Hi Jim Young, So I am having the infamous freeze of FSX with sound continuing at the 17:00 - 20:00 minute mark into a flight. Every thing was working fine until about June of this year. I have downloaded and been working through the CTD guide but am still stuck 3 months later.  I did download the AppCrashView tool.  I can supply the logs from those when requested.  It looks like the Fault Module Names are XAudio2_6.dll also C172.DLL_unloaded and A2A_accusim.DLL. at different times.  I am using a A2A Cessna172 so I guess I needed to try a default plane and see if that freezes.  Are you able to help guide me please.  Tired of being grounded.

Hi Jim Young, So I am having the infamous freeze of FSX with sound continuing at the 17:00 - 20:00 minute mark into a flight. Every thing was working fine until about June of this year. I have downloaded and been working through the CTD guide but am still stuck 3 months later.  I did download the AppCrashView tool.  I can supply the logs from those when requested.  It looks like the Fault Module Names are XAudio2_6.dll also C172.DLL_unloaded and A2A_accusim.DLL. at different times.  I am using a A2A Cessna172 so I guess I needed to try a default plane and see if that freezes.  Are you able to help guide me please.  Tired of being grounded.

Here is a fix for the XAudio2_6.dll error that has worked for others - http://steamcommunity.com/app/39690/discussions/0/540733524276644312/.  The XAudio2_6.dll error is part of DirectX but is used by FSX too.  If the solution at the link does not work, then I suggest the following guidance from the AVSIM CTD Guide, page 15:

 

Update Hardware Drivers – This is really important for those who installed Windows 10 as new and updated device drivers are developed by hardware manufacturers because of bugs or incompatibility issues. Microsoft does an excellent job providing updates for Windows and some drivers, such as for your keyboard, mouse, and video card. But they do not find updates for hardware drivers required for computer system stability. You can download and run a program that will scan your computer for updated hardware drivers. These drivers will be updates for your CPU, your motherboard, USB ports (which affect your controllers), SSD’s, HDD’s, printers, etc. There are several commercial developers who have programs that will scan your system for updates. Just use the Internet search engines (Google or Bing) for Drivers or Driver Updates and you will get a list of programs you can download and run. Driver Booster is an excellent freeware program and recommended. The software products that will update your hardware are usually freeware but, when drivers are found to be out-of-date, they will ask you to pay a small registration/license fee to download and install the updates for you. You can either pay or you can get the name of the out-of-date driver(s) from the list provided by the driver scanner program and then go to Google/Bing and search for the updated driver and install the driver(s) yourself.

 

You should go to A2A and look for a fix for the C172.dll and A2A_accusim.dll but here is one possible fix - https://a2asimulations.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=107&t=53808.

 

You are new to our forums and piggybacking on another member's topic is not recommended as it gets very confusing as to whose error belongs to who.  So I will split your post to a new topic.  Hope you can find a fix for your problems.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Thanks Jim for the speedy reply and the suggestions which I will try.  Thanks also for being lenient to a first time forum poster ever.  I will reply when I have completed your suggestions. 

I have downloaded fix for XAudio2_6.dll but it is asking me where to put it??

Never mind the question re where to put XAudio2_6.dll I figured it out. Tx

BTW I have Win 7 Pro 64 bit.  I have already downloaded Driver Booster 4 and updated all my drivers.  But the ATI Radeon HD 5570 failed.  I also tried to download it manually from their site but it failed too on several attempts.

 

 

updated all my drivers. But the ATI Radeon HD 5570 failed.

 

I would assume the issue you are having with the XAudio2_6.dll is because you cannot install the drivers for your ATI Radeon HD 5570.  Your video card uses DirectX enhancements.  I looked around the Internet and others who had issues with installing the drivers for the ATI 5570 placed their system into Safe Mode.  Once in Safe Mode they uninstalled the drivers, restarted, and then installed the drivers and that worked - http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2015027/ati-radeon-5570-failing-update-error-bsod.html.  There are many more similar solutions when I used the following search term in the Google Search Bar - ATI Radeon HD 5570 failed.

 

I would not replace the current XAudio2_6.dll with the one you downloaded.  The dll should be located in the Windows/System32 and SysWow64 folders.

 

Best regards.

Jim

Thank you so much Jim.  I did as you suggested and went into Safe Mode and then I was able to successfully install the latest drivers for ATI Radeon HD 5570.  Hooray!

 

Before I do anything else I am going to try a flight and see what happens.  BTW when it was freezing it would start up again after 8 minutes and I could carry on. I have heard others say the same thing.  Is this a clue?

 

Thanks Jim I will let you know after first flight.

First flight after updated display card drivers. Freeze happened 6 minutes into flight. Flight resumed 10 minutes later. I flew 10 more minutes and then it froze again. Sound continued both times.

App viewer and Event Viewer do not show errors at the exact time fsx froze but do show errors leading up to the freeze time. For example fsx froze at 11:10 pm and then again at 11:35 pm.

App viewer only shows Dwn.exe as stopping working also svhost.exe Windows update installation problem earlier around the time I was updating driver and restarting etc.

 

I can't seem to paste logs. Grrrr!

 

 

App viewer only shows Dwn.exe as stopping working

 

Here is the most likely fix for the desktop windows manager - http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-desktop/dwmexe-crash-on-startup/79531ada-4831-4b04-9041-5b34d1c470e7. 

 

This might fix your FSX crashes.  You probably have something scheduled to run or you have your anti-virus or anti-malware program set to scan the FSX folders.  When you are running FSX, your anti-virus programs runs and scans the folders and FSX stops, then starts again after the scan is completed.  This is why we recommend you exempt any ant-virus or anti-malware program from scanning FSX or FSX addon folders.  UserAccessControls (UAC) must also be disabled.  Just too much security built into Windows.  Some of it good, some of it bad, especially for FSX fans.

 

HiFi, the makers of Active Sky products has a possible solution to the 5-10 minute crash.  I do not agree with it but it is there if you own or use their products.

 

If you have any tweaks in your FSX.cfg, like the BufferPool or AffinityMask tweaks, they need to be removed as they will cause this issue too if the parameters are not set properly.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Oh Jim this makes so much sense.  When I would run FSX withTask Manager open I could see all these services running and using up resources.  I have disabled DWM as per the link above. I also changed the day and times for Antivirus and antimalware to run so now middle of the night when not flying.  I see in Task Scheduler > Windows that there are 43 services  running at various times and days and often in the evening when I like to fly. . Should I go in and edit these too?  Are they also likely causing the issue ?

 

And 61 Processes running in Task manager.

 

UAC slider is down to Never notify.  Is this what you meant above?

 

I don't have HiFi

 

No Fsx.cfg tweeks that I know of but just to be sure I deleted the fsx.cfg and let FSX rebuild at next start up. BufferPool or AffinityMask tweaks!? Where would I even go to check these.  Yikes!

 

How do I "exempt any anti virus and anti malware from scanning FSX or FSX add on folders"?

 

Thanks Jim for all your help with this. I feel like this is the first sign of hope that we might be able to solve this.

 

 

I see in Task Scheduler > Windows that there are 43 services running at various times and days and often in the evening when I like to fly. . Should I go in and edit these too? Are they also likely causing the issue ?

 

As stated in the AVSIM CTD Guide, you should disable all of your startup programs.  These startup when you turn on your computer and are active all day long and the startup programs are really not needed.  This is in addition to the many services that are active and running.  To disable your startup programs in Windows 7, see the info at the following link - http://www.howtogeek.com/74523/how-to-disable-startup-programs-in-windows/.  Disabling startup programs has fixed many CTD's here at AVSIM.

 

Best regards,

Jim

Ok, I disabled all my start up programs. I also disabled Desktop Windows Manager. In task scheduler I got everything scheduled for middle of the night so nothing would run in the evening. I did notice that Google Update Task Machine Core was set to run daily at 7:11pm  After all of this I did get a successful flight of 30 mins without FSX going Not Responding.  This evening I made sure nothing was scanning, AV off etc and tried to repeat the same 30 min flight.  FSX not responding in 12:00 mins.  No recorded event in Event Viewer or AppCrash. In Task Manager, I notice that in the Processes that the highest usage is svchost.exe one above the other and one is at 182,108K and the other at 116,360K further down there are about 5 more of the same.  I also notice that sometimes the CPU pegs up at 100%. I am going to go back to the CTD Guide and start working through it.  I no doubt will have questions as I go along. Do you think any of the Windows 10 updates could have fouled this up?  I had downloaded the GWX Control Panel back about the time this all started failing. I have WIN 7 Pro.

I got this from Event Viewer.  This happened at 6:25 and my FSX froze at 6:53pm

Log Name:      Application

 

Source:        Microsoft-Windows-WMI

Date:          19/10/2016 6:26:51 PM

Event ID:      10

Task Category: None

Level:         Error

Keywords:      Classic

User:          N/A

Computer:      Colleen-AV

Description:

Event filter with query "SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99" could not be reactivated in namespace "//./root/CIMV2" because of error 0x80041003. Events cannot be delivered through this filter until the problem is corrected.

Event Xml:

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">

  <System>

    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-WMI" Guid="{1edeee53-0afe-4609-b846-d8c0b2075b1f}" EventSourceName="WinMgmt" />

    <EventID Qualifiers="49152">10</EventID>

    <Version>0</Version>

    <Level>2</Level>

    <Task>0</Task>

   <Opcode>0</Opcode>

    <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>

    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-10-19T22:26:51.000000000Z" />

    <EventRecordID>34746</EventRecordID>

    <Correlation />

    <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />

    <Channel>Application</Channel>

    <Computer>Colleen-AV</Computer>

    <Security />

  </System>

  <EventData>

   <Data>//./root/CIMV2</Data>

    <Data>SELECT * FROM __InstanceModificationEvent WITHIN 60 WHERE TargetInstance ISA "Win32_Processor" AND TargetInstance.LoadPercentage > 99</Data>

    <Data>0x80041003</Data>

  </EventData>

</Event>

 

Number 2 Error

 

Log Name:      Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing/Admin

Source:        Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing

 

Date:          19/10/2016 6:25:06 PM

 

Event ID:      3

 

Task Category: Session

 

Level:         Error

 

Keywords:      Session

 

User:          SYSTEM

 

Computer:      Colleen-AV

 

Description:

 

Session "Microsoft Security Client OOBE" stopped due to the following error: 0xC000000D

 

Event Xml:

 

<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">

 

  <System>

 

    <Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing" Guid="{B675EC37-BDB6-4648-BC92-F3FDC74D3CA2}" />

 

    <EventID>3</EventID>

 

    <Version>0</Version>

 

    <Level>2</Level>

 

    <Task>2</Task>

 

    <Opcode>14</Opcode>

 

    <Keywords>0x8000000000000010</Keywords>

 

    <TimeCreated SystemTime="2016-10-19T22:25:06.805225000Z" />

 

    <EventRecordID>772</EventRecordID>

 

    <Correlation />

 

    <Execution ProcessID="4" ThreadID="172" />

 

    <Channel>Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing/Admin</Channel>

 

    <Computer>Colleen-AV</Computer>

 

    <Security UserID="S-1-5-18" />

 

  </System>

 

  <EventData>

 

    <Data Name="SessionName">Microsoft Security Client OOBE</Data>

 

    <Data Name="FileName">C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Microsoft Security Client\Support\EppOobe.etl</Data>

 

    <Data Name="ErrorCode">3221225485</Data>

 

    <Data Name="LoggingMode">5</Data>

 

  </EventData>

 

</Event>

 

 

Session "Microsoft Security Client OOBE" stopped due to the following error: 0xC000000D

 

Possible solution - https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/office/en-US/0c942bd9-47ad-4897-a5c2-485cc9fe681f/microsoft-security-client-oobe-stopped-due-to-the-following-error-0xc000000d?forum=w7itprosecurity.  This error would not have shutdown FSX though.

 

The error that froze FSX is common (at least on my system) and difficult to remove.  I would recommend downloading the Windows Repair from Tweaking.com - http://www.tweaking.com/content/page/windows_repair_all_in_one.html.  Whenever I have any major issues with my system I run this program.  If fixes everything (the freeware or payware version).

 

Best regards,

Jim

Thanks Jim. I will try the above on Friday. (Busy today and this evening.

 

I also downloaded Process Monitor last night, so maybe that will help us.

Jim you are a genius!!  SUCCESS!  Just completed 2 hours of flying with no freezes. So, I took your advice and downloaded Windows Repair from Tweaking.com.  Followed the directions to the letter including repairing twice.  Then decided to boot up FSX and try it.  Not a speck of troubles.  So consider this solved.  BTW should I only run Windows repair when I have a problem or every now and then as a preventative maintenance?

 

Again, Jim, Thank you so much for all your help and sticking with me.  First flying in four months! I was beginning to think all was lost. So incredibly happy.