P3D v3 CTD after short time of flying

[SteveW 1,792]

That's the way to go. Eliminate stuff like I showed you by temporarily removing from the file. Although in the link they deleted the lines, instead just put True for Disable, or wrap the section with the <!-- and -->. Also make sure those simconnects are installed ok since they've been known to get scuppered on occasion.

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

What I don't understand is ,I'm on vatsim since last november and had no issues until now.

 

This is why it is difficult for anyone to help as only you know the facts.  We (Steve and I) are guessing based on past experiences.  The ntdll.dll and StackHashes are system related issues and they are common with all apps, including Internet Explorer and other outside programs.  So it is not just related to P3D or FSX.  You mentioned you got rid of your AI program and MyTrafficX, v5.4 caused an unexplained ntdll.dll and StackHash for me 2-3 years ago.  My sim was always crashing at the same location on a flight plan so I loaded Process Monitor and monitored just FSX and FSX addons.  When the freeze/crash occurred, I closed down Process Monitor and then looked at the log to see what was running or loading when the incident occurred.  It turned out MyTrafficX was loading AI aircraft so I disabled MyTrafficX and the freezes/crashes stopped.  Further investigation by the developer indicated the AI program could not find an AI schedule for the aircraft in the area and shut FSX down.  AI programs have flight schedules for AI to follow and, if a flight is missing a plan to take off and land somewhere, it crashes.  This was subsequently fixed by the developer.  I think if I had turned down my AI slider, it would have stopped the crashes and I run it at 30% now with MyTraffic6.  I owned UT2 but never used it after buying MyTrafficX so not sure how you uninstalled UT2.  Did it remove everything?  This is where it gets to maybe it would be best if you reinstalled P3D or run the installer and select "Repair" when asked.  A repair will bring your P3D and scenery.cfg back to the default but will not touch the dll.xml or exe.xml.  It will bring the SimObjects.xml back to the default (located in your scenery.cfg folder).  So you might want to back up those files if you decide to try to do a repair.  Whenever you reinstall or repair a sim like P3D you should never use the old P3D.cfg but you can bring back the scenery.cfg so you won't have to reinstall all of your scenery.

 

 

 

And by the way I found this topic in the Prepar3D forum. Might that help in my case?

 

There are hundreds of crashes involving the ntdll.dll.  A corrupted entry in the dll.xml or exe.xml can cause the ntdll.dll error.  I remember once getting the ntdll.dll error and found two duplicate entries for one of the PMDG modules.  I removed one and the ntdll.dll error went away.  In the dll.xml at the link you provided, the as_btstrp.dll belongs to ASN and is required.  It also looked properly entered.  The IVAO module might belong to VATSIM?  Don't know but figure that was the likely cause of his crashes.  Most crashes involving the dll.xml occur when loading to the startup/setup screen as the modules are all being loaded at that time.  I suspect a module in the dll.xml causes a crash when it is needed during a flight session and a program is calling for a certain version of the module and it does not see it so it crashes as the module cannot be loaded.  This is why we recommend in the AVSIM CTD Guide to disable each module in the dll.xml one at a time until the culprit is found.  If you have a lot of modules, that could take some time but you can disable 2 at a time and, if there is no crash, you can figure it was one of those two modules.  I wish there was a magic bullet for the ntdll.dll and StackHash but there is not.  You have to investigate "the scene of the crime" and hopefully you'll eventually find the cause.  It is a frustrating crash as I have had it several times but, only once, did it take a few days to find the problem and that was with the MyTrafficX schedule related above. 

 

Best regards,

[swissa340 1]

Just one question, if I delete the exe.xml and dll.xml file, will P3D rebuild one like the .cfg or is the sim then broken?

[swissa340 1]

Ok, I disabled EZDOK and went online to make a flight. After two minutes I had a CTD. Then I disabled Couatl and tried it again and was able to do the whole flight from ZRH to NCE without any issues. The problem is when I disable couatl I can't use GSX anymore. So should I reinstall it?

[SteveW 1,792]

Couatle was it? Yes try the reinstall now, since we made all those settings and could allow it to install better...

[swissa340 1]

I think it's not just couatl, because my sim is just crashing on online flights not offline. When I restart my PC and plug-out and then plug-in again my WLAN antenna, it works again.

[Jim Young 2,356]

Just one question, if I delete the exe.xml and dll.xml file, will P3D rebuild one like the .cfg or is the sim then broken?

The dll.xml and exe.xml are not installed with P3D.  They were added by an addon (usually FSDT is the first to install if as most people install FSDT airports soon after installing P3D).  FSDT installs the Addon Manager which is in the menu when you open P3D up.

 

 

 

The problem is when I disable couatl I can't use GSX anymore. So should I reinstall it?

 

The best thing to do his is to simply download and run the latest Standalone Addon Manager from the FSDT website.  That will fix any problems with Couatl.

 

Best regards,

[swissa340 1]

The dll.xml and exe.xml are not installed with P3D. They were added by an addon (usually FSDT is the first to install if as most people install FSDT airports soon after installing P3D). FSDT installs the Addon Manager which is in the menu when you open P3D up.

 

 

 

 

 

The best thing to do his is to simply download and run the latest Standalone Addon Manager from the FSDT website. That will fix any problems with Couatl.

 

Best regards,

So, I reinstalled GSX but I still get CTD's. My question is now, if I reinstall my whole sim again will the crashes stop? Is it likely that the problem will solve itself?

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

When I restart my PC and plug-out and then plug-in again my WLAN antenna, it works again.

 

I don't understand this comment.  You are connnected to the Internet via wireless LAN?  I guess that might make sense if you have a Laptop.  So, if that's the case, and you are trying to connect to VATSIM and you lose the wireless connection for some reason, wouldn't that crash FSX?

 

 

So, I reinstalled GSX but I still get CTD's. My question is now, if I reinstall my whole sim again will the crashes stop? Is it likely that the problem will solve itself?

If you reinstalled your sim and all of the addons again, your crashes will likely not stop.  When you move the p3d.cfg and scenery.cfg to a temporary directory, and then also move the dll.xml and exe.xml to a temporary directory, you are back to the default configuration of P3D when you first installed it (after you restart P3D and let the the configs rebuild).  You can then install vPilot and try to get onto VATSIM.  None of your addons that used dll.xml and exe.xml will load (FSDT, FlightBeam, FSUIPC, ASN, your recorder program, PMDG) and will not be available to use during the session but you can at least see if you can get onto VATSIM with crashing.  If that works, then you can start installing GSX, FSUIPC, ASN, etc.  No need to uninstall as the programs will simply overwrite your current installations, create a dll.xml and exe.xml, but your will have to reinstall or select the "repair option" if offered.

 

Remember, P3D v3.1 does not like incompatible products that are installed using EMT.  Most products can be successfully installed but there is no guarantee.  When you purchased P3D, you purchased P3D and not a bunch of addons along with it.  FSDT is fully compatible as well as FSUIPC (the correct version) and ASN as made their product compatible but really they are not fully compatible as there are bugs to be found by users like yourself and, when reported, the developer fixes the bug and issues an update.  So, there is still no guarantee of compatibility.  When the PMDG 777 and 737 were first released for P3Dv3, they were not compatible as they installed an outdated version of RAASPRO and the module had to be disabled in the dll.xml to get it to work.  PMDG did release an update almost immediately though.  Still there are many reports of incompatibility for some users and it is probably caused by improper installation of the addon, not P3Dv3.1.

 

Best regards,

[swissa340 1]

Ok, yesterday I uninstalled every program that I don't need. So I uninstalled the SDK and in AppCrashView the Stackhash changed from StackHash_7efd to Stackhash_9a52 and stackhash_651d. Does that mean that there are 2 more programs that don't work properly?

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

Does that mean that there are 2 more programs that don't work properly?

 

The last four digits are the memory address where the crash occurred.  One time the error will be a StackHash and one time NTDLL.dll (not only in P3D but in any program ever developed such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Word, etc., etc.).  There is no way the SDK could have created or caused this problem. 

 

If you move your dll.xml over to a temporary folder the crashes will stop.  Right?  That indicates there is a program connected to one of those modules which is triggering your StackHash and placing a massive amount of resources on your system.  You have to find out why.  So, did you move your dll.xml, p3d.cfg, and scenery.cfg to a temporary folder and let the sim rebuild the p3d.cfg and scenery.cfg?  Did you then reinstall vPilot and then try to get back onto VATSIM successfully?  You need to determine if it is vPilot and VATSIM that are causing the problems and not one of your other addons.  It's the only way I know of to investigate these crashes except to run Process Monitor and see what was loading when the CTD occurred.  That's hard but not impossible as Process Monitor shows thousands of things loading in just one minute of your flight session but it usually shows the same thing loading for several seconds and then another file loading for a few seconds more during that minute.  You can readily see what was loading in maybe the last 3 minutes of the flight session before the crash occurred.  It could give you a hint.  For instance, you stated earlier that you uninstalled your AI program and maybe you'll see that loading and you can ask yourself, "why is that loading?  I uninstalled it".

 

On page 5 of the AVSIM CTD Guide I discuss setting the Process Monitor up but I'll quote it here again:

 

"Run Process Monitor – Another investigative tool used to pin down a situation where your application freezes, crashes, or stutters/pauses during a flight is to run a utility called Process Monitor. 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 application 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 (hopefully your application will freeze or crash by then!).  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 synchronized.  Going through one minute of a process 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/FS9 events.  It would be nearly impossible to find a possible glitch or issue 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:

• Startup FSX/P3D/FS9, as appropriate, to the Setup Screen.
• Open Process Monitor
• Click on the Filter tab and then Filter…. 
• Click on Architecture and scroll down to Process Name
• Click on blank box and select FSX/P3D/FS9, as appropriate
• Click Ok or Apply

 

NOTE:  AVSIM recommends you click on the filter tab again and then select ‘Save filter…’ and name your Filter – FSX (or P3D/FS9).  Then, in the future, you can startup Process Monitor before opening your application and watch what is loading as your application loads to the Setup Screen.

 

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, click on it to bring it into focus, and hit Ctrl+E on your keyboard to capture the events (event logging will continue until you do this and make it more difficult to locate the cause of your crash).  Shutdown FSX/P3D/FS9 and begin your investigating!  You can also save the log for future investigations but remember the file will be as large as 8GB’s or more and using valuable disk space."

 

Your can also try renaming the logbook.bin in the same folder as your P3D.cfg.  The logbook sometimes gets corrupted but P3D will run w/o it.  It shows all of your flight sessions and, in fsx, it was known to get corrupted and cause crashes. 

 

Finally, you have brought your OC back to the default so you can rule that out (with the voltages) as that is the most common cause of this error.  You will definitely get rid of any StackHash error by reinstalling Windows (ugh!).  That is how I fixed mine one time.  You obviously have something that is affecting your installation of P3D.  Maybe it's malware but something is not allowing you to run P3D properly.  Yet, before you do reinstall Windows (if you decide to go that route)  I hope you will try bringing your P3D back to the default and/or running Process Monitor.

 

Best regards,