As many of you know, I've been plagued with a series of CTDs (post patch) that intially seemed to be triggered by the introduction of an AFCAD2 file.While that possibility still exists, it's beginning to seem like there could be other causes to the CTDs. Perhaps a bad texture file or .cfg or air file? A bad model?I've been using FS9 for about 8 months, so I missed the openning research and solutions for problems when FS9 was new.Woul you all consider listing any known causes of instability and the solutions?I might be able to more quickly identify what is causing my baffling series of CTDs, and to get back to enjoying the skies again.Thanks Folks!!!Rick (KMKE)

First thing I would do is install the original drivers that came with your video card. Forget about frame rates at this moment. Just sit at your favorite airport and see it will CDT. If it doesn't then increase to later drivers. If it does than I would try another video card and see what happens.Sometimes the latest drivers are not the best. I installed the latest Nivida driver set and my sim would crash and cause a reboot. I took my own advise and an now using later (but not the latest) drivers. So far, so good.Regards,Ed

Rick,I would be inclined to say that the vast majority of CTD's are due to bad AFCAD2 files.I have also seen some AI plane texture files cause CTD's too.Dan.

My experience is that CTDs can be caused by any kind of bad bgl file, wrong entries in scenery.cfg, fs9.cfg and terrain.cfg, missing/bad dlls in the modules folder, bad gauges and texture files.There are two types of CTDs: the one is that FS9 crashes before the opening screen, the other happens any time after hitting "fly now".Many, many CTDs I had were because of the cfg files, AFCADs almost never caused a problem for me.It's hard to find out the reason of a CTD, and it's even hard to avoid them.A good technique is keeping backup copies of the cfg fies and testing FS after each installation of a new add-on in various situations (e.g. fly in different world areas after installing mesh). Never install add-on after add-on and then run FS...Andreas

Have you upgraded your hard drive on an older computer? Is the new HD substantially bigger than replacement drive? Does you system show HD space much smaller that it actually is? For example I replaced my 100G HD with 160G HD and Windows XP sees it as 137G HD, where did remaining 23G go?Read this from Western Digital site:http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/ph...wYWdlPTE*&p_li=Click on "Anwser ID 928" under "137GB Barrier (128GB binary) Barrier" - "Solution 2"If your system does not support larger HD then data on HD will be corrupted overtime eventually causing CTD. Solution is to follow recommendations or buy HD equal to or lesser in size than original drive that came with your system.Hope this helps.

IMHO I believe 90% of the CTD's are caused by bad installs/upgrades of video card drivers. I think many simmers are constantly upgrading their drivers whenever a new edition is released. All my crashes have been caused by bad driver installation. Even though DirectX and the Device Manager showed no problems with my upgrade of my video card drivers, I later discovered I had a bad video card registry entry that was pointing somewhere else. I uninstall/reinstalled the ATI drivers and had no problems after that. Even when I successfully upgrade my video drivers, I always have a black screen when initially starting FS9 since I always start up in full screen. If someone else is getting this too they may think they have a crash. I simply hit alt/enter and go to the windowed mode and I can see the start up screen again. To fix this problem, I shutdown and restart my computer a few times, change the display resolution size in FS9 settings a couple of times, and suddenly I can see everything in full screen mode. I've checked my FS9 config after upgrading video drivers and the correct video card settings are displayed so that's not the problem. It's a change somewhere in the registry that is not taking hold immediately after upgrading. Make sure you turn off any anti-virus software before installing an addon as that will probably cause a bad install and you'll probably get a crash as a result.I've found that "out of memory" errors can be caused by bad video card driver installations too as it happened to me even though I had over 1GB of memory and the latest system.You're also going to get a CTD if missing an .air file for one of the AI aircraft as those aircraft are being loaded at startup. Of course, if the aircraft you are loading is missing an .air file, it's going to crash when loading the aircraft. I found through a Google search that the Sim1.dll error was caused by the utility called FlightSim Manager. Whenever you have the utility search for problems with aircraft, it sets up a dummy .air file (i.e., it has 0 bytes) somewhere within FS9 and when FS9 is loading AI aircraft, it reads this "dummy" air file and crashes.That's all for now. Happy flying!Jim

In additiom to faulty AFCAD files, I have encountered a number of CTDs due to faulty landclass files. Sometimes the removal of landclass and the slow re-introduction file by file will lead you to the faulty file.I keep all my landclass in a seperate landclass only folder so it is easy to turn it off and turn it on when encountering a CTD.Lee

Hi allThis week I have been unable to complete a flight due to CTD during flight.It seems to happen as I cross from land over the North sea. I have tried starting my flight from the UK and from Holland. When starting from the UK it crashes after about 40 min and when starting from holland it crashed after just a few mins when reaching the sea.I use real weather but the only thing I have different is an install of a VC10, but the CTD even happens with the default Cessna.To be honest I really regret ever buying FS2004 and just hope if MS release another flight sim they actually make sure it works first.If anyone has any suggestions for this problem I would appreciate any help.I have already reset the season to fall but still no different.RegardsGraham

Rick; I fought a similar problem for months and it turned out to be a badstick of memory. Actually the Mem wasn't completly defective ... it just wouldn'trun at its rated speed. Of course at the time I had no addons. DN

Spilling coffee on the keyboard a definite cause of CTD.

In addition to "all of the above..."Many problems with W98 or XP and XP with SP1,2 because the Registry is filled with Invalid links.Recommendations for better operation or to stop CTD of your system:If using W98, ME, et.al.Upgrade to XP it will eliminate many "Errors". Your entire system will operate much better, and faster.IF you are using XP, without SP1 and SP2, installing it will boost _framerate_ and make other improvements.The FS was created with XP, and the FS patch was undoubtedly created, with SP2 installed. If not using SP2, by all means upgrade, there are too many reasons to do so, to repeat here.Each time you _delete_ something from your HD, it can leave an invalid links. Even something as simple as deleting a picture you no longer want. Over time, invalid registry entries can slow your system to a crawl, if FS pauses too long, it errors. Software demo's or payware which give you a free trial, leave links in the registry, to prevent you from using it over, and over. They also may leave folders with junk in them, which you need to remove manually. You can get RegCleaner free, I've used it with W98, ME, XP.You might search for: RegCleaner 4.2 by Jouni Vuorio.After installing...RegCleaner Set the "Options, Registry Cleanup, Method" to Automatic. Then, click on "Tools, Registry Cleanup, Do them all." It will safely clean your registry, even if you know nothing about it.This will delete all _invalid_ registry keys, etc. First time it ran on my system, it deleted 287! One person I told about cleaning the registry, said it deleted 1643 invalid registry keys, and his system ran like it did brand new.HOWEVER... both my wife's and my computer have been slowing down drastically over the past year, and even have had a few "blue screen errors." Pages which used to load in 4-5 seconds, have been taking 16-20 on DSL!A friend told me to check this link for a better program http://www.registryfix.com/ Decided to try it. It found 275 errors which the above programs have _never_ found. It Fixed 37 which helped, to fix the rest you need a registered copy, which costs $29.95 . . . .. Decided to buy it, ran it to delete the others, and rebooted. Now all webpages which Ive tried, load in _one_second_ or less! Unlike the other programs, it searches the entire drive for orphaned files or links and missing shortcuts, et. al.I'd removed norton and some other programs _months_ ago, it found six links still existing to norton. If not using Ad-aware, and Spybot, (freeware) its a good idea to begin. They can get rid of a LOT of programs which tell companies where you are surfing, and more. Each time they do, it uses bandwidth. If there are hundreds of them on your system, the time they use is significant. Cleaning your Registry and getting rid of Spyware, makes your operating system work the way it should.There are so many causes of problems, in FS which are caused from invalid links in the Registry, its not possible to list all of them. Every time I have a problem with the FS, _first_ thing I do is clean the system. As it is the easiest to use, and Fast, and havent had a CTD since,I highly recommend you at least check out the demo at: http://www.registryfix.com/Just this week someone I'd recommended it too said, "It fixed 309 problems for me..." Bob

>You're also going to get a CTD if missing an .air file for one>of the AI aircraft as those aircraft are being loaded at>startup. Of course, if the aircraft you are loading is>missing an .air file, it's going to crash when loading the>aircraft. I found through a Google search that the Sim1.dll>error was caused by the utility called FlightSim Manager. >Whenever you have the utility search for problems with>aircraft, it sets up a dummy .air file (i.e., it has 0 bytes)>somewhere within FS9 and when FS9 is loading AI aircraft, it>reads this "dummy" air file and crashes.Hi everyone,just wanted to clarify the problem with my Freeware software - FlightSim Manager. This problem occured in v2.7.0 and was immediately fixed next day - it only happened with bad aircraft files pointing to invalid files. Unfortunately, though about 15 beta users test this program before it is released - none of us had such a bad configuration files (to be honest, we are running the software for a while, and thanks to the diagnostic, all our settings are perfect), and thus didn't have this problem.This CTD occured if AI Traffic is ON.Just to add - another cause of CTD is landclass files, and as far as I know, FSM is the only tool that allows searching for such landclass files.

The very first thing to do is to go the library and download 'ScanAFD' and run it. You will get a list of all afcads or duplicate afcads in your fs installation. Get rid of the duplicates. Then, if the problems still exist, pursue the other possiblities mentioned in this thread. This little program is a great utility, and should be used on a regular basis.DJ

I believe the cause of my recent bunch of CTDs in FS9 were the flight plans, airport and aircraft lists placed in the game by the Wings of Power installer.You know, I've got to apologize to those who asked me if I had any add-ons that might've placed an AFCAD file. I insisted I hadn't. But the sudden realization that I indeed HAD placed an add-on started me toward the dicovery. You see, to me, an add-on means scenery, not a bunch of new airplanes. Well DDAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!I saw these add-on items after running TTools, and never really gave a second thought around them. After I deleted them 2 weeks ago, I've re-installed the KPHX AFCAD2 file that I thought had originally trigered the mess in the first place. I've added AI aircraft and done new flight plans for themwith TTools, all without a CTD.I'm assuming I've solved the menace. I continue to go slowly, adding AI and flight plans within the "experimental method" so I can identify a troublesome addition the moment it's installed.Many thanks again for those who stayed with me, despite my inability to identify an add-on. Oh well, life is a learning adventure.Rick (KMKE. Runway 1L in use tonight.)