To anyone who is having P3D hang at startup

[tamsini]

Hi all, not sure why this problem is becoming more and more common but I'm wondering if anyone has the problem of P3D hanging at the srtartup screen, and if so, perhaps try this:

1. Open task manager
2. Find prepar3d.exe in the list
3. Right-click and select "Go to details"
4. Right-click once again on prepar3d.exe and select "Set priority" = high

When I do this, P3D launches in seconds. I'm not sure if this problem is associated with Windows 10 disastrous updates but it would be nice if anyone will get the same results as I. I had used "delete generated files" but this caused problems with Orbx and other scenery and I found this (possible) solution seamless, quick and easy.

I was toying with doing a complete reinstall but will wait for the next P3D update which, I hope, occurs soon.

[vgbaron]

I can't find the link but I do recall reading posts from some tech guru's that setting high priority for P3D is not a good idea. Sorry, don't recall why, just that it was a recommendation. BUT - if it works for you........

 

Vic

[tamsini]

26 minutes ago, vgbaron said:

I can't find the link but I do recall reading posts from some tech guru's that setting high priority for P3D is not a good idea. Sorry, don't recall why, just that it was a recommendation. BUT - if it works for you........

 

Vic

Vic - that actually rings a bell, now that you mention it. But what the heck - if it gets me through to the next update, I'll continue using this method.

[Skywolf]

Hang up are almost 99.9% due to misconfigured third party addons.  Stick with P3Dv4 compatible addons (where the installer has p3dv4 option).  Your chances of hang up will drop.  Just my .02 cents  

[Ray Proudfoot]

55 minutes ago, Skywolf said:

Hang up are almost 99.9% due to misconfigured third party addons.  Stick with P3Dv4 compatible addons (where the installer has p3dv4 option).  Your chances of hang up will drop.  Just my .02 cents  

Are you including airport packages in that statement? I've just installed over 50 airports into P3D v4.3 and only a minority had a v4 installer option. Mostly it only offered v3 and v2 options but I just continued and then added entries to scenery.cfg myself. I even installed some FSX airports but the Aerosoft ones just wanted you to point to the location of your flight sim.

The only problems I've had with P3D crashes were when I had MyTraffic6 installed as an add-on. It would crash before the free flight menu. Removed it and P3D v4 is fine.

[Skywolf]

32 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Are you including airport packages in that statement? I've just installed over 50 airports into P3D v4.3 and only a minority had a v4 installer option. Mostly it only offered v3 and v2 options but I just continued and then added entries to scenery.cfg myself. I even installed some FSX airports but the Aerosoft ones just wanted you to point to the location of your flight sim.

The only problems I've had with P3D crashes were when I had MyTraffic6 installed as an add-on. It would crash before the free flight menu. Removed it and P3D v4 is fine.

Yes, you know what you are doing, and it is excellent. 🙂

[vc10man]

46 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Are you including airport packages in that statement? I've just installed over 50 airports into P3D v4.3 and only a minority had a v4 installer option. Mostly it only offered v3 and v2 options but I just continued and then added entries to scenery.cfg myself. I even installed some FSX airports but the Aerosoft ones just wanted you to point to the location of your flight sim.

The only problems I've had with P3D crashes were when I had MyTraffic6 installed as an add-on. It would crash before the free flight menu. Removed it and P3D v4 is fine.

Hi Ray. You should read my post today re: Flightbeam's airports that caused havoc with my perfectly-running P3D today. I will not be going anywhere near their add-ons for a while.

[pmb]

2 hours ago, vgbaron said:

I can't find the link but I do recall reading posts from some tech guru's that setting high priority for P3D is not a good idea. Sorry, don't recall why, just that it was a recommendation. BUT - if it works for you........

 

Vic

I always have been running P3D with high priority (set via SimStarter) and never had an issue so far. Potentially, I observed this can fight blurries.

Of course, I can't exclude it would run even better without high on other systems. 🙂 

Kind regards, Michael

[Dave_YVR]

34 minutes ago, vc10man said:

Flightbeam's airports that caused havoc with my perfectly-running P3D today. I will not be going anywhere near their add-ons for a while.

They work just fine in V4 though. 

[Ray Proudfoot]

36 minutes ago, vc10man said:

Hi Ray. You should read my post today re: Flightbeam's airports that caused havoc with my perfectly-running P3D today. I will not be going anywhere near their add-ons for a while.

Rick, those were the first I installed and those plus the FSDT ones are fine. They have to be installed as addons, not as entries in scenery.cfg.

[vc10man]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Rick, those were the first I installed and those plus the FSDT ones are fine. They have to be installed as addons, not as entries in scenery.cfg.

Precisely the way they were installed, and updated via the Flightbeam Manager. Not 100% certain the order they were installed though. The FSDT add-ons, no issues other than Addon Manager and Live Update kick-offs, but those too were resolved by me. Which is why, when I finally got around to kick Flightbeam's KIAD in, CTD at 90% loading because of that dreaded Microsoft dinosaur gremlin,  the infamous ntdll.dll !!

[vc10man]

1 hour ago, Dave_YVR said:

They work just fine in V4 though. 

That may well be the case, in your instance, alas, not mine today.

[Ray Proudfoot]

11 minutes ago, vc10man said:

Precisely the way they were installed, and updated via the Flightbeam Manager. Not 100% certain the order they were installed though. The FSDT add-ons, no issues other than Addon Manager and Live Update kick-offs, but those too were resolved by me. Which is why, when I finally got around to kick Flightbeam's KIAD in, CTD at 90% loading because of that dreaded Microsoft dinosaur gremlin,  the infamous ntdll.dll !!

The install order is irrelevant. Uninstall KIAD and try it again. Are you using Lorby’s Addon Organiser to manage your airport entries?

I couldn’t find your other topic.

[bean_sprout]

Setting OS priority of P3dV4 to high will not cause issues.  Setting to Realtime may but probably not as Windows is controlling CPU distributions.  Just keep in mind that there is no free lunch.  

Regards

[American 833 Heavy]

In my experience 99% of the time P3D hangs when starting from the desktop without loading or getting stuck on scenery indexing is due to a scenery installation that corrupts the Scenery cfg file by modifying it and saving it with the wrong character encoding. This has happened a few times to me after purchasing and installing a scenery from Simmarket. Best way to know is always try to remember the latest file size of your scenery cfg file. After you install a scenery and P3D won't start and the scenery cfg file is all of a sudden half the file size that is your problem. Notepad++ can easily repair your scenery cfg by re-encoding it back into the correct UCS-2 LE BOM format. I believe there is a organizer tool from Lorby's that will scan for duplicate, incorrect or out of order scenery and addon entries in various areas.

Ideally the latest scenery for P3D from the best developers should be utilizing the addon.xml method or installed into the ecosystem folder but the reality is not all have done this. I have well over 1000 sceneries and the vast majority of them still are installed via the scenery cfg.

The other common cause can be a corrupted P3D cfg file, corrupt or incompatible .fx file in the effects folder or duplicate entries in the dll xml and exe xml files causing a conflict. Occasionally 3rd party software piracy protection can cause issues too if the software was installed without proper admin rights, with anti virus running or Windows defender erroneously flagging a core component.

Troubleshooting any or all of the above fixes it virtually everytime. And if not, worst case scenario you go to add/remove programs in Windows and right click on the P3D Client on the list and click repair. That will auto repair any missing files P3D needs to run properly.