Lost Connection during flight - but tiles keep coming

[TacomaSailor 191]

I am constantly receiving a message(s) about "lost connection" and "your connection has an issue" while flying.  then I get the green message box saying the connection is reestablished. 

The problem is that BING DATA WORLD GRAPHICS gets set to OFF on either error message and the reconnect message does not turn the graphics back on. 

I run several TCP monitors while flying and Proc Mon to trace the network activity in Flight Sim.  NONE of that monitoring shows any error or network problem.  Every TCP operation is successful.

Most importantly - at the moment I receive the lost connection or connection issue problem - I also see the tiles continuing to flow, without interruption from MS to my flight sim.  After the error message - I continue to see tiles flowing into the sim.

The TCP monitor shows 0% packet loss and the latency is always between 85 and 105ms.  Nothing in TCP monitoring or flight sim operations results show any errors.

But - Bing Graphics keeps getting turned off.

I have prioritized ALL flightsim.exe TCP traffic/operations so there is no chance any other operation/program is slowing them.  I have killed every program, including ALL security, to ensure nothing in the PC can interfere with flightsim TCP. 

This problem just began last week and occurs constantly - my community folder is EMPTY!

I do not believe there are any TCP errors but for some reason flightsim.exe is turning off Bing Graphics.

Comcast 500 Mb/sec connection that never fails and OOKLA shows as extremely low latency. 

 

[quart54 2]

I see from another thread that u used Googlemaps in msfs. I  had your same problem after using same. Go to hosts file in windows and check that there not two active entries left behind 

by that add on. .Delete them, save file and close Should fix prob

rgrds

[TacomaSailor 191]

Verified that host.ics is blank as described in the Google maps replacement text file.  I can verify that the TCP connections used by flight Sim are valid for Microsoft and virtualEarth.net and the tiles being received are coming from Microsoft/Bing.

When flightsim.exe is running and I am receiving the connection lost message the images I see on the ground continue to be high-quality Bing images. At no time do I see any loss of visual quality.

when flightsim.exe is running and I am receiving the connection lost message the images I see on the ground continue to be high-quality Bing images. At no time do I see any loss of visual quality.

My main question isWhy is Bing graphics being turned off and not turn back on when the connection is reestablished?

Edited November 17, 2021 by TacomaSailor

[TacomaSailor 191]

An update to this problem:

When I get the connection lost message - I NEVER see a lost packet or a decline in the rate at which the sim is requesting/receiving tiles from virtualearth.net and BING Graphis is never turned off

When I get the message about there being an issue with data streaming - I USUALLY see that the  rate at which the sim is requesting/receiving tiles from virtualearth.net does not decline. But about 1 out of 4 times I get the error message the traffic from virtualearth.net decreases by 90% BUT I do see a new tile being requested and received about once every 4 or 5 seconds when flying at 23,000' and 250kts TAS.  

When I get the message about there being an issue with data streaming - the BING Graphics is turned OFF almost every time but occasionally it is not turned off.

IF BING Graphics is turned off - it never gets turned back on by the program - even when flightsim.exe is requesting and receiving BING data (virtualearth.net) at a very high and error free rate.

Host.ics contains NO reference to any GoogleMap Replacement URLs.

Please help - this is driving me crazy

[JimBrown 596]

1 hour ago, TacomaSailor said:

Host.ics contains NO reference to any GoogleMap Replacement URLs.

I'm pretty sure the file in question is called just "hosts", not "host.ics". It is located in "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc". Might want to check that file.

...jim

 

[fppilot 4,391]

11 hours ago, quart54 said:

I see from another thread that u used Googlemaps in msfs. I  had your same problem after using same. Go to hosts file in windows and check that there not two active entries left behind 

by that add on. .Delete them, save file and close Should fix prob

rgrds

I am seeing this issue occasionally and I have never even considered the Googlemaps in MSFS.  When it occurs it is only for a couple of seconds.

[TacomaSailor 191]

1 hour ago, JimBrown said:

I'm pretty sure the file in question is called just "hosts", not "host.ics". It is located in "C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc". Might want to check that file.

 

I misspelled the file name - we are talking about the same file

As I said - I can watch the traffic from the MS server - I can verify the tiles are being requested and received - I can verify there are NO lost packets, error messages or long latency.  I can verify that each and every tile request has a "SUCCESS" completion code. 

As far as I can tell from multiple monitors - everything is working perfectly.   But the Bing Graphics keeps getting turned off after the "internet connection issue"

A new complication is that when I start the sim - OCCASIONALLY (about 20% of the time) the sim tells me my connection is too slow/the bandwidth is too narrow and starts the sim offline.

I test the connection with OOKLA immediately before starting the sim and immediately after receiving the "slow" message - it never tests at less than 400 Mb/second.  

These problems occur at any of the many MS data farms (I can track the farm location with ip address and whatisit) and seem to have no correlation with time of day.

[bean_sprout 1,201]

The connection issues happen to me all the time in my current location and I can't use the sim at all during the day.

The wireless carrier here seems to reset connections often as there are many users this time of the year and insufficient bandwidth.

Hopefully the infrastructure bill just passed will come to the rescue.

Regards

bs

Edited November 17, 2021 by bean_sprout

[TacomaSailor 191]

I just completed five flights using GoogleMap Replacement and the same flight plans I have been using to test the Lost Connection.

All flights (total of 150-minutes) completed successfully with not a single lost connection or data streaming error message.  And, the scenery was spectacular!

I flew with nothing in the Community Folder on the first two flights (TBM 930 and G36 Bonanza).  I then loaded my normal complement of 52 addons and flew the same flights in the Improved TBM 930, the Robert Young Turbo, and the G36 Bonanza, DA62X.   The TBM flight includes full use of a STAR and RNAV approach, including VNAV.  It all works perfectly under Google Map Replacement. 

My addons include the Gaist boat package, Bijain trees, Bijan Seasons, We Love VFR Region 2, WT G3000 and RoadData, LVFR KSAN and LVFR Arex...etc

I am pretty well convinced there is nothing wrong with my internet connection or the TCP system.

Edited November 17, 2021 by TacomaSailor
details

[RobJC 2,073]

I now have this problem. I did install Google Map but removed it and checked the hosts file. It had two entries related to 127...but i removed both. Still having the same problem. 

Any other ideas? 

[fppilot 4,391]

4 hours ago, bean_sprout said:

The connection issues happen to me all the time in my current location and I can't use the sim at all during the day.

The wireless carrier here seems to reset connections often as there are many users this time of the year and insufficient bandwidth.

Hopefully the infrastructure bill just passed will come to the rescue.

Regards

bs

Sounds like a need for a standalone version, perhaps based on  a flight planned in an hour or two after a request!

[JimBrown 596]

2 hours ago, RobJC said:

I now have this problem. I did install Google Map but removed it and checked the hosts file. It had two entries related to 127...but i removed both. Still having the same problem. 

Any other ideas? 

It's a long shot, but open a command prompt and type "ipconfig /flushdns" (without the quotes). Also might want to try rebooting your modem/router.

...jim

 

[quart54 2]

further to the Hosts file thing. The next time I tried to ran Google/msfs it told me it couldn't run because port (4## odd) was being used by another program, fix this issue and try again.

getting a list of open ports showed that the .exe (ng****.exe) file for this add on was itself listening on this port. In my case I run the add on from a usb stick, so just removed the stick shut down

and reboot. add on gone, no more probs. I would suggest u remove the add on and see what happens would remove any doubt that the add on was the problem

rgds

[RobJC 2,073]

6 minutes ago, JimBrown said:

It's a long shot, but open a command prompt and type "ipconfig /flushdns" (without the quotes). Also might want to try rebooting your modem/router.

...jim

 

Thanks Jim. I will give that a shot.