P3d V4 Will Not Startup - Black Screen after Initialization

[PilotPete99 915]

Jim you are a genius! Deleting that dll.xml file did it! Thanks..you saved me many hours of frustration and probably beer guzzling! I have another question perhaps you can answer: I am trying to delete my LatinVFR KSAN scenery from the scenery library and I can't because it is grayed out. I have never seen this, but I want to install the Orbx KSAN. Any idea how to kill this?

Cheers, Pete

[Peter Webber 339]

7 hours ago, psolov said:

Jim you are a genius! Deleting that dll.xml file did it! Thanks..you saved me many hours of frustration and probably beer guzzling! I have another question perhaps you can answer: I am trying to delete my LatinVFR KSAN scenery from the scenery library and I can't because it is grayed out. I have never seen this, but I want to install the Orbx KSAN. Any idea how to kill this?

Cheers, Pete

Jim is quite an expert in this regard! Have you checked out his CTD Guide? Glad you got sorted.

[Jim Young 2,356]

1 hour ago, Peter Webber said:

I am trying to delete my LatinVFR KSAN scenery from the scenery library and I can't because it is grayed out. I have never seen this, but I want to install the Orbx KSAN. Any idea how to kill this?

LatinVFR KSAN appears to be properly installed as it is installed using the add-on.xml method.  You can remove LatinVFR if you are using the Lorby Si Addon Manager for P3DV4, go to Documents/Prepar3D v4 Add-ons and delete the Latin VFR entry, OR open up P3DV4 and once started, click on Options/Addons and delete the entry.

Best regards,

Jim

[PilotPete99 915]

Thanks to all of you for your help! I think P3dv4 has reduced me back to a novice again!

Cheers, Pete

[BoxFlyer89 0]

Hey all, I'm wondering if anyone has any more insight to this issue.  I'm convinced that P3Dv4 has a self-corrupting dll.xml file.  I will run P3D just fine today and then tomorrow it loads to the black screen, and if I delete the dll.xml file it regenerates a new one and works just fine.  Because I don't want to keep uninstalling and reinstalling my addons I've made a copy of the working dll.xml file and placed it on my desktop in the hopes I can just copy it back when P3D loads to a black screen.  Now this doesn't work either despite not changing it from the one that worked.  Ive tried notepad++ and taken a look at both my current one and the working one and don't see any difference in the formatting.  I've tried copying over the entries from one to the other and that doesn't seem to work either.  Any suggestions?

[Jim Young 2,356]

23 minutes ago, hilds434 said:

I'm convinced that P3Dv4 has a self-corrupting dll.xml file.

It that was the case, we would be seeing a fix immediately from LM.  There are two dll.xml's.  One is in the same folder as your p3d.cfg and the other (the new default location) is in the same folder as the scenery.cfg.  If you delete the one in the scenery.cfg, it will be rebuilt and coded properly.  If you delete the one in the same folder as the p3d.cfg, it will not be rebuilt and those products will have to be reinstalled or you will have to copy over the entries into a properly coded dll.xml inside of Notepad+++.  It's my understanding that all of the xml's now have to be formatted/coded in utf-8 or utf-16 (my stuff is coded in utf-8 format).  You have to open it up in Notepad+++ . Notepad+++ will keep it in the proper format and you can edit it from there.  If you open it any other way, it will most likely be encoded improperly and you will not have your modules loaded.  The dll.xml loads at startup before you get to the setup screen and it loads all of the modules required by some developers to make their product work better.  In most cases your product will still work with limitations.  The dll.xml has nothing to do with scenery other than to load a module that might be required by ORBX/FTX.  There are many add-on xml's for all of your scenery.  Those can get corrupted but, if you use the Add-on Manager that is available at Lorby-Si (hosted by AVSIM), it will get the coding correct for those addon.xml's (in most cases).  You do not have to use any addon.xml (although that is preferred by LM).  You can simply start up P3D, go to World and then click on the Scenery Library.  Once open, add your scenery by clicking on Add and following the instructions.

Best regards,

Jim

[BoxFlyer89 0]

Thanks for the quick reply Jim.  This would be the file in the same location as the scenery.cfg, so ProgramData\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v4.  I checked the encoding on the saved (and supposedly working) copy, and it's in UTF-8.  However place that file into ProgramData\...etc. P3D boots to the black screen.  If you delete that and let P3D load it generates a new dll.xml file and it loads just fine.  So either I have to uninstall/reinstall the PMDG 737, 777, and 747 plus the Carenado aircraft to get the dll entries back or I have to hand type the entries in.  If I copy and past the entries in Notepad++ it black screen boots again.

What's really frustrating is I have no idea what is causing this to happen.  Nothing is being changed between uses; no addons being installed or removed-it just stops working.

[Jim Young 2,356]

So there is a corrupted entry in the dll.xml since a new one allows P3D to load properly.  The entry that might be in your dll.xml that is causing the black screen is probably the following entry from Carenado:

<Launch.Addon>
                <Name>CMeteoXml</Name>
                <Disabled>False</Disabled>   Change this line to <Disabled>True</Disabled> and the module will not load
                <Path>.\CMeteoXml.dll</Path>
</Launch.Addon>

You can do this for the other modules in the dll.xml too to investigate which one is causing a problem.  I would not uninstall PMDG or Carenado aircraft.  Just disable the module from loading.  If my suggestion above does not work, then change the line back to FALSE and go to another module and disable it by changing False to True.  If there is no disable entry, then place one in it like the one above.

Best regards,

Jim

[Peter Webber 339]

Hi..this is a bit of and old thread but this has just happened to me again wirh P3D v4.1 this time....To Jim, where is the scenery.cfg located? (just to ensure i delete the correct file)...will all my scenery entries remain in my library? Thanks.

[Peter Webber 339]

Hello. I accidentally figured out what was causing this new issue in P3D v4.1. My PC was not connected to the internet at the time, and I knew that UT Live was loading up every time I ran P3D. Now it seems if UT Live cannot get connection to the internet, for some reason it causes this black screen issue. The moment my PC was connected the issue went away. This was repeatable. Also, if disabled UT Live from loading up when starting P3D while not online then P3D ran normally. So for some reason, UT Live is causing this black screen issue if it loads automatically when starting P3D when not online. I don't know what it is trying to modify in P3D but I do know it is supposed to use real world schedules.