Crash after installing Pro Atc X - API.DLL

[olliecast 1]

hi all,

got a crash happening on my perfectly stable system of before.

 

details from windows event log below.

 

Any ideas how I could help solve it?

 

Running windows 7, i7 at 4.5gb completely stable, 8gb gskill, gtx780, Rex, asn, mytraffic x, shader

 

any help is appreciated,

 

thanks

ollie

 

System

    - Provider

      [ Name] Application Error

    - EventID 1000

      [ Qualifiers] 0

      Level 2       Task 100       Keywords 0x80000000000000     - TimeCreated

      [ SystemTime] 2014-09-20T07:44:45.000000000Z

      EventRecordID 15298       Channel Application       Computer Ollie-PC       Security

- EventData

      fsx.exe       10.0.61637.0       46fadb14       API.DLL       10.0.61637.0       46fadb58       c0000005       000179f2       e78       01cfd4a2d9444dbd       C:\FSX\fsx.exe       C:\FSX\API.DLL       fca80777-4099-11e4-b50c-448a5b9c29fa

[Jim Young 2,356]

API.dll equals Out-of-Memory (OOM) or virtual address space (VAS). Only solution is to lower FSX and display driver settings. If you have any high settings within REX, MyTrafficX, or ASN, lower those settings too. If you have any tweaks like Bufferpools or AffinityMask, get rid of them.

 

Best regards,

[olliecast 1]

Cheers, appreciate the help.

 

Ive reinstalled and all seems well. Was doing it under dx10 and dx9.

 

done an hour and a half flight and all seems well

[Jim Young 2,356]

Great!

 

Best regards,

[olliecast 1]

However! The ctd is back.

 

To give some more context, it gives the windows loading blue circle during the freeze.

 

Only happens when activesky next is ran in conjunction with pro atc x. Fsx runs faultlessly with only asn and fsx or pro atc x and fsx.

 

I remember seeing a great piece of logging software to help me pinpoint the issue. Would someone be so kind to remind what it was?

 

Thanks

Ollie

[Driver170 42]

I would scrap Pro atc and get RC

 

Whats your faulting module?

[Jim Young 2,356]

REX4 installs clouds and scenery textures. In there you can ask for 512, 1024, or, I think 4096 resolution. You can also change the compression from DXT1, DXT5, or 32bit. Going to 32 bit brought my system immediately to its knees. You indicate you have REX installed. Please do not increase any of these settings and keep them at the default. You will see little or no difference in graphics.

 

I can guarantee you that it is not ProATC-X causing your problems but REX and maybe high settings in ASN.

 

Not sure what software you were talking about. AppCrashView? Event Viewer? The tools for finding your problems are in the AVSIM CTD Guide located to the right of this forum under Hot Spots.

 

Best regards,

[olliecast 1]

Thanks all.

 

I run 1024 textures. What dxt would you recommend?

 

I still dont understand how it can be rex when the system runs fine for hours and hours if I dont run asn, or dont run pro atc x.

 

Jim, in a previous post you mentioned a program that logs various system perameters and can be used to analyse settings during a crash. I have the standard crash viewer etc. You mentioned that it can only be ran for fairly short flight periods as the file sizes it generates are large due to the amount of data logged.

 

Ill get the ctd guide viewed also, just having a few problems downloading it at the moment from where im remotely logging in (on holiday)

 

Thanks

Ollie

[Jim Young 2,356]

That would be Process Monitor. If you write down the exact time the crash or freeze occurred and then looked at the log, you should see what was running in FSX at that time and that will give you a clue. That's how I found a problem with MyTrafficX. Freeze would occur almost exactly at the same spot in a flight from Chicago to St Louis. Disabled MyTrafficX and the crash was gone. If you shutdown ProATC, can your flight still run for hours and hours or does it still crash. I mean, you have to isolate with module is causing your particular crash. Here's how to use the Process Monitor:

Setting up the Process Monitor for FSX – Another investigative tool used to pin down a situation where FSX/P3D freezes, crashes, or stutters/pauses during a flight is to run a utility called Process Monitor - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896645. During your flight, this utility monitors activity such as calling textures, AI aircraft schedules, ATC, weather updates, and scenery loading. When FSX/P3D stutters or FPS drop dramatically you simply write down the time it occurred. This is important as thousands of entries are made every minute, every second. Continue doing this throughout the flight. Of course, if it freezes, you will know what was going on before the sim froze. This utility will not show you a definitive cause of your issue but it will show you what add-ons were being loaded about when you received the stutter, the long pause(s), and the freeze and you can further investigate by disabling that scenery, that aircraft, or whatever might have caused the event. One member used this utility to determine that My Traffic X, version 5.4c was the cause of a BEX/StackHash/NTDLL.dll crash he was getting. It was easy to disable My Traffic X in the Scenery Library and find that FSX no longer crashed.

AVSIM recommends you do not run a flight any longer than 60 minutes as the Process Monitor log becomes quite large. For a 60 minutes flight, expect the file to be at least as large as 8GB’s or tens of millions of captured events. Make sure you delete the log or move it to another drive after you have finished your testing to free up HDD space. Another recommended tip is to make sure you use system time to mark the time of each event and do not use an external clock unless they are sync’d. Going through one minute of a glitch is a massive amount of data needed to be reviewed (it goes fast as thousands of entries just show a scenery being loaded).

To run this utility properly, you need to capture only FSX/P3D events. It would be nearly impossible to find a possible glitch if Windows events or other system activities were being logged too. AVSIM recommends opening of the Process Monitor when you are on the active runway and preparing to takeoff to save space on your HDD:
Open Process Monitor. Click on the Filter tab and then Filter….

Display entries matching these conditions:
Where it says Architecture, click on that and select “Process Name”
Go next to the blank box and click on that and select FSX or P3D.exe and make sure “Include” is shown (FSX or P3D must be running when you do this!!). Once completed, click on Add and then click OK at the bottom of the form and Go Fly.

You can use the utility while in Full Screen mode or Windowed Mode. In Windowed Mode you can monitor what is happening instantly but it is best to run Process Monitor in Full Screen (unless you are seeing freezes in Windowed Mode).

When the flight is finished, immediately go to the Process Monitor application and hit Ctrl+E on your keyboard to capture the events (event logging will continue until you do this). Shutdown FSX/P3D and begin your investigating!

 

Best regards,

[olliecast 1]

Thanks jim.

 

It'll run with hours with either asn or proatc x loaded individually but not with them both loaded at the same time.

 

Ill get some logging donw to see if I can get to the source.

 

Thanks

Ollie

[olliecast 1]

ok all.

I have some data now, which I believe leads to something else than my original crash above after the reinstall.

 

I`ve ran the process analyser and again, crashes at nigh on the same point in the flight.

 

The crash occured at ~ 16:05 and 30 secs.

 

Below are both the proatc x and asn logs along with the screenshot of the process analyser at the time of the crash:

 

proatc x log doesnt seem to be showing anything obveous:

2014.10.10/15:57:02 - HandOverRdr: ComFrqExp=11877
2014.10.10/15:57:09 - CTRL MSGSENT: ctrdrname=rbfrqtoset;
2014.10.10/15:57:09 - CTRL: WAITCFM
2014.10.10/15:57:14 - CTRL[11] RB=EXP
2014.10.10/15:57:14 - SimConnect_ComRadioUpdate: status=0; avmaster=1; activefrq=11877
2014.10.10/15:57:34 - FPSTATE: 13
2014.10.10/15:57:34 - CTRL[11] CIN; FRQ=11877
2014.10.10/15:57:38 - CTRL MSGSENT: rdrincontact=-;
2014.10.10/16:01:27 - WPT: IRY REACHED
2014.10.10/16:07:17 - FP UNLOADED!
2014.10.10/16:07:17 - Connection to FSX closed!
2014.10.10/16:07:17 - SimConnect.dll Unloaded!
2014.10.10/16:07:17 - ============================

 

 

ASN isnt showing anything at the time of crash:

15:58:53:0265-Using Client ID: 784E16FD1E982C9B1C361CF15E2F2A7D
15:58:55:0686-Start Download Content License Result Check
15:58:55:0686-Content Length: 2650053
15:58:55:0686-Finished Download Content License Result Check in 0 ms
15:58:55:0687-Start Download File Output
15:58:55:0696-Saving weather to disk
15:58:55:0701-Finished Download File Output
15:58:55:0702-Start Decrypt/Decompress
15:58:55:0703-Populating weather stream with new data...
15:58:55:0755-Bytes in bin section of extended data: 2686320
15:58:56:0786-Weather read complete
15:58:56:0844-Download complete
15:58:56:0854-Downloading pireps for 10/10/2014 (14Z)...
15:58:56:0855-Using Client ID: 784E16FD1E982C9B1C361CF15E2F2A7D
15:58:57:0104-Pirep Data Received...
15:58:57:0225-Building the theme...
15:58:58:0206-Copying theme file and loading to the sim...
15:58:59:0734-Theme reloaded
15:58:59:0734-Aircraft location on theme load: lat = N54° 15' 12.95" lon = W05° 08' 12.61" alt = 15044 feet
15:58:59:0735-Ground elevation at aircraft location on theme load: 0
16:06:13:0913-Failed getting the ground slope through the pipe: Error reading from pipe. Internal error: 109
16:06:13:0913-failed to send the aircraft position: Error reading from pipe. Internal error: 109
16:06:13:0913-failed to signal radar data flow: Error reading from pipe. Internal error: 109
16:06:13:0913-Radar UpdateData: Transmission signal bypassed as last signal transmission failed
16:06:13:0975-FSX connection not established!
16:06:19:0357-SimConnect SP2 instantiated!
16:13:53:0269-Downloading global weather data for 10/10/2014 (15Z)...
16:13:53:0269-Using current server: http://cumulus.hifitechinc.com/
16:13:53:0269-Using Client ID: 784E16FD1E982C9B1C361CF15E2F2A7D
16:13:55:0625-Start Download Content License Result Check
16:13:55:0625-Content Length: 2651922
16:13:55:0625-Finished Download Content License Result Check in 0 ms
16:13:55:0625-Start Download File Output
16:13:55:0625-Saving weather to disk
16:13:55:0640-Finished Download File Output
16:13:55:0640-Start Decrypt/Decompress
16:13:55:0640-Populating weather stream with new data...
16:13:55:0672-Bytes in bin section of extended data: 2686320
16:13:56:0296-Weather read complete
16:13:56:0311-Download complete
16:13:56:0311-Downloading pireps for 10/10/2014 (15Z)...
16:13:56:0311-Using Client ID: 784E16FD1E982C9B1C361CF15E2F2A7D
16:13:56:0530-Pirep Data Received...
16:16:05:0557-Radar UpdateData: listener socket closed
 

 

the process monitor shows something to do with navdata at the time of the crash - just checked now and it did this earlier in the flight with no issue

 

heres the cycle it seemed to be going through ok during the flight:

 

and immediately after the crash:

 

 

im running ESET NOD32 antivirus btw

 

any help is greatly appreciated. This wow6432 seems to be popping up an aweful lot!

 

thanks

ollie

[Jim Young 2,356]

In the above report I do not see where the NAV data caused the crash. I was reading the file, that's all. When a crash occurs, you have to look at the whole minute or maybe two minutes of the crash. That's thousands of entries but you can see in your report that it was looking at the Nav data and was sending/receiving TCP data too. So that could mean you have a problem with your firewall not allowing a communication. In my case, I was fortunate as the whole two minutes of data being processed when my freeze occurred was MyTrafficX looking at flight plans. So I disabled MyTrafficX in my scenery.cfg, ran the flight again and there were no subsequent freezes or crashes. I enabled MyTrafficX and the freezes/crashes occurred again.

 

Again, the API.dll crash is directly related to out-of-memory crashes. Here's a topic with more information - http://forum.avsim.net/topic/389704-fsx-oom-apidll-patcher/. Unfortunately, there is no solution other than to lower your settings or not run too many programs while using FSX. Have you ever checked the amount of VAS you are using during a flight session?

 

Best regards,

[olliecast 1]

Thankyou sir.

 

Ive excluded both the proatc x and the mydocuments folder from the virus software, ran the flight again and it dint crash.

 

Will try again tomorrow fingers crossed.

 

Love the process analyser though!

[Jim Young 2,356]

Yes, anti-virus programs can be major issues with FSX and FSX addons.  I hope it resolves your problem.

 

Best regards,

[olliecast 1]

Not resolved yet my friend.

 

Just tried the pmdg 777 out of dubai and it crashed approx 15 mins in. Didnt have the analysis running though.

 

Should I try it with the anyivirus completely disabled?