MSFS sometimes randomly hangs while loading at times

[captain420 3,099]

I am using MSFS Addons Linkers to manage and organize what addons I use, but sometimes I am noticing strange issues when loading into the sim, the blue loading bar at the bottom will sometimes just stop at around 50-75% and just hang. At that point I open up task manager to see what the status of microsoft flight simulator.exe is saying and it shows a red -N which means that the app is hung or in a frozen state. So I manually kill the process and retry again. But every 2nd attempt I try, the sim loads fine. I'm not sure what the cause of this is. I am wondering if anyone else here is experiencing the same issue.

[xrb936 0]

How often does it happen? So far I may have 2 or 3 times only. Perhaps you may want to upgrade your hard drive or RAM.

[captain420 3,099]

upgrade my hdd or ram? This is a newly built computer. I don't understand why I need to upgrade those things for. It happens intermittently. Maybe 2 out of 10 times.

[xrb936 0]

Then maybe you have too many addons. Just P3D and XP.

[captain420 3,099]

53 minutes ago, xrb936 said:

Then maybe you have too many addons. Just P3D and XP.

Uhhh what are you talking about??? I don't use P3D and XP, and I am using MSFS Addons Linker, even with only a few addons enabled, the problem exists. I don't think you're comprehending my issue. 

[Adamski_NZ 942]

1 hour ago, captain420 said:

I am using MSFS Addons Linkers to manage and organize what addons I use, but sometimes I am noticing strange issues when loading into the sim, the blue loading bar at the bottom will sometimes just stop at around 50-75% and just hang.

I use Addons Linker before every flight - to select my areas of interest, then Civilian or Military. I've found that if I do a series of flights in one scenery-dense area then switch to do a session in an entirely different region, my loading bar apperas to hang towards the end. "Oh no!!" is my usual reaction, but 99.99% of the time it gets there in the end.

My guess is that it's recreating a new scenery cache - which may requuire big downloads from the Asobo servers ... and they're often quite overloaded/flaky.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Adamski_NZ

[Bobsk8 12,492]

1 minute ago, Adamski_NZ said:

I use Addons Linker before every flight - to select my areas of interest, then Civilian or Military. I've found that if I do a series of flights in one scenery-dense area then switch to do a session in an entirely different region, my loading bar apperas to hang towards the end. "Oh no!!" is my usual reaction, but 99.99% of the time it gets there in the end.

My guess is that it's recreating a new scenery cache - which may requuire big downloads from the Asobo servers ... and they're often quite overloaded/flaky.

I don't load up my Community  folder , so I never have this problem or any other problem. 

[Adamski_NZ 942]

3 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I don't load up my Community  folder , so I never have this problem or any other problem. 

Sure ... but the principle might still apply (deleting the old and recreating a new cache) if switching geographical areas.

[Bobsk8 12,492]

3 minutes ago, Adamski_NZ said:

Sure ... but the principle might still apply (deleting the old and recreating a new cache) if switching geographical areas.

I never use Cache either, have never turned it on. 

[Adamski_NZ 942]

4 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

I never use Cache either, have never turned it on. 

Neither do I ... but there's still a raftload of temporary files that seem to get created with each session.

[fppilot 4,339]

1 hour ago, captain420 said:

I am using MSFS Addons Linkers to manage and organize what addons I use, but sometimes I am noticing strange issues when loading into the sim, the blue loading bar at the bottom will sometimes just stop at around 50-75% and just hang. At that point I open up task manager to see what the status of microsoft flight simulator.exe is saying and it shows a red -N which means that the app is hung or in a frozen state. So I manually kill the process and retry again. But every 2nd attempt I try, the sim loads fine. I'm not sure what the cause of this is. I am wondering if anyone else here is experiencing the same issue.

I will try to provide a response that is genuine to your question.  I have had it happen before as well.  I should keep a log of issues like this crop up and what I found as a remedy. Have only partially done so.  I believe when this happened to me it stalled with the bar at about 60%.  I too would kill using Task Manager.  However for me the issue continued even after a reboot.  I believe what ended up finding success was logging out of the dedicated MSFS site and logging out of xBox and then logging back in to both.

I doubt that is your issue if you are getting in each time on your 2nd attempt.  Perhaps MSFS is failing the first time to validate that you are logged in but not failing in that regard afterward.

[captain420 3,099]

37 minutes ago, Adamski_NZ said:

I use Addons Linker before every flight - to select my areas of interest, then Civilian or Military. I've found that if I do a series of flights in one scenery-dense area then switch to do a session in an entirely different region, my loading bar apperas to hang towards the end. "Oh no!!" is my usual reaction, but 99.99% of the time it gets there in the end.

My guess is that it's recreating a new scenery cache - which may requuire big downloads from the Asobo servers ... and they're often quite overloaded/flaky.

Interesting. How long do you actually wait though? Sometimes I leave it there for like 5+ minutes and I kill the process. I don't think it should take that long. But I'll to wait longer next time I feel that it's hanging at the loading screen.

[Adamski_NZ 942]

5 minutes ago, captain420 said:

Interesting. How long do you actually wait though? Sometimes I leave it there for like 5+ minutes and I kill the process. I don't think it should take that long. But I'll to wait longer next time I feel that it's hanging at the loading screen.

Sometimes it can take a few minutes ... but I'm not sure that I've ever had it as long as 5+.

The other option is to work out if there's an incompatible addon (or livery) - and use the Linker to home in on the possible culprit. A badly installed or corrupt addon/livery can cause the sim to hang. If the bar is almost at the very end, I suspect it might be when it's loading the aircraft/livery, but that's only a guess.

Edited October 13, 2021 by Adamski_NZ

[captain420 3,099]

It doesn't make sense though. I have the exact same addons enabled, but usually the 2nd time I load up, it works.

[Adamski_NZ 942]

Just now, captain420 said:

It doesn't make sense though. I have the exact same addons enabled, but usually the 2nd time I load up, it works.

Hmmmm ... in that case it might suggest a cache/photogrammetry server/download problem <?>.