Hi Folks!

 

    First off I admit to knowledge of aviation but only minimal functional knowledge of computers, so please excuse me if I ask foolish questions!

 

    I have modest equipment:  4 Core - 2.66 Ghz ea, 4 GB Ram and 1 GB Nvidia video card, only use a single monitor, and I fly offline historic weather usually.  VISTA 64 is my OS.

 

    I have had FSX SP2 since it came out and use only complex commercial aircraft but default FSX scenery.  Though admitedly NGX taxed my FPS more than any other of my livery, even it still has workable frame rates (15-20) and never (since NGX SP1 that is) experienced OOM or lockups.  I fly with full 100% UT2 and have been using AS2012 for weather (offline).  I recently added ASN and then the problems began.  Flights under 2 hours work perfectly and I fly departures and destinations with the worst weather I can find (manually tweaking them to make them worse if necessary).  The only other addon that I use is GSX.  I fly Level D767,  PMDG (747.MD11,NGX). ConcordeX, and Superpro 80.

 

    BUT... now on flights over 2 hours I am getting a total lockup after about 2 hours inflight time.  I have been posting and monitoring posts on the HIFI forums but the only feedback I have gotten is to add more RAM or cut my sliders way back.  However, some with 16 GB of RAM are having the same issue.  Pulling back sliders or CDD reductions have not solved the problem for me or any of the others.  Some newer versions of FSUIPC were thought to cause the problems but I have an older version and have it deactivated except to log my available memory so that could not be my issue.   

 

   Now to my questions:

 

   I understand that VM is 'virtual memory' and that VAS is 'virtual address space', but I don't ever seem to run out of memory according to FSUIPC monitor ( I have it windowed during flight).  Thinking that ASN just uses up more VM, I checked and found windows was dynamically allocating it so I manually set it to first 10 GB and then upped it to 12 GB.  This seemed to lessen the occurrence of the lockups (prior to this, I was getting them even on shorter duration flights) so I thought that I was on to something.

 

1.  Is the value that is being monitored by FSUIPC (offset = 024C) my VAS or is it my VM available or something entirely different?   FSUIPC still shows around 1.8 - 2.2 GB available at the time of my lockups.

 

2.  Could this be that though the memory shows available it is too fragmented and when ASN attempts to access it to refresh weather it cannot find large enough 'contiguous' memory available and must wait for my OS to defragment it?  I have been testing this and instead of madly trying to exit FSX through task manager, I am now just letting the flight stay up on the screen until it resumes.  It is taking between 7-8 minutes and then I can usually finish the flight without incident (though my longest test flight has only been 4 hours so far).  What is going on during this time that finally corrects the issue?  

 

3.  If ASN is uninstalled and the dll.xml is returned to its prior state, I experience no lockups regardless of length of flight.  Can there be some other cause that would create these symptoms instead of my half-baked novice theories?

 

   Any knowledgeable help or insight would be greatly appreciated!    

It depends on what you consider a "lock-up" to be, Craig.

Usually anything to do with VAS, whether a defrag is needed, a bigger swap file, lowered sliders, there are a number of those symptoms that will cause a CTD or an OOM, or just plain "has run out of memory and needs to re-start" - but these are not "lock-ups".

 

FSX on Windows 7 does have a penchant for locking up. i.e. the flight simply stops, with sound carrying on, and the cause of this is usually FSX (at some point) calling the UIAutomationCore.dll.

 

The Windows 7 version of this dll doesn't work with FSX, and so we usually download, and install this one, placing it in the root folder of FSX (where fsx.exe lives) and then unpacking and renaming it to the above name.

 

The only version you should use is this one: - 6.0.5840.16386. NO OTHER - and it should only be placed in the root of FSX, NOT in the Windows system folders - ok! 

 

All the Best,

 

Happy and Prosperous New Year!

 

pj

The only thing I can tell you is when I had my old computer, a Core Duo and AS2012 first came out I had the exact same problem. About 1.5 hours into a flight the program (FSX) would die on me. As I recall they did a mod on AS 2012 and that corrected it. Many were having the same problem. The problem seemed to have to do with the program extracting more and more memory from the computer until it finally ran out of memory.

Check the latest topics in the CTD Forum regarding ASN freezes/lockups.  A solution is there.

 

Meanwhile, I'm moving this to the CTD Forum.

 

Best regards,

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Happy New Year, Paul!

 

    Thanks for the response.  I remember the issue when NGX first came out and it was decided that the UIautomationCore.dll version that was in VISTA (606001.1800) was the one that worked so those who had Windows 7 had to get the VISTA version.  Since I already have VISTA 64 I never had the issue.  Based on your suggestions, I must replace it with another version and make sure that it is ONLY installed in my FSX root folder.  Well it is in my root FSX folder but I also found a copy in Windows\system folder and my sysWOW64 folder so I deactivated it in both of those folders but I still would like you to confirm that I must change to this older version.

 

    My lockups are LOCKUPS...total freeze of FSX with audio still running.  Since I am monitoring my available memory as I stated, I find it strange that it could be a memory issue unless it is that fragmented issue I mentioned.  You sound very sure that it is caused by this dll module issue but, if so, then maybe it is because it was in 3 places on my system (?).   Why then have I not ever had a lockup issue before installing ASN?   Those with the module issue had it with NGX and I never did.  I am positive that the directive I received was to keep the version I had and that those with Windows 7 had to change TO the version I had.  

 

     I have downloaded the model you suggested but am reluctant to replace my current module until you confirm that I cannot keep the RTM VISTA version I already have.

 

     I would hope that the solution would be that simple but others keep insisting it is somehow related to VM or VAS.

    

     Thanks, Paul.