P3Dv4 crashes during descent

[tamba765 54]

      I was having CTD issues with P3Dv4 last month, and thought it was due to using ORBX Object Flow 2. I went as far as having a new hard drive installed last week, and doing a clean installation Windows 10. Yes, I know the new version of Windows may be causing problems, but I was getting these CTDs with the prior version too.The only addons I'm using are PMDG aircraft, Active Sky for P3Dv4, and ORBX scenery for P3Dv4, all of which are P3Dv4 compatible. I also just did clean installations of all of these addons. I was using all of these addons and more for over 1 month, with no problems, after I first started using P3Dv4 right after it was released. All of a sudden the CTDs started, and now they happen every time I do a flight. I've tried about 5 times to complete a flight from KSAN to KIAH, before and after installing the new hard drive. The CTD always happens on the descent into KIAH at around FL230 to FL200. The program freezes for about 7 seconds and then just quits. Prior to that point, the program runs flawlessly, with no VAS, stuttering or frame rate issues. There are no error messages displayed when this CTD occurs. The CTD happens at roughly the same point, no matter what the destination is. My hardware is more than adequate for the software I'm running. I could list it, but it's as good or better than what most people are using. I've been on the P3D and ORBX forums looking at all the CTD reports and suggestions, but there doesn't seem to be a identifiable cause or fix, even after people submit event viewer logs. I've tried many of the troubleshooting procedures listed in the forums, as have many other users, but with no success. It seems that more and more simmers are starting to have similar problems. To say this is frustrating, is a huge understatement. After all I've done, it's hard to believe this is still occurring. I'm not a computer guy, so how do I find and submit an event viewer log? How do I attach it to one of these posts? Thanks.

    

[Gridley 257]

Does it happen with all aircraft or just the PMDG?  Also, you say it happens with all destinations or is it KIAH specific?  Which ORBX products do you have installed?

[tamba765 54]

All I use is PMDG aircraft, specifically the 737, 777,and 747. The stock airplanes just don't interest me. The crashes happen at airports other than KIAH, such as CYYC. I'm using all the Global FTX, North America, Europe and Australia ORBX products. These crashes appear to be happening to others using different aircraft, scenery, and other airports as well. As I said, this didn't happen with the original RTM version of P3Dv4. I'm starting to wonder if there might be a glitch in the Hot Fix 1 version that's causing these CTDs. This is just a guess, but I may try going back to the first release to see if the CTDs still happen. Thanks.

[Jim Young 2,356]

It is probably one of your add-on.xml's not properly installed.  This has happened to me a few times especially if I disable one of the addons or just installed a new addon.  It is not the PMDG aircraft or, most likely, none of the Orbx/FTX products.  It sounds like you might have Latin_VFR KSAN and the FSDT airports.  The FSDT airports were installed properly but, if you disabled one that might be harmful.  It looks like you might have the Just Flight or FSimStudios version of Calgary but both of those airports are not compatible with P3DV4 (meaning they did not install into an addon.xml).  Addons such as Calgay and Latin_VFR KSAN (also not compatible) can be installed in P3DV4 but you will probably have problems.  When an addon.xml is made for the airports, you also need to add a component or components such as textures.  Some have sound, effects, and simobject components that are needed too.  If these are not properly installed, P3DV4 will crash, most likely with a StackHash error. 

In many cases I had the scenery installed in my Scenery Library and used SceneryConfigEditor to install it or move it up or down in the Library.  This was a major mistake as it corrupted my scenery.cfg and it was not encoded properly for P3DV4.  I tried to use Notepad+++ to encode it properly (into UTF-8 format) but that failed too.  The only way I found to get it encoded properly was to delete it, restart P3D and let the config rebuild.  Then, while P3D was running, I opened up the Scenery Library (Under World Tab) and started adding all of the addon scenery I had.  I'm hoping that P3Dv4.1, to be released soon, will fix this issue with the Addon Manager, the addon.xml's, and the Scenery.cfg.  I know that once I have the Scenery.cfg encoded properly, I do not see these strange crashes.

If you are not using the latest Addon Manager, go the LorbySi's Forum hosted here on AVSIM and check out his freeware forum where this is being discussed and where you can get the latest version.  I would strongly recommend getting your addon scenery installed as required by P3DV4 and you won't have any addons listed in the Scenery.cfg (except the default and Orbx/FTX products as they are not P3DV4 compatible yet).