Hi,

 

Has anyone else noticed an occurrence or increase in CTDs since a recent Steam or FSX-SE update?  Any time I have made any type of flight between airports recently I have got a CTD, and I noticed there was an update to FSX-SE not long ago.  I didn't have any problems at all up until a week or so ago.  Now I have had three CTDs in the past two days.  I have been able to fly around different airports with no problem, but if I make a flight plan and travel between two airports I have been getting a CTD.  Unfortunately the module that is supposedly the cause in Windows Event Viewer has been three different modules.  First one was a PMDG Options dll (and I wasn't even using a PMDG aircraft), second one was the g3d.dll and I just had one now flying between Jersey and Guernsey (!!!) and the faulting module was the terrain.dll.

 

All of the flights have been short (Jersey to Guernsey, Athens to Heraklion) and it seems to only be when I am approaching an airport after having flown a route with a (VFR) flight plan.  I flew around Heraklion for around an hour the other day, making three or four touch and goes, and flying around the surrounding area, also making touch and goes at a nearby airport, with no problem.  When I tried flying from Athens to Heraklion with a VFR flight plan I encountered a CTD when approaching Heraklion.

 

I am stumped as the faulting module has been different every time.

 

Has anyone else been encountering similar CTDs?

 

Cheers,

 

 

I noticed there was an update to FSX-SE not long ago.

 

I'm sure there's been no update to FSX-SE since build 62615 last July, over 7 months ago!

 

What's the version number on yours? Latest is 10.0.62615.0 digitally signed by "RailSimulator T/A Dovetail" on 10 July 2015 and released later that month.

 

Pete

Hi Pete,

 

It seems you are correct; I have the same version number and digital signature.  It must have just been a Steam update.  Steam updated something just the other day automatically.  

 

It may be coincidence, but I don't think I've had a CTD before this update, having installed FSX-SE in November last year, and now I've had one every time I fly any planned route.

 

I've been looking for hints on the internet but haven't been able to solve the problem yet.  I do have a lot of troubleshooting left to do, so a clean FSX.cfg and scenery.cfg will have to be my next step.

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

 

 

First one was a PMDG Options dll (and I wasn't even using a PMDG aircraft), second one was the g3d.dll and I just had one now flying between Jersey and Guernsey (!!!) and the faulting module was the terrain.dll.

 

This randomness suggests system instability issues. Might even get "atc.dll" or other dlls faults.

 

Check your over-clock eventually.

 

10.0.62615 has been around for a while. It's unlikely to be the root cause of sudden multiple CTDs

 

 

First one was a PMDG Options dll (and I wasn't even using a PMDG aircraft), second one was the g3d.dll and I just had one now flying between Jersey and Guernsey (!!!) and the faulting module was the terrain.dll.

 

The PMDG Options dll is related to the PMDG 747 and means the dll was not properly installed or the dll.xml has a corrupted entry.  Most get this crash on startup which indicates the dll.xml is at fault.

 

The g3d.dll was supposedly fixed by DTG when they released FSX-SE.  I know, for FSX, the fsuipc.dll traps this error and you won't get the crash.  I do not own FSX-SE so do not know if the fsuipc.dll traps this error for FSX-SE too.

 

The terrain.dll error usually indicates high scenery/terrain settings, especially Autogen.  Your system cannot keep up.

 

See the AVSIM CTD Guide (see link in my signature) for more suggestions for fixing CTD's.

 

Best regards,

Thanks for the replies Gerald and Jim.

 

I wasn't aware of the CTD forum (now I know) so thanks also for moving my post to the correct section.  

 

I did consider system problems at first, due to the reasons you state Gerald, such as the random nature of the CTDs, but apart from being pretty low on HDD space on my system drive (still 50+ GB) there's no real reason or other problems that would suggest it is my system.  I have also installed a few sceneries lately without testing, and my scenery.cfg is currently bloated so something in there may be the problem.

 

Jim I think there must be some other root cause, as the CTDs have had such different causes.  I have only ever had the one crash with the PMDG module as the faulting module.  Although I haven't had the PMDG 747 installed very long, I have flown many flights without this causing a crash.  As I said above the problem only started very recently, so I am thinking the problem is some scenery I have recently installed.  I have just installed a HMS Ark Royal scenery package which was for FS2004 and just upgraded for FSX, so that will be the first thing I isolate.  I was trying to get a ship with a ramp for my Harrier in to the sim.  This is a great little package so I hope it isn't the cause.

 

Cheers,

 

Scott

 

 

I am thinking the problem is some scenery I have recently installed. I have just installed a HMS Ark Royal scenery package which was for FS2004 and just upgraded for FSX, so that will be the first thing I isolate. I was trying to get a ship with a ramp for my Harrier in to the sim. This is a great little package so I hope it isn't the cause.

 

You only get 4GB's of Virtual Address Space (VAS) (a Windows Operating System limitation, not FSX-SE).  If you have high settings, that can take up VAS fast.  I doubt it is just the scenery but a combination of your settings and what you have loaded too.  You can go into the Scenery Library and disable your scenery and see if this fixes the problem.  But, it could be a false positive in that the scenery works okay but you have a lot of other things running too.

 

Best regards,

I have found the culprit, and it was staring me in the face.    It was a corrupted terrain.cfg.

 

I recently posted over at ORBX about a problem with some odd terrain features using FTX Open LC EU around Heraklion such as fields going up steep hills and buildings sitting on the side of hills, actually planted by the wall of the building.  

 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/112191-open-lc-eu-fields-etc-on-hills/

 

JV at ORBX answered and suggested it looked as if my terrain.cfg was corrupted.  Over a couple of days I reinstalled FTX Global base and Open LC trying to get my terrain.cfg back to a default or correct state, but it seems to have made matters worse.  Just tonight I tried installing the default FSX Steam terrain.cfg from one of the ORBX backup folders, and that did the trick.  I flew about 5 test flights tonight from Jersey to Guernsey and every one crashed at the same point until I installed the new terrain.cfg.

 

I'm not sure how it became corrupted, but I'm pretty sure it did, and now the problem seems to be fixed; knock on wood   

 

Cheers,