Scenery caused CTD in Prepar3D V4: workaround

[dommel1234 1]

Hello guys, i had several CTD recently in Prepar3d, and as you may have encountered  a similar situation , i intend to give you a possible workaround. The CTD happens when try to use your default scenario (whichever saved) or when you select an aircraft. When it starts to load the scenery it crashes. I observed that this happen due to add on scenery incompatibilities especially some sceneries made on previous prepar3d versions. If you suspect something like this happen then try the following:

1) Go to the place where your Prepar3d cfg is located (roaming etc) and delete your cfg.

2) Rename the exe.xml and the dll.xml

3) start Prepar3d and load the default scenario with the default settings. Then go to scenery library and delete the last scenery you have added and you suspect it caused the problem

Exit and load again, selecting your aircraft and your favorite settings, now it should work stable. Now, if you want to still use the scenery i have a workaround but it s not yet tested thoroughtly, but it works for me. Just take manually the add on scenery that is installed in your Prepar3d put it in another drive and then assign the path in scenery library to the new location. The otherwise problematic scenery should work now without causing any crashes. If someone has a similar experience please share. I hope this will help you as it helped me i would nt like to make a reiinstall after all :)

[Jim Young 2,356]

Pinned.

[carlito777 712]

Bit of an overkill to delete the prepar3d.cfg, exe.xml and dll.xml just because the sim doesn't load anymore after you installed a scenery. I would strongly advise against that as this could result in non-functioning add-ons. E.g. if you have installed a PMDG aircraft which relies on an entry in the dll.xml. If you experience crashes after installing a scenery, it is completely sufficient to delete that entry from the scenery.cfg file or disable the add-on.

[Jim Young 2,356]

3 hours ago, carlito777 said:

Bit of an overkill to delete the prepar3d.cfg, exe.xml and dll.xml just because the sim doesn't load anymore after you installed a scenery.

No one is recommending the P3D.cfg, exe.xml, dll.xml, scenery.cfg all be deleted but moved to a temp folder or rename them with an OFF extension.  If the problem is fixed, then you move the scenery.cfg back.  Then the dll.xml and exe.xml back.   In other words, you can bring back your files.  Of course, you are correct when you state the latest scenery or aircraft should be suspected; however, I have been experiencing several StackHash crashes lately.  They were not occurring during every P3D session, just periodically which I found frustrating.  I had not installed any new aircraft or scenery.  I rebuilt my P3D.cfg to the default and instantly had no crashes and my performance for a flight in the PMDG 747 from Flightbeam's KSFO to LVFR KSAN was well into the 100's.  I then discovered the default P3D.cfg did not give me any traffic so I moved the slider for AI Traffic (I use MyTrafficX) to 15% and hit okay.  P3D crashed with another StackHash as it was loading the traffic.  So now I know I have an issue with MyTrafficX which I will have to resolve.

I always look for the fastest and easiest way to investigate a crash or freeze and I have found this to be the best way to do it.  But you are right, if I had just installed a new scenery or aircraft, you can bet I would have disabled them to see if they were the culprit.  But our membership is not all that familiar with the various files and programs that run P3D or how do you edit the scenery.cfg and disable a scenery?

Best regards,

Jim

[Cargostorm 151]

I had also CTDs (error report hints to api.dll) using certain scenery combinations. At the end it turned out to be a scenery traffic file folder that was added by the new add-on.xml method. I inserted that scenery folder using the old method in scenery.cfg (and de-activated the add-on.xml), and CTDs are gone.

[virtualspirit 0]

 

Cargostorm,

 

I'm having CTD due to API.DLL in 90% of the flights when flying over the SOCAL ORBX scenery. I lowered my graphics settings in P3D with no success. Can you detail the method you used to fix your CTD?

Best regards,

Bruno

 0

[IanHarrison 521]

I have a different view of crashes: on my set up I can fly for over 12 hours with PMDG, Orbx and the rest with no problems, PROVIDING I do not surf the Internet or do anything intensive. Reading the mail is OK but anything more will bring up a CTD at about 10 hours into the flight, almost guaranteed.

I have 16 g of RAM but could it be that is not enough for P3Dv4?

Ian Harrison

[Luke 782]

I can have P3Dv4, AS16, two different IDEs and debuggers open without issue. What is the faulting module in P3Dv4?

Cheers!

[IanHarrison 521]

Latest one was Scenery.dll

I have now tried reducing LOD and autogen to see if that is the problem.