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enchantedloom

Repeated hangs during tower comms

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Handoff from center to approach works great now! But this one's a weird one (build 20). I'd just flown a DME arc for the ILS to R23 at VGEG and everything had gone really well. But I was well down the approach and no handoff to tower had happened, so I contacted them myself and P2A froze completely. I assumed it had crashed and so just continued my approach, but then I suddenly got a landing clearance about half a mile out.

 

I was way too high anyway, so declared missed in the hope that it was working again. More silence, so I tried a few more times with no response. Continued the go-around by myself and eventually tower piped up again with acknowledgement of the missed approach. At one point she suddenly regurgitated two or three responses, as if she'd been listening but the replies had got backed up. This continued all the way to requesting taxi to parking - everything worked exactly according to plan but with very long delays and then sudden verbal diarrhea.

 

I'll paste the relevant part of the log below. It looks quite normal except the timings are weird. They suggest that I got a landing clearance, declared missed and was asked to report downwind, all in the same second! In reality there was a long gap between going missed and hearing back from tower. OTOH it shows that 4 minutes elapsed between hearing my parking request and replying to it, which is probably about right.

 

 

RespondToFlightTriggerValidated 20:22:26 Trigger:ReachedNextFltPlanWaypoint
rOnReachedNextFltPlanWaypoint 20:22:26
AssignedController: 128.42.  CtlrShrtName: ATC Center Ctr CtlrType: Center20:25:24
UnInterruptAudio in StartPlayingSoundFileLoop
ControllerFreqChanged: 118.7.  CtlrShrtName: VGEG Twr CtlrType: Tower20:25:24
Com1FreqChanged: 118.7.  CtlrShrtName: VGEG Twr CtlrType: Tower20:25:24
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Tower Beech Four Alpha Lima is on Final to Runway Two Three 20:25
Stopped Listening
HandleOnFinalContact 20:25:30
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
State Changed to: ClearedToLand 20:26
InterruptAudio in Speak
ATC Speak:  Beech Four Alpha Lima Whinds are One Niner Zero at Five knots  Cleared to Land Runway Two Three20:26:40
Sug Resp:  ~Cleared to land runway Two Three 20:26:40
Recognized Speech: Tower Beech Four Alpha Lima East of for an 20:26
Recognized Speech: Tower Beech Four Alpha Lima going around 20:26
HandleGoAroundReport 20:26:40
InterruptAudio in Speak
ATC Speak:  Beech Four Alpha Lima Roger, report downwind runway Two Three20:26:40
Sug Resp:  ~Will report downwind Two Three20:26:40
Recognized Speech: Beech Four Alpha Lima 20:26
HandleGoAroundReport 20:26:40
InterruptAudio in Speak
ATC Speak:  Beech Four Alpha Lima Roger, report downwind runway Two Three20:26:50
Sug Resp:  ~Will report downwind Two Three20:26:50
OnSynthSpeakCompleted
UnInterruptAudio in OnSynthSpeakCompleted
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
OnSynthSpeakCompleted
UnInterruptAudio in OnSynthSpeakCompleted
OnSynthSpeakCompleted
UnInterruptAudio in OnSynthSpeakCompleted
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: report Downwind for Runway Two Three Beech Four Alpha Lima 20:26
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Beech Four Alpha Lima Downwind 20:29
Stopped Listening
HandleDownwindContact 20:29:15
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
SpeakAltimeterSetting 20:31:29
InterruptAudio in Speak
ATC Speak:  Beech Four Alpha Lima Altimeter is Two Niner Six Seven  Call turning final for Runway Two Three20:35:38
Sug Resp:  20:35:38
Recognized Speech: Tower Beech Four Alpha Lima 20:35
OnSynthSpeakCompleted
UnInterruptAudio in OnSynthSpeakCompleted
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Beech Four Alpha Lima is Five North Runway Two Three 20:35
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Beech Four Alpha Lima Final for Runway Two Three 20:36
Stopped Listening
HandleOnFinalContact 20:36:01
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Beech Four Alpha Lima is One Five 20:36
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Beech Four Alpha Lima turning Final to Runway Two Three 20:36
Stopped Listening
HandleOnFinalContact 20:36:19
RespondToFlightTrigger 20:38:10 Trigger:LandingTouchdown
RespondToFlightTriggerValidated 20:38:10 Trigger:LandingTouchdown
rOnAircraftTouchdown 20:38:10
State Changed to: LandingRoll 20:38
InterruptAudio in Speak
ATC Speak:  Beech Four Alpha Lima exit runway when able. 20:38:10
Sug Resp:  ~Clear of Active 20:38:10
OnSynthSpeakCompleted
UnInterruptAudio in OnSynthSpeakCompleted
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Beech Four Alpha Lima is clear of Runway Two Three 20:39
Stopped Listening
HandleClearOfActive 20:39:16
SpokenRandomSalutation 20:39:16
InterruptAudio in Speak
ATC Speak:  Beech Four Alpha LimaWelcome to CHITTAGONG SHAH AMANAT INTERNATIONAL  contact ground on One Two One Point Eight,  goodday 20:39:16
Sug Resp:  ~Ground on One Two One Point Eight 20:39:16
OnSynthSpeakCompleted
UnInterruptAudio in OnSynthSpeakCompleted
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
Recognized Speech: One Two One Point Eight 20:39
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Beech Four Alpha Lima goodday 20:39
Stopped Listening
AssignedController: 121.8.  CtlrShrtName: VGEG Gnd CtlrType: Ground20:40:14
UnInterruptAudio in StartPlayingSoundFileLoop
ControllerFreqChanged: 121.8.  CtlrShrtName: VGEG Gnd CtlrType: Ground20:40:14
Com1FreqChanged: 121.8.  CtlrShrtName: VGEG Gnd CtlrType: Ground20:40:14
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Recognized Speech: Ground Beech Four Alpha Lima Request Taxi to Parking 20:40
Stopped Listening
HandleTaxiRequest 20:40:20
InterruptAudio in OnPilotSpeaking
Started Listening
UnInterruptAudio in OnPilotEndSpeaking
Stopped Listening
AssignedRunway: RW23 - 
AssignedRunway: RW23 - 
State Changed to: TaxiIn 20:44
InterruptAudio in Speak
ATC Speak:  Beech Four Alpha Lima Taxi to  General Aviation Parking  Via Taxiways Bravo,  Hold Short Runway Zero Five20:44:04

 

 

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Does the delay always happen, or just on this flight?  Have you checked your memory and CPU usage during these slow periods?

Finding a taxi route, for example, might normally take 5-15 seconds, maybe a little longer at very large airports like KDFW, but 4 minutes is obviously something out of the ordinary.

There are also some operations that require information from the internet, like elevations when calculating a new route, and if the internet is slow or the server is slow, that can add a lot of delay...but taxi routes do not require such interactions.

Let us know.

 

Dave

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Is P2A multithreaded? It felt just like thread blocking or a race condition, rather than waiting for slow resources. Not internet trouble, not a general slowdown but a total freeze - menus, PTT button, map, all frozen. Memory I didn't check - I have 16GB - but X-plane continued working smoothly throughout, and that would surely have ground to a halt too.

 

The only unusual thing about the flight was that I was VFR with radar services but the vis was getting worse so I asked for an ILS approach (I didn't file IFR in the air). The cool thing is, the controller didn't bat an eyelid! That and the go-around were responded to perfectly. It's just that after I switched to tower, p2A froze solid for a minute after each interaction.

 

No idea whether it's repeatable yet - it took 2 hours to get to the point where it went wrong. But I'll let you know. I just thought I'd better record it in case others find the same. I'll see what happens tonight!

 

- Steve

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Steve,

I have a feeling it could be a server timeout issue.  The elevation service, which is usually lightning fast, has been hanging up lately and it is accessed on the main thread because you can't give clearance until you know it's safe.  It could be you hit one of those.

 

At any rate, just uploaded 200.21 and it does address some controller handover issues.

 

Let me know how it does for you.

 

Thanks

Dave

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Ah, could be. Cool! You're putting them out thick and fast! Wish I could say the same for my own project - I've been promising everyone a new build for three months and just decided to do a major rewrite...

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