A month and a half ago I got a new PC and was flying great.  Suddenly the past couple weeks, I get a crash to desktop within a couple minutes of starting a flight.  I'm at my wits end as to what to do.  I play lots of other games and have zero issues on my PC.  I've taken the following steps and still a generic cessna starting on any generic airport crashes.  The system itself is fine, MSFS 2020 just crashes and goes to desktop.  I actually loaded up another game without rebooting and the system was fine, so I really don't see a hardware issue.  I actually just finished RDR2 on there with all the graphics cranked up.

-This issue happened before and after WU7 so it didn't impact it. 

-Community folder is completely empty.  Nothing.

-I uninstalled everything from the MS Store other than official stuff.  Last thing I installed was the Reno Air Races thing (I was able to fly those no problem in the past)

-I've tried a couple of nvidia drivers and all seem to have the same problem (might roll back to a much older version).  Drivers are up to date on my system and hardware diagnostics come back clean.

-I load up a flight to any airport and sit.  Within 1-2 minutes the system crashes when I start moving the view around.  No errors on screen.  It isn't like I should be stressing the system.  I just set things on the 2nd highest graphics setting, not even the highest. 

-I've reinstalled once and will try that again but I'm really running out of ideas.  Just throwing this out there in a desperate search for answers.  Just running dx11, no dx12, I never messed around with the beta builds for MSFS2020.  I'm running out of ideas to throw at it. 

Have you ever checked the event viewer after the crash happened?

Check the Events Log Viewer and if it's an ntldll.dll crash, try this. Worked wonders for me after weeks of frustration!

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/ctd-fix-info/471880

1 hour ago, kerosene31 said:

A month and a half ago I got a new PC and was flying great.  Suddenly the past couple weeks, I get a crash to desktop within a couple minutes of starting a flight. 

It couldn't hurt if you gave some indications of your hardware. Also no new hardware before the crashes, no change of configuration ? No overclock ?

When you reinstalled are you sure that nothing was left, like in the the users/.../appData/roaming folder ?

Welcome to my World !

Idem like you, can't play can't update, uninstall, install, account change .......

Today i am trying to update after adding pagefile.sys to my SSD drive, before it was deactivated.

Finger cross !

I was experiencing similar issues back when I first built this system. I have an Asus Z490 motherboard. I have a program from Asus called "AI suite 3" that I downloaded from their web site support page for my MB. AI Suite has a page called "EZ Update" in it that updates all of the on board device and chipset drivers to their latest versions. I ran it, and all of my problems went away.

If you do not remember specifically installing the "Chipset driver" for your particular motherboard from the manufacturer's web site, then I would highly recommend that you do so. It's even better if you can use AI Suite or a similar app for your brand of MB to update all of the onboard devices as well.

System specs:

i7 12700KF
GeForce TRX 3070
16gb RAM
Win 11

No overclocking at all.  All latest drivers from manufacturer. 

I will maybe do an uninstall and manually check every folder.  That's my best guess at this point.  Don't think it is my system, but maybe a bad install or something.  It is just weird the way it crashes almost immediately with just default.  Maybe an add-on messed with some default files or something. 

I'll check the event log, but last time I checked there was nothing that stood out.

Thanks to everyone for suggestions, I've got many more things to try for sure.  Any suggestions are super helpful and give me more to try. 

Try deleting rolling cache, if it has been used.
I also read elsewhere, that deleting registry files within MSFS2020, helps, but I need to Google that again, think I saw the tip in a ORBX forum.

4 hours ago, odourboy said:

Check the Events Log Viewer and if it's an ntldll.dll crash, try this. Worked wonders for me after weeks of frustration!

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/ctd-fix-info/471880

This worked for me, many thanks for the heads up.

Just wanted to give a quick update and say a big thank you to everyone for all the help.  I've made 2 flights now and no crashes.  I reinstalled the entire sim again and all my add-ons and things seem much improved. 

Long story short, I ended up reinstalling every single system driver and that seems to have done the trick.  I'm pretty sure this link helped a ton as well, as it found some problems and seems to have fixed them.  https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/ctd-fix-info/471880

Anyway, thanks again, one last question.  What is the recommended setting for rolling cache?  I have really good internet (2oomb download).  Should I just turn it off completely?  It seems to cause more problems. 

 

Edited February 5, 20224 yr by kerosene31

That's great news! Glad you got it sorted.

I usually get my drivers directly from the manufacturers of the devices in my system, including the ones on the motherboard. I was using the generic Intel z490 chipset drivers. Windows and every driver checker that I trust said I was A-Okay and up to date. When I ran the Asus AI Suite, I was expecting to see the same. It surprised me when it replaced at least 5 or 6 drivers for some of the onboard devices. It surprised me even more when I realized that it actually did make things better,

22 hours ago, kerosene31 said:

What is the recommended setting for rolling cache?

I did a few tests recently and found (for me) it's best to be turned off.
Lots of glitches, popups and scenery not displaying at all in the area(s) that's supposed to be cached ... 

Edited February 6, 20224 yr by teletom

The steps I linked work well as a 'try these first' before one attempts a complete uninstall/reinstall. It is also recommended to do them after Windows updates. It's also a good idea after updating the GPU to use disk cleanup and clean the Direct X cache then reboot PC. i also recommend the OP to get at min 32GB RAM MSFS20 eats up RAM.

Edited February 8, 20224 yr by udidwht

I'm also currently unable to complete a flight without the sim crashing. I've tried most of what has been suggested on this thread but no joy, so I'm going to try reinstalling next.

11th Gen i9-11900K @ 3.5GHz | nVidia GeForce RTX 3080 | Corsair 64 GB RAM | Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB | Asus 27" RoG G-Sync

Track IR5 | Thrustmaster Warthog | CH Products Pedals

 

54 minutes ago, Virtualwombat said:

I'm also currently unable to complete a flight without the sim crashing. I've tried most of what has been suggested on this thread but no joy, so I'm going to try reinstalling next.

11th Gen i9-11900K @ 3.5GHz | nVidia GeForce RTX 3080 | Corsair 64 GB RAM | Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB | Asus 27" RoG G-Sync

Track IR5 | Thrustmaster Warthog | CH Products Pedals

 

Have a look in Windows event viewer and see what it shows then copy and paste it up here.

 

You tried 'most' but not all?

Edited February 11, 20224 yr by udidwht