Hi Everyone,

I will have my new PC later this month, as I prepare to dive into MSFS, I have noticed many complaints concerning CTD and there seems to be a connection with addons...the community folder and re-install etc.  I am very confused by what I have read and want to  make sure I install everything correctly to hopefully avoid any CTD's.  Any advice on what to do first and what not do?

 

Thanks in advance...

Don't go nuts adding stuff until you've spent some time in the base sim. 

Use the MSFS Addon Linker (https://flightsim.to/file/1572/msfs-addons-linker) and only enable what you need for a given flight.

Test each addon on its own before combining with others.

The sim is very stressful on your PC, so if you are overclocked in any way and have any issues the very first thing would be to reset to stock settings.

Edited January 5, 20215 yr by marsman2020

What @marsman2020 said.  I'm both an add-on developer and an add-on addict.   My MSFS addons directory is almost 350GB in size¹.  (Not a typo.)   I use Addons Linker, I enable only what I use for any given flight, I don't overclock my PC, and the number of add-on related CTDs I've had I can probably count on one hand. 

(The ones I've had mostly been due to people who don't know any better using the same path for modellib.bgl and stomping on each other because it's the default value the SDK gives you.  That's become much less common since I let folks know it was an issue on the MSFS forum, and I check for that in any new scenery I download now.)

That said, things definitely can cause problems at times.  We're chasing some had to pin down CTD issues with the CJ4 in the latest sim update, for example.   But if you test things to make sure they're solid and don't have everything loaded at all times your chance of having issues is pretty low.

¹ Just for fun a while back, I tried to start the sim with everything enabled to see if it would even load.  I gave up after it sat chugging away for 20 minutes without any sign of progress.

Thanks for helping me understand! 

4 hours ago, Richard Jacks said:

and there seems to be a connection with addons..

Seems as I faced increased CTDs after dec22 update. But I only have the custom modded neo installed. Sorry to repeat myself and others but unless it’s just another msfs mystery again then I fly since yesterday without any CTD routes like LOWW-LIRQ, LIRQ-LOWW, LOWW-LSZH, LSZH-EDDK and finally EDDK-EKCH in the modded neo after I

- disabled all aircraft traffic, being live and ai

- disabled multiplayer

- disabled live azure atc

- deinstalled all visual studio runtimes and just re-installed the latest runtimes again

All above routes were from/to 3pd airports I bought via marketplaces and live weather enabled. Not having seen a CTD after the third leg into LSZH I decided to add live traffic again and got a CTD when spawning at Zurich for my flight to Cologne. So I disabled live traffic again and there we go, all fine since then way up to Copenhagen. 
as usual YMMV and knock on wood that things remain calm on my end until MS and Asobo iron things out

Basically what everyone already said.

• use an addon linker and only turn on stuff you use a lot
• remove/turn off all addons when doing an update to avoid an incompatible addon crashing the update

Personally I only turn on the handful of addons I use a lot and even then I leave the big ones like freeware Brisbane and freeware Sydney disabled until I need them.

My current enabled addons have just 5 aircraft out of maybe a dozen downloaded enabled and all are small aircraft, the Iris Jabiru J160/J170 package, the Rob Young Turbo normalised Bonanza, the Carenado Mooney, the Grumman Goose freeware and believe it or not the Bleriot XI .

Then there is a handful of small airports I fly a lot (6 in total),  Princess Juliana St. Maarten, Key West , Southport on the Aussie Gold Coast, Rotorua in New Zealand, Milford Sound again in New Zealand and Mayor Buenaventura Vivas in Venezuala.  The common factor is amazing scenery.

I also run a mod to remove the annoying top tool bar and the tree distance mod. other stuff like the G1000 mod is only on if needed (it does not really help much in a Bleriot XI).

Everything else is turned off until i need them.

Edited January 5, 20215 yr by Glenn Fitzpatrick