I Loathe FSDT's COUATL!

[ubersu 78]

I too have had problems with this thing as well. My problem is that the terminals disappear and re-appear at random times. They have tried to help me at the fsdt forums and I have tried everything that they suggested and I still have the problem. I changed antivirus, uninstalled, reinstalled... you know the drill. I would like for them to acknowledge that something is wrong with the products or installer or whatever because many many people have the same problem that I have so it's not just us, the customers. Also, it keeps happening even with the newest releases because I had originally thought it was a problem with just the older scenery but it isn't

 

Call me crazy but I will continue to buy their scenery because they are stunning.

 

What should they acknowledge - that you have a problem?  I've used every product they make on 3 different machines and never seen the problem that you have.  I also don't recall other users complaining of this particular issue unless they were having couatl.exe problems.

 

DJ

[bosflo 53]

once again I post a simple observation and get flack for it, This forum has become pretty judgmental lately. please read the fsdt forums and see how many people post about disappearing terminals.

[PigsInSpace 21]

What should they acknowledge - that you have a problem?  I've used every product they make on 3 different machines and never seen the problem that you have.  I also don't recall other users complaining of this particular issue unless they were having couatl.exe problems.

 

DJ

 

So because YOU don't have a problem it means that it doesn't exist? By any chance do work for MS? In the windows updates department? LOL

[virtuali 4,421]

please read the fsdt forums and see how many people post about disappearing terminals.

As discussed many times already, it's fairly normal that on a support forum, you'll see mostly reports of problems. What matters is if they are being dealt with, with suggestions about fixing them, and eventual product updates.

 

As I've said already in my previous post, the vast majority of reasons why Couatl doesn't start (which results in missing buildings), are caused by EXTERNAL causes, like antivirus, missing Windows libraries or conflict with system utilities not related to flight simulation.

 

These makes for about 99% of the issues, and users reporting it on our support forum or by email are always being followed until the external problem is found.

 

In the very few remaining cases a problem was really something that we had to fix on our side, we always do an update for it and our updates history and the build count speaks for itself.

 

And we update so often, that's one of the reasons Couatl.exe is flagged as a threat by some antivirus like Norton, who blocks legit programs from execution because they haven't built enough "reputation" (they obviously can't, since they are updated every week or so) to be considered safe.

[High Plains Flyer 35]

OK.  I just did a fresh install of EVERYTHING.  My old setup was giving me the blue screen of death every time I tried to run it.  So I installed a new 3TB hard drive and made it my boot drive.  (I did not do the install but took it to a local computer shop run by people who know far more than I do.)  A clean install of windows and a clean install of FSX.  For the most part, I am just putting in the add ons as I need them.  Which means the only planes I have been using for the past week are the PMDG 737 and 777.

 

The setup was working pretty well, until I added the FSDT airports with Coatl.  I did add the DBS GPS system for airports, but since it never installed correctly (if has a horrible copy protection scheme which really punishes legitimate users), I uninstalled it.  Last flight was with the 777 from Dallas Ft. Worth (FSDT) to Heathrow (UK2000).  The computer bombed about a half dozen times along the route.  I don't mean Crash to Desktop.  I mean crash to reboot.  Since I had a similar problem with a flight from Honolulu (FSDT) to Kona (FSDT), I had reinstalled the payware FSUIPC which save a flight every minute.  So I would reboot the computer, reload FSX, and reload my autosaved flight and be on my way until the next crash.

 

I have not posted on the FSDT website, because all indications are that is a complete waste of time.  Plus, I am going to try a few flights without an FSDT airport being enabled.  However, GSX will still be running, so it will not be an entirely clean experiment.  First will be London to Copenhagen on an SAS 737 and next from Copenhagen to Budapest..  I have been installing FS Altitude, but have not yet reinstalled FTX Global or GEX.

 

The ONLY reason I am posting here is because there are people here calling the original poster a liar and engaging in ad hominem attacks against him.  I don't know what their problem is:  whether they are "very excited users." or whether they just want to spread misinformation.  However, these ad hominem attacks are not helpful to those of us who are having a real problem and are seeking a solution.  Given my own experience, the original poster and other experiencing difficulties are not making things up.  It is entirely inappropriate to brush them off as liars.

 

I suspect some users are not experiencing problems because they may not be challenging the software.  For me, I did not have many problems with FSDT/Coatl until I started playing with the PMDG aircraft about a month ago.  Yes, occasionally, no buildings would show up.  But it worked more often than not.  But add the PMDG 737 to the mix and I get crashes and the blue screen of death.  Maybe it's a PMDG problem, and the naysayers are really saying that PMDG makes crap aircraft; but I'm not buying that.  It may be correct to say that FSDT sceneries do not play nice with PMDG aircraft.

 

I want to see if the crashing persists.  But the prime suspect is FSDT and/or Coatl.  I may post to the FSDT forum if these flights go off without a hitch.  Quite frankly, if I am told that the problem is with other software (i.e. FSUIPC, AES (a belt and suspender approach to ground services), the PMDG aircraft, or FSX itselt), or my configuration (a clean install of both windows and FSX; with my anti virus software excluding my FSX folder), I am not going to be impressed.  If Coatl does not play nice with programs like the PMDG aircraft and FSUIPC, then it is no good.

 

Moreover, blaming it on anti virus software is a no go.  I had been using Kasparsky for a couple of years.  With my clean install, I have gone to Avira, because Kasparsky seemed to miss some stuff.  In these days, one really needs more than one anti-virus package.  I am sure that if I disabled my anti-virus software, I would be told that my problems were caused by a computer virus.  This really places the user between a rock and a hard place.  On the one hand, we are told that the problems are caused by our anti-virus software, and on the other we are told that our problems are caused by a virus because we did not enable our anti-virus software.  I don't think it's too much to ask that a software package cooperates with the most commonly used anti-virus programs.

 

By the way, isolating the problem with a clean install, is no mean feat.  After a couple of fails, a clean install is no longer clean.

 

With my clean install, I have already been experiencing problems with COATL/FSDT airports.  I will install an airport from a fresh download from FSDT, enter the security code, but when I run FSX, I only see jetways.  When I check to add on manager, it reports the airport was not installed, even though I just installed it with FSDT's installer.  Sometimes an airport which had just been installed is suddenly uninstalled.  In two cases, things like runways land taxiways are not appearing (specifically at FSDT's Dallas Fort Worth).

 

I own just about all of FSDT's products, except Zurich -- where I use the Aerosoft version.  I have spent a lot of  money on this scenery and I expect it to work properly.  It is a sad state of affairs where scenery from the likes of Blueprint works better than the high end scenery from FSDT.

[pete_auau 1,159]

 

 

The computer bombed about a half dozen times along the route

Here lies  the issue  what has  fsdt or  coutil  got  to do with you issues if your half  way  in your  route and you getting  ctds  there must be other  issues at play here since everyone who has  fdst  would be  having  the  issues

[Don t moderate me this way 882]

I never had a "crash to reboot" because of a FSX addon.

 

Looks like a hardware and/or driver issue to me.

[High Plains Flyer 35]

Here lies  the issue  what has  fsdt or  coutil  got  to do with you issues if your half  way  in your  route and you getting  ctds  there must be other  issues at play here since everyone who has  fdst  would be  having  the  issues

Please tell me what those issues are.  My computer is only two years old.  At the time I got it, it was one of HPs top of the line computers which was special ordered.  I7 processor, 8 gb of memory.  ATI card.  It's a standard issue factory model.  No custom builds here.

 

The first time the case was opened was a week ago when the new hard drive was installed.  The installation of the new hard drive and Windows OS was done by a professional who also cleaned the computer (but it really was not too dirty), Usually this guy also does diagnostics.  When he reinstalled the OS, he did not install HPs bloatware.  He did install AVIRA, and Microsoft's online Office.  Also, he installed Adobe reader and flash.

 

Additionally, I ran the hardware diagnostics, and no problems appeared.  I did re-install ATI's latest drivers.  I reinstalled the Saitek drivers for my yoke, throttle and rudders.  What other drivers do I need to install.  Keep in mind, this is a clean windows installation which was made less than a week ago.

 

FSX is the only program I have installed to date.  Along with FSX, I installed the PMDG 737 and 777.  I also installed all of the FSDT airports (except Zurich, which I do not own), and Flightbeam's Phoenix Sky Harbor.  I loaded the UK 2000 program from my former bootdrive (which is now drive E).

 

So please advise me which programs I should remove.  Should I remove Windows?  How about AVIRA?  Internet Explorer?  Office?  Adobe Reader?  Adobe Flash?  FSX?  PMDG aircraft?  That's about it.

[High Plains Flyer 35]

I never had a "crash to reboot" because of a FSX addon.

 

Looks like a hardware and/or driver issue to me.

Then please tell me what you are doing right and I am doing wrong.

[Don t moderate me this way 882]

Then please tell me what you are doing right and I am doing wrong.

 

 

Last time I experienced something so severe my broken RAM caused blue screens of death.

[virtuali 4,421]

OK.  I just did a fresh install of EVERYTHING

 

A clean install of windows and a clean install of FSX.  For the most part, I am just putting in the add ons as I need them.  Which means the only planes I have been using for the past week are the PMDG 737 and 777

These two sentences seems to contradict: have you reinstalled EVERYTHING, like you said in the first part, of have you reinstalled just Windows, FSX and the two airplane you use most, as you said in the 2nd part of the sentence ?

 

Last flight was with the 777 from Dallas Ft. Worth (FSDT) to Heathrow (UK2000).  The computer bombed about a half dozen times along the route.  I don't mean Crash to Desktop.  I mean crash to reboot.

That CLEARLY proves it's nothing that has anything to do with any of our products, let alone with Couatl. For the following technical reasons, which are not really open to discussion:

 

- An FSX internal module, such a .DLL, could possibly crash FSX, AT MOST. It cannot crash your entire PC, requiring a reboot.

 

- An FSX EXTERNAL module, like an .EXE, and Couatl IS such kind of module, cannot even crash FSX, let alone your entire system. On top of that, an external FSX module will NOT take away from the limited 4GB memory available to FSX, it will use its own dedicated VAS space so, Couatl can't even consume FSX memory. SCENERY objects, of course, will take away memory, but the amount needed would be exactly the same as if they were created in a .BGL instead of by the Addon Manager+Couatl.

 

The ONLY kind of programs that can cause an hard reboot, are those that runs with a special permission level that NO regular program can obtain, and are DRIVERS, graphic, audio, hard drive drivers, etc. It's ONLY those special programs that can cause blue screen or an hard crash. Another thing that might cause blue screens are problem with memory.

 

 

I have not posted on the FSDT website, because all indications are that is a complete waste of time.

That's wrong. All indications clearly proves that everything is being solved. You are doing the same mistake of many, that you read the messages just when they start, and don't check when they end, when the eventual solution is found, and it's almost invariably caused by something else. Or, your indications might come from second hand news. If you reported your issue on the FSDT forum EXACTLY as if you are reporting here, you would have had the same explanation, and a very different one, because hard crashes and blue screen are not very common, but it's very easy to know what DO NOT cause them, and it's all normal executable programs.

 

I suspect some users are not experiencing problems because they may not be challenging the software.  For me, I did not have many problems with FSDT/Coatl until I started playing with the PMDG aircraft about a month ago.

You are saying here that without installing PMDG, FSDT/Couatl used to work normally with no crashes, which, considering you also said "The setup was working pretty well, until I added the FSDT airports with Coatl". So, what would be your report, should you have installed FSDT stuff FIRST, and THEN PMDG, on your clean reinstall ?

 

But add the PMDG 737 to the mix and I get crashes and the blue screen of death.  Maybe it's a PMDG problem and the naysayers are really saying that PMDG makes crap aircraft; but I'm not buying that.

The quality of the aircraft doesn't have any relationship to how it might be a cause of problems. PMDG products are very memory-consuming AND very heavy on the graphic card so, depending on your settings, if you are JUST on the borderline to exhausting memory, which as explained too many times already, on FSX is a VERY scarce resource that can't be added, it's under these circumstances (being close to memory exhaustion) that it's more likely that either the Windows memory management OR the video card drivers can have problems.

 

It may be correct to say that FSDT sceneries do not play nice with PMDG aircraft.

They works perfectly fine together, and they are used by most of our users so no, there are no problems whatsoever using them together. But again, it depends on your settings, how many addon you are using at a certain place. When CYVR was released, many users had problems with OOM, if they flew with the PMDG 737 with settings too high and/or other add-ons in the area installed, especially under DX9, which consumes more memory than DX10. The 777 takes about 200MB more than the 737, which means if you were already very close to exhausting memory with the 737, the 777 won't improve it and you will HAVE to find ways to reduce your memory consumption.

 

I may post to the FSDT forum if these flights go off without a hitch.  Quite frankly, if I am told that the problem is with other software (i.e. FSUIPC, AES (a belt and suspender approach to ground services), the PMDG aircraft, or FSX itselt), or my configuration (a clean install of both windows and FSX; with my anti virus software excluding my FSX folder), I am not going to be impressed.  If Coatl does not play nice with programs like the PMDG aircraft and FSUIPC, then it is no good.

So, you are only going to accept the explanation you want to hear, simply because (assuming this is the case, which is still to be seen) you made a flight without a problem with no FSDT installed ? Are you saying that making a flight without the "suspect" addon installed it's enough proof that software is the cause ? By this reasoning, you should also do the SAME test, and excluding ANOTHER software, and see if you CAN make a successful flight WITH FSDT installed.

 

Wait...you ALREADY did that!

 

"I did not have many problems with FSDT/Coatl until I started playing with the PMDG aircraft about a month ago"

 

With my clean install, I have already been experiencing problems with COATL/FSDT airports

 

That's not what you said before, unless, with "clean" install, you mean FSX+PMDG

 

I will install an airport from a fresh download from FSDT, enter the security code, but when I run FSX, I only see jetways. When I check to add on manager, it reports the airport was not installed, even though I just installed it with FSDT's installer. Sometimes an airport which had just been installed is suddenly uninstalled. In two cases, things like runways land taxiways are not appearing (specifically at FSDT's Dallas Fort Worth).

 

There are many possible causes for this, depending if Couatl is running or not. If it hasn't started, you won't see its menu, so it's one kind of problem (antivirus, missing libraries, etc.). If, instead, Couatl is running, there might be a problem that doesn't have anything to do with it, for example with the Scenery Library.

 

"Installed" doesn't mean "Installed in your system using the installer", it means Installed in the FSX Scenery Library. If there was a problem with it, the scenery would be indicated as "Not Installed", and this will of course result in no buildings, but that's normal for EVERY scenery out there: if it's not in the Scenery Library, it won't be visible.

 

But this is NOT the place for precise troubleshooting. Please report this on our forum. We have many troubleshooting steps, logging and debugging options, that can be undertaken to understand what your problem is.

 

It is a sad state of affairs where scenery from the likes of Blueprint works better than the high end scenery from FSDT.

Even the default 737 also causes way less issues that the PMDG NGX, do you see users reporting about OOM or crashes with it, or any other problem ? The more complex a system is (be it scenery or airplane), the more it might be affected by configuration problems, memory, video drivers bugs, etc.

[DarkstarF16 72]

I had an issue only yesterday. I sent a support email late afternoon. Due to the time differences I realised that I was unlikely to get an answer the same day. The next morning I had an email waiting, which was very helpful and my problem was sorted.

 

Guess what? It was caused by an EXTERNAL programme.

[Nurmblitz 59]

Well, external or internal, all this twisting of words could be over if some of us could opt for a "lite" versions. Just a Scenery file with "scenery" and "texture" files inside. Then you´d go to and add it by pushing "add scenery" button...

[virtuali 4,421]

Well, external or internal, all this twisting of words could be over if some of us could opt for a "lite" versions. Just a Scenery file with "scenery" and "texture" files inside. Then you´d go to and add it by pushing "add scenery" button...

 

I think I've clearly explained that we NEED those support programs, because the sceneries are entirely intertwined to them, removing those features (not mentioning we don't want to go back to 2003) would require redoing them in a very different way, more or less like an FS9 scenery.

 

In fact, we have "lite" versions of our sceneries, and they run in FS9.At least up to KLAX.

 

They all still require the Addon Manager for FS9, but there's no Couatl, since FS9 (without Simconnect and the standard way to interface with an external .EXE like FSX) doesn't need it and it doesn't do all the things that FSX could do that required to create a script engine in the first place so, it's all simpler in FS9.

 

Have you heard of many problems with the FS9 version Addon Manager ? The program it's the same, and it uses exactly the same principle and activation method. But the difference is:

 

- We don't update the FS9 version very often, so it can build enough "reputation" to be antivirus-friendly, for those bugged antivirus that use that questionable method based on reputation. The last update of the FS9 Addon Manager dates September 2011, I guess that all antivirus must have figured it out, after 2 years, the program is safe.

 

- FS9 modules do not need to be digitally signed. This means that both the module will always start (the FSX version will not start if the user mistakenly un-trusted it), and it will not suffer from some bugs in FSX related to the check for a digitally signed file, which sometimes results in bogus messages on starting about the module might not be safe. Doesn't happen in FS9.

 

- FS9 modules doesn't use the Side-by-Side loading, so it's very easy to sort out dependencies from other .DLLs

 

- There's no Simconnect in FS9, one less thing that might fail. While in FSX we use Simconnect for almost everything related to objects creation, it means if THAT one is failing, corrupted, not installed or badly used by ANOTHER addon so we can't even talk to it, we fail too. In FS9, we use direct in-memory HACKS to do the same. But that's something can control entirely, so our FS9 is less prone to such problems. Unfortunately, FS9 code is also way more limited in what can do, and it would be wrong using the same method in FSX, because FS9 code running in FSX is slow.

 

- There's are no DLL.XML and EXE.XML files in FS9, just place a .DLL in the modules folder, and it will run. Another thing that can't fail, since it doesn't exist in the first place.

 

- It's very difficult to exhaust 4GB in FS9 so, problems and crashes with memory exhaustions are very rare.

 

- FS9 is much more limited in graphic than FSX, and so it's more unlikely to run into problems caused by bugged video drivers, wrong tweaks, wrong settings, etc.

 

All this means FS9 is better ? No, of course. It only means that, with capabilities comes complexity. And complexity, with hundreds, if not thousands of add-ons available, which means an infinite number of combinations, means that something that runs in FSX needs a flawless installation, more than FS9.

[Nurmblitz 59]

Thank you for the answer, I think we have all been convinced that FSDT is a determined and a decated addon provider. This discussion, even a bit heated at times, has been a fruitful one. I' m sure other developers have followed this also very keenly and perhaps they have noted the underlining customer demand for simple usability even among high quality addons. And as a simple and humble customer I know now what to expect from FSDT and act accordingly. High quality and simpilicity can go together and I seek my simming fun from that direction from this on.