I've been using FSX-SE for at least 3 years, and it has been mostly stable.  Recently (last 2 weeks) I've been getting random crashes to desktop (CTD) and freezes.  Yesterday the sound when switching between certain 'views' stopped. Obviously something has corrupted.  Once I started investigating I discovered that some settings in the basic on-screen 'controllers' set up part of the programme had changed: random assignments of functions had appeared to different buttons on the three bits of hardware - Yoke, Throttle Quadrant and Pedals.  I guess there were conflicts as a result.  Then I found that some 'rogue' airports had appeared in the list: in the UK list there was a French airport and one from the Pacific somewhere.  Anyone had similar experiences (especially recently), with suggested 'fixes', please?

Andrew threebears

I guess this is all part of the same issue, so I'll update my post.  This afternoon I discovered all my scenery settings (sliders) had set themselves all the way to the right: maxed out. Although last night I had removed the random 'extra' (or rather duplicated) controller assignments, a couple had crept back in.  I don't get it.

On 9/28/2020 at 8:12 PM, threebears said:

I guess this is all part of the same issue, so I'll update my post.  This afternoon I discovered all my scenery settings (sliders) had set themselves all the way to the right: maxed out. Although last night I had removed the random 'extra' (or rather duplicated) controller assignments, a couple had crept back in.  I don't get it.

Andrew, of course there are many several reasons for CTD´s depending on the individual setup. I´am using P3D V5 and it was quite stable all the time. But in the last 2- 4 weeks i ran into several CTD´s because of VCRuntime, kernelbase, an others. First of all, there was a known compatibility issue of the NVidia driver in Win 10. With the latest Gameready driver this issue was solved. 

But there where also some NETRuntime updates in the last 2 or 3 WIN 10 updates and because many add-ons are depending on this runtime i did the following:

1. i de-installed the Simconnect client and re-installed it again to make sure that there are no corrupted files which interfere with NETRuntime.

2. i re-installed AktiveSky an the their FSconnector for the same reason.

Result: no CTD`s anymore.

Another issue i found is that sometimes the ORBX files can get corrupted. This is mainly noticable if your SIM crash at a specific location. This depends on the general problem of the sim if he can´t load a specific file, which can be a texture in most cases, it will crash with a kernellbase error. With Orbx this can be solved by the veryfy files option in their installer.

Another major faulty module is USB. For whatever reason from time to time the USB usability of a PC can get "corrupted" within Win 10. It helps in that case, to disconnect the PC completly from current, wait at least 5 minutes before you connect it again to make sure that the resistors are unloading on the motherboard. Don´t forget to disconnect also any current from USB-devices aswell.

Maybe, this can help you to find the culprit and i hope you can even develope these examples above how it´s all connected in a certain invironment.

If something isn´t working as it should, but it did allways "before", you must start asking your mind "before what?" "what is different?"  

 

Thank you BerndB for your helpful (and encouraging) post.  I will do all of the above - not at the same time!  I'll start with nVidia gameready driver.  I think it's basically Win10 updating so I'll go on to SimConnect, then ActiveSkyNext.

Thanks again

Andrew Threebears