P3D crashes when undocking to second monitor

[kolaf 2]

I have for a long time used a second monitor to display pop-up displays for the 737 in my home cockpit. Suddenly this stopped working the other day (for any airplane), and I have not been able to get it to work again. 

 

My setup consists of 3 22 inch monitors set up in surround and fourth monitor which is my main desktop monitor. These are connected to the same graphics card, GTX1070.

 

I also have two secondary monitors, a small LG touchscreen and a second 22 inch monitor that I use for the gauges and panels. These are connected to an older graphics card , GTX560Ti.

 

The older graphics card has run the 2-D panels for the 737 mfd and other systems without problems.

 

Now, whenever I undock a window and drag it to the second monitor (which is connected to the old graphics card), p3d crashes with an error in nvwgf2um.dll. Unlocking to a monitor connected to the same graphics card works without a glitch (eg from the surround display to the main desktop monitor). It is when I drag it to the monitor that is connected to the other graphics card everything crashes.

 

The following things were changed shortly before the problem appeared:

1. I upgraded to the latest Nvidia driver 375.70 (and maybe the one before that as well in between two simulator sessions).

2. I upgraded to the 3.4 hot fix client for P3D from 3.3.5.

3. Whatever updates microsoft has thrown my way.

 

Both of the two first are reversible, so I have tried downgrading the graphics driver to both 373.06 and 368.39, but the issue persisted.

 

I also uninstalled the 3.4 hot fix client and reverted back to 3.3.5, but this also changed nothing. Deleting the configuration file was also unhelpful.

 

I'm at a loss about what to do. I could swap stuff around to have my gauges monitor connected to the same graphics card, but then my main monitor (not the p3d display monitor which is a three monitor surround setup) has to be connected to the old graphics card. This is the problem since whenever I undock a panel it will display on my main monitor and immediately crash p3d.

 

Any uplifting words, encouragements, or suggestions are very welcome. Maybe I will at some point learn to leave well enough alone :-)

[Biggles2010 342]

I have a similar setup to yourself, in a home cockpit, although I am still using P3D 3.2.  I also recently updated the video driver to 375.63 and applied an overdue update to Active Sky Next. Everything initially worked without any problems.

 

Then, the other day I started up the sim and found that the taskbar and icons had moved to another screen, although Nvidia control panel showed the original primary screen as still being primary.

Nothing else had been changed to cause this, and it took a lot of fiddling to persuade things to move back to their correct position on the real primary monitor. I assumed it had something to do with the updates, but have no real evidence for this, and in the meantime it has been OK.

 

In your case, as you have tried reverting things individually, I would suggest trying a system restore to a date when things were working. If not successful, then it comes down to the long and slow process of elimination.

 

Try disconnecting all but your primary monitor, then after checking its correct operation, shut down and connect your gauges monitor to the second card. This will allow you to check its operation with an undocked window. If this works, then connect the outside view monitors and check again. And so on.....just looking for clues. 

 

I am curious why you would be undocking and dragging views once the cockpit was set up and working. The great advantage of P3D for me has been that once the views have been set up and the instrument panels aligned and locked in position, then any flight situation that I save will retain the views and panel states.

[kolaf 2]

Thanks for the suggestions, I have continued playing around with monitor positions and driver cleanup without any luck. Maybe next that Paul be doing as you propose and go through individual monitors. I'm not sure if I have any restore points I can roll back to, unless something has been automatically created for me?

 

The reason for moving gauges is that I often experience crashes when loading a saved flight. It doesn't happen too often with the 737 NGX, but the mjc q400 crashed every time I tried to load a saved flight. My solution was to use an auto hotkey script that saved application positions on the display and restored them using keyboard shortcuts. I could than position everything like I wanted, and then save the positions. The next time I start a flight, I simply have to undock each panel, and then the script repositions the displays.

[Bobsk8 12,489]

This sounds like a driver issue. Maybe you could try running a complete  driver uninstaller, and then try your original driver and I bet that fixes the problem. 

[kolaf 2]

This sounds like a driver issue. Maybe you could try running a complete  driver uninstaller, and then try your original driver and I bet that fixes the problem. 

 Already tried to no avail

[Biggles2010 342]

Depending on your system settings you should get an automatic restore point every 7 days. There will usually be at least 3 or 4 previous dates available. If you are not familiar with it, the help menu is quite useful, see Control Panel - System and Security - Action Centre - System Restore.  The process is also reversible.

 

Originally I also had the problem of crashes on loading saved flights and found a simple solution, although this may not apply to other add on aircraft.

 

My sim is an Embraer 195 based on the FeelThere E-Jets v2 software which predates P3D.   Anyway, I compared the config files for my own saved flights with the config files for the P3D default saved flight. These are in My Documents - P3D Files.  The default saved config was 47Kb whereas my new saved flights were around 73 Kb.

 

I opened the config files in Notepad to look for the differences. I found that the files were almost identical down to the point where the config file should have ended. The last entry should be SIMBASE DOCUMENT,  but for some reason my saved files had masses of additional and apparently irrelevant information included after that entry.

 

I deleted all entries after the line SIMBASE DOCUMENT, and saved the file. This reduced it to 47 or 48 Kb. Restarted P3D with default flight, then loaded my saved flight with the amended file. Success.

 

I have to do this config amendment for each new saved flight, before I can reload it, but it only takes about 30 seconds and works every time.

 

Your situation may be different, but I would certainly suggest comparing any of your saved flight config files with the default for any noticeable differences.

[vgbaron 3,477]

Since you tried the clean driver option there are 3 more things I would try.

 

1) rename your P3D.cfg file and see if that helps isolate the issue

 

2) disable all entries in your dll.xml file 

 

3) do a repair install on P3D or just uninstall/reinstall the latest client.

 

The file throwing the error is an nvidia file but it could be something else that triggers it.

 

Vic

[kolaf 2]

Thanks for the suggestions. Since I had done a fair bit of uninstall and reinstall of drivers and p3d clients most of my automatic restore points were garbage. Luckily, the oldest one was old enough, so I restored to that point. I'm happy to report that the crashes have disappeared.

 

After being burnt, I have now created a manual restore point so that I should be able to to this point the next time I break anything :-). The next few updates to any drivers/software will be monitored carefully and followed up by some serious testing. I still do not know what caused the issues.

 

I also appreciate the tips about editing the save files. I will definitely look into that to see if I can get the q400 files to behave correctly. While the subject, is there an easy way to change location or profile (graphics settings, et cetera) that is loaded with the save file? It is a pain to have to relocate and change time, season, et cetera whenever I'm loading the saved flight.

[Biggles2010 342]

Well done. Good that you were able to recover things.

 

Re the save files, when you look at one in notepad you'll see that you can easily change the time, season etc in the relevant section. Not so easy the location as you must enter the exact position in lat and long and the exact elevation, which you may not know in advance.

 

Best to make a copy of a saved file and modify time, season etc and save with a dfifferent name. For location, I just load a location at the time or season I want, then move to the required airport and save that situation. I then have a collection of saved flights at different locations and different seasons as a base to select from.

[Bobsk8 12,489]

 

Thanks for the suggestions. Since I had done a fair bit of uninstall and reinstall of drivers and p3d clients most of my automatic restore points were garbage. Luckily, the oldest one was old enough, so I restored to that point. I'm happy to report that the crashes have disappeared.

 

After being burnt, I have now created a manual restore point so that I should be able to to this point the next time I break anything :-). The next few updates to any drivers/software will be monitored carefully and followed up by some serious testing. I still do not know what caused the issues.

 

I also appreciate the tips about editing the save files. I will definitely look into that to see if I can get the q400 files to behave correctly. While the subject, is there an easy way to change location or profile (graphics settings, et cetera) that is loaded with the save file? It is a pain to have to relocate and change time, season, et cetera whenever I'm loading the saved flight.

 

 

 

About a decade ago, before I quite simming for a few years, I stopped installing the latest drivers. I found most times, the improvements I saw were either non-existent or marginal at best, and the frequent issues I had were a real pain. Got back into simming about a year and a half ago, and have not touched my nvidia drivers since, I have good performance and no issues. Not going to fix what isn't broken. 

[kolaf 2]

One or two sessions after my system restore the issue started appearing again. After spending a day fighting with it again, I gave up and know in the process of reinstalling my entire system (from the OS upwards). It's a pain, but at least my initial tests indicate that things are working again (I installed an old graphics driver on purpose :-)).