Internet does not work while playing P3D v4

[FlyboyUND 0]

Hi all,

I'm at my wits end with an issue - have searched everywhere to no avail, so I figure someone here can help:

 

When I am flying in P3D, my internet stops working. After about 10 seconds in an aircraft in-game the internet completely cuts out on all apps - Google Chrome, IE, and any add-on within the game. Everything. 

 

However, as soon as I go into any P3D menu (aircraft, options, whatever) that takes me out of the in-game environment, the internet comes back within about 3 seconds. Just boom, back. Close the menu and 10 seconds later, cannot access the internet. This happens regardless of which aircraft I am flying. Minimizing or unfocusing P3D by, say, clicking over to Chrome, has no effect. Pausing the sim has no effect. The internet only comes back when I go into and stay in a P3D menu (or quit the game). The game itself and all add-ons run flawlessly, though (unless, of course, they need an internet connection).

 

I have troubleshot by doing the following:

• Making sure all add-ons are up to date. No effect.
• Made sure Windows and all hardware drivers are up to date. No effect.
• Disabling every add-on one by one in-game. No effect.
• Uninstalling every add-on one by one (using win uninstaller). No effect.
• Completely uninstalling and reinstalling P3D. No effect.
• Deleted prepar3d.cfg. No effect.
• Checked network adapter - no indication of loss of internet there. The network icon in the system tray doesn't even show a warning "yellow triangle" indication like when the router goes down.
• Disabled firewalls and security apps, pretty much every non-essential TSR program in the system tray. Even checked the activity of those in real-time as well as the logs. There is no indication of any blocking or abnormal activity at all. I even went as far as to whitelist the active ports used by P3D and add-ons. No effect.
• Checked my modem and router firewalls and logs. No indication of abnormalities. 

 

Let me stress that I do not have internet connection issues in general and do not have this issue with any other app. 

 

Because the internet goes away and comes back so fast when getting into/out of the cockpit (or any spot plane view, etc), I have to think that there is something within the game - a panel, a gauge, something, that is killing my network locally. But I cannot isolate it. This was not a problem before upgrading to 4.4 - everything worked fine in 4.3, however, I added a lot of add-ons around the same time. I started noticing the issue when FSRealWX would not update in-game (updated fine when running without the game). I'd minimize P3D to check METARs on ADDS (or wherever) so I could manually change the weather, but noticed I had no connection. Coincidentally, that was the first app I suspected to cause the issue, so I removed it in favor of Active Sky ASP4. No difference - same drop-outs, so it has to be something else.

 

In case it helps, here's a list of the add-ons I use(d):

• Ultimate Traffic Live
• Turbulent Designs Terra Flora *installed after issue appeared
• Navigraph Simlink
• Orbx Open LC
• FSUIPC 1.5 (registered)
• REX-Milviz WX Advantage Radar 
• Ultimate Terrain X Usa
• Active Sky for P3d ASP4 *installed after issue appeared

 

Aircraft:

• A2A C182 and Cherokee 180
• F1 Kingair B200
• PMDG B737-NGX and 600/700 expansion *installed after issue appeared
• Majestic Dash 8-Q400 *installed after issue appeared
• Aerosoft CRJ X 700/900

 

Keep in mind all of the ones installed prior to issue appearing did work in harmony at one point. However, at this point I'm down to nothing - uninstalled everything, reinstalled P3D only and still have the same issue. Like I said, it worked up to a point, but then stopped. Unfortunately, I can't exactly pinpoint when it stopped working as I tend to add a lot of things in spurts and this particular issue is only apparent when I need the internet while playing, which was rare enough that it could have happened over a fairly wide period of time.

 

Not having internet while playing really only affects the real-time weather capacity of the game (and it's an annoyance when using other apps on my second monitor), but that's a deal-breaker for me as real-time weather is one of the most immersive aspects of the game. 

 

Hopefully someone here can point me in the right direction! 

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

 

[simbol 5,821]

What antivirus / firewall security are you using?  

Something is blocking your TCP / IP connections when it detects your sim is running.

So it is either firewall / security suites or one of your add-on's is overloading your SimConnet TCP / IP connections but this sounds very unlikely.

Disable all add-on's temporarily and try again, if it still happens it must be your current firewall or security settings.

Regards,

Simbol 

[FlyboyUND 0]

Thanks for the response! Those are the lines I was thinking along, but the firewall and network logs simply weren't showing anything. 

However, on a lark, I tried lowering the overall graphics resolution of the game and for some reason that worked. It's almost as if my video card working hard is killing the network adapter. I managed to get it to fail again when I undocked some PMDG gauges and used them on my second monitor, which supports my theory.

I went as far as to do a side-by-side comparison of the p3d.cfg file of the old install, a default install, and the active install, and changing that setting was the only thing that could reproduce the issue.

So I get to run in 1280 for now. Could be worse (like not having a connection, hah!).

[simbol 5,821]

The high activities of your video card is killing all the available channels of your CPU.

Check if you installed your video card on a PCI 3.0 slot, also if your network card is a PCI change it to another slot and try again.

Regards 

Simbol 

[Mace 1,927]

What wattage is your power supply?