X52 stops working.. FS9.cfg overwritten... what's happening?

[martinlest2 58]

Is there anyone who might have an explanation for problems I have started getting in FS9? I have assumed it to be connected to the Drzewiecki Krakow scenery, EPKK, because that is where they started (and I had no issues like this before I installed the full scenery a couple of days ago), but I need to test at other airports too; that might be a coincidence...

 

The problems begin with FS9 freezing up, just for a split second, then it's OK, then again a fraction of a second freezing and so on. After some minutes this usually leads to most of the functions on my Saitek X52 not working. I soon found out that this was because my FS9.cfg file had suddenly been overwritten with a new one. Luckily I have a backed up copy and reinstating it gets the X52 running again. FS9 may also go to a black screen, from which I cannot recover, or I sometimes get a 'FS9 has stopped working' message box...

 

What might cause this behaviour? Surely no bgl ot bmp file could cause this, could it? If so, then maybe the EPKK scenery has a problem.. Any way I can narrow down the troubleshooting would be great, as the issue doesn't always occur and it can be quite some time before it does, if it does.. going to be very time-consuming to get to the bottom of, I fear.

 

Meanwhile, I have deleted the Saitek drivers and SST software and reinstalled them...

[sascha 314]

How does it work without EPKK?

[martinlest2 58]

Difficult to say because the problem is so unpredictable - I took a helicopter around EPKK for 20 minutes yesterday and no problems. If it happens again I will remove EPKK and give it a week or two before I come to any conclusions. Drzewiecki say that the scenery came out in 2012 and they aren't aware of any problems with it... Maybe it's a coincidence that I have started having USB issues at the same time as I installed Drzewiecki sceneries, though they admit that their Warsaw City scenery is causing problems (CTDs) for some people (and they are trying to solve that).

[sascha 314]

The problem could indeed be hard-drive related. Writing in the fs9.cfg usually only happens when a setting in FS is changed. Good luck finding the issue!

[martinlest2 58]

OK, another FS9 crash - this time I was nowhere near Poland (flying from ENGM). As a number of times before, the  I get this error message:

 

 

The first thing is why is my installation marked as FS9.0? I have 9.1 installed - I installed it immediately after setup from the CD-ROMs. If I try to reinstall 9.1, I am told that the update is already installed and the installation stops. I have an uninstall FS9.1 update icon in my FS9 main folder, and when I go into the FS9 menu bar in the sim, help/about FS, it shows FS9.1 as installed...

 

But the sound error is the thing. When I get this, FS9.cfg is immediately overwritten (which is why my Saitek X52 stops working, as the settings are not in the overwritten config file). I see that this error is often because of a problem with GaugeSound.dll ... I see in fact that the GaugeSound.dll I have in the main FS9 folder is an old one - I have a later one backed up and and replaced the old one with the newer. Perhaps one of the sceneries I recently installed overwrote the file with an earlier one.

 

But is that really going to solve the issue? Is there really a sound missing - can the creation failed message come from anything else but a cockpit gauge? What exactly generates this error within FS9, only GaugeSound.dll? I was flying a PMDG 737-800 just now, but I am not getting this error with any one particular aircraft... I have flown the same a/c in the last couple of days with no problems.

 

M.

[Swoop 0]

Is there anything in the Windows Event logs, maybe a faulting dll or some other message that can help isolate the problem.

 

This probably has nothing to do with the issue you're having, but can take it under advisement...

 

I recently had some issues with my X52 Pro. I had tightened the tensioner too much and it lifted the internal potentiometer a fraction of an inch, which caused relevant issues with my sim.

 

Used this to clean the throttle...

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=115981

 

Taking Apart an X52...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14428

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks for the reply. I am still testing things out, but I did see when browsing forums that gaugesound.dll might be involved. Sure enough, I discovered that some installation (via an .exe file) has overwritten my newer dll file with an old one. Luckily I back up my FS installations regularly so I reinstated the newer file. I have had no problems since then, but it's early days.

 

Drzewiecki say that their sceneries do not replace gaugsound.dll, though I have run no other exe scenery installer recently.

 

Nothing in Event Viewer that helps me, I'll have a closer look if I get the problem again.

 

The X52 is a brand new one (I bought it on offer so that I have two now: if the problem persists, I will change back to the other one, though when the USB goes, it all goes: my N52 stops working too) so it shouldn't need cleaning!

[Swoop 0]

I've been using the following at it seems to work very well...

 

From...

https://files.secureserver.net/1sp6JkEAP8jd2S

GaugeSound.zip

GaugeSound.dll

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

Our Beta Team has seen this a few times under FSX (Disk) and saw a sharp increase in this happening under FSX:SE (I know you're referencing FS9, but the drivers are essentially the same).

 

The only way we found to correct is to implement your settings, close FSX, and make the settings INI file READ ONLY. 

The other work around is to make a copy of the settings INI file (in FSX it's called "Standard" and is located in the FSX Roaming directory) when you know the settings are good, and if you have the settings overwritten just replace the overwritten settings INI file with the back up.

 

We have every reason to speculate that it's the Saitek drivers doing this, and may be associated with a transient  communications interruption of the USB bus associated with one or more controllers. When the interruption occurs, the Saitek drivers MAY see the device as a new controller and thus immediately assigns the default Saitek controller settings in FSX.

 

Given that we have a good work around for this problem, and that we have many looming deadlines for our work for developers, we stopped tracking this down, but we also speculate that this may be taking place because of where Saitek is pulling the USB device id from or the type of id the driver is using.

 

I hope this information proves helpful to you.

[martinlest2 58]

Hi. Thanks for the replies.

 

Dave, I assume you mean the fs9 or fsx cfg file (or have I misunderstood)? I used to have a script in fact that ran at startup, reinstalling my cfg file backup. I stopped as it gave me some problems, though I can't recall what they were at this stage.

 

If you try making the cfg files read only, FS will not start (".. FS cannot run from a restricted user account").... There is a 'Standard.xml' file in FSX, maybe that's the one you mean. No idea what the equivalent is in FS9, if there is one.

 

Martin

[A32xx 129]

I think Dave means the SAITEK settings .ini file, you need to make this read-only after configuring it.

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

I think Dave means the SAITEK settings .ini file, you need to make this read-only after configuring it.

 

 

No sir, the "Standard.xml" file.  I did say INI file, sorry for that, I wasn't looking at the computer when I wrote that.

 

The file in FSX and FSX:SE (if installed without the Disk version being present) is located in:

 

                        C:\Users\[uSER ACCOUNT]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX\Controls

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks, but the X52 doesn't have an ini file, - settings are stored in a .pro file, which only the Saitek software can open.

Yes, I found the file earlier Dave. Only thing is, I hardly ever fly FSX, mostly FS9. Not sure which file I could 'lock down' there - I don't think there is an equivalent. :smile:

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

Right, but there is a similar file in FS9.  I just don't have FS9 loaded anymore, so I can't tell you where it is.

 

Regarding the Saitek assignments, changing the attribute of that file will NOT prevent FS9/FSX/FSX:SE settings from being changed.

 

 

Happy flights!

Not sure which file I could 'lock down' there - I don't think there is an equivalent. :smile:

 

 

Check the roaming directory for FS9, I might be wrong, but I think it's the same for FS9, but it's been years since I used FS9.  I do know that there IS a file that stores the settings.

 

Best of luck my friend!

[martinlest2 58]

Thanks again. There's no equivalent file for FS9. I don't know FSX too well, but I think I would be aware of an xml file for FS9: there's just the cfg file. Of course, one learns something new every day (in theory), so if anyone knows the file Dave is thinking of...

 

:-)