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touchdown49

Asking for help from software engineers or programmers

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Hello to you all

Last week I experienced a strange MSFS 2020 event. I flew on the Sunday for 4 hours and shut the sim down as i have always done it since installing 7 months ago. In those 7 months i have never had a crash or failure of the Sim.

However the day following I started up the computer and MSFS failed to get past the initial splash screens not even getting to checking for updates. It is the Steam edition.

I eventually went to the zen desk for help and received pages of steps to try despite the fact that i had carefully explained what had happened.

To cut the story short I uninstalled MSFS steam edition two days ago and will try again after Sim update 11 is released.

Is anyone able to provide me with a reasonable answer to my question, how could it go wrong over night when the computer is turned off I just cannot logically understand why this would happen. Is MSFS so poorly coded that the smallest blip can cause the programme to become inoperative. I even did a system restore from a few weeks prior and it made no difference whatsoever.

All I can relate it to is if you had a problem with your car and you e mailed the garage explaining what had happened and you got back pages and pages of the manual to work through.

I did think that the MSFS support would at least say we have seen this and it usually is related to this and you start from there.

So if anyone can at least satisfy my curiosity I would be very grateful.

Kind regards

Dave Spackman


David Spackman Real World Pilot  😀

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49 minutes ago, touchdown49 said:

Hello to you all

Last week I experienced a strange MSFS 2020 event. I flew on the Sunday for 4 hours and shut the sim down as i have always done it since installing 7 months ago. In those 7 months i have never had a crash or failure of the Sim.

However the day following I started up the computer and MSFS failed to get past the initial splash screens not even getting to checking for updates. It is the Steam edition.

I eventually went to the zen desk for help and received pages of steps to try despite the fact that i had carefully explained what had happened.

To cut the story short I uninstalled MSFS steam edition two days ago and will try again after Sim update 11 is released.

Is anyone able to provide me with a reasonable answer to my question, how could it go wrong over night when the computer is turned off I just cannot logically understand why this would happen. Is MSFS so poorly coded that the smallest blip can cause the programme to become inoperative. I even did a system restore from a few weeks prior and it made no difference whatsoever.

All I can relate it to is if you had a problem with your car and you e mailed the garage explaining what had happened and you got back pages and pages of the manual to work through.

I did think that the MSFS support would at least say we have seen this and it usually is related to this and you start from there.

So if anyone can at least satisfy my curiosity I would be very grateful.

Kind regards

Dave Spackman

1. Did your computer do a Windows Update when you shut down and restarted your computer? Check your Windows Update log.

2. Did you add something to your Community folder after you last ran MSFS successfully?

 


i5-12400, RTX 3060 Ti, 32 GB RAM

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Did you first try to reboot and restart the game, before reinstalling?

This has happened to me a few times here and there, it's probably just a cache issue, or a server not responding issue.

You just have to end task and reload the game.
It happens to me maybe twice a month and is no big deal since it only happens on the load screen.
 

Edited by Alpine Scenery
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AMD 5800x | Nvidia 3080 (12gb) | 64gb ram

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When I get this issue (crash at splash screen), it's because I stuffed up the MSFS process in Process Lasso and accidently put too few cores to MSFS.

I'm sure there's heaps of reason why MSFS crashes at the splash screen, but just in case!!

Cheers.

Edited by Matt Webb

Matt Webb

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2 hours ago, Alpine Scenery said:

Did you first try to reboot and restart the game, before reinstalling?

This has happened to me a few times here and there, it's probably just a cache issue, or a server not responding issue.

You just have to end task and reload the game.
It happens to me maybe twice a month and is no big deal since it only happens on the load screen.
 

The XBox app is really funky and buggy, and unfortunately, the XBox app is also tied to MSFS.  I play Age of Empires 4 and from time to time, I encounter what the op is experiencing.  When I close Age of Empires 4, I cannot restart it again, even if I can't find the Age of Empires 4 task in the Task Manager.  I think sometimes, some games will spawn other tasks or threads, and if you don't recognize the name of that task in Task Manager and you don't shut down those child tasks as well, the game is technically still running because those child tasks are still running. And this prevents you from launching the game again.  I suspect this is what happens with Age of Empires 4 when I close it but I can't launch it again after I close it.

However, for me, a reboot of the PC will always reset everything and I can launch Age of Empires 4 again.  I think this also happened to me once or twice with MSFS and I had to reboot my PC to solve the problem.

In the OP's case, I think the OP wrote he/she rebooted the PC before launching MSFS so the OP may be encountering a different issue.


i5-12400, RTX 3060 Ti, 32 GB RAM

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3 hours ago, touchdown49 said:

Is anyone able to provide me with a reasonable answer to my question, how could it go wrong over night when the computer is turned off I just cannot logically understand why this would happen

MSFS depends on several internet server interactions for successful startup.  Even if you did not change anything (check the examples mentioned above), the servers can sometimes be unresponsive and MSFS will fail to start.

Hope that gives you a logical explanation.. 😉


Bert

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As you did a restore and it still didn’t work means to me it’s not a software issue. 
 

Either there is something wrong in your hardware or the connection to Microsoft. 
 

And regarding Asobo sending you the manual: well, what did you expect? Try calling a garage and tell them that your car doesn’t start. Nothing else. And then guess the answers 🙂 It’s hard to analyze this by phone / mail. 

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From experiance. it can be as simple as logging out and back in to the Xbox app. On numerous occasions over the past few year's this has been the most common issue i have had.

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AMD Ryzen 7 5800x3d, MSI X570 Pro, 32 gb DDR4 3600 ram, Gigabyte 6800 16gb GPU, 1x 2tb Samsung  NvMe , 2x 1tb Sabrent NvME, 1x Crucial SSD,

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I’m not a software engineer or programmer but I very much doubt it was your PC hardware or software. There was probably a connection issue to the MS servers. The fact that your connection at your PC might have been up and stable means nothing if the servers on the other end are rickety, and we all know that they are from time to time.

Uninstalling and worse, the restore (which hardly ever works, yet creates potentially even more issues, was probably unnecessary.

Losing connection to the servers can cause both a message to pop up if inflight, kicking you into offline mode, or in some cases, a CTD. Losing a connection to MS during sim loading can cause a system hang like you experienced. The sim is phoning home during start up. Rebooting the PC immediately might not work - you will have to wait for the server you are connecting to to stabilise. Especially over peak periods like weekends when every man and his dog is simming.


GregH

Intel Core i7 14700K / Palit RTX4070Ti Super OC / Corsair 32GB DDR5 6000 MHz / MSI Z790 M/board / Corsair NVMe 9500 read, 8500 write / Corsair PSU1200W / CH Products Yoke, Pedals & Quad; Airbus Side Stick, Airbus Quadrant / TrackIR, 32” 4K 144hz 1ms Monitor

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Don't pull your hair out trying to fix it. I just went through an "ordeal" 2 weeks ago and the problems cleared up just as quickly as they came.

My sim was running great for at least 2 weeks. Out of the blue, I started getting sim freezes that required killing MSFS to get out of, memory errors stating that memory address 0 could not be read, and just like you, crashes at startup. After 2 days of this behavior and after having a couple of strange Windows errors, I started doing the Windows SFC checks, forcing Windows update / repair through DISM, etc. when I found some file system corruption on my C drive. It was an M2 drive, so I ran up to Micro Center and bought a replacement. I made a full system backup and then replaced the drive. I installed Win 10 first (not connected to the internet so I could install using a local administrator account instead of letting MS force me to use a MS account as the admin account) and then updated to Windows 11. At that point, I restored my backup. Upon launching MSFS, I found that I had all of the same errors. I was running SU11, so I uninstalled MSFS entirely, and reinstalled SU10. It started off running okay, and then I started seeing the same symptoms. I shut it down and walked away. I was busy for a couple of days and didn't mess with it. The next time I fired up MSFS I was expecting to have problems. Guess what? It's been running fine for over 2 weeks now. No problems at all. I have no idea what happened. I'm thinking that there was a Windows update or something. I rejoined SU11 and it was still working great. There was a small SU11 update, but according to Asobo that shouldn't have fixed anything relevant to my problems.  

I do have plenty of experience with software and hardware engineering (over 35 years now) and I haven't been able to pin this behavior on anything specific. I forced a memory dump on my last MSFS freeze, and the hang occurred while MSFS was waiting for a Nvidia driver call to return. I rolled back to the previous version (517,48, I think), and no more freezes. I'm confident of that one issue. I think that was the 522.25 version. Complete MSFS freezes while using the Fenix, usually prior to reaching cruise altitude. I have no answers for the rest. 

I chalk this up to constant changes in both Windows as well as MSFS. I think every once in a while, a bad combination pops up (like a slot machine).

Windows fine / Internet fine / MSFS fine / Asobo servers not fine = problem

Windows not fine / Internet fine / MSFS fine / Asobo servers fine = problem

Windows fine / Internet not fine / MSFS fine / Asobo servers fine = problem

Windows fine / Internet fine / MSFS fine / Asobo servers fine = smoke 'em if you got 'em 😀

.

.

Edited by MDFlier
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 i9-10850K, ASUS TUF GAMING Z490-PLUS (WI-FI), 32GB G.SKILL DDR4-3603 / PC4-28800, EVGA GeForce RTX 2080 Ti BLACK EDITION 11GB running 3440x1440 

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With my programmer and software engineer hat on, this can happen. Your mention of Steam points me in the direction that you are using the PC version of the software. It is not unusual for data to corrupt on the hard drive as you switch on or off a machine. Most of the time that is barely perceptible. Sometimes you end up glitching a key disk sector and you end up with all sorts of problems.

Downloads and updates can sometimes corrupt in transit to your machine which then propagate the problem, but most of the time it is simple corruption of disk data.

With Steam and if the problem is the app itself this is usually a relatively simple fix. Rather than delete the whole software, simply verify the integrity of the files from the option within Steam (Right click on the app name in the Steam library and select properties and there is an option to verify the file integrity). It will normally fix any corrupted data and get you up and running again.

If the problem lies with Windows or drivers and all the support files that the app relies on, rather than the app itself, this gets a little more complex to fix.

Most of the time though, the good news is, just asking Steam to verify and fix the files will get you up and running again with a Steam based app.

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- Jane Whittaker

 

 

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10 minutes ago, JaneRachel said:

Most of the time though, the good news is, just asking Steam to verify and fix the files will get you up and running again with a Steam based app.

Last I heard, running the integrity check in Steam needs to be considered very carefully as it does not actually run a "check" at all but rather initiates/forces a re-download of the entire program.


GregH

Intel Core i7 14700K / Palit RTX4070Ti Super OC / Corsair 32GB DDR5 6000 MHz / MSI Z790 M/board / Corsair NVMe 9500 read, 8500 write / Corsair PSU1200W / CH Products Yoke, Pedals & Quad; Airbus Side Stick, Airbus Quadrant / TrackIR, 32” 4K 144hz 1ms Monitor

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12 minutes ago, RaptyrOne said:

Last I heard, running the integrity check in Steam needs to be considered very carefully as it does not actually run a "check" at all but rather initiates/forces a re-download of the entire program.

I have never seen that happen. I will ask at work and ask Valve as you have me curious. Normally it just runs a file comparision from the server builds.


 

- Jane Whittaker

 

 

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56 minutes ago, JaneRachel said:

I have never seen that happen. I will ask at work and ask Valve as you have me curious. Normally it just runs a file comparision from the server builds.

you are wrong there, in this case the msfs files are not on steam..only the loader thingie.

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2 hours ago, RaptyrOne said:

Last I heard, running the integrity check in Steam needs to be considered very carefully as it does not actually run a "check" at all but rather initiates/forces a re-download of the entire program.

Yep it will re-installs the whole thing. Happen to me back in July, I don't know if it ever got fixed, but let us  know if you try it. :))

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/steam-verify-integrity-of-game-files-deletes-all-content/345886

 

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