Flight loads to 100% and hangs indefinitely

[Captain Nuts 93]

Thanks for posting this! 

I always meant to examine that route but since so many random and very unrelated things can shift the malfunction around (that's my theory at least) I thought this is just yet another of these things - particularly since I had all sorts of live weather between clear skies and storm in my "problem airport/region".  Everything that looked like the culprit, a fix or at least a substantial cue turned out to be a red herring so far. 

In theory, weather would certainly be an external factor that could contribute to the perceived randomness.    It doesn't seem to make sense that this (usually) affects only particular airports and removing that airport (or other airports far away) is removing or shifting the problem so that the suspected malicious weather still being there is suddenly not causing that malfunction anymore but so far nothing in this issue made any sense.. 

Sure as hell, turning off live weather and using "clear skies" did actually let me load EDDH again!  But of course, as expected, reversing the test by installing all the ballast again and switching to live weather + "Live Players" in the preflight menu I could still load the airport.  It's like playing whack-a-mole but anyway, this is yet another workaround that may work for a day. Thank you! 🙂 

 

[sidfadc 1,344]

I have been victim of this issue previously, it seemed to go away but now its back again.  Must be a server side issue surely.......really frustrating.  Takes long enough for the sim to load anyway, loading up is now a lottery.  Couldn't load into ORBX LIRQ last night and today loading freeware EGKK same issue.  Super annoying!

[Captain Nuts 93]

On 11/12/2021 at 11:35 AM, Captain Nuts said:

this is yet another workaround that may work for a day.

Being a prophet really sucks when your own bad prophecies come true.  It literally worked for a day, then it didn't work anymore and all was back to "nothing works":

Spawning on the nearby glider field didn't work, the 'delete content.xml or 'delete scenery indexes' trick that used to work for one session didn't work anymore, deleting the rolling cache never worked and still didn't (tried that), even turning off Online Functionality didn't work anymore,

No way to load Aerosoft/SimWings EDDH anymore, other airports that used to load reliably were hit and miss, including e.g. Asobo's LOWI.  Needless to say that the content in the Community folder that worked all the time before, was moved out of the way when the situation got worse 2 days ago.

So what happened?

The only way to use FS was flying somewhere else (different continent) or disabling my 6  paid airports (by editing config.xml in Notepad++).  So I did that, turned Online Functionality and "Live Players" back on (so live weather is on too) and then I enabled them one by one, loading the problem spot EDDH each time:

- Loading the sim at EDDH w/o any 3rd-party content: 18s

- Adding Simwings EDDH, loads, time: 28s (huh!? That used to be 40s at best!)

- Adding JustSchlimm EDDV on top, loads in: 28s

- Adding Aerosoft EDMA, loads, time: 29s

That concludes the airports in Germany.

- Adding Orbx KORS, loads, 29s

- Adding LMTsim LFMD (not regularly activated), loads, 29s

- Adding Vpilotdesigns KHPN, my latest regrettable impulse purchase, I bought that several days before the problems started getting ugly  - Bingo! Flight didn't load anymore!

And here comes the omnipresent causality fallacy again, it stops working when KHPN is added so that is the culprit, right?  Nope:

- Disabling LFMD and KORS again - still not loading, KHPN is now the only active airport outside Germany.  Doesn't look good for KHPN.

- Disabling EDMA and EDDV again, EDDH and KHPN are now the only active non-default airports. EDDH loads in 25s (huh?).  Why can't EDDH be the culprit?  I also disabled them one-by-one, and EDDH was the first one  (while the problem persisted).

So KHPN isn't actually the culprit (of course), but it sure has developed a severe impact several days after it was purchased, particularly considering that it's almost 4,000 miles away from EDDH.  I didn't really expect that, despite having observed spooky action from airstrips at shorter, but still not plausible distances of several 100km.  Again, after I checking out KHPN and considering it "not worthy" I loaded into EDDH for days, so the effect of it came with a massive delay, and I could still circumvent it by turning off live weather.  For one day.

That I was hit pretty mildly by this issue until now is obviously just luck and pure coincidence:  Just one more tiny airport freaking 3,500 miles away and this issue turns into the nightmare other people reported, on a whole different continent.

While that state of total seizure lasted, I took the opportunity to try a few things: 

Online Functionality=off didn't help anymore, so that alone should rule out all obvious online/server-based (mal-)functions with multiplayer, AI traffic, photogrammetry/ortho imagery and live weather. Without that, the only remaining online activity is likely some DRM handshakes and user cloud data so I took the whole computer off the net - EDDH loaded again. 

Conclusion: The problem is possibly coming up in conjunction with (if not caused by) DRM or user data in the cloud.  I'd love to try deleting the cloud data, but the only currently valid instructions to do this are pretty garbled, ambiguous and possibly incomplete, so I'd like to pass the awesome opportunity to try this to someone else for the time being. 🙂

Of course, even though this might sound plausible, it's likely just yet another red herring.

Edited November 14, 2021 by Captain Nuts

[PTI139 135]

Just for the record: I randomly have the same issue using SimWings EDDH.

Situation: I save a flightplan by Simbrief (EDDH to EHRD), load the vanilla Beech 350 and load the saved flightplan. AI traffic 23 % and live weather. Departure: Chosse a GA gate at EDDH.

Push the start button and: „Loading forever“.  Mouse pointer not visible. Messages in the footer carry on being shon and changed.
 

To close MSFS its no need to use the task manager - I can simply click on the X in the upper right corner (I cannot see the mouse pointer - but the X can be highlighted by the invisible mouse ointer. Then MSFS closes and when I start it again there is not message like „MSFS crashed last time“.

I removed all my (only „professional“ payware airports -  Aerosoft, ORBX, GAYA, FSDREAMTEAM - and few payware aircraft - Just Flight, FBW, Carenado) out of the COMMUNITY folder and put the payware sceneries back one by one - and started MSFS after every addition of a scenery. 
 

As long as I leave Hamburg EDDH vanilla I can load the above descripted flight - as soon as I use Simwings EDDH again the issue occurs again.

I have now reduced the slider „Off-screen terrain precache“ and done all the file delete actions and after that I could positively load the flight. I will try it some more times to confirm or not confirm success.

[Captain Nuts 93]

44 minutes ago, PTI139 said:

To close MSFS its no need to use the task manager

Yup, that's what it makes the "new" issue this thread and meanwhile 8 or so in the official forum are about.

46 minutes ago, PTI139 said:

have now reduced the slider „Off-screen terrain precache“ and done all the file delete actions and after that I could positively load the flight. I will try it some more times to confirm or not confirm success.

 

46 minutes ago, PTI139 said:

Just for the record: I randomly have the same issue using SimWings EDDH.

Thank you for reporting this!  It's quite interesting that you can reproduce the reaction on (weird) workarounds and also have the same problem hotspot, maybe it's not so hard to reproduce this on a developer's machine after all?  You're #3 with a collection of German airports (including EDDH) having this issue.

I take it you don't have all airports I listed above (or not all of them installed)?  That would mean they could  probably install whatever 10 3rd-party airports they have plus EDDH to get it to misbehave while their debugger is running.  Giving them a functioning recipe to reproduce this would increase the chance of getting this fixed or at least acknowledged in the next few years by at least 5%! 🙂

That would also be another indicator that this is actually the "old" issue (full freeze with somewhat common hotspots in the UK and US West Coast) they believe to have fixed in SU6, just shifted around a little.

Would you mind posting your system specs so I can see if there's something we have in common there too?

[PTI139 135]

5 hours ago, Captain Nuts said:

Would you mind posting your system specs so I can see if there's something we have in common there too?

Yes, of course.

MSFS Premium deluxe MS Store Edition / Intel Core i9-9900K 32 GB DDR4 / NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8 GB driver 457.51 

Following Addons in the Community folder while having had the issue:

aerosoft-airfield-eder-wasserkuppe
aerosoft-airfield-lipv-lido-di-venezia (link)
aerosoft-airfields-east-frisian-islands (link)
aerosoft-eddk (link)
aerosoft-st-tropez (link)
blackboxsimulation-bn2-islander
digitaldesign-lows (link)
flybywire-aircraft-a320-neo
fsdreamteam-airport-lszh-zurich
gaya-simulations-airport-loww-vienna (link)
gaya-simulations-airport-lowz-zellamsee (link)
justflight-aircraft-pa28-arrow-iii
justflight-aircraft-pa28-turboarrow
justsim-airport-lepa-palma-de-mallorka
justsim-airport-lowk-klagenfurt
limesim-ber (link)
orbx-airport-eglc-london-city
orbx-airport-lfkb-bastia (link)
orbx-airport-lfkx-meribel (link)
orbx-airport-lieo-olbia (link)
orbx-airport-lowi-innsbruck (link)
orbx-airport-lszs-samedan (link)
orbx-landmarks-london-city-pack (link)
phi-airport-edny-friedrichshafen
pms50-instrument-gtn750
pollypotsoftware-flightsimio-module
redwing-lsgg
simwings-airport-leib-ibiza (link)
simwings-eddh (link - but also tried it as direct installation in the folder - without success)
simwings-eddm (link)

In the Official\OneStore\-Folder there is only one Addon (Aerosoft Paderborn installed via Microsoft marketplace)

 

 

[Ricardo41 5,948]

Happens on occasion. I usually just restart MSFS and it loads with no issues. 

[PilotPete99 915]

I had this a few times. I typically close MSFS, disable all of my Addon-Linker addons, and then restart. This typically resolves the issue and then I reenable my addon linker addons and it all works okay.

Cheers, Pete

[dobee51 348]

I wanted to try AIG AI-Manager/Traffic Controller with FlyTampa LGAV scenery but couldn't get the scenery to load.

Updated LGAV to version 1.1.

I removed AI-Manager folder in Community, and changed the name of the bgl file back to what it was.

Cleared out all the addon Linker links.

LGAV won't load any more. Sim just keeps increasing the blue line and playing that same music over and over until I go crazy and activate Task Manager to End Task.

Could it be an out of memory problem? I never got it before...

[Captain Nuts 93]

6 hours ago, PTI139 said:

MSFS Premium deluxe MS Store Edition / Intel Core i9-9900K 32 GB DDR4 / NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super 8 GB driver 457.51 

Following Addons in the Community folder while having had the issue:

aerosoft-airfield-eder-wasserkuppe

Thank you!  Our systems have "Premium Deluxe/Store" and "no AMD" in common, that's all - sounds promising.  You also have a very different and diverse set of add-ons.  The only other common thing is "some EDER airport" - using the freeware EDER I could intensify the problem a bit so that more than EDDH is affected on my system - that was before I got KHPN as a "super problem booster". 

I'm tempted to formulate another bug report now but I wish I knew if deleting the cloud data has any influence to narrow it down a little more.  Obviously, there can be a massive delay between changing a condition (e.g. adding/removing airport) and seeing the effect of it, with multiple reboots/power cycling in between.  That and some workarounds working only for a limited amount of time  IMO could point to data slowly propagating to and being retrieved from the cloud. But I don't even know what data exactly is going there. 😕

Upsetting example: I just reverted everything to the "completely borked" state I experienced between Thursday and Saturday - KHPN and a bunch of freeware airports enabled again and EDDH keeps loading fine, so I have to wait until it's borked again for more experiments.

The DRM theory isn't off the table yet (Premium Deluxe content has appeared a few times in reports) but maybe it's not the 3rd-party payware content (you have all non-MP content w/o encryption or different encryption, I have only encrypted MP content)

 

5 hours ago, Ricardo41 said:

Happens on occasion.

 

5 hours ago, PilotPete99 said:

I had this a few times.

I appreciate that you guys want to add your voice, however it would be great if we could keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible.  We know that the severity of the problem is very location-dependent and may disappear on 2nd attempt, useful information would be where exactly you encounter that behavior, what payware airports you have installed and which FS version (Standard, Deluxe, Premium Deluxe).

 

2 hours ago, dobee51 said:

and activate Task Manager to End Task.

Could it be an out of memory problem? I never got it before...

If FS stops responding so you have to use TM, that's likely a different problem, could be similar or totally different, long story, would be great if that could be discussed in a separate thread. Thank you!

Edited November 14, 2021 by Captain Nuts

[trevg 21]

Random for me in NZ and OZ.

1st flight of day hangs waiting for airport to load, exit by moving mouse to X when I can see it has got there. Then restart MSFS exactly the same as when closed and loads perfect. Without rebooting machine or any other actions.

[PTI139 135]

I am afraid we have to learn to live with these "random crashes" in MSFS - where ever they come from - it is such a complex and permanently changing system and if we use 3d party addons on it we do it on our own risk. I you use MSFS you must be prepared on a crash everytime and everywhere. Sometimes it works for several flights, sometimes "bang" - and nobody knows why.

My subjective and unscientific asumption is that the issue in this discussion here has sth. to do with these "community folder / link" things. Why are there "links" to files in the community folder instead of the files itself - what are the advantages?

For example Aerosoft has introduced his new setup and update system (Aerosoft One). Formerly the Aerosoft Addons where installed directly into the community folder (user had no other choice) - IMO the better option, because there no no additional workload necessary to load these files - now they use a link system (maybe this change causes irritations in the system? Maybe not).

Some addon  provider use direct installation and some links - as user it is very difficult to choose a preferred technique because of the different update methods.

In my "old" FSX system I use an addon-manager. For every flight I choose a set of sceneries I need for this flight. All addons are saved in fixed locations on the disc and activated if they are needed. Those who are not needed do not stress or irritate. And if there is an issue, you can easier find the culprit.

My FSX system looks old and ugly but is absolutely reliable and solid.

I hope that future MSFS will have an improved addon management - I would really like to have the option to activate only the addons (not only the freeware I manage by "Addon linker") I need for a flight.  

Edited November 15, 2021 by PTI139

[Ricardo41 5,948]

15 hours ago, Captain Nuts said:

I appreciate that you guys want to add your voice, however it would be great if we could keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as possible.

You seem to have missed the point: it happens on occasion, isn't a big deal, restart the sim and the problem goes away. I'm not going to trouble shoot something that, literally, fixes itself in 5 minutes. I've had this happen maybe 4-5 times in the hundreds of flights I have done.

[Ricardo41 5,948]

4 hours ago, PTI139 said:

I am afraid we have to learn to live with these "random crashes" in MSFS - where ever they come from - it is such a complex and permanently changing system and if we use 3d party addons on it we do it on our own risk. I you use MSFS you must be prepared on a crash everytime and everywhere. Sometimes it works for several flights, sometimes "bang" - and nobody knows why.

This. Don't worry be happy.

[sidfadc 1,344]

So seems I can't load in anywhere now or at least places I want to fly, EGLL last night, tonight EGCC, night before that EGKK.  Emptied community folder (using add on linker), renamed context.xml blah blah blah.  Really getting hacked off and might delete the whole lot and pickup my Switch!  Grrr.......