Ideas on how to troubleshoot recurrent hard pauses?

[brosss 27]

As far as i remember, full reinstall occurred.

Edited October 16, 2022 by brosss

[Jack_Sawyer 4,600]

1 minute ago, brosss said:

As far as i remember, full reinstall occurred.

Ugh.  Just went from the store version to Steam.  I'm not even sure if they're on separate drives.  But one thing I did see is the store version never got full uninstalled.  I have two community folders, one on C and one on my D drive.  I backed up the C:\ drives' community folder then deleted it and the sim told me it had to reinstall despite only using Steam.  I wonder if there's a way to completely remove the store's remnants without a full Windows 10 reinstall.  And I have to say, I'd rather just donate the stupid PC to charity than do this.  It's simply not worth all the hassle.

[brosss 27]

You must consider if it is worth or not. We don't even 100% sure that the problem is from drive location.

[Jack_Sawyer 4,600]

Thank you sir.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

59 minutes ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

Ugh.  Just went from the store version to Steam.  I'm not even sure if they're on separate drives.  But one thing I did see is the store version never got full uninstalled.  I have two community folders, one on C and one on my D drive.  I backed up the C:\ drives' community folder then deleted it and the sim told me it had to reinstall despite only using Steam.  I wonder if there's a way to completely remove the store's remnants without a full Windows 10 reinstall.  And I have to say, I'd rather just donate the stupid PC to charity than do this.  It's simply not worth all the hassle.

Just leave the files on the C drive alone.. the "two community folders" are likely the same folder, linked together.

[Noel 4,486]

1 hour ago, brosss said:

I had those 60 seconds spikes. My problem was solved after many hours of checking my gear and connections but in my case it was somethig else. I'm using Steam version and Steam main catalog was on other drive (HDD) than MSFS2020 (SSD). There was a steam process (i don't remember name right now) that run every 60 seconds and connect to MSFS. That caused 60 seconds spikes on my rig - right now Steam and MSFS are on same SSD and everything is good. Maybe that will help you. Regards.

Bartek, that is a good thought.  I'm using the MS Store version, but I did install Steam and perhaps it's what's running something in the background I will look.   Thanks

[Jack_Sawyer 4,600]

3 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

Just leave the files on the C drive alone.. the "two community folders" are likely the same folder, linked together.

Thanks Bert!  But it’s actually C:\Users\Jack\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator.  I don’t see a “community folder”.  What I do see is if I run the sim, the files inside this C:\Users\Jack\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator gets time stamped as just used today.

[james42 257]

I'm experiencing the same thing. I'm flying right now with the sim pausing momentarily every 3 seconds or so which is providing a very jerky experience. It only started doing it this week as I've never had a single performance issue with MSFS since release. I'm also finding that the problem gets worse as the longer the flight goes on and also when in thick cloud. 

[Noel 4,486]

I discovered Steam was setup to start w/ Windows, so I disabled that, rebooted, and no change.  Still every 55 sec or so I get the short spike/pause.  I've temporarily turned of RealTime A/V (Win 10's) and this did not change the picture. I've also attempted to stop several Win services related to logging, to no avail.

If you open up or close down the DevMode Console that generates a pause very similar to the 55 second pauses, and it makes me wonder if it's background logging (i.e., when the Console isn't displaying) that is doing this, sending back data to the Mother Ship every 55 sec or so.  It would be nice if we could get a bunch to lock at 30 and then observe for this.  I will go ahead and send a video if able to a zendesk submission.

[Noel 4,486]

33 minutes ago, james42 said:

I'm experiencing the same thing. I'm flying right now with the sim pausing momentarily every 3 seconds or so which is providing a very jerky experience. It only started doing it this week as I've never had a single performance issue with MSFS since release. I'm also finding that the problem gets worse as the longer the flight goes on and also when in thick cloud. 

Similar thing this is more about recurrent ones every 55-60 seconds so you may well have a very different and annoying issue!  If clouds are doing it look at your GPU utilization and see if it's approaching 100%.

Edited October 16, 2022 by Noel

[brosss 27]

56 minutes ago, Noel said:

Bartek, that is a good thought.  I'm using the MS Store version, but I did install Steam and perhaps it's what's running something in the background I will look.   Thanks

Please remember, it was exactly 60 seconds with stopwatch checked, so no 55 seconds and definitely no 3 seconds. I hope you will resolve this issue, because i remember that was headache for me.

[Noel 4,486]

1 minute ago, brosss said:

Please remember, it was exactly 60 seconds with stopwatch checked, so no 55 seconds and definitely no 3 seconds. I hope you will resolve this issue, because i remember that was headache for me.

Just checked again and it was right at 55 seconds.  Could be our bandwidth is such it takes a little longer for the system to hear that it was....heard, or something along those lines.  

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

1 hour ago, Jack_Sawyer said:

Thanks Bert!  But it’s actually C:\Users\Jack\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator.  I don’t see a “community folder”.  What I do see is if I run the sim, the files inside this C:\Users\Jack\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft Flight Simulator gets time stamped as just used today.

Hi Jack,  MSFS does install several files on the C drive, no matter what, as best I can tell.

As my doctor likes to say to me..  "Leave it alone, just dont touch it"...  easier said than done 😉

Edited October 16, 2022 by Bert Pieke

[Jack_Sawyer 4,600]

Just now, Bert Pieke said:

Hi Jack,  MSFS does install several files on the C drive, no matter what, as best I can tell.

Just leave them alone, would be my suggestion.

Thanks Bert.  I have a friend who installed it on two PC’s.  One PC had the store version and then he uninstalled it like I did and installed the Steam version, however, he just checked and he does not have that same folder in that location.

But your advice has always been invaluable, you know a heck of a lot more than I do so I’m going to leave them alone.  I always appreciate your help Bert.

Thanks.  Jack.

[brosss 27]

I also recommend to look closer at your task manager when that happens. It is difficult at beginning but with time you will see differences.