Problems with V4 black screens no gear

[dgeddesjr 4]

Something is still wrong with the 747 as I have a problem with loading a saved flight, without or without using FSUIPC5.  

Like a lot of you probably do as well, I use the auto save feature in FSUIPC to make sure I can re-load a flight when the inevitable CTD happens.  I configure it to save every hour, so at the most I only lose about an hour of flight time on those long haul flights after the sim crashes.  This is a great feature for PMDG aircraft and has always worked on FSX, FSX SE, P3D3, and now of course I am using it for P3D4 as well.

I was hoping that it would be a while before I saw a CTD on P3D4 with PMDG 747, but sure enough on my second flight, somewhere near Montreal on a flight from EGLL to KDFW the sim crashes....no worries, I'm used to this and FSUIPC saved my flight, right?  

Wrong.  

Apparently the 747 has a problem when trying to load a saved scenario, as normally when you load any PMDG aircraft you need to wait for the "Initializing all systems..." to finish before things eventually stabilize and you can continue the flight.  If you do this with 747 and P3D4, you only see "Initializing all systems..." for a split second and then the message goes away.  Nothing in 747 is initialized, all of your displays are black, the entire VC is non-functional.  If you switch to outside view, you will see that even though the aircraft is flying just fine the engines are not rotating.  There is no way to recover from this and you have to start your flight completely over again.  So clearly the issue is somewhere in the system initialization as it crashes right as it starts, and I only have this problem when trying to load a saved flight.

Now, if I could only find out what is causing P3D4 to crash in the first place then I would be set, but it's really frustrating that loading a saved flight no longer seems to work, with or without FSUIPC.  

ETA:  I saw this in the known issues thread:

Issues acknowledged, under investigation or fix underway:

- Issues where the aircraft loads into the simulator with the screens dead and no landing gear. (failure of dll initialization)

I don't know if this issue has a fix underway or not, but it's there in 747 P3D4 as well.

-Don Geddes

 

 

 

[Jack_Sawyer 4,600]

I'm curious myself as I just made some test flights and flew for about an hour around Tampa.  The 747 performed flawlessly but when I shut down I got a box saying P3D had stopped working.  This after shutdown.  Could it have OOM'd?  64 bit?  It has never happened with all my testing with other aircraft like RealAir's Duke or the Aerosoft Twin Otter.

I'm curious Don, do you think you had an OOM despite it being 64 bit?

[dgeddesjr 4]

1 minute ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

I'm curious myself as I just made some test flights and flew for about an hour around Tampa.  The 747 performed flawlessly but when I shut down I got a box saying P3D had stopped working.  This after shutdown.  Could it have OOM'd?  64 bit?  It has never happened with all my testing with other aircraft like RealAir's Duke or the Aerosoft Twin Otter.

I'm curious Don, do you think you had an OOM despite it being 64 bit?

No it's not a OOM, those are two completely different issues with very distinct symptoms.  Windows will tell you if the process has exceeded the VAS limit, whereas the standard CTD is just that, a crash, or the process terminates unexpectedly.

As for the initialization failure, I edited my post and apparently this is a known issue.  I just hope PMDG can figure it out soon as I love P3D4 and don't want to go back to 32-bit sim.  

-Don Geddes

[Jack_Sawyer 4,600]

8 minutes ago, dgeddesjr said:

No it's not a OOM, those are two completely different issues with very distinct symptoms.  Windows will tell you if the process has exceeded the VAS limit, whereas the standard CTD is just that, a crash, or the process terminates unexpectedly.

As for the initialization failure, I edited my post and apparently this is a known issue.  I just hope PMDG can figure it out soon as I love P3D4 and don't want to go back to 32-bit sim.  

-Don Geddes

Thanks Don, I couldn't agree more.  

[JRBarrett 3,070]

I have the same issue after unstalling FSUIPC 5. If the FSUIPC DLL is present in the MODULES folder in P3D V4, the initialization routine never runs on load, nothing is clickable in the VC, and there is no gear in external view. Without FSUIPC, everything is fine. This is 100 percent repeatable on my system.

[Wothan 173]

37 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

I have the same issue after unstalling FSUIPC 5. If the FSUIPC DLL is present in the MODULES folder in P3D V4, the initialization routine never runs on load, nothing is clickable in the VC, and there is no gear in external view. Without FSUIPC, everything is fine. This is 100 percent repeatable on my system.

I have this too.

 

Reading Pete´s comments in the FSUIPC support forum, it seems that PMDG needs to fix this, since it´s not FSUIPC causing the issue.

[jgoggi 65]

It's very strange. I did nothing but now, if I load the default F22 at first, then switch to the 747, it correctly initialises everytime...

[JRBarrett 3,070]

59 minutes ago, jgoggi said:

It's very strange. I did nothing but now, if I load the default F22 at first, then switch to the 747, it correctly initialises everytime...

The 747 depends on several DLLs that are specified in DLL.XML, and the FSUIPC.DLL is loaded via that same XML file - (as is a DLL used by AS16 for those that have it installed). It appears that FSUIPC and one of the PMDG DLLs are conflicting in some way in certain situations.

I remember a few months ago where some AS16 users were having intermittent crashes that turned out to be related to the order that various modules were listed in DLL.XML. In that case, the "cure" was to insure that the Active Sky DLL was always the very last entry in the XML file. It had something to do with the order in which the DLLs were loaded into the sim.

If this is a similar issue, loading a default aircraft first may change the DLL loading priority in such a way as to prevent a conflict. I know that PMDG sent Pete Dowson a copy of the 747 V3 for testing, so I am sure that he and PMDG are working to get to the bottom of the problem.

 

[dgeddesjr 4]

48 minutes ago, JRBarrett said:

The 747 depends on several DLLs that are specified in DLL.XML, and the FSUIPC.DLL is loaded via that same XML file - (as is a DLL used by AS16 for those that have it installed). It appears that FSUIPC and one of the PMDG DLLs are conflicting in some way in certain situations.

I remember a few months ago where some AS16 users were having intermittent crashes that turned out to be related to the order that various modules were listed in DLL.XML. In that case, the "cure" was to insure that the Active Sky DLL was always the very last entry in the XML file. It had something to do with the order in which the DLLs were loaded into the sim.

If this is a similar issue, loading a default aircraft first may change the DLL loading priority in such a way as to prevent a conflict. I know that PMDG sent Pete Dowson a copy of the 747 V3 for testing, so I am sure that he and PMDG are working to get to the bottom of the problem.

 

FSUIPC isn't listed in my Prepar3d v4 dll.xml file, but PMDG's DLL is.  There is no ActiveSky in there either, so it's being called using a different method or there is more than one dll.xml file.  

[Wothan 173]

26 minutes ago, dgeddesjr said:

FSUIPC isn't listed in my Prepar3d v4 dll.xml file, but PMDG's DLL is.  There is no ActiveSky in there either, so it's being called using a different method or there is more than one dll.xml file.  

I just checked...

There is a DLL.xml in both:

C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\ (where the PMDG entries reside)

and

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\ (Where FSUIPC entry reside)

 

So maybe thats the culprit....

 

[dgeddesjr 4]

4 minutes ago, Wothan said:

I just checked...

There is a DLL.xml in both:

C:\ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\ (where the PMDG entries reside)

and

C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4\ (Where FSUIPC entry reside)

 

So maybe thats the culprit....

 

Eureka!  Thanks Wothan.

So in %AppData%, the dll.xml has only add-ons, both AS and FSUIPC.  PMDG puts theirs in %ProgramData%.  I'll try some experimentation and see what happens.  

 

[Wothan 173]

I have tried to move all entries in to each location while clearing the other, but the issue persist.

I do though wonder if it´s ok to have a dll.xml in two different locations ?

Only by disabling FSUIPC I can still get the PMDG 747 to load correctly.

I also tried to rearrange the sequence in which the various entries are listed, but no succes.

[JRBarrett 3,070]

1 hour ago, Wothan said:

I have tried to move all entries in to each location while clearing the other, but the issue persist.

I do though wonder if it´s ok to have a dll.xml in two different locations ?

Only by disabling FSUIPC I can still get the PMDG 747 to load correctly.

I also tried to rearrange the sequence in which the various entries are listed, but no succes.

Rearranging might not help. Like some others, I have since discovered that if I load a default aircraft first - in my case the Maule - and then load the QOTS, that it initializes with no problems with FSUIPC 5 present.

Being that P3D Version 4 is a brand-new platform, and the initial release of the V4 747 and P3D version 5 are the first foray into supporting P3DV4, these sort of issues are probably unavoidable. I'm sure it will get resolved.

As for the existence of two dll.xml files in two different folders - that is something which began with one of the later revisions of P3D version 3. It's part of the "new" way of loading add-ons independent of the simulator, like the new way of installing scenery. One of the two is the "preferred" dll.xml file for P3D SDK-compliant add-ons, but I'm not sure which one that is. In any case, at present, dll.xml entries can go in either file and they will work.

[Fervex 1]

All the errors encountered appear to be related to the non-uninstalling of the previous P3D V3.4 (with the directories cleaning, registry with ccleaner etc) and the new PMDG installer which check the two versions at the same time. Make your choice and no more problem with FSUIPC 5 or this beautiful 747 !

Run all "install folder\Prepar3D v4\redist\Interface\" (FSX-RTM\retail\lib, FSX-SP1\retail\lib, FSX-SP2-XPACK\retail\lib to see gear, etc..

[kityatyi 78]

Uninstalled everything, formatted SDD before upgrading to P3D v4. No issues on my side at all, works like a charm.