Crashes To Desktop - Causes?

[Ricardo41 5,936]

Over the past couple of weeks I have been getting CTD's - FS9 just disappears to the desktop, with no warning, and no messages as to the cause of the crash.1) What are common reasons for FS9 CTDs2) Is there a way to track what caused the crash, some logfile that is kept somewhere?thanksricardo

[moss1 11]

Hey Ricardo, I have been getting the same thing for some time. The logs are kept in your system event viewer. I have Win2000pro and if you have XP, the following should be almost the same. All I do is right click my computer/ click manage / that will open up your computer management, then click event viewer, which is under system tools in the tree, if it's not already expanded. Usually the event causing this type of CTD will be an event 0 with an unknown dll. Of course this will frustrate you more, as it has me stumped. Also, I started having the CTDs again after I updated my Ariane with the Dreamliner V2. I also get g2d.dll errors as well and wish I knew how to fix this, if anyone knows? If I click a button too quick, pan the wrong way, or do anything other than walking on egg shells, I get a CTD. What was the last change made to your computer lately...programs, scenery, ac...anything? I know your frustration. I hope I can help you. Best regards, Jeff

[Joe W 0]

Duplicate AFCADS are the main cause of this. Look in the scenery folders of you latest addon scenerys. If There is an AF2_xxxx.bgl in any of them move the AF2's to the FS9Addon sceneryscenery folder. There was a instance that an AF2 was used to control the elevation of some airports. Diamond point was one. The second AF2 was placed in the FS9sceneryworldscenery folder. This particular one caused mine to crash at Vancover Island some hundreds of miles away.There is a program to help find these errant AF2's called ScanAFD and it's in the Library here at Avsim. This program will NOT look in the Sceneryworldscenery folder though, you will have to do that.Happy HuntingJoe Whttp://home.comcast.net/~raptor67/Joe_W/Joe_sig.jpg

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Ricardo41 and moss1,There can be quite a number of different reasons, but I recommend checking your RAM with Memtest86+. I too was walking on eggshells at one time and found out my RAM was bad. If yo decide to try out Memtest86+ you probably need to let it run for a number of hours. I have made sort of a list/guide and I added to it over a few days time when I have seen people suggest something I didn't think of at the time. I will copy and paste it in. If anyone thinks there is something that could be added let me know! For the most part it's a hardware troubleshooting type of guide. If your problem is a software conflict that that is different area than this list of items is aimed at.Computer Systems are among one of the most complex devices made by humankind and I really don't know if this will be of any help. Anyway, without futher ado...---------------------------------------------I thought I'd list some possible reasons behind the cause of system problems/instability.1) chkdsk - A simple 'chkdsk' on a command prompt to make sure there are no filesystem problems that need fixing. WinXP usually handles this automatically when you reboot after it has detected an error in the filesystem. But ya never know, so just to be sure you might want to run a chkdsk.2) DxDiag - You could run DxDiag, run through all the tests and then see if it's reporting any problems. You can also try turning down the 'Hardware Acceleration' slider on the Sound tab and see if that cures your problem. Click the 'Save All Information' button(on the very first 'Tab' that DxDiag displays when you start it) and save the text file somewhere. Open up the text file and then copy and paste it's contents on the forum here for people to look at. You'd be surprised the number of times problems have been solved by doing this.3) If you have Dr. Watson enabled(enabled by default on WinXP) then look at it's log file and open it up with Wordpad. First, click [ Start --> Run --> drwtsn32 --> press Enter --> look at 'Log File Path' at the very top ]. Go to where that log file is stored on your hard drive and then open it up with Wordpad. It might be helpful if you post the details contained in it concerning the crash. Although, this suggestion does not lead to a cure for problems as often as posting the 'DxDiag' information and is usually only helpful to a Developer.4) Mods - Some Unofficial modifications to an application can sometimes causes instability. Make sure you are running an unmodified installation of the software before seeking help with problems.5) PSU. A cheap or faulty PSU(Power Supply Unit, or just 'Power Supply'). Or, one that is not neccessarily faulty, but does not supply the system with enough Power(juice, hehe). Your PSU must have a high enough power rating to supply all your components with enough juice. If you have quite a number of PCI addon cards, hard drives, optical drives and other types of hardware attached that draw power then the PSU must be up to the task. Newer Video Cards require quite a bit of power compared to ones from the old days. The Power Supply is one of the more underrated components in a PC. The Power Supply is actually pretty darned important.6) Loose PCI Cards - PCI Cards that are not firmly in their slot. If a PCI card is even just slightly loose it can cause problems. You might want to turn off your computer and then open up your case and pull each card out and then stick it back in. Sometimes you can't tell just by looking.7) Overheating - If your system's CPU or Northbridge chip is getting too hot then you will have system instablities that rear their ugly head when you run resource intensive applications(such as games). You might be able to determine this by taking off the side cover of your PC, and then get a fan and point it so that it is blowing right into the inside of your system.8) IRQ Sharing conflicts - Some PCI slots share IRQ's(Interrupt Requests) with each other. You can usually find this information in the manual for your motherboard. Some PCI addon cards are capable of handling this. Some are not. For instance, IIRC one of the PCI slots in my machine shares an IRQ with the AGP slot(which is where my video card is). SO, I made sure that my Sound Card is not in the PCI slot that shares the IRQ with the AGP slot. In fact, I made sure to not put anything in the PCI slot that shares the IRQ with the AGP slot. Also, if you have an addon (PCI Slot) sound card and also have a sound card built into your motherboard(onboard sound), it is possible the two are conflicting. You may need to go into your BIOS and disable the onboard sound.9) Drivers - You should make sure you have the latest BIOS for your motherboard, the latest Chipset drivers for you motherboard, the latest Sound Card driver, the latest driver for your Network Interface Card(NIC), the latest driver for your Mouse, the latest driver for your Monitor. If there is a driver for your mouse and/or monitor that is. My monitor has a driver that came as a .inf file. There's probably other hardware you have that require device drivers too. Make sure you have the lastest device drivers installed for all your hardware. Note: When it comes to Video Card drivers the latest one is not neccessarily the best one.10) Motherboard - Hopefully this is not the problem, but, there is the possibility that you have a defective motherboard.11) RAM - You could possibly have a bad stick of RAM. Or your RAM could be just plain unstable due to improper settings in the BIOS. Settings such as CAS/RAS and/or other RAM timing settings that are set to aggressively, or an incorrect vDimm setting. That is, if your BIOS allows you to adjust these settings. You can download and run 'memtest86+'(www.memtest.org) to check your RAM. You need to let it run for a considerable amount of time though to see if it encounters any errors. The following is a little story I have about a situation I had with some RAM.--------------------------------------I put my system together and purchased some Mushkin Low Latency RAM(Special 2-2-2) made from Winbond BH-6 chips. You had to bump up the vDimm voltage(amount of voltage supplied to the ram modules) in your BIOS to 2.65v in order to use this memory. I had two 512 MB sticks of this RAM so I could run in Dual Channel mode. Well, one of those first two sticks was bad right off the bat. Fortunately for me, Muskin's main office is in the city I live in. So I took it down there and they exchanged it for me. They had run 'memtest86+' on the new stick and said it checked out ok. When I put it in my system I had 'Fast Boot' disabled in my BIOS and it checked out fine. Disabling the 'Fast Boot' option in your BIOS causes your system to run a check on the RAM, not as thorough of a check as a utlity such as memtest86+ does on it though. Everything was fine, it seemed. Well, the problem for me was I would be playing a BF1942 mod called 'Forgotten Hope' and eventually my game would either crash with an error(this would happen a number of times throughout the day), or I would get a loud digital screeching sound, the screen would go black, my hard drive would go thunk, and then my system would spontaneously reboot(happened once or twice a day). This is not the only game that would crash after some time with an error message either. Also, on a somewhat rare occasion I would have a subtle error occur when I booted up WinXP. I would get a message that said, 'One of the system registry files is corrupt and had to be recovered from a backup copy. The recovery was successful.'It took some months before I really started having these problems. But they did happen and started to happen more and more frequently over time. And I lived with them for some time after they started happening(because I could use my computer for hours until the problem occured). I finally got fed up enough to where I started trying to think about what the problem could be. Eventually, for reasons hard to explain, I came to the conclusion that something was getting hosed up in memory. So I went into my BIOS and disabled the 'Fast Bootup' option. Again, when this is disabled it runs a test on your RAM. The test of my RAM got as far as 470 MB's at which point it encountered a R/W(read/write) error.Well, my Mushkin RAM had a lifetime warranty on it. So I called them up and the fellow explained that the Winbond BH-6 stuff I had was a hit or miss proposition(yeah, pretty much miss I thought to myself, lol). He told me that they now had some modules that are made from a different process than the old BH-6 stuff, is very stable, doesn't require a bump in the vDimm voltage, and it has the Low-Latency memory timing capability(CAS/RAS 2-2-2). And that they would give me the newer stuff in exchange for the old Winbond BH-6 modules I currently had, since they were bad. After the exchange for the newer and better stuff, I have had 100 percent rock solid stability.--------------------------------------12) Some piece of hardware in your system, your video card for instance, may not have fully failed yet but may be starting to go on the fritz.13) A somewhat remote possibility but nevertheless a possibility is the your CPU is not quite seated properly in it's socket and needs to be reseated.14) You have 'Fast Writes' enabled for your video card and it is causing system instabilities.It's hard to know if your problem is a driver problem or any of the things I mention above at all. It could be something else altogether, like a BIOS setting or some other configuration problem. But other folks might be able to try and help you out better if you could list your System Specifications similar to the following example....System Specs:Intel 3.4C(C = Northwood Core) on Asus P4C800-E Deluxe(Intel 875P + ICH5R Chipset), Zalman 7000a-Cu HS/Fan, Enermax RG651P-VE 550W PSU, 2 GB Mushkin eXtreme Performance(2-2-2) Dual Channel PC3200 RAM, NEC MultiSync FE2111SB 21" CRT Monitor, Sapphire Radeon X800 XT PE Videocard with v5.9 Catalyst Drivers, DirectX 9.0c, Creative Audigy2 Platinum Soundcard with Creative OpenAL Beta Driver, 250 GB w/8 MB Cache Western Digital HDD, Comcast Cable Internet Connection, WinXP Pro SP2, Nortons Anti-virus and Personal Firewall 2005Listing system specs alone usually does not lead to a cure for system problems, nevertheless it gives people a starting point to helping troubleshoot problems.Hope that helps,OneTinSoldier

[3Green 80]

Are you using a Microsoft product? :D If Yes, you found you're problem...Just kidding... :-lol

[Guest bobsk8]

I get one of these CTD's everyonce in awhile. Last night on a UPSVAC-Vatsim flight from KMKE to KPHL, I am being vectored for the ILS on a beautiful flight in the 767, and just as I am cleared for the approach I am looking at the desktop. It's funny, cause at first you are in disbelief thatit actually crashed...... No more FS9, no SB3, all gone in a microsecond. ..... Wish FS9 could shut down that fast when I hit "exit" after a flight.......On the subject of SCanAFD and duplicates, I have found that with some add-on sceneries, Scan AFD says they are dulpicates, even though the file names are not exactly the same.. My question is, do the BGL file names have to be "exactly" the same to create a duplicate problem?

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

>On the subject of SCanAFD and duplicates, I have found that>with some add-on sceneries, Scan AFD says they are dulpicates,>even though the file names are not exactly the same.. My>question is, do the BGL file names have to be "exactly" the>same to create a duplicate problem? No, but duplicates will(or at least should) only cause a problem if they are in the same layer in your scenery library.For instance, if you have two AFCAD's that are for the same airport and they are both in Flight Simulator 9Addon Sceneryscenery then that is a problem. And these two AFCAD's for the same airport in the same folder together would obviously have to have different names! However, if you have an AFCAD for an airport in Addon Sceneryscenery and an AFCAD for the same airport in Addon SceneryMyWorldAirports and 'MyWorldAirports' is added to your scenery library, then that is not a problem. It doesn't matter whether they have the same or a different name, it's not a problem.Whichever one you have as a higher priority will be the one used in the sim. If the SceneryMyWorldAirports(layer) is at a higher priorty than Addon Sceneryscenery in your scenery library then the AFCAD in it will be used. If the SceneryMyWorldAirports is at a lower priority than Addon Sceneryscenery then the AFCAD in Addon Sceneryscenery will be the one used in the sim.The above only pertains to duplicate AFCAD's. If you have AFCAD's for airports in SceneryMyWorldAirports that are not in Addon Sceneryscenery the sim will use AFCAD's that are in both folders for which there is no duplicate. If there is a dulicate for an airport in one of the folders then the sim will only use one of the AFCAD's for it, and that would be the one that's in the folder that has the the higher priority in your scenery library.In other words, the sim always uses AFCAD's contained in both folders, as long as there is no duplicate. If there is a duplicate for one or more airports, then only one of the AFCAD's for the duplicate airports is used in the sim.So lets say you have an AFCAD installed for KMIA in Addon Sceneryscenery. Then you decide to download and install FlyTampa's KMIA and don't give any thought to the fact that you have an AFCAD for KMIA in Addon Sceneryscenery. This is not a problem, at least not as long as the priority for FlyTampa's KMIA is kept above Addon Sceneryscenery. If you put FlyTampa's KMIA priority below Addon Sceneryscenery then you will be using the AFCAD you installed into Addon Sceneryscenery. But in this case the sim still shouldn't crash due to a duplicate AFCAD.Hope that helps,OneTinSoldier

[Ricardo41 5,936]

Great tips, guys; keep 'em coming. I know, CTDs happen at the most inopportune time: 1) You just spent an hour and a half entering data into your flight management system; then, as soon as the wheels lift off the ground, boom, CTD; or, you're just about to land. Lol.ricardo

[moss1 11]

Thanks for the tips as well, and Yes, ditto what ricardo said. Best regards, Jeff

[Guest HepburnUGA]

Just to state the obvious as fall has recently started here in the Northern Hemisphere...Have you applied the update for FS9 to 9.1? I believe this should fix the season CTDs.

[moss1 11]

Hey everyone, I just downloaded the ScanAFD.zip and tried running that to see if my CTD issue is related to duplicate afcads. I started getting CTD's like I said after updating my ariane 737, and when I ran FS9 the first time after that, it updated my scenery when FS9 loaded. Then the CTD's started. Anyway, when I run the scanafd utility, I hit scan and nothing seems to happen. Does that mean it did not find anything? I also am getting the well known G2D.dll error. That's of course when I don't get slammed to the desktop. I downloaded a program called PC On Point and it found a slew of errors on my system, so maybe the g2d.dll is fixed? I spent a few hours reading about that error in general. I haven't tried a flight yet since, so I will report back tomorrow. I also looked at my autogen folder. I renamed the .xml file extension to .bak some time ago, and when I looked tonight, it was changed to autogen.bak.xml I don't know how that happened, but I did recently install BEV, so maybe it renamed the extension back to .xml, because of the autogen feature in the program? I wasn't getting crashes with BEV, so I doubt this is the cause. I might reinstall my Video Drivers as I have heard that could be related. Anyway, it's the same old story as we all know it. I sure hope the next version of MSFS is somewhat less prone to crashes.When it works, it works great! but when it doesn't, you pull your hair out, and I'm not getting any younger. LOL.. I will keep you posted if I come across anything good as it might help others. Sorry for rambling on, but I should have not had that cup of java so darn late! Have a great night everyone. Best regards, Jeff

[Ricardo41 5,936]

The two specific CTDs that I had happened with CS's C 130: A flight from the new simwings Reus airport in Spain to Berlin. I barely have the wheels off the ground, boom, desktop. Secondly, on approach to Dusseldorf, Germany. I'm getting final vectors, then, kaboof, desktop. I have flown to my German Airports Dusseldorf airport millions of times with no problems. ricardo

[moss1 11]

Hey ricardo and everyone, just checking in. Well,I had a nt.dll crash this morning. I am now reinstalling all of the NForcce drivers for my MB and video card. See if that helps. I almost made it from KMIA to KJAX in the Ariane 737, and about 120nm to go....... black screen, MS error box. I will let you know if this works. I have my doubts, but it can't hurt. This time if I have to reinstall FS9, I am reformatting my C drive from scratch and doing it right. Just have to download the DX9C, and service packs etc... first. Best regards, Jeff

[jetlag 65]

>Over the past couple of weeks I have been getting CTD's - FS9>just disappears to the desktop, with no warning, and no>messages as to the cause of the crash.>>1) What are common reasons for FS9 CTDs>>2) Is there a way to track what caused the crash, some logfile>that is kept somewhere?>>thanks>ricardoI also have a strange but repeatable CTD with the Columbia River Gorge scenery by Holger Sandmann. I have flown in this superb scenery before with no problem at all but since I have installed upgrade 1, I crash every time I reposition or slew to the area EXCEPT at night. Because of this, I suspect some texture problem. The CTD is still there after reinstalling the scenery files from scratch. My guess is that the upgrade has nothing to do with this; it's just that I had not used the scenery for a while, until I installed it.I can't think of any other add-on that could interfere: no UT, no BEV, no other scneries in the same area. I have installed the water enhancements by Bill Lyons, though.Would anyone have had a similar experience?thanksPhil

[nigelgrant 4]

PhilI have started experiencing the same problem and have isolated the CTD to the scenery file "0_DF_HL915150_edited.bgl". I am going to e-mail Holger about itNigelVancouver