I fired up FSX this afternoon in hopes of getting in a quick flight from KSAV to KATL using an addon CRJ from my virtual airline that I've used multiple times without issue. I ran FSX last yesterday for another short flight with no issues whatsoever and have done nothing to change/adjust FSX since then.

 

When the aircraft loaded at KSAV all of the gauges were blank, MFD, GPS, everything. In addition the ATC did not work. Tuning ATIS produces no audio response and no ATIS info banner. It allows me to switch ATC menus and switch frequencies such as tuning clearance and requesting clearance, but when I click request clearance I get no voice audio and the text clearance request also does not appear. I tried loading different aircraft (both default and addon), exiting and reentering windowed mode and virtual/2d cockpit, and tried restarting my computer and FSX with no luck. I am able to fly the aircraft in this state but there are other issues which are odd and seem unrelated, ie I can not retract the gear, either with the gear command or by manually pulling the gear lever with the mouse cursor in the cockpit. The gear lever moves but when I look at the aircraft from the outside they do not retract and I don't hear them retract. Flaps seem to work ok. I should mention that in aircraft with analog gauges, those gauges appear and work fine but any digital readouts are blank, ie the comm frequencies and even the clock are blank. If I call up the gps it's also blank. It's all very strange but it gets weirder. In trying different aircraft I accidentally loaded a random saved flight at a different airport (KSFO) and everything worked fine. ATC, the gauges, everything seemed ok. I tried various aircraft at SFO and all worked. I then went back to SAV - still not working. So then I tried various airports and discovered that the issue seems to be airport dependant. I tried perhaps 20 airports and found 3 that work while all the others produce the same issues with gauges and ATC. I can not find any relationship between the airports that do and don't work. All are default. The only other item of note is that there seems to be a line of ATC text in the ATC window as soon as I load any flight at any airport that is the same every time. It is a jet blue flight acknowledging a flight level change. I don't hear it, it's just prepopulated and frozen in the ATC window. It remains there at the non-functioning airports but at the functioning airports once I contact ATC it scrolls up like you'd normally expect.

 

So, what on earth is going in and how do I fix it? Is live to avoid doing a clean reinstall.

My first guess is you have no power.

 

Generators are not on, maybe the Avionics Master is off.

 

Are you starting from the Free Flight screen or loading a saved flight?

 

If you are starting from the Free Flight screen, go to one of the suspect airports in the C172 and make sure all systems are how you want them, then switch to a plane that is giving you trouble.

 

You may want to create a new default flight.

 

regards,

Joe

I'll try that when I get home, but why would lack of power occur at startup at only some airports and even when I start a new flight. I've never had my aircraft start cold and dark before. I usually have to turn everything off myself to set a cold and dark cockpit.