P3d V4 Will Not Startup - Black Screen after Initialization

[PilotPete99 915]

Hello - I have been using P3dV4 for about a month now, and suddenly today the program will not start. Once I run the program, the initial splash screen appears, and then the screen goes black permanently, so it never gets to the scenarios screen. I tried doing a repair from the programs list, and also deleted the prepar3d.cfg file for a rebuild. I have not added anything since I last ran the program two days ago, so I am at a complete loss as to what is up. I have a pretty good system so no issues there. I did run the Microsoft compatibility test for the heck of it, and it came back with "prepar3d is not compatible." I can't for the life of me figure out what's doing, but any ideas would be greatly appreciated. I did notice the post from earlier but I don't have PTA installed, so perhaps my issue is different.

Cheers, Pete

[Peter Webber 339]

I had a similar issue with the previous version. I got it running again by uninstalling and then re-installing the P3d client..same process for performing an update..not sure why this happens.

[PilotPete99 915]

Thanks Peter, I will give that a shot...iI would hate to have to do a complete reinstall!

Cheers, Pete

[Peter Webber 339]

I had also considered a full re-install, but then realized that the P3D client re-installation is all that is needed since V3. After that, P3D started up normally with no disruption to my installation. I'm not sure why this black screen event occurs. Maybe some interference from Antivirus software? Let me know your progress.

[PilotPete99 915]

Will do, won't be able to try it out until tomorrow due to hockey which has taken over my life! Don't remember this craziness in my playing days!

Cheers, Pete

[PilotPete99 915]

Well...no luck on the reinstall of P3d client, run P3d, splash screen, and then nothing. This is very confusing, as I added nothing before the issues started, and now I am hesitant to do a complete reinstall. There is a part of me that may want to get a refund while I'm still within the 60 days, because who is to say this will not happen again. It's moments like these that remind me of why I keep the fridge stocked with beer. I guess will think about it for a few days, but any other ideas will be most welcomed.

Cheers, Pete

[rydah 0]

Not sure if you installed the new objectflow.dll from Orbx but I had a similar issue and I heard it could be related. I copy and pasted below the method I used when the scenario screen did not load.

"If you can't even get to the scenario screen when the ObjectFlow dll is active, you can try this:"

 

Go into the Windows registry (run regedit.exe) and look in path
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers\

 

If there is a key for "Prepar3D.exe" in there with a value of "$ IgnoreFreelibrary<Orbx_ObjectFlow_x64.dll>" delete that key. Then P3D should start again with OF enabled.

[captain420 3,099]

I had a similar issue the other day and was about to give up. I didn't want to reinstall P3D from scratch either. Any luck on resolving your issue? Has any of the above methods worked for you?

[Jim Young 2,356]

At startup of P3DV4, it reads your dll.xml and loads all of the modules.  It also looks at your scenery.cfg.  I suspect it is the scenery.cfg as that can get corrupted easily as it has to be encoded properly and, if you tried to install an add-on manually using the SceneryConfigEditor, opening the Scenery.cfg into Notepad, it may get corrupted and destroy P3D.  Only solution is to delete the scenery.cfg and the dll.xml located in the same folder as the scenery.cfg (it will be rebuilt) and possibly another dll.xml in the same folder as your p3d.cfg (old default).

13 minutes ago, captain420 said:

I had a similar issue the other day and was about to give up. I didn't want to reinstall P3D from scratch either. Any luck on resolving your issue? Has any of the above methods worked for you?

You have subsequently been posting other issues with P3DV4 while P3D was started up.  I do not understand why you would post this when you now have P3D running and working on issues with add-ons and about everything else that could possibly happen when using P3D.

Best regards,

Jim

[captain420 3,099]

Just now, Jim Young said:

At startup of P3DV4, it reads your dll.xml and loads all of the modules.  It also looks at your scenery.cfg.  I suspect it is the scenery.cfg as that can get corrupted easily as it has to be encoded properly and, if you tried to install an add-on manually using the SceneryConfigEditor, opening the Scenery.cfg into Notepad, it may get corrupted and destroy P3D.  Only solution is to delete the scenery.cfg and the dll.xml located in the same folder as the scenery.cfg (it will be rebuilt) and possibly another dll.xml in the same folder as your p3d.cfg (old default).

You have subsequently been posting other issues with P3DV4 while P3D was started up.  I do not understand why you would post this when you now have P3D running and working on issues with add-ons and about everything else that could possibly happen when using P3D.

Best regards,

Jim

Jim, the reason for my post was so that I can help out, seems like he was having very similar issues to me. I guess you misunderstood my post. I just wanted to compare notes so that I can shed some information to help a fellow simmer out.

[Jim Young 2,356]

Okay.  Sorry.  Just thought maybe you would have posted how you were able to fix your issue so he could get his problem fixed.  Whenever someone has a black screen at startup of P3DV4 and found a fix, I would hope you would tell us how you fixed it.  Hope you can help him out!!!

Best regards,

Jim

[PilotPete99 915]

Thanks again guys, so I tried the fix above from Rydah's post, and I'm not sure to delete this: My path says "$ IgnoreFreelibrary<bglmanx64.dll, but nothing about Orbx. Come to think about it, I purchased Orbx KSAN before I tried running P3d that day, but had not yet installed. Perhaps I may have updated Orbx libraries. Does any of this help?

Cheers, Pete

[PilotPete99 915]

Just curious, if it ends up that I need to delete the scenery.cfg file, what would have to be reinstalled besides the the third party airports, etc.? For instance, would ASN16 and MyTraffic6 need to be reinstalled? The beer has been opened, thanks again for your help guys.

Cheers, Pete

[Jim Young 2,356]

1 hour ago, psolov said:

Just curious, if it ends up that I need to delete the scenery.cfg file, what would have to be reinstalled besides the the third party airports, etc.? For instance, would ASN16 and MyTraffic6 need to be reinstalled? The beer has been opened, thanks again for your help guys.

Cheers, Pete

The scenery.cfg will be rebuilt to the default and coded properly so that it can be read.  If you want to add scenery, you will have to load P3D and go to the Scenery Library and add the scenery.  For MyTraffic6 all you need to do is browse to the MyTraffic6 folder and add it to your Scenery Library.

2 hours ago, psolov said:

My path says "$ IgnoreFreelibrary<bglmanx64.dll

The bglmanx64.dll is loaded via your dll.xml.  It is part of FSDT.  You should have a FSDT Update Icon on your desktop (if not you need to go on FSDT site and download the latest Standalone Addon Manager and run it).  If the FSDT Update icon is on your desktop, then run that and it will fix your FSDT stuff in the dll.xml and elsewhere.  For V4 it will make add-on.xml's.  It does a great job.  Most other scenery is not V4 compatible yet.  MyTraffic6 is okay except there are a lot of AI textures made for FS9 that are not compatible and, when they are called to be rendered, your sim will crash (and maybe burn).  It's best you dump the dll.xml and delete it as I suggested above.  You will have to reinstall AS16 and any PMDG aircraft.  The AVSIM CTD Guide shows you images of how to disable individual entries in the dll.xml. 

Best regards,

Jim

[PilotPete99 915]

Hi Jim - Thanks again for your help. I have run the FSDT updater, and I don't have any PMDG aircraft for P3d since I didn't want to re-buy (I have all of them for fsx). I use the I-Fly 737 for P3dV4 and also have the Aerosoft CRJ. Since I have only had P3dV4 for a few weeks, I have not really installed any other aircraft so far. I will give a shot at deleting the dll.xml and cross my fingers!

Cheers, Pete