A 'crash' without crashing!

[antonmorse 9]

Hi can anyone assist with this please -

The last few times I have landed at Las Vegas, while taxiing, I have a Runtime Error' message appear on the screen. There are no details, just 'Runtime Error!, C:\FSX\fsx.exe, abnormal termination' or similar short message.

But the strange thing is, the program does not actually crash (thankfully). I am able to switch the error message to the background, continue taxiing to the gate, deboard and save my progress.

 

I have FSX patched to SP2; UT2 2013; FSCaptain; DBS Airport GPS; FSDT GSX; FSDT Las Vegas Airport.

 

It seems to have started since installing FSDT KLAS Airport, but I cannot point the finger for sure at it, as I have only actually done a fresh install of the whole of FSX in the last 10 days, having not used it for a few months.

 

(W7 64bit Home Premium; Phenom 2 960t 3Ghz; 8Gb ram; 3GB HD7950).

 

Thanks for any help,

Keith

 

EDIT - my windows is also fully updated.

[Jim Young 2,356]

Sounds like some other program running in the background crashed and not FSX.  Check your Event Viewer to see if it shows what happened (click on the Start button and type Event in the Search box then look up in the Menu and click on Event Viewer.  Look under Custom Views/Administrative Events).

 

Best regards,

Jim

[antonmorse 9]

Thanks Jim,

I cannot find anything relating to it yet. I will watch more closely next time and check the event viewer immediately.

I may be wrong but at the moment I have the feeling it is a conflict between DBS Airport GPS (which I use to guide me to the gate on landing) and FSDT KLAS airport, which I now think has updated the gate numbers along with adding a new terminal. To compound it I also tell GSX ground services which gate is assigned so that the marshal is waiting for me, so the opportunity is there for a confusion.

 

Thanks for your help,

Keith

[Jim Young 2,356]

That would be easy to investigate as you can simply turn off the DBS Airport GPS and use the GSX follow-me vehicle to see if the error shows up again.  It's hard for me to believe that would cause a conflict though.  Make sure you have the latest update (1.90) and the required latest version of Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 installed as that's what Microsoft Visual C++ is suppose to do... show runtime errors if your application is not responding in the way the developer programmed the product.  If you are undocking and dragging the GPS tool to another monitor, that's a problem too as it sometimes takes up a lot of memory for some reason.

 

The Event Viewer shows every event that occurred on your computer since you installed Windows.  Some are good, some are bad events.

 

Best regards,

Jim

[antonmorse 9]

Thanks for this useful info.

Yes, I do move the GPS into another monitor. I will leave it off for a few days, if it does not recur I will try again but leave it in it's original monitor position. (It is ver 1.9).

 

I have Visual C++ (both x86 and x64), and both are ver 10.0.40219, with no updates showing available.

 

I have searched through the event viewer and still cannot find anything around the time that it happened. I will look again, but then will just have to watch more closely & check immediately if it happens again.

 

Thanks again,

Keith

[lodestar 186]

this should be installed too, ususally fixes FSX / FS9 runtime errors https://www.dropbox.com/s/bzvpr4a4f72pdm8/dx7vb.rar

[antonmorse 9]

Thanks B247NG, I have downloaded it, will not use it yet, I'll make one change at a time and add it if I need to later. I must say I have never used it in the past & had not heard of it (though I sometimes did get crashes, but few enough not to worry about).

[antonmorse 9]

OK, I landed in Las Vegas again tonight, and it happened again while taxiing to the gate. So it seems to happen (so far) only while taxiing at KLAS (about 5 of these 'crashes' here in total, but none at KSFO or KLAX). DBS GPS was switched off this time, and I as again following the GSX vehicle to the gate (B3).

 

It happened approx 2043hrs, and the nearest thing I could find in the event viewer is in

Windows Logs/ Application:

Information

09/08/2013 20:45:12 Desktop Window Manager

ID 9010

 

General:

A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (Flight Simulator X v10.0.61472.0)

 

Does this mean anything to anyone with more knowledge of these things than I have?

 

Thanks for any opinion or advice.

 

This time by the way, I paused, saved, and then clicked on the error message, & sure enough fsx closed down. But the save was fine, and I reloaded, re-entered the gate request and parked up.

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

A request to disable the Desktop Window Manager was made by process (Flight Simulator X v10.0.61472.0)

 

This is normal.  Whenever you first start up FSX you'll see a warning in your lower right corner of your desktop.

 

When you go into the Event Viewer, you should look for Custom Views then Administrative Events.  This lists all the current happenings all in one view instead of having to look in every log.

 

It really is very difficult to pinpoint the cause.  Looking in the Event Viewer for "Events" is one way to investigate a crash on your computer.  Microsoft put it there to help in an investigation.  There's another tool and that's the AppCrashView program that looks at all Microsoft crashes and interprets them better than any other program currently available.  It shows all the information that is usually sent to Microsoft when you have a crash.  You can download it here - http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/app_crash_view.html.  You should run this application and it will show you all of the crashes that ever occurred on your computer.  Just click on one and copy the report in the lower pane and paste the report here.

 

Best regards,

Jim

[antonmorse 9]

Thanks Jim, but the last crash shown on AppCrashView was on 8/8 at 21:50, IExlpore stopped working, nothing to do with fsx, and no mention at all of any of the runtime errors I have had.

If it continues to only happen at Vegas, I will uninstall the FSDT airport and see if it goes away.

 

But anyway, it's better than having the dreaded 'fsx has stopped working', at least with this I can just switch it to the background, save my progress and continue.

[SteveW 1,792]

I would inspect more closely the Administrative Events list, there will be event listings for any unexpected termination of FSX. It's possible the scenery could be at fault, I've seen this before whereby the sim crashes at the same location, or the view looking the same way. If it's all stock scenery do a repair from the DVD, if it's an addon airport see if its got an update or just try reinstalling it to refresh the files, and can always try a flight with stock scenery.

[Propane 16]

FSDT uses Couatl (some sort of scripting engine I believe). This is an executable that runs in the background. It is quite possible that upon arriving to Las Vegas it crashes for some reason, but it has no huge impact on FSX itself.