Friday the 13th Has Cursed FSX

[pinlifter 502]

Much to my surprise yesterday evening on the dreaded Friday the 13th, I was greeted with this when launching FSX:

 

 

I have never had a lick of trouble with FSX launching over the past 4 years on two different machines (3 installs in all), including this install on an SSD one year ago which I've accumulated over 1300 flight hours.  I had completed two flights on Thurdsay trouble free as always and when I went to launch her yesterday it was a no go.  Unfortunately I don't carry my FSX/Acceleration discs with me when traveling (that will change), so I can't attempt a repair for a few days when I head home.

 

The only update on my machine during the 18 hours between working fine and not working at all was uninstalling/installing the latest OPUS update about 30 minutes prior, and with dozens of updates installed over the past year, I seriously doubt that's what caused it.  Since I don't have my discs handy to attempt a repair, I've tried the following:

 

-Rolling OPUS back to the previous beta

-System Restore

-Deleting the FSX.cfg

-Uninstalling Windows Updates (those were updated on the 11th, but I figure I'd at least try)

-Running the Flight One Registry Repair

 

I use Windows 7 and FSX lies on a 250GB SSD drive that contains only FSX files.  UAC is off (always has been) and I can't really think of anything else to try in the meantime.  The error prompt happens immediately after clicking on the FSX.exe icon....no pausing at all, so whatever file FSX attempts to read initially it obviously doesn't like.  I'm going to try a repair first, but was wondering if anyone has any experience doing that?  I've heard you have to use 2 discs to do it?

 

If that doesn't work, although I'd hate to do it, I'll go with a full FSX reinstall.  Fortunately I kept good notes when I did my migration to the SSD a year ago so timewise it won't be fun, but I made sure I kept everything backed up and organized in case I ever had to do it again.

 

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr the next Friday the 13th is June 2014 :mad:   Maybe I'll take that day off from flying B)

 

 

 

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

Rename or delete the fsx.cfg and restart fsx and let the config rebuild. (sorry didn't see where you had done that). If that doesn't work, it is probably something in your dll.xml that is corrupted and won't load. In your fsx.cfg, change the preload line from 1 to 0.

Do this before repairing. A repair will rewrite your fsx.cfg, dll.xml, scenery.cfg so all of those files should be backed up (best backing up all the folders that have these files).

Make sure you have Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 w/SP1 (32 bit version) as this is need to start up fsx.

Best regards,

[pinlifter 502]

I appreciate the quick response.  I tried what you recommended Jim, but still got the same error box on startup.  Any other suggestions I might try before attempting to use the repair option on the discs?  It will probably be Tuesday at the earliest before I'm able to go that route.

 

Also on the topic of trying a repair, with your vast knowledge and experience Jim, what do you think my chances are of that working versus having to do a full FSX reinstall?

 

 

[Jim Young 2,356]

Also on the topic of trying a repair, with your vast knowledge and experience Jim, what do you think my chances are of that working versus having to do a full FSX reinstall?

 

What does a repair do?  It will replace your fsx.cfg, your dll.xml, your exe.xml, your scenery.cfg, your logbook.bin and return all of your textures, and .fx effects back to the default.  They say that renaming the FSX.cfg is about equal to totally reinstalling FSX.  I think that's because the startup default flight was changed and it got corrupted, and when FSX is loading, it cannot find all of the components for that startup flight so it stops loading.  In the dll.xml you have a lot of utilities that need to be loaded before fsx starts up.  So, if anything is corrupted there, fsx will not start up.  This happened a lot several years ago when a JustFlight aircraft corrupted the dll.xml during installation of the product (which has been fixed).  You can look for yourself at the dll.xml and you should see corruption just by looking at it and making sure each line is the same as the previous entry.  A lot of problems are fixed by disabling all of the utilities in the dll.xml by changeing that one line for each utility from disabled>false<disabled to disabled>True<disabled, then restarting FSX.  If it starts up properly, then you know it was one of the utilities.  Look also for duplicate entries of utilities installed and remove any duplicates.  Look for entries of software no longer installed on your computer.  Some of these uninstallers of addons do a poor job of removing the software entries in the dll.xml when the product is uninstalled.  Again, when you are trying to load FSX, if it cannot find components to load, it will most likely stop loading and give you the error.

 

The logbook.bin is also known as a culprit for not allowing fsx to start up (located in My Documents/Flight Simulator X Files).  You can check that by renaming it to logbook.old and restart fsx (a new one will be rebuilt).  It gets corrupted.  If that turns out to be the problem, then you want to rename the logbook.old back to logbook.bin and then run a tool you can download from the AVSIM Library that will repair it.  I think it is called FSXLogbook Recovery 1.1.  It shows every flight you have taken.

 

Another issue might be the Scenery Library.  Lots of members have had success fixing their problem by disabling all of their addon scenery in the Scenery Library (except you cannot get into your Scenery Library as you cannot load to the setup screen).  You should download a program call Scenery Config Editor (there's a link to it in the AVSIM CTD Guide in the CTD Forum).  You can then open it up and it will immediately tell you if you have an error or issue with your scenery and offer to fix it.  You can also use it to disable all of your add-on scenery.  If it starts up after disabling all of your scenery, then you need to reenable each 3-4 at a time to see which one is the problem.  Usually the last scenery product installed is the problem.

 

If you go through with a repair, make sure you repair Acceleration too. 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Best regards,

[Jim Padgett 11]

Read your event logs ...

 

Look for NTFS or Disk errors...

 

Read the application log looking for FSX errors...

 

Trouble Shooting Computers is best done by a methodical analysis... In many cases what looks like the problem is merely a symptom of some other issue ...

[pinlifter 502]

Thanks for your efforts Jim and Jim.  I tried a repair twice late last night with no luck, so I went with a reinstall.  I just wrapped up about an hour ago.  She boots up nicely now and over the next few days I'll start slowly reloading everything.  Having FSX on its own SSD drive made it so much easier to uninstall everything versus last time when it was spread out over the C & D drives.

 

I haven't a clue what the hell triggered that error message in the first place and I hope to never see it again.  Backup, backup, backup because you just never know....fortunately I had everything backed up to an external hard drive and to another computer networked to my laptop.

 

Anyhoo looking forward to getting the freighter fleet back in the skies shortly B) 

[Q_flyer 766]

Pleased you're back up and running Chris, m'lad!

 

I've had that happen before (couple of years ago), and I think it was the logbook.bin as Jim said.

 

A re-install now and again is usually beneficial anyway (although it's nice to choose when to do it yourself, rather than Friday 13th deciding for you! :lol:)

[pinlifter 502]

I hear ya Dave!  I tried the logbook as well as countless other suggestions with no luck.  She's fresh and as clean as a whistle now (like the Irish Spring soap commerical :lol:).  I've declared Friday June 13th, 2014 as a "no-fly" day already B)

[Q_flyer 766]

Yeah, go to the gym that day huh! :lol: