The Issue:

You double-click on Prepar3D V4, the splash screen comes up and then within just seconds, the Prepar3D window completely disappears. And you may also have noticed that Prepar3D.exe is still listed as a process within Task Manager. Does this issue sound familiar to you?

I recently experienced the above issue with Prepar3D and spent endless time searching through numerous forums, as well as YouTube videos. At the point I was about to give up and completely reinstall Prepar3D, I finally managed to resolve the problem. I hope the following solution helps some of you fellow simmers in need of a fix. 
 

 

The Solution:

First things first, a couple of questions to ask yourself:

1.) Have you recently installed any add-on aircraft or scenery?
- It is possible that an add-on has caused conflict with the Sim and it may be worth reinstalling that add-on.

2.) Have you checked your Event Viewer logs?
- It may very well be worth checking the event logs to identify what might be causing the Sim to crash.

Assuming you have checked the above, let's proceed with the solution:

Firstly, please ensure that Prepar3d.exe is no longer running in the background by doing the following:

• Press CTRL+ALT+DELETE on your keyboard
• Click on Task Manager
• Scroll down until you see Prepar3D exe, right-click on the process and select End Task

Secondly, do the following:

• Click on the Start button
• Type the following on your keyboard: run
• When the Run window pops up, type the following: %appdata%
• Press Enter/Return on your keyboard
• Open the Lockheed Martin folder
• Delete the Prepar3D v4 folder, or alternatively Cut & Paste the folder to another location

Just to reassure you, these files will be regenerated shortly. Now for the next step:

• Click on the Start button
• Type the following on your keyboard: run
• When the Run window pops up, type the following: %programdata%
• Press Enter/Return on your keyboard
• Open the Lockheed Martin folder
• Delete the Prepar3D v4 folder, or alternatively Cut & Paste the folder to another location.

And that's it. Please feel free to go ahead and open Prepar3D. Please note that it will take a little longer than normal to regenerate the scenery indexes and other files. Then with a bit of luck, it should open as normal!

Please feel free to send me your comments, questions and any feedback. I would love to hear if this has worked for you.

Andrus7789
Andrew Russell

Sometimes its enough to rebuild p3d. cfg or setting traffic to 0% on my system. Lastly i had a corrupt scenery addon and needed to do some manually work to it. 

Now yesterday i had a very Strange issue that i hadnt seen before. 

Hitting the load/OK scenario screen button i was asked if i really want to shut down P3D. could not go further. 

Restart of the PC solved it

Thanks Michael Moe 

As stated in the AVSIM CTD Guide (see link in my signature), all modules in your two dll.xml's and two exe.xml's are loaded at startup to the setup screen.  There's most likely a problem there.  If you are interested in seeing what is loading at startup and have Windows 10, click the Windows key + R, type resmon, then start up P3D.  Immediately check Prepar3D.exe under the Overview or CPU tab then go to Disk and watch what's loading.  Not to worry if you are not superfast and did not see what was loading right away.  It will stay there until you close the Resource Monitor. 

You can also watch was is loading after you finish the Setup screen and load your flight.

Best regards,

Jim

Hi Jim

Just a quick thank you for posting a solution to my problem, that resolved the CTD's I was experiencing.

The AVSIM Forum never ceases to amaze me by the way members go out of their way to help other users

in a friendly and caring way. Long may it continue.

I've recently been experiencing the crash of P3dv4 on start-up as described above.  I'm using windows 10 on a Alien 51 computer.  I've not had any issues since Jan of this year when I first installed P3dv4, but 3 weeks ago the program began to crash as soon as  I attempted to select a plane from the P3D list.  I have not added or changed any programs. I've also followed the steps outlined by Andrus, but that fix is only temporary. I've uninstalled and then reinstalled P3dv4 and also uninstalled each of my addons and then reinstalled them one at a time to see if any of those programs could be the culprit.. with no luck. Any suggestions on how to fix this issue? 

Thanks

I got a head of myself and just removed the appdata p3d fold and it worked like a charm. 

Thanks

Brooks Ingersoll