup (sometimes it hides behind the FSX startup screen and you have to coax it back out from the taskbar).

 

Anyways, hope there's some hint in there for someone, it's a very frustrating issue, especially at the moment when I'd made the delighted discovery that my PMDG 777 freezes "unfroze" if I waited long enough, when I thought they were full system lockups (since I could not get out of FSX with any means short of shutdown/restart when the freezes happened).

 

Hope something in there helps!

 

Steven

 

p.s. link to MSDN DirectInput Documentation:

 

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/ee417799%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

Steven, I had some freezes with the PMDG 777 when I used an extended LOD Radius like this:

 

[TERRAIN]
LOD_RADIUS=6.500000

 

Then I went back to the default value LOD_RADIUS=4.500000. Now the freezes have gone.  B)

 

RelaxX,

 

Mine's standard, though I don't doubt that memory load of some sort is a factor -- the freezes occur right at the point where, one way or another, either in internal processing of gauge updates, etc., or external processing of weather/scenery/AI traffic changes, everything gets busy. 

 

The less load, simply, the less likelihood of a freeze.

the PMDG B777 is buggy that's all there is to it.

 

even though we've told the devices (the joystick, etc) not to power off when not in use; if what you're saying is true about the USB hubs internal on the motherboard; that could have everything to do with it.

 

of course my FSX keeps crashing; well another day!

I wish it were that simple. I'm sure PMDG has looked long and hard and knowledgeably at this and other issues. You can't ever expect to ship complex software by resolving bugs to 100%. I suspect no version of Windows has ever shipped with less than 20,000 identified but unresolved issues. Even Apple's Linux-based OSX sends streams of noisy joy to the error log with every boot on a Mac.

 

Nature of the beast.

 

It's just a shame MS isn't more helpful. Their Answers Community for ANYTHING is full of desperate pleas for real info, with the software equivalent of Do You Want Fries With That as the best they can do in response. Their Send your 8 GB Error Log To Us So We Can Fix seems like an exercise in surrealism.

 

Despite all that, I'm sure they have armies of talented programmers trying their best. Windows is and ever will be a Beast. There are probably broken pieces of Amiga 500s buried somewhere deep in the system along with all sorts of legacy trash.

 

I quail and tremble with a palsy at the thought of taking on the kinds of ambitious projects FSX add-on developers take on; it's a true miracle any of it works at all.

 

I wish it were that simple. I'm sure PMDG has looked long and hard and knowledgeably at this and other issues. You can't ever expect to ship complex software by resolving bugs to 100%. I suspect no version of Windows has ever shipped with less than 20,000 identified but unresolved issues. Even Apple's Linux-based OSX sends streams of noisy joy to the error log with every boot on a Mac.

 

Nature of the beast.

 

It's just a shame MS isn't more helpful. Their Answers Community for ANYTHING is full of desperate pleas for real info, with the software equivalent of Do You Want Fries With That as the best they can do in response. Their Send your 8 GB Error Log To Us So We Can Fix seems like an exercise in surrealism.

 

Despite all that, I'm sure they have armies of talented programmers trying their best. Windows is and ever will be a Beast. There are probably broken pieces of Amiga 500s buried somewhere deep in the system along with all sorts of legacy trash.

 

I quail and tremble with a palsy at the thought of taking on the kinds of ambitious projects FSX add-on developers take on; it's a true miracle any of it works at all.

 

LOL - yea I can relate to the palsy remark.  The only exception to that is that if FSX can be made better then our justification to do the work is without question.

 

Regards

jja

Absolutely. And I know for instance Pete Dowson Himself managed to "fix" a long-standing issue in FSX decisively, with FSUIPC, but even there he admits his solution is merely to stop the code from thinking it's faulting, rather than actually fixing the faulting condition.

 

If you can do something similar for FSX with Win8 and this joystick nuisance, all power to you, all patience to you and good luck, and I'll be cheering you on.

 

Just spitballin here. I used FS9 religiously since its release, and I'm new to FSX on a brand new rig.   Is it possible for the joystick disconnect to be related to some kind of running out of memory problem?  I've only ever encountered it when I changed the fsx .cfg to up resolution to either 2048 or 4096, and expand the terrain LOD...  After that my CH Eclipse would disconnect if I Alt Entered from full screen to windowed in order to start FSrealWX...  When I reverted the .cfg back to the 1024 resolution and the terrain LOD to 4.5, the joystick seemingly stays connected no matter what I do.

 

Installed Orbx FTX today and tried it with the .cfg set to 2048, and LOD to 5 miles, no problems with disconnecting yet when I alt Enter and work on the desktop.  Flying Flight1's T182T, and A2As 172.

 

Running Win8 with the latest updates.  I7 4770K, 16 GB Ram, GTX670...

With another nod to himynameistrev.

As it says at the top of this topic, at present, the only solution that works or would work for everyone is to buy FSUIPC and use it to operate your flight controllers.

I have been using FSUIPC since before the turn of the century for nothing (unregistered), so I was quite happy to now pay and be registered.

 

What convinced me, was that the only aircraft I could fly without a disconnect was the Majestic Dash 8 Q 400.

It is no coincidence that it also does not use FSX to control the controllers, or any of its complex systems either.

 

I am certain that available Virtual Address Space has absolutely nothing to do with disconnects, having successfully flown into many an OOM with the controller working fine right to the bitter end.

By the way, one of the most effective ways to cause an OOM is to pick your most complex and demanding aircraft and then raise the scenery LOD to astronomical levels.

 

Whatever the problem is, FSX will never be updated and Microsoft are clearly not interested, so my advice, if you like Windows 8 enough to keep it and you have this problem, is to stop guessing, buy FSUIPC and then you can forget all about it.

 

Regards,

Nick

With another nod to himynameistrev.

As it says at the top of this topic, at present, the only solution that works or would work for everyone is to buy FSUIPC and use it to operate your flight controllers.

I have been using FSUIPC since before the turn of the century for nothing (unregistered), so I was quite happy to now pay and be registered.

 

What convinced me, was that the only aircraft I could fly without a disconnect was the Majestic Dash 8 Q 400.

It is no coincidence that it also does not use FSX to control the controllers, or any of its complex systems either.

 

I am certain that available Virtual Address Space has absolutely nothing to do with disconnects, having successfully flown into many an OOM with the controller working fine right to the bitter end.

By the way, one of the most effective ways to cause an OOM is to pick your most complex and demanding aircraft and then raise the scenery LOD to astronomical levels.

 

Whatever the problem is, FSX will never be updated and Microsoft are clearly not interested, so my advice, if you like Windows 8 enough to keep it and you have this problem, is to stop guessing, buy FSUIPC and then you can forget all about it.

 

Regards,

Nick

 

Totally agree Nick.

 

I purchased my windows 8 system this past January, had yoke and pedal disconnects a lot.  Some one on this forum told me to use the payware FSUIPC and it will fix all your problems.  Well, it did!  I have never had a disconnect since.

 

Rod.

I seem to be having more disconnects whedn using the PMDG 777. I also have a registered copy of FSUIPC. What is your recommended set up for joysticks?

 

Ron

I seem to be having more disconnects whedn using the PMDG 777. I also have a registered copy of FSUIPC. What is your recommended set up for joysticks?

 

Ron

 

Use this: http://fsuipc.simflight.com/beta/SIMSAMURAI+FSUIPC+TUTORIAL.pdf

Thanks Philip. I guess I've been swamped with all the reading on the PMDG 777.

I'll go through the FSUIPC manual and perform their recommendations.

Ron

I have Win8 64bit, and yesterday i have configured all my Saitek Yoke/Pedals assignments with FSUIPC and guess the result....PROBLEM SOLVED!!!! Even with PMDG 777, now i can navigate between windows apps, and my yokes are still connected to FSX.

 

Brgds,

 

Juan Betancourt

Hello Guys

 

I'm joining to the Windows 8 Problems with Joysticks CLUB lol :lol:

 

Well I just want to say you that I'm using W8 64bits and a Saitek x52 and I had the same problem (discconect problem) I had 1 or 2 discconects but my problem looked different because I use the 737 and 747 PMDG BUT the weird situation is with 747 only

 

When I use the 737 I never got a disconnect or weird behaivor but is not the same situation with the 747

 

I had 2 disconnects with 747 and the most cases a weird behaivor ONLY in Joystick, the Throttle was running fine. The joystick had very weird movements when i tried to pull or push

 

I read some comments here and someone said "some of you have the EZdok camera ? And I had installed the EZdok camera, I decided remove the addon and the wrong behaivor dissapear!

 

I'm not saying that is the solution but at least for me works!

 

Hope this helps!

 

Thanks

Mauricio